The Gearbox Podcast

Jimmy Purdy [00:00:13]:

My name is Jimmy Purdy, shop owner, master tech, transmission builder, and the host of the Gearbox Podcast. Here I talk with new and seasoned shop owners as well as industry professionals about day to day operations within their own shops and all the failures and successes that come along the way from what grinds your gears to having to shift gears in the automotive industry. This is the Gearbox Podcast, so I guess we'll start out with an introduction. So with that being said, I guess I'll let you introduce yourself. I'm pretty bad at the introduction.

Dutch Silverstein [00:00:46]:

No worries. My name is Dutch Silverstein. I own A and M Auto Service here in Pineville, North Carolina. Business owner, started out part time, went full time 25 years. That's pretty much about it.

Jimmy Purdy [00:01:01]:

Okay, well, I'm honored to have you on. I've been following you on the Facebook group and I read your article in the Ratchet and Wrench magazine and I know, yeah, super cool. A lot of experience between your two ears there and I'm just honored to have you on here so I can put my probes in there and see try to get any information that might be helpful to me or anybody else listening. That's the biggest thing I think right now is trying to get most people to wrap their mind around how the industry has changed and as it is changing for the good and for the bad. And I'm sure you've seen your fair share of changes over the years.

Dutch Silverstein [00:01:38]:

Yeah, there has been a great deal of growth. There's been a great deal of opportunity for technicians and there's been a lot of growth for stuff I don't want to see.

Jimmy Purdy [00:01:56]:

Yeah, that's fair. I remember I had someone local here tell me one time, he's an older gentleman and he went through so many changes with the carburetion to when they started doing fuel injection and how the vehicles are changing. And he said the one day that the drum brakes went to disc, he was like, that was the day I almost quit. The first time I saw disc brakes roll into the shop, I was like getting ready to roll my toolbox out. But come to find out, it's a lot easier to work on. It always stuck with me because it is. You never know, tomorrow they're going to have something rolling out and it's going to roll into the shop and you have everything figured out. You think we all want to have things figured out.

Jimmy Purdy [00:02:33]:

We want to be able to say, I know it all, I got it all figured out. And then all of a sudden the industry changes or vehicle changes and it's like, now what do I do? I got to learn all over again.

Dutch Silverstein [00:02:42]:

Yeah, well, if you're in this business and you have to decide what your business is going to be, much of the time, the most technically advanced shops, the ones that doesn't matter, bring it in we can fix it are not the ones that are generating the most money. I mean, there's a reason that Firestone has as many stores as it does and Goodyear has as many stores as it does, and a lot of the franchises have as many stores as they do in the hundreds and thousands. And it's not because they're working with the latest technology and they are riding the cusp of that. What they're doing is they're focusing on making money. I'll remember many, many years ago when I attended a class and the instructor went around and he asked us, what is it that you wanted to be? And I replied that I wanted to be the best. And he said, okay, fair enough. The best at what? How do you define it? Is the best as the guy who can fix anything that walks through the door or gets pushed through the door or is the best? The guy that has six years in the business and he has three stores with a 20% pretax net operating profit or more, and now he's working on his fourth and fifth store. How do you define the best? And that's something that a lot of text that turns shop owners and a lot of shop owners struggle with, because you want to be the best.

Dutch Silverstein [00:04:18]:

All right. Well, you better have a clear idea of what the hell the best entails because you're not going to tell me that any of the people that as good as they may be, that the corporate philosophy of a megastore is going to encourage and develop the technician to the same degree that an independent will that wants to or believes in training. Because it's not going to happen. The smaller mom and pops who want to see about ados training are going to invest in ados training, right? Okay. You're not going to see you may see one corporate store do it where they have an ados center. We see this in body shops where the body shop itself doesn't have the ADAS equipment, but the body shop belongs to a group that has it, and they ship that car to that ADAS center. Right? So it's a multi store operation. They've got 100 stores, et cetera, but they may only have ten or 15 ADAS centers across the country.

Dutch Silverstein [00:05:29]:

You're not going to see that. How many Firestones are you going to see doing ADAS work? How many of them are you going to see doing EPROM work? How many are you going to see doing that?

Jimmy Purdy [00:05:45]:

Work revolves around the technician, not around the business. Right. You know what I mean? I totally on that same page because when I started, I wanted to be the best transmission builder there was when I took over the shop, and I was like, moving forward. I was like, I'm going to learn how to build the best transmissions out there. And it's funny you said that because that's exactly what my thought process was, if I could build the best, I could be the best. And it's like I'm now learning that that's not how you run a successful shop. You can't. And like you said with the ADAS, so you're really good at EPROM, and then, so you're going to open a shop, but that means you're doing the work that the business needs to do to make income that doesn't work, you can't.

Jimmy Purdy [00:06:33]:

And it sucks. I mean, it's sad because that's what we want to do. We want to fix stuff. For me, it was moving from doing oil changes to the trans bench to like, oh, if I own this place, then I could build all the transmissions. I want. It's all up to me. It's my discretion, right? I don't think I've built a transmission in over a month, because that's not what I should be doing. It's such a hard realization, a pill to swallow, right? But I want to work on stuff, I want to fix things.

Jimmy Purdy [00:07:02]:

And it's like, well, you need to fix the business.

Dutch Silverstein [00:07:05]:

Well, see, the thing is that we have a hard time in the industry because we define success only in one capacity. I want you to think about this. So we look at the guy who owns several stores, right? Several shops. And he owns and he's not in the business every day. He's not working in the business. The goal is to be working on the business, right? He's developing different locations. He doesn't have to worry about the day to day operations. He has managers that do that and he has district manager.

Dutch Silverstein [00:07:38]:

He has people that are involved in keeping the business going. That's great. So we look at that guy with three to five to ten or as many stores as he has and say, that guy's successful. He is successful because he has eight stores. Terrific. Now, what about the guy that for him? He's a single man operation, and he wants to leave every day at 04:00 so that he can go fishing with his grandson. And he just works till 330 and he buttons everything up. At 04:00, he leaves.

Dutch Silverstein [00:08:12]:

By 415 430, he's home and he's on the lake with his grandson, where he's fishing off the pier. And he's doing exactly what he wants to do, precisely what makes him happy. He has no aspirations to be a multistore owner. He has no aspirations to let others work. He enjoys working and he enjoys his time off. But if we look at that guy in the industry, the industry frowns upon that and says, he's not successful. He bought himself a job. He didn't get himself a business.

Dutch Silverstein [00:08:49]:

He's not a business owner. He bought himself a job. And that's absolutely unfair, because it's not us for us to decide what makes somebody else successful. If this guy is happy doing that, let him do it.

Jimmy Purdy [00:09:04]:

Yeah. And it's the same as the whole school, I guess you call it a crisis now with everybody in student loan debt because they pushed going to college and getting a four year degree so much. That was the only way that was the only way you're going to get a good job is if you go get a college degree and you get a job. And I feel like that's kind of the same mindset, right? Like, well, not everybody needs to go to school. There's plenty of successful people that run corporations without a college degree. But like you said, it's the same thing with the industry. Whereas, yeah, we all want to be multi store owners, but do we? Does everybody start this and want to do that? I don't know. It's tough, and it's like, is that something I want to aspire to be? I don't know.

Jimmy Purdy [00:09:49]:

I wouldn't have the answer right now. Whatever my definition of successful right now is, is where I want to be. I haven't even thought about the next step after that, and I'm just barely getting to my goals this year, and I haven't even thought beyond that. Maybe that's short sighted on my part, but man, when you're in this industry, there's so many excuse the pun, but so many wrenches get thrown into the gears that it's like, it's so tough to just get to that step one. Some guys like, I just want one employee. That's my version of success. Well, I want to open a shop and have a technician, then I'll run the office. Okay, well, then what? And you can constantly keep growing that, dangling that carrot in front of yourself till you get to the next step.

Jimmy Purdy [00:10:30]:

To the next step. To the next step. But like you said, is the ultimate goal to have ten shops. That's a great point. So when are you successful? When do you stop working? We're not working. But when you stop achieving your next step.

Dutch Silverstein [00:10:47]:

That's the thing, is that as the industry progressed, because I started with cars in the 70s, right? I mean, when you're talking about going from carburetion to fuel injection and stuff, I mean, that's how I put myself through school, was I didn't come from a family that could afford very much. My father didn't attend college, and my mother was a teacher. It's not like you're really rolling in the dough in that regard. So you had to do something. If I wanted it, I had to work for it. My old man told me, that's it. You want something, go out and get it. Go work for it.

Dutch Silverstein [00:11:30]:

So when you think about it coming up through that type of environment, guys that were business owners, where the business model was that you had a service station, typically two bays, and you had a wrecker, right? And you went and if there was a problem, you went and picked up the customer's car, you fixed it, you rebuilt the starter, you rebuilt the alternator. You didn't buy them that way. You rebuilt them on that, and that was a good living. I mean, guys were proud of doing that. And then this shift happened over the last, like ten or 15 years where that wasn't enough anymore. It wasn't enough that you retired as a guy working with his hands who may have a helper and stuff. That guy was being frowned upon. He was looked down upon.

Dutch Silverstein [00:12:28]:

Right. That's what we were talking about before, because it's not necessarily that he didn't own multi stores, right. A number of stores. But he was married to that business. He was the business. Right. And that is seen as a bad thing. Your plumber who comes to your house typically, unless it's part of a larger organization, if he's an independent, he may have a son working for him or another family member or a helper, but he's married to the business.

Dutch Silverstein [00:13:00]:

Do people look down on plumbers that way? What about painting contractors? Do people look down on them in the painting industry or in the plumbing industry for plumbers? Do they have the same degree of quote unquote shame because they're not doing more and the business depends on them? I mean, a lot of what's going on in the industry is troubling to me because it's not honor based. A man who works, and he is the business, and he works for 35 years, right. And he may have a helper, and if he's not there, he doesn't earn money, right. Doing but if he's honorable and he's doing good work and his customers are happy, who the hell are you or I to tell him he's not successful? Who are we to look down our nose and say, that guy's, he bought himself a job. He's not a business owner. He bought himself a job.

Jimmy Purdy [00:14:00]:

Right.

Dutch Silverstein [00:14:00]:

The hell's the difference to you? We see a lot of this going on now with coaching.

Jimmy Purdy [00:14:09]:

Obviously, the bigger numbers means they can spend more on programming and programs and shop systems and whatnot. If you're a one man cho? You can write everything out on carbon paper and do cash only. Honestly, there's definitely been a few times fairly recently in the years that I've proceeded like I should just do what those guys do, cash only, just me and one other guy. And you start looking at your margins, it's like if you can't get up to 20% net, man, it's not worth it. You do say, 100,000 in a month, it's like, you better be pulling 20% net out of that. Otherwise, it's just not worth the headaches. That's a lot of cars. That's a lot of responsibility that you just took on through your shop that now is on the road for the next three years that you have to stand behind.

Jimmy Purdy [00:15:02]:

If you're going to be any sort of reputable swap, you're going to have a two or three year warranty behind it. You better be pulling that kind of money in behind it, and it's like then you look at the other side of it. Well, you could do half of that and just do all cash, right? And just run yourself and pay your guy, your one technician. I mean, it's really tough in the beginning to not get pulled back to that direction, and I guess kind of against what you're bringing up. I've looked at that as like, that looks a lot better to me than going the corporate America way. And I had no shame thinking about it. We should just pull back. I'll just build a shop out back of my house, and I'll just have a client base of 15 people.

Jimmy Purdy [00:15:43]:

And if it's all cash, then we'll just do it there's. That two different ways to go. And I think it's a great point to say, what is that version of success? Well, I want freedom. That's the bottom line. I want to be able to get the cars, work on the cars that I want to work on. I want to make the money that I think I deserve working on these vehicles, and then be able to take a weekend off or take a Friday off. Just freedom.

Dutch Silverstein [00:16:08]:

Well, you don't have to have first of all, you understand that the 20% figure that's bandied about is completely arbitrary. It's not based on anything, and you hear it all. Well, you have to have 20%. Really?

Jimmy Purdy [00:16:25]:

Yeah, something someone's just told me. And that's right.

Dutch Silverstein [00:16:29]:

If I have 20% pretax net operating profit for the month, that's great, I'm doing well. But if I have 17.8, am I lousy at it? What happens if I have 15? What happens if I have twelve? But the reason I have twelve is because I give stuff to my text, my text that I'm currently working with. Right. If you have a few texts, you're buying them toolboxes and you're helping them pay for vacations. And if there's an unexpected expense, they find cash in an envelope in their toolbox. And what happens if you wind up doing things for them that others don't consider to be important, but you're trying to build a family culture. So what happens if you spend you shut down for a week to go to training, and during that week you have no revenue coming in, and you still pay their full salary, and you still pay for their accommodations, and you still pay for all of that sort of stuff. And at the end of the month or the end of the year, you don't have 20%, you got 14%.

Dutch Silverstein [00:17:34]:

Are you a failure?

Jimmy Purdy [00:17:35]:

Well, I think it's month to month. I mean, for me, I look at it as if you're not making that 20% net, there's no way you're going to have the money to do those things. So I guess I've always looked at it as kind of a good figure, because that puts some cushion into the account, gives you a little bit of spending to actually do those types of things. But at the end of the year, yeah, if you're coming at 10%, but you've able to do all those other activities you were mentioning, I feel like that's a win. But yeah, where's the hard line is it 19.5 and now you're failing like 19.

Dutch Silverstein [00:18:07]:

Right. So what happens when and you see guys that have multi store operations and they're quoting numbers that are in the 30s, they've got 30% pretaxed in operating profit. Once you get to a certain size, maintaining 20% and going beyond that is very easy, especially if you pay on flat rate. It's very easy when that happens, all right, you have to have because you're getting to the point where you've paid off your overhead pretty quickly in a month and now the remaining time in the month is used to bank profit.

Jimmy Purdy [00:18:42]:

Right.

Dutch Silverstein [00:18:42]:

I mean, that's what happens when you get to be a specific size, unless, of course, you completely manage it. You see a lot of shop owners that are multi store owners that are saying, I've got 32 and 33%. Well, yeah, because they have a lot of bays, a lot of locations, they've got a lot of employees. They typically pay most of them on flat rate. They churn and burn and they can get 30%. But it always cracked me up when someone says 20%. Okay, that's great. Based exactly on what whereas I can show you the numbers we can do.

Dutch Silverstein [00:19:21]:

I'm a numbers guy, so let's go through the numbers and I want you to tell me precisely how you arrived at 20%. Not 21, not 1920, because pretty much I think you pulled it out of your ass. Not you personally, but somebody just said, some coach somewhere said, oh yeah, that.

Jimmy Purdy [00:19:43]:

Seems like a nice round number.

Dutch Silverstein [00:19:44]:

That seems like a nice because when you think about it, well, if I invested the same amount of money in the stock market in an index fund, I would have gotten 10% or more. So 10% has got to be the baseline and there's a whole bunch of rationale that you can do, but obviously none of it means anything. Is the amount of money that you're able to put back at the end of the year sufficient for you to achieve your goals?

Jimmy Purdy [00:20:12]:

Good point. Yeah, right.

Dutch Silverstein [00:20:13]:

If your goal is to build your empire, then you're going to want your pretax and net operating profit to be as large as possible when you go to the financial institution and you want to borrow money.

Jimmy Purdy [00:20:27]:

Right, right, okay.

Dutch Silverstein [00:20:29]:

Because they're going to say based on a million dollars worth of sales, with you earning a salary of $100,000 a year, you are able to put back $200,000 pretax net operating profit. Okay. And that represents a decent risk for them depending on what your balance sheet looks like. Right, okay, fine. Now let's say you hate the government and you hate paying taxes. So what you're going to do is you are going to avail yourself of every legal recourse you have to reduce your tax liability, right. You're going to have your kids work on your advertising, right? You're going to send out whatever promotional materials, and you're going to have your pictures, kids on it. So you can write that off.

Dutch Silverstein [00:21:24]:

Up to $12,000, I think, is the less per child, depending if they're less than 18. I have to double check that. Yeah, they can't be adults. So you avail yourself. You go to the gym. If you go to the gym, that's part of your health care package, right. Everything that you can write off with pretax dollars, you're going to write off.

Jimmy Purdy [00:21:49]:

But the problem is, at the end.

Dutch Silverstein [00:21:50]:

Of the year, you may just break even or have a 2% pretax net operating profit, but you got more cash in the bank, but you got a lot more stuff that you're able to do. And that's the reason why typically, when a guy goes who's my age, who goes to sell and he's been taking the gym membership off as part of his health program, and he has his 69 Camaro that he has lettered up with the garage name on it and his advertising. He has all these expenses that he attributes for his toys and the things that he wants to personally buy with pretax money. They have to engage what's called recast financials. They have to take the financials out and go, okay, look, he's got five loaner cars. You're not going to need five. And, you know, two of them, one's a Trans Am, the other one's a Camaro. He's got a boat that's advertised.

Jimmy Purdy [00:22:57]:

They call it a vehicle maneuvering device. Right? The best term of a golf cart I've ever heard, a Vehicle Maneuver Building device.

Dutch Silverstein [00:23:04]:

Right. He's doing everything he can. Well, so in recast financial, somebody goes through and says, we're pulling this out, we're pulling this out. We're pulling this out because the amount that he wants to sell it for is going to depend on a multiplier of his pre tax net operating profit. So typically what happens is that a guy wants to sell in three years prior to him selling, he divests himself. If he's smart of any and all things like this, he gets rid of it all. And he runs a really he doesn't buy spit, and he runs a really austere, lean operation so that he can maximize his pretax net operating profit. When you do that, the guy who's working for himself, if he goes to sell it, his multiplier isn't going to be that much because he is the business.

Dutch Silverstein [00:23:58]:

The guy that owns the shop, that has a manager, three texts, four texts, a service writer that can run without him. Now, he can get three to five times his pretax and operating profit because the person who buys it can buy it as an investment where it doesn't require that he work it right? That's what you're thinking about, right. But if you don't care about that, if you're like, hey, it doesn't matter to me. I've been able to sock the money back. It's been cash. I've been able to put money back. I bought the building because of where it is. Everything is cool.

Dutch Silverstein [00:24:43]:

I don't care about the business. I'm just going to sell the property or I've done what I wanted to do. I've lived my life the way I wanted to live it. I'm fine with it. Well, that guy's a failure, according to the coaches.

Jimmy Purdy [00:24:57]:

Yeah, I guess you could put it that way. Does it matter what someone else thinks of you mean? I think most of us in this yeah, I would say most of us don't care, but then again, we get a one star Google review, and everybody seems to lose their mind about, you.

Dutch Silverstein [00:25:14]:

Know, it's exactly right.

Jimmy Purdy [00:25:15]:

Just looking for someone else to validate what you're doing is the right like, if you think you're doing the right thing, then I think you're doing the right thing. But, I mean, to your point. Yeah, that's the problem with PNLs. And then obviously having the exit strategy set up to know what you're going to do and then what's your goal is that you want to build a business and sell it. But I think starting out as a technician turned shop owner, you just want to be the best. You want to fix all the cars, and you want to fix all the problems that no one else can fix. And you're like, that's what my shop is going to be. My shop is going to be the go to garage that everybody can bring their cars and get anything they want fixed.

Jimmy Purdy [00:25:49]:

Because because I'm going to be the best. But you can only do one car at a time.

Dutch Silverstein [00:25:54]:

Well, the thing is, how do you.

Jimmy Purdy [00:25:55]:

Get your technicians to do what you do? Because they don't have that same passion for your business that you do, unfortunately, just how it is. They have passion for the career, for the industry, but they're never going to have that passion for your shop or whatever shop they work at.

Dutch Silverstein [00:26:10]:

No, it's typically a unicorn that's going to do that. But you see, there's a book, and I'm sure you've probably read it the E Myth by Michael Gerber.

Jimmy Purdy [00:26:17]:

Yeah.

Dutch Silverstein [00:26:18]:

All right. Which goes through the technician mind, not the revised one.

Jimmy Purdy [00:26:22]:

But I read the original a long time ago.

Dutch Silverstein [00:26:24]:

Yeah, but there's E Myth revisited. I would suggest that you read it. I think I got it over here somewhere. Or over on the other yeah, there it is. On the other side. You should revisit it yourself. Pardon the pun.

Jimmy Purdy [00:26:38]:

Yeah.

Dutch Silverstein [00:26:39]:

You have to understand that most businesses that deal in volume are, at best, mediocre. I want you to think and here's in a classic example, all right, here's a couple of them. I want you to think of the best hamburger you ever ate in your entire life, the most flavorful, the one that you crave, that if you're ever in this city or this location or this town that you had it before, every time you go by it, you have to get that hamburger right. Okay, ask yourself, is that with a franchise or is that a mom and pop? Nine times out of ten, it's a mom and pop. A small place that makes that hamburger. It's not McDonald's. McDonald's sells Mediocre burgers. Now, you can like the fries if you want, but you're not going to McDonald's and saying, my God, that's the best juiciest, wonderful hamburger I've ever had in my entire life.

Dutch Silverstein [00:27:37]:

Because it's Mediocre, but it's standardized and it can be replicated. That's what happens in our industry with franchised auto care and larger box stores. It's not because they again represent the forefront of technology. It's mediocre and it's repeatable. That's what does it. You aren't going to tell me that the best Italian food you've ever eaten in your entire life comes from Olive Garden. If you know anything about Italian cheapest.

Jimmy Purdy [00:28:12]:

If you know anything about Italian, you don't leave hungry.

Dutch Silverstein [00:28:15]:

Yeah, you don't leave hungry if you know anything about Italian food, it's crap, right? It's absolute crap.

Jimmy Purdy [00:28:25]:

But same with McDonald's, right?

Dutch Silverstein [00:28:31]:

How many stores do they have? And the mom and pop that serves the food that you love, that you dearly love, how many do they have? Because you can't replicate that degree of passion as you described it, that the technician who owns the shop is going to have with employees. So now what happens is you're settling for Mediocrity, but mediocrity is repeatable. You want to go out on a Friday night, you go to Olive Garden. It's not horrible. It's not the worst thing you ever ate. Right? You like the breadsticks.

Jimmy Purdy [00:29:15]:

Well, you know what you're going to get, too.

Dutch Silverstein [00:29:17]:

You know exactly what you're going to get.

Jimmy Purdy [00:29:19]:

Yeah. To the flip side of that coin, it's like, at least you know that. You go to a city you've never been before, you see all these podunk looking restaurants, and you see a McDonald's. I got a big meeting in the morning, and I'm not really going to risk it at these other places. I'm just going to go to McDonald's. I'm probably not going to get sick. It's probably going to feed me. And it's like, I know what I'm going to mean.

Jimmy Purdy [00:29:43]:

I guess to say to be Mediocre is a bad thing. I don't know if that's necessarily a bad thing either, but it's interesting to think about. And the correlations between, say, doctors and dentists and auto shops and the food industry and auto shops, it's really hard for me to really grasp that because they're just two totally different industries. And the correlation between, say, like, a dentist office and an auto shop, it's very similar, but providing a totally different. Service because every waiter is waiting. You're working on the customers. Also the product that you're delivering versus we have a client that can drop the vehicle off, and then they walk away, and we can be alone with the vehicle to fix. Know, I'm sure Dennis would love to be able to not have to have the client in the operating room while they're doing the work that they're doing.

Jimmy Purdy [00:30:41]:

So I don't mean I understand the correlations, but it's really difficult, too, because in the food industry as well, there's just so many shades of gray that's thrown in to say, if we could provide a McDonald's hamburger out of an auto shop, we'd all be billionaires. But I just don't see how we could ever standardize the auto repair process to that degree. Obviously, maybe there is. I'm obviously why we did it at the airline.

Dutch Silverstein [00:31:09]:

We did it at the airline. Okay, when you said that, there's certainly some dissimilarity you're absolutely correct. Between the dentist and the auto shop, right? Because at the dentist, everybody's a waiter. You're exactly right. But if you Google and you can do this after the podcast reader's Digest did a story years ago, and I don't have the link on this computer. It's on the other one, where dentists were upselling things that people didn't need what they had done. Know I'm sure you've seen the expose of the rapid oil change place where they bring the car to a local community college or expert who goes through the car and says, okay, this car is in great shape. Doesn't need anything.

Dutch Silverstein [00:32:03]:

Then they bring it to a rapid oil change facility where they said, well, you need a transmission fluid flush. You need this and this.

Jimmy Purdy [00:32:09]:

You need everything.

Dutch Silverstein [00:32:10]:

Yeah, you need everything. Right.

Jimmy Purdy [00:32:12]:

I think it was on 20 minutes or something like that. I think I remember watching that.

Dutch Silverstein [00:32:17]:

Well, they did the same thing with dentists. They took people and they went to College of Dentistry, a very reputable and they had someone go through a professor of dentistry and said, this person doesn't need anything. And then they went around to various dentists, and they was told what it was that they were needed. So upselling exists in dentistry just like.

Jimmy Purdy [00:32:41]:

It does in probably it probably correlates to pretty much any industry that they could sell add ons to, right? I mean, when have you not bought something and say, you go to Home Depot. Do you want the extended protection plan on your Milwaukee drill or whatever you're buying, and it's an extra $12? It's like everywhere you go, there's always some sort of upselling to an extent. But I know with the dentist, every time I go there, they tell me I got some sort of cavity. Well, nothing hurts, so I'd like to just not be there anymore. I'll wait till it hurts. I'm probably the worst type of client.

Dutch Silverstein [00:33:16]:

But.

Jimmy Purdy [00:33:19]:

I'll wait till the wheel falls off. I know you're telling me it's bad right now, but I'll just wait.

Dutch Silverstein [00:33:24]:

Well, the thing is that it's a violation of a sacred trust.

Jimmy Purdy [00:33:28]:

That's the point.

Dutch Silverstein [00:33:31]:

You don't recommend something at my shop, and the dentist doesn't recommend anything. If he's honorable, that isn't needed. He can bring something to your attention. But if it's not needed, if it's not a health issue, if it's not going to cause you distress, it's not recommended because he or she has an arbitrary sales goal. For the end of the day, I have to sell three crowns, two bridges, fill three cavities, and six cleanings for the day, and I'm going to have a whiteboard. I'm going to put Dr. Smith on the whiteboard and dr. Jones and dr.

Dutch Silverstein [00:34:04]:

Brown on the whiteboard, and I'm going to see who's done more crowns, who's done more bridges for the mean.

Jimmy Purdy [00:34:11]:

It's ridiculous mean. It's definitely sickening when you think of it like that.

Dutch Silverstein [00:34:18]:

That is pervasive in our industry. When you foster a competition between people whose primary job is to provide a service that people can depend on related to safety, then once you do that, once that becomes secondary, when service becomes secondary and profit becomes first, there's a problem. And we see that in the industry. And that's the direction that a lot of coaches a lot of coaches that are getting a lot of traction in the industry, there are a few of them that they put if you think about your business and it's concentric circles like a bullseye, if what's in the center of the bullseye? If the bullseye, if in the very center of that is the word profit, and then outside comes service, et cetera, then you have a problem, in my estimation, because the center of the bullseye should be service. If you provide the service, the prophet will follow. But if your goal is to provide the profit first, and that will naturally mean that service will follow, you have an issue. You have an issue of honor, of integrity, but the industry is going that way. And this there was always shady characters when I was growing up.

Dutch Silverstein [00:35:55]:

Guys would do stupid crap because they were greedy, right? I mean, always there's always somebody, it doesn't matter what happens. But I haven't seen it being incentivized as much as it is now, because the cost of owning that garage, of providing that service, is so high. I mean, I remember the guy that I worked for at the shell station when I was in high school. He didn't have nearly the expenses. There wasn't Identifix, there wasn't subscriptions he had to pay for with the manufacturer. You just keep on and on and on and on and on with the expenses.

Jimmy Purdy [00:36:41]:

You just pay rent, walk in, pay your light bill and water bill, maybe some insurance, depending on what month it.

Dutch Silverstein [00:36:47]:

Was in and out. And there wasn't computer updates, there were no computers. Everything was handwritten, right? There wasn't a lot of stuff that.

Jimmy Purdy [00:36:58]:

Dug a pit out back with some rocks to drain your oil out.

Dutch Silverstein [00:37:02]:

It was old stuff because what's the matter, you couldn't find the sewer when you were there was a lot of stuff that yeah, I'm not saying it was perfect. It wasn't there was a lot of shady stuff that was going on, especially when it comes to pollutants or any of that.

Jimmy Purdy [00:37:20]:

But yeah, to your point, it was definitely a different time as far mean and then now you look at with social media and Yelp and Google reviews, it almost seems impossible to get away with that kind of stuff. So I think maybe a lot of that's maybe coasted into the backseat and a lot of kind of like why people don't know. Spit yeah. And I mean, I think about that too. And it's like why wouldn't they be able to get away with it? That's right. And I've had that realization too. I just assumed with all the media and everything, social media and the Google reviews, there's no way anybody could get away with that stuff now. But then you realize, well, we are very educated in what we do, but the clients that are being served, they're expected to be advised by us.

Jimmy Purdy [00:38:11]:

And so, yeah, like you said, they don't know. And so why wouldn't they be able to get ripped off or taken advantage of? But in my mind I'm thinking, well, everybody knows as much as I know, so there's no way I can get away with it. I don't know if that's like a level of integrity or something, but I just assume that they know everything I know. And so you can't even go down that path because they're just going to blow you up on Google or Yelp or it's like, I'm not even going to go down that road. You can't well, the thing is that.

Dutch Silverstein [00:38:43]:

They think they know. Some of them think they know because they can hit YouTube. What it is, you know, but somebody who's on the Internet, who spends time watching YouTube videos is never going to have the breadth or the depth of knowledge and experience that somebody yeah, doing.

Jimmy Purdy [00:39:04]:

It day in and day out, doing.

Dutch Silverstein [00:39:05]:

It day in and day out, it's just not going to happen. And those people who are like, I saw you, that's fine, you need to be somewhere else, right? Because you're going to be causing me problems because you think you know some when you don't know. Spit yeah. And it's like whether you liked it or not, there was the series which was on for many years, overhauling, right, where they would bring a car in and it would seem like in a week they would have a car painted and the engine changed and all that sort of stuff. So when you wanted to bring your car in, there were people who said, I don't understand. Several of my friends own body shops. What do you mean you're going to have the car for two months? Well, yeah, they did it in a week on TV. This is something that people genuinely think.

Jimmy Purdy [00:39:57]:

About still to this day. There's plenty of still those shows going on all over the and I do a lot of classic car work, and I don't use restoration because I don't restore them. We do modern upgrades, right? And I run into the same stuff and it's like, oh, I want to do this, this and this. Hold on a second here. This is like the whole thing, and that's not what we do here. Oh, it looks so easy. Like I said, it looks so easy on the television. It's like, okay, well, go find the guys on the TV and have them do it for you.

Jimmy Purdy [00:40:31]:

Oh, they're not so easy to get a hold of, right? Because they're extremely talented at what they do and they get paid to make a TV show. This is not about actually making a car brand new in two weeks.

Dutch Silverstein [00:40:43]:

Yeah. People think that they know at times more than they do, but it's easier now to deceive people than really it has been for that's an interesting point. It's interesting because with all the changes in technology that are occurring, people aren't keeping up with it. You have a difficult time if you said to the person off the street, okay, you've got your 2023, thus and so that you bought and it comes with ADAS. Can you tell me what ADAS stands for? Now, you're not asking him how the system works. You're not asking him anything except tell your vehicle has ADAS. What does ADAS mean?

Jimmy Purdy [00:41:29]:

I think you could ask that question to a lot of technicians out there and get the same blanks.

Dutch Silverstein [00:41:34]:

Right? So but let's say, okay, so basically they're not going to know. So you could tell them anything in the world that seems plausible and they'll go along with it. Yeah, if they trust you. Right. Or if they've read good things about you on Google or whatever and you say, that's not how this let's talk about the system, let's see how it works. This is what I need to do in order to fix it. They're just going to go along with it. The odds that they're going to stop what they're doing and saying, okay, so what did you tell me it needs? All right, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to see if I can buy a subscription.

Dutch Silverstein [00:42:17]:

I'm going to get on a manufacturer's website, or I'm going to go on some forms and I'm going to see what I can do. They might go on the Internet to try to find stuff out, which always cracks me up, but nobody is using service information. They're not going to pay for service information. They don't even know that the service information is there unless they went into an auto part store and they saw all data buy it for your car.

Jimmy Purdy [00:42:40]:

Right.

Dutch Silverstein [00:42:42]:

They have no idea. The fact is that the more technologically advanced this stuff comes, it's easier to bamboozle them.

Jimmy Purdy [00:42:53]:

That's a fair point. Yeah.

Dutch Silverstein [00:42:54]:

Because they have no idea. And the smarter they are, the easier it is to fool them. Many, many years ago when I was a kid, I used to do magic for kids parties and stuff like that. And one of the things that we were always taught when we were going through this and you had books. I know it's things that you actually read and then you'd go to conventions and things was that the easiest people to fool were scientists and the highly educated. They were the easiest people to fool. And it wound up being true. It's like with DVIs, people say, well, DVI allows you can't get away with anything.

Jimmy Purdy [00:43:43]:

Really?

Dutch Silverstein [00:43:45]:

Are you sure? So how do I know when I'm the customer and I'm receiving a DVI report that that's on my car?

Jimmy Purdy [00:43:52]:

That's something I've always thought about too, from day one. The very first thought I had. How do they know what the underside of their car looks like?

Dutch Silverstein [00:44:02]:

They have no idea.

Jimmy Purdy [00:44:04]:

Right. I mean, obviously they got to trust you, the shop they're going to and whatnot, but they go somewhere that's maybe not so trustworthy and they just have a nice little folder in their computer of a leaking whatever, a broken whatnot. And they just send that over, hey, this is bad and this is bad. And it's like you'll never argue that because you saw the video, you saw the picture. And it would take a trained technician, a veteran technician, to be able to look at that video and say, hey, wait a second, that's not a Chevy Silverado. That's not a Ford f 150. That's not a Honda Accord. But for the most part, it's pretty difficult to tell the underneath of a vehicle, especially truck to truck.

Jimmy Purdy [00:44:45]:

Obviously front wheel drive is one thing, but yeah, like you said, the point is you get a video and you just automatically assume that's what it's coming from. But that's where that magic trick comes in, I guess.

Dutch Silverstein [00:44:59]:

Well, I don't have DVI at my shop. We can talk about that the other time. I mean I will eventually, but I haven't I've resisted it for what I.

Jimmy Purdy [00:45:09]:

You'Ve stayed away from it by choice.

Dutch Silverstein [00:45:11]:

Yeah, I stayed away from we have 30 point courtesy inspections. The red, yellow, green. I'm a very loyal individual and I have a shop management system that I've had for going on the last like 20 years. And its replacement is here. And I have to switch to it.

Jimmy Purdy [00:45:34]:

All right.

Dutch Silverstein [00:45:35]:

And then I'm going to see if I like that, and then if I don't like it, I operate Napatrax. Okay, so this was Napatrax legacy. Then they have Napatrax Enterprise, which is the next iteration of the shop management software. Okay. Thing is when you go and some of the software for DVI is included with the shop management system, but oftentimes it's an additional monthly expense, right, depending on where you get it from. So before I wind up getting DVI, I've got to and they've sunsetted. Unfortunately, the Tracks legacy that I have, this is like the last month that they're willing to support it. So I'm online starting next month.

Dutch Silverstein [00:46:23]:

I'll get the enterprise, I'll test that out, see how I like it for a couple of months. If I don't, I'll go to shopware. And then at that point, when I find the system that I like, then I'll invest in DVI. And the only reason that I'm going to DVI, the only reason that I'm going to do it, is because my customer base, which is three generations thick, a lot of the people that would just toss me the keys and say, fix it, Dutch, because they've known me for 25 years, are dying. They're moving away, they're going to retirement homes. Their kids still bring me the stuff because they're in their 40s. But the grandkids, they don't want to talk to anybody on the damn phone. They want to get a text.

Dutch Silverstein [00:47:09]:

They want to get a text like Chinese restaurant, one from column A, two from column B, and bing, bing, bing. This is what they want. And they don't want to talk to anybody. They want to pay. They don't want to do any of that.

Jimmy Purdy [00:47:19]:

They just want to see the pictures. They want to see the videos. They want to see the little number, how much? And then they say yes. And then when do I pick my car up?

Dutch Silverstein [00:47:26]:

Yeah, they don't want to do any I mean, when you're sitting in a restaurant and there are five of them sitting around the table and they're texting one another, they're not texting, put your phone down. Myrtle's right across from you. Why don't you talk to her? Why do you have to text her? Or group? And I've seen it where they're doing this and then like, four of them will laugh in unison, so they're obviously receiving the same damn thing. And I'm like I'm like what?

Jimmy Purdy [00:48:03]:

I loathe that I'm part of that generation, but I am. And it's funny that you say that, because I've not had the generation prior to where they want the phone calls. I feel like I have that soul, though, where I want to pick up the phone and call somebody. But my whole business, my whole shop has been based around making it text friendly, making it email friendly, sending the pictures, not making a lot of phone. Our phones are on silent in the shop. We don't have a phone that rings, it's just on silent. That's how our shop phones are set up. A majority of our conversation goes through and the computer gets a little pop up and that's how we know we got a text or an email, right? And that's how we do a lot of our conversations with our clients.

Jimmy Purdy [00:48:50]:

Of course, the phone lights up and it's sitting right there on the desk, so we can see it right away. But yeah, we don't hear a ringing phone. I haven't had a ringing phone for three years.

Dutch Silverstein [00:49:00]:

Oh my God. I don't know what the hell we'll get. If the phone doesn't ring every few minutes in my shop, I'm picking it up. Hell, I remembered I paid the bill. Did something happen where I'm not there's.

Jimmy Purdy [00:49:11]:

People calling, but there's no noise coming out of it because it's not like we're always doing a lot of communication with the clients that are here through the computer, through the text line, right. If the phone is actively ringing, we better pick it up and do it. But I guess my point is that transition where you'd walk into an old tire shop and the phone line was rigged into a little firebell, right? I'm sure you heard that. It's like, what is that? Oh, that's my phone. Oh, that's terrible. It goes off all day like that. But that was the only form of communication. So if that firebell is going off, you run in the office, grab the phone, because that's the only way you made profit for the day or got anybody into the door.

Jimmy Purdy [00:49:53]:

And I do my follow up calls and we have all the set up, the automation, the follow up emails, the follow up texting. And we don't really get a lot of people texting back unless they're upset about something.

Dutch Silverstein [00:50:07]:

Well, somebody drops something off, for example. We evaluate it. We call them with the estimate, and we leave a message, or we speak to them at that time with regard to when the vehicle is completed. We'll call them up and let them know the vehicle is completed and determine how it is that they want to pay for it. Are they going to be there before we close or after we close and we have a night pickup for them if they want to do it that way and we take the payment. We do have thank you emails or texts that say, please review us on Google. How did we do? We do that kind of follow up crap. It just always struck me as being really peculiar, the juxtaposition between people yearning for a sense of community, which is what the younger generation has.

Dutch Silverstein [00:51:07]:

They want the sense of community, right? They want to be known as something, but they don't do anything in interpersonal relations to get it. You see that people are on their phone all the time because they yearn to be part of something. They don't want to be left out. They have to check and see what's going on. They have to look at the TikToks. How many likes did they get? All of that sort of stuff is something they want to do, but they want to do it behind a wall as opposed to calling somebody on the phone in my shop. When you come in for the first time, I ask that you're here ten minutes to 15 minutes before your appointment, because I'm going to sit down and I have what's called a quick intake form where I'm going to interview you. I'm going to kind of interrogate you about your car.

Dutch Silverstein [00:51:57]:

My service writer and my CSR do this. Tell me about this car. Do you own it outright or do you lease it? If you lease it, are you going to buy it at the end of the lease? Tell me how you feel about your car. Oh, I think of my car only as a means of conveyance. I love my car. I think of my car as a member of the family. I have all these different things so that we can tailor their maintenance and repair plan to them so that they feel important so that everybody doesn't get the same. Well, you've got 58,000 miles on it.

Dutch Silverstein [00:52:37]:

Your 60,000 miles service has to do this and this and this, and then they come in the next week. Well, you got 64,000 miles on it. It's been 7000 miles, so it looks like you're overdue for I mean, if you ever been to the Rapid Oil change places, that's what they do. It doesn't matter that you just had it done. They're going to tell you that you need to have it done again.

Jimmy Purdy [00:52:58]:

Right.

Dutch Silverstein [00:52:59]:

You have to be able to have individualized attention. When somebody is sick, you send them cards or flowers, or somebody dies, you send them flower. I mean, it's developing that interpersonal relationship, but the younger generation clamors for it.

Jimmy Purdy [00:53:19]:

So hard to get them into that. Like you said, they don't want it, right? Unless it's tough. Like I said, there's a wall, and you're trying to get through this wall with this. What is it? Are we gen z now or gen z?

Dutch Silverstein [00:53:36]:

I'm a boomer. I don't know. And then after that came Gen X. And after I'm lost, basically, if I could can kick you the hell out of the house, and you didn't have know we got kicked out of the house. We got to come back when the street lights came. Know, go ride your bike, do whatever the hell you want to do. Don't blow anybody up, and don't shoot anybody. That was pretty much the way I grew.

Dutch Silverstein [00:53:59]:

Know you grew up in the Bronx. There was a certain amount of stuff you just didn't do after the Bronx. You grew up in here, you just didn't do it. And if you did it, somebody would ratchet. That's just the way it.

Jimmy Purdy [00:54:16]:

Mean to build that interpersonal relationship with that new generation that's on the phone all the time. You assume the way to get on their page is to text them, to email them, but it's just like a one and done thing. They're just consumers, and they're just going to the next and it's price shoppers. And that's what it's really tough is they don't want the relationship. They just want this job done, and they're just going to find the cheapest price, right? You got Amazon, you got ebay. You got all these things where you could go into a store and you can jump on your phone and you can say, oh, I can just order this on Amazon. It's $10 cheaper. And you walk out of the store, you don't buy anything.

Jimmy Purdy [00:54:56]:

All the retail stores are closing down now. Everybody's shutting down. There's no more personal retail shops that you can go into where they knew you by your first name and they knew what you wanted, already had it in a basket, ready to go. You're not going to have that anymore. Because they're just looking online and they're buying the stuff for $1015 cheaper. And that's the similar way they're trying to take auto repair and I'm sure a lot of other services, right? I mean, plumbing, whatever it is, hey, I got this quote, how much can you do it for? And then you try to tell them, well, look, this is the service I'm going to provide for you. Like, no, I just need this done. I just need these ball joints taken care of.

Jimmy Purdy [00:55:31]:

Okay, well, let me explain to you why we're going to be a little bit more than anybody else. No, how much?

Dutch Silverstein [00:55:38]:

See, I don't even get that far. When someone calls up and asks for a phone quote, we've got basically three ways to deal with it, and it really depends on how they talk on the phone. I need a quote for this, ball joints for a set of this, that, and the other. Okay, great. Who am I speaking with? Great. Quick question for you. Is getting the cheapest price the most important thing for you? And they're going to say yes or no. And if they say yes, I say thank you for the opportunity to be of service.

Dutch Silverstein [00:56:09]:

We're not going to be the cheapest shop for you. Let me recommend one.

Jimmy Purdy [00:56:12]:

Yeah, I just started using that last week.

Dutch Silverstein [00:56:19]:

That's not my client. Because now it's not that they don't want to spend money because they'll spend money.

Jimmy Purdy [00:56:26]:

They're just not looking for service. They're just looking for a cut and dry, whatever. I don't even know what the no, they're not looking for the service that you provide.

Dutch Silverstein [00:56:35]:

They don't understand the value. Now, the same people that will tell you that they don't want the service, right? I just want the price, have no problem spending how much on an iPhone? 15. How much on a pair of sneakers, how much on anything that they want that they perceive to be status. They'll dole out that cash. So it's not a matter because in their eyes, those items have value. Well, the only way they're going to find out what the value is, is if somebody takes the time to educate them. So it really depends on how busy you are and what you want to do. So you ask right off the top, after you call me, are you going to be calling other shops to find the best price? And if they say yes, so then you give them an opportunity to say, okay, I appreciate that.

Dutch Silverstein [00:57:32]:

Thank you for your honesty. We're not going to be the shop for you. Or you could say, well, what are you looking for, the best price or the best value? And often when you say the best price or the best value, there's going to be a pause because nobody's ever asked them that before. They're in the hunting mode. How much? How much? How much? How much? How much? Well, what's important to you, best price or best value? You tell me what you want, I'll give you exactly what you want. You want the best price? Here's the guy to go to go do it. That's what you want. You want the best value? Talk to me.

Jimmy Purdy [00:58:08]:

Yeah. Then you can continue the conversation.

Dutch Silverstein [00:58:11]:

Yeah, because I'm not going to invest more than 30 seconds. Right.

Jimmy Purdy [00:58:15]:

I'm just not the one issue I don't know if I call it an issue, but one of the things I'm running into lately is obviously, as we all, everything's getting more. I'm in California. I mean, every day everything goes up, so making sure my techs get paid enough to pay their rent and their insurance and whatnot obviously prices are continually going up. So one of the things I run into is getting preventative lists, maintenance lists set up, right? And we get everything kind of dialed in. This is the stuff your vehicle needs. You don't have to do it now. I don't expect you to do it now, but let's get this stuff knocked out first, right? And then this come back in three months. This come back in six months, right.

Jimmy Purdy [00:58:52]:

We do that. Well, three months down the road, they come back in, they say, hey, so you said I need ball joints. Well, I can get this done. And it's like half the cost that you quoted me. Well, by who and for what? And I'm sure you've seen it over the years where you have this cycle of new shops coming in the area. They undercut everybody's price because the easiest way to get customers is to be the cheapest, right? And so you got to deal with this cycle, and it's this constant problem of, like, there's no way to pull them away, and the only thing you can do is let them go, see what they're getting for that value, and then eventually come back in. But in the meantime, we're missing out on this job. And I know the vehicle is not being repaired correctly or whatever.

Jimmy Purdy [00:59:43]:

The issue is that they can cut the price in half at so it's a tough. Situation to take and say, how do you manage taking that client and turning that back around? It's like they got the price now. They took your price, and they got it cut in half. Well, if that's what you want, then go do that. Bingo. Yeah. That's the only way you can do it.

Dutch Silverstein [01:00:07]:

I'm not here for everybody. Not everybody is my customer. You can't walk into Walmart now, you may find one online, but you're not going to walk into Walmart and buy a Patek Philippe out of their jewelry case. That watch. You're not going to do it because it's not sold there, because they realize that's not their customer. You're not going to walk into your Walmart and buy yourself your Rolex out of the jewelry. They're not sold there. That's not their customer.

Dutch Silverstein [01:00:43]:

It's okay. And part of the problem that new techs have, especially new techs that have become new business owners, is the way is that they run a fear based business, and they're so afraid of losing a sale because they're under capitalized that they'll cut their own throat in order to make the sale.

Jimmy Purdy [01:01:02]:

Absolutely.

Dutch Silverstein [01:01:03]:

And that's a problem.

Jimmy Purdy [01:01:05]:

Okay.

Dutch Silverstein [01:01:06]:

So I'm not here for everybody. That's not my thing. I wish you well. If price is your determining factor, then I want you to go where the price is going to meet what you want. That's okay by me. And if you don't come back, that's okay, because I haven't lost anything except a headache. You've heard of the 80 20% rule? 20% of your customers cause you 80% of your problems because they constantly moan about the price. They're going to get it done anywhere.

Dutch Silverstein [01:01:38]:

You're too expensive. They had to wait three days for you to see them. Whatever it is, they're going to fetch about something. Right. They're always, I don't need it. My car runs fine. Sometimes you just have to tell people. I have a recent example of a gentleman with a 2008 Mercedes.

Dutch Silverstein [01:02:00]:

My local suppliers, I can't get the components for his car. They don't carry them because they're going to be 16 years old. They're not fast movers. So he went online, and he found a company that has them. Okay. I'm not buying them from them. They're not my vendor. There are other problems that may exist.

Dutch Silverstein [01:02:29]:

I understand it's a bilstein shock, all right? Maybe it could be that it's counterfeit, but we'll assume that it's not. I'm not buying it from them. And if I have to buy it from the dealer, I'm marking the parts up. So the best thing that you can do is go to the dealer and get this repair done, because I want to get something done that's going to have recourse for me. And I didn't tell you to keep your 16 year old Benz. I'm sorry. These things happen to you.

Jimmy Purdy [01:02:58]:

Yeah, right.

Dutch Silverstein [01:02:59]:

I mean, I understand you're older, but I didn't design it. Engineer it, manufacture it or put a gun to your head to force you to buy this car. It's not my problem that it's costing you money. I'm not going to compromise my work and take unnecessary risks because you want to save money. I understand you want to save money. Not a problem. Everybody loves a deal. Go somewhere else.

Jimmy Purdy [01:03:24]:

Yeah, that just reminded me of a video I was watching about a guy handing out gold bars and so he's handing out gold bars and everyone some people are taking it. Some people are like, I don't know what that is, and they're not taking it. And so towards the end of the video, he says, man, it's almost better when they don't take it. And the way you are selling your service needs to be kind of based that way. Whereas if they don't want the service I'm providing, that's almost better. Because I'm providing such a high level of service, I don't want to give it away to just anybody. And it was like it really stuck with me. It was like the thought behind that video of you handing out gold bars and this is the best thing, and some people just aren't taking it.

Jimmy Purdy [01:04:09]:

Some people are. And it's like that thought of, oh, man, it's better if they don't. And when you're running the counter at the shop and you're making all these calls and sometimes you don't make the sell, it should be like, oh, good. I can provide my service to someone else who deserves it. Right?

Dutch Silverstein [01:04:24]:

Yeah. I mean, the fact is, to your.

Jimmy Purdy [01:04:25]:

Point of what you were saying, you.

Dutch Silverstein [01:04:28]:

Don'T want to get married to a car because you're trying. And every time it always seemed to me that I extended myself by. Especially when you first start out and you work with a customer supplied part or you go with a vendor, you don't know. Anytime you're trying to do something because you believe it's helpful and because you got bills staring you at the face of the end of the month. Right. It always bit me right in the ass. I mean, without fail, it would always bite me in the ass.

Jimmy Purdy [01:04:56]:

What you're saying is it doesn't get better.

Dutch Silverstein [01:04:58]:

No. And that's what I discovered is it doesn't matter. The first year, the 25th year, like right. We got -25 years, it doesn't get any better. You're going to try to help somebody and you're going to step away from your standardized procedure that you've based or company policy that you've based on experience. Because it'll be fine. I'm just going to make this exception once. It'll be fine.

Dutch Silverstein [01:05:26]:

What's the chances that this is going to bite me in the ass? Well, if I'm the one that's doing it, I'm telling you, it's about 100%. And I'm going to wind up marrying this vehicle, and it's going to become an ever since you ever since you changed the wiper blades on my car. My transmission slipping. What did you do?

Jimmy Purdy [01:05:43]:

What did you do? You must have drained some fluid out when you did that.

Dutch Silverstein [01:05:49]:

Whatever it is. And I'm not dealing with ever since use anymore. I just don't this is the way I run my business. If you like the way I run my business, I'm happy to establish a long term relationship with you. If you don't like the way that I run my business, it's not a problem. I wish you the best in finding a service provider that better meets your needs. Thank you. Good day.

Dutch Silverstein [01:06:13]:

GFO.

Jimmy Purdy [01:06:16]:

Perfect.

Dutch Silverstein [01:06:19]:

That's GTFO, that's pretty much the way that I'm too old. I don't have to put up with this stuff. And I know that the mistakes that I made, I don't repeat. I'm sure there are shops that put on customer supplied parts all day long and they never have a problem. And they double charge for labor to make up for the loss of revenue and win win. Happy, happy. Joy, joy.

Jimmy Purdy [01:06:50]:

Okay.

Dutch Silverstein [01:06:50]:

Yeah. Not for me.

Jimmy Purdy [01:06:52]:

For the rest of us that has nothing but bad luck with it, then I don't know how they're getting away with it. I'm in the boat with you every single time. Every single time. It's bitten me in the ass. Every damn time. It just never fails. Whatever the horror story is, I've probably had it happen to me and it's like, why am I the luck of the Irish? I guess. I don't know if it was not for bad luck.

Jimmy Purdy [01:07:15]:

And I have no luck at all.

Dutch Silverstein [01:07:20]:

I just made it company policy. I don't do these things anymore and I don't blame anybody. I'm not angry with somebody because they want to get a better deal, right. I don't hate them because of that. I'm not going to get angry. Some guys get really wrapped around an axle because they get frustrated because they see the bills coming due and this was a means to help pay some of them and now it's walking out of their life. And there are going to be some coaches that are going to tell you, well, if it's $50, just do the work and don't worry about the $50. Yeah, you're sending a message because if you're doing it and you say, look, it's slow, so I'll do it for $50 less.

Dutch Silverstein [01:08:08]:

The next time they come in and they will, they want that $50 again. They don't say, hey, listen, I see your parking lot is busy now, so I'm going to need to repair and I'm willing to pay you the full retail price for that. They don't care. Take the name and address of everybody you've ever cut a deal to, right, and call them up and say, you know, it's been a slow month for me. I need you to send me some money so I can pay my mortgage and see how many of them cut you a check. Nobody cares, right? They only care about what happens to them. They don't care. And it's worse with used car dealers or guys that own fleets.

Jimmy Purdy [01:08:56]:

Oh, yeah, right. It seems like a good idea to get them in. When you first start out, though, they got plenty of cars.

Dutch Silverstein [01:09:07]:

They got plenty of cars. They understand the business. They're in the car business, they understand the way things work. Except that you forgot to ask some real questions, like what's the goal of their business? How does the goal of their business coincide the goal of yours?

Jimmy Purdy [01:09:27]:

Right.

Dutch Silverstein [01:09:27]:

Well, it doesn't, like you said.

Jimmy Purdy [01:09:31]:

Are you willing to do a quality repair on these vehicles? Absolutely not. They want to invest the small amount of money as possible to resell the car for the most amount possible.

Dutch Silverstein [01:09:42]:

Now, when you look at fleet work, fleet work can be very lucrative, no question about it. But you have to discover the right fleet company to work with. Right? I mean, it's great because a lot of the good companies, they understand that their trucks, their vans, their vehicles have to be on the road. So they don't care because they know how much money they're losing when that vehicle is not on the road. Those are the top tier fleets. Those are the ones you want.

Jimmy Purdy [01:10:11]:

But those are the fleets that also invest in building their own shop and hiring their own technicians, some do or mechanics, anyway, to work on them. And that's the cream of the crop fleet account. And, yeah, there's a few that get to that point. They're not quite that big, but around here in California, that's it all the major fleet accounts that you would want. They already have a shop, they know the value of it. They understand if we spend a million dollars building this facility and hiring a technician and we're going to be here for the next 20 years, that's going to pay for itself. Tenfold. But to your point, it's a very slim margin of fleet accounts that are going to be worth your time because, you know, they want it now.

Dutch Silverstein [01:10:54]:

They want it now oftentimes, and this is where shops get in a lot of trouble is they'll be owed a lot of money. You don't want to have any more than any one company have any more than 5% of your gross revenues owed to you. What you want is somebody pick up the vehicle. They pay for the vehicle company credit card. Here it is. Or you have the company credit card on file. When you wind up floating for them for 30 days, once they start getting in trouble, 30 days becomes 45, becomes 60. Right? Now, you're out a lot of money for parts and you've paid your technician, but you haven't gotten paid.

Dutch Silverstein [01:11:37]:

And you get strung out because your cash flow sucks right on your paper. You're doing great on the PNL, but you look in your bank account, you got nothing because you're owed all this money. You got to be careful with some. Because if anybody tells you I'm running fleets and I've never been burned by a fleet, and I've been in business for 2025 years, I want them to go to church, light a candle on the way back home, stop in, buy two lottery tickets one for me and one for them. Because that's the luckiest son of a bitch I've ever seen in my entire life. I don't know of anybody, and I've been doing this a while that hasn't been burned by a fleet. Especially if that fleet is landscaping.

Jimmy Purdy [01:12:24]:

Especially if it's landscaping. Yeah.

Dutch Silverstein [01:12:26]:

You get clobbered. I don't care how many vehicles they have, you'll get clobbered on that, right. They pay you at the time. It's not a problem. I'll tell you what, we'll start you with a fleet account. We have to get paid at the time the service is rendered. Well, don't you want to give me 30 day terms? No.

Jimmy Purdy [01:12:48]:

Yeah. Net 30.

Dutch Silverstein [01:12:49]:

No, I don't want 30 day terms, and I'm not going to give you 2% net 30 either. Because if you're a small business, right, and you're a single sole proprietor or you're a sole proprietor and you have a helper, even if you just formed your LLC and you have 510, 15, $20,000 out on the street waiting to be collected, you're sweating comPAYDAY.

Jimmy Purdy [01:13:20]:

Absolutely.

Dutch Silverstein [01:13:22]:

It's not like $60. Right. This company owes you $5,000 or more. You're sweating this. If you got a $30,000 month right. And that's a good month for you, just you and a helper or just you and somebody owes you $5,000, you sweating it, man.

Jimmy Purdy [01:13:44]:

Yeah.

Dutch Silverstein [01:13:44]:

Especially since the average pretax net operating profit, depending on the source that you ask on department of labor, varies between five and 7%. So you think about what that means.

Jimmy Purdy [01:13:58]:

That's all your profit yeah.

Dutch Silverstein [01:14:00]:

For three months.

Jimmy Purdy [01:14:01]:

Yeah.

Dutch Silverstein [01:14:05]:

Okay. And other businesses will screw you in a minute. And I have to admit it, because this is how the game is played.

Jimmy Purdy [01:14:15]:

Well, yeah. It's just business. It's pretty damn personal right now.

Dutch Silverstein [01:14:20]:

Yeah, because that's how I feed my family.

Jimmy Purdy [01:14:21]:

That's how my personal house and my personal family. Well, right on, man. This has been good. A lot of insightful stuff. You're a very insightful individual.

Dutch Silverstein [01:14:32]:

I don't know about any of that crap. I'm just old, so I've seen a lot, man.

Jimmy Purdy [01:14:37]:

Is that my nice way of calling you old?

Dutch Silverstein [01:14:39]:

Maybe, but you can call me old.

Jimmy Purdy [01:14:40]:

I don't give a shit. You're a very experienced individual.

Dutch Silverstein [01:14:43]:

Oh, there you go. There's that PC crap. I'm just old, all right? That's all there is to it. I don't know what problem people have with age. It's like, oh, no, you can't call me old. Fuck it. I've earned it, right? I mean, I've got to this point by this point in my age, I've.

Jimmy Purdy [01:14:57]:

Already it's not like he's calling you.

Dutch Silverstein [01:14:59]:

Ugly, which I am, too. But that's okay. I can deal with that because I had nothing to do with it.

Jimmy Purdy [01:15:06]:

You've had a lot of time to accept that, right? Exactly.

Dutch Silverstein [01:15:09]:

Right. Now, I was handsome when I was younger, but when you get past a certain age, it doesn't make a difference because you're not trolling for broads anymore.

Jimmy Purdy [01:15:16]:

So they all look the same. I don't know.

Dutch Silverstein [01:15:19]:

I've been with the same woman for 32 years. Really, what the hell is the difference, right?

Jimmy Purdy [01:15:26]:

What do you care what you look like?

Dutch Silverstein [01:15:28]:

What do I care? I don't care what she looks like. When I come home, do you have supper waiting for me? Really, what's the difference, right? As opposed to you got this 25 year old. First of all, I can't look at her because I'm the dirty old man. I'm old enough to be a grandfather. And then, what the hell, I catch her, what am I going to talk to her about? There's nothing in common with this broad, right? I can't listen to the same music, I can't eat the same damn food. At 09:00, I turn into an effing pumpkin. She wants to go out and go hit the clubs. That crap is too loud.

Jimmy Purdy [01:15:59]:

You guys could go to dinner and text each other at the table.

Dutch Silverstein [01:16:01]:

Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's what I'm going to do. And then when it comes at the end of the night, what the hell am I going to do? Forget it. It ain't happening. Not without a crane.

Jimmy Purdy [01:16:11]:

You'll forget it. That's what's going to happen.

Dutch Silverstein [01:16:13]:

Yeah, it's just some things that this is part of age so that allows you a certain latitude and a certain amount of experience that you can say it doesn't matter now you can yell.

Jimmy Purdy [01:16:27]:

At the kids to get off your lawn.

Dutch Silverstein [01:16:29]:

Oh, shit. I've been doing that for 20 years.

Jimmy Purdy [01:16:31]:

Yeah, that's what I've been looking forward to. I think I got about 15 years left before I can do that, so I'm just counting the day.

Dutch Silverstein [01:16:37]:

The whole thing is once you reach a certain point in your life and it's different for anybody, you just don't give a crap anymore. I don't go out to dress and impress anybody. I don't give a shit if you like the car. I'm not here to impress you. I don't hate my guts. Great. Stand in line, take a number. I don't care.

Dutch Silverstein [01:17:02]:

It doesn't matter to me anymore. Because unless you're somebody important in my life, you don't matter to me anymore.

Jimmy Purdy [01:17:11]:

I don't worry about it. It'd be a better place if More had that mentality, too. Yeah.

Dutch Silverstein [01:17:17]:

What are you going to say? Something's going to hurt my feelings on? No.

Jimmy Purdy [01:17:24]:

What could possibly that you have not already seen or heard already?

Dutch Silverstein [01:17:27]:

You're going to call me a name? Make fun of my religion? Knock yourself out. My height, my age, my weight, doesn't matter. Whatever you want to choose that you believe to be some sort of vulnerable spot. I grew up in the Bronx. You think you're going to say anything that's going to hurt me. What are you going to say to, you know and I don't care about your sensitivities either. I really don't. The choice to be offended is a choice.

Dutch Silverstein [01:17:55]:

It's entirely subjective.

Jimmy Purdy [01:17:57]:

Yeah. I think that's a big baby boomers thing. Definitely.

Dutch Silverstein [01:18:02]:

Yeah.

Jimmy Purdy [01:18:04]:

Which is not a bad thing. I mean, if we had all got rid of our filters every once in a while, I think we'd be all a little bit better off instead of the PC stuff all the time. Like, tell me what you're really trying to tell me here. Let's just get to the point.

Dutch Silverstein [01:18:17]:

Let's get to the point. I don't know when it happened. I can't give you the year I grew up with sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never harm me.

Jimmy Purdy [01:18:27]:

Right?

Dutch Silverstein [01:18:28]:

That's the way that's the way somebody calls you a name. Or when you're a little kid, you cry about it, but when you learn the lessons all right, we got adults that freak the hell out, right?

Jimmy Purdy [01:18:45]:

Yeah. You always thought, too, as a kid, like, oh, adults never get upset. And so as I've grown into my adulthood and I realize there's people with children that are offended by things that people are saying, like what? I thought that doesn't happen. I didn't think that was a thing.

Dutch Silverstein [01:19:04]:

Oh, it's a thing, all right.

Jimmy Purdy [01:19:05]:

And you watch the Google Review monsters and the Yelp review monsters and the freaking. You follow some of these guys on YouTube and on social media, and they got these following of people that are just constantly saying negative things like, what are you trying to prove right now? You have that much time on your hand to troll these people and put these negative reviews and negative comments on their videos and all their videos are trying to do is help somebody else. What in the hell is wrong with you? Go get a job.

Dutch Silverstein [01:19:34]:

While that's certainly true, what's also wrong is a system that rewards the negative reviews, because that's considered engagement, and that engagement drives the ratings that allow people to make money. Right? I mean, they want that sort of feedback. They want that negativity because people participate. And participation is what drive the numbers.

Jimmy Purdy [01:20:03]:

Are what drives controversy sells.

Dutch Silverstein [01:20:05]:

Controversy sells. Is there anything else you want to talk about?

Jimmy Purdy [01:20:10]:

I think we're all wrapped up. This is good. I think we hit everything or nothing. I'm not sure where we went or where we've been, but I got no idea.

Dutch Silverstein [01:20:21]:

I wrote this thing up about DVI, and I went through the numbers on it because that was something that I was always kind of concerned with, because people that believe there's a Southern expression that says, it ain't what you say, it's how you say it. Right?

Jimmy Purdy [01:20:40]:

Right.

Dutch Silverstein [01:20:40]:

Okay. I think DVI can be a great tool, but I hate the way it's marketed because it's marketed as a sales tool, and it's marketed as a sales tool to the shop owner. Increase your sales. Right?

Jimmy Purdy [01:20:56]:

Right.

Dutch Silverstein [01:20:57]:

And then the shop owner takes it, and he is trained to turn to the end user as a way to protect their investment. Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining. The reason that you're pushing the DVI, the reason you're using DVI is because you're getting something out of it.

Jimmy Purdy [01:21:17]:

Right.

Dutch Silverstein [01:21:18]:

It's completely self serving. You're using DVI, which helps to promote the service.

Jimmy Purdy [01:21:24]:

Great.

Dutch Silverstein [01:21:25]:

And the customer can benefit from that. Can doesn't necessarily mean that they are, but they can benefit from that. So this is not an altruistic endeavor that you're doing in order to help people maintain their vehicles and stay safe on the road. You're doing it because you're getting something out of it, right?

Jimmy Purdy [01:21:43]:

Yeah. At the end of the day, it's definitely nice to cloak it with the nice, happy feels.

Dutch Silverstein [01:21:51]:

I hate that shit. I hate it. I frigging hate it.

Jimmy Purdy [01:21:55]:

Because everybody talks, in a sense, killing two birds with 1 st, you are guaranteed to increase your sales. Everybody talks about everybody says it, and then also as the owner, and you're providing the service now to your client. Look, I'm not lying to you, Mr. Or Mrs. Jones. You can see the pictures. Like you said, it's cloak and mirrors. It could be anything that you want it to be if you're going to be that kind of person.

Jimmy Purdy [01:22:24]:

But it's like when you're looking at these systems, like, oh, it's an extra $50 a month, that just makes sense. But realistically, it's about profit. Right. That's how I looked at it. I definitely cloaked it in a little bit of like, wow, that's a really nice service to provide, but ultimately, I can also make a lot more money. And it's like, sorry, but I'm not sorry about it. It's difficult because it's like, I want to make sure we're doing the right thing. But also, man, if we can get these guys on board and then I can also monitor the technician.

Jimmy Purdy [01:22:59]:

So now I know that they're taking a picture of the outside of the vehicle. Also know if there's any damage to the vehicle when it left. So it's like all these pluses that go along with it. But at the end of the day, it's like, yeah, this is going to be something that provides a service that will get us an easier sell and be able to get more parts replaced. Because sometimes if you say, hey, your tie rod is bad, nobody knows what the hell that means. Hey, your wheel bearings got some play in it, so do I need to replace it? And as a technician turn shop owner, it's kind of like, well, if it was mine, you probably got another six months or a year on it, right? You could probably ride that a little longer. But you show them the video, the wheel moving around like, oh, I don't want that on my car at all. Okay, let's fix it.

Dutch Silverstein [01:23:41]:

See, now the issue for me is in transparency, because that's what one of the watchwords is. Now, transparent. We're completely transparent, which is a bunch of shit, right? Because for me, we're going to send you the DVI, which is going to show you those areas of concern that you're going to have your vehicle. And it's no different than we send pictures via email. This is pictures or small movies, right? MPEGs with this stuff. And if somebody asks me why, I give them all of it. Well, 65% of people learn are visual learners. Basically.

Dutch Silverstein [01:24:21]:

Neuroscience has determined that there are three types of people that learn, and 65% of the public learn through visual. Then there's auditory, right? People hear what you're saying, like, in lecture, and then they learn through doing. It's called kinetics kinesthetics, because once they pick up and they do it themselves, they see how it works, they get their hands on it. Now it makes sense to them. It's like okay, I got it. Right? All right, so you're appealing to that and tell you, I sent this to you because I want you to understand what's going on with your vehicle. And I'm also going to be quite candid with you. The fact that I'm sending this to you, it increases the likelihood that once you see it, you're going to want to get this done.

Dutch Silverstein [01:25:13]:

And that's good for you, and it's good for me because I'm in business to make a profit. Now, find out how many friends that you know that are an auto shop owner who would actually have that conversation with their customer and admit that that's what's happening. Yeah, hold your breath. Ain't going to happen. They're going to advertise the fact that it helps protect their investment, and it does this, and it does this. But they're never going to say, and the truth is that I'm in business to make a profit, and doing this is going to provide a valuable service for you, and I'm going to be able to feed my family.

Jimmy Purdy [01:25:54]:

Right. I feel like more of the conversations I've had lately have been in that direction. Profit is not a bad word. No, like the lady with a ball joint issue. It's like, look, I'm going to be more because I pay my text more. I can guarantee you my text here at the shop are paid more than anybody else in the area because I want them to go home and take care of their kids and their wife and pay their mortgage. And I feel like you get more respect that way, just like you said, hey, this is a great tool, but at the end of the day, I'm just trying to give myself more leverage to make more profit. I don't know if that's a bad thing.

Jimmy Purdy [01:26:33]:

Obviously, it's that fine line we talked about in the beginning. As far as when do you go past that 60K service and you're just wanting to recommend everything versus getting that vehicle back to safety, back to being safe and reliable and not upselling the poison word of upselling anything. But we've always done it as far as, like, priority and then maintenance. This is the stuff you need now, and this is the stuff you do later. Because I wanted to bring this point up too, earlier, was if you don't recommend it, the next shop is going to recommend it. And that's kind of part of the problem. But you got to at least recommend it, in my opinion. I got to at least say, hey, look, these are the things that the manufacturer is recommending at this time.

Jimmy Purdy [01:27:22]:

Do you need it? No, but it's recommended, so let's put it on a service sheet and see if you wanted in six months, you want to come back and have it serviced. This is what the manufacturer is recommending. I just need to tell you that. So when you go to wherever, whatever, lube oil service, and they recommend it, hey, how come Jimmy didn't recommend this? Just there's that fine line of going to the next place and missing that opportunity and then also upselling stuff that they don't need. It's such a fine line.

Dutch Silverstein [01:27:57]:

Well, the thing is that you got to remember that a lot of the recommended services are now required services. If you're leasing a vehicle, you have specific required services in order to meet the criteria for the lease. Right. If it says you're going to have your oil changed every 10,000 miles, you have to be able to show they have every right. The manufacturer or the dealership when you turn that lease back in to say, let me see your maintenance records, I mean, they can do that. That's within their purview to do it. Now, when you pre interview the people like we do, and you say, tell me what this vehicle means to you, then you can tailor yes. The manufacturer specifies this at 60,000 miles, and that is in a complete alignment with what it is that you need.

Jimmy Purdy [01:28:48]:

Right.

Dutch Silverstein [01:28:49]:

Because your stated goal was that you want to keep this vehicle till the wheels come off. Well, if you want to do that, the best odds of being able to do that is to comply with the manufacturer's recommendations or specifications, because they've spent millions of dollars in research and development in order to provide you with a good customer service.

Jimmy Purdy [01:29:07]:

Right.

Dutch Silverstein [01:29:08]:

Having a good experience? Yeah, but I think I'm gone too long for your time. I apologize.

Jimmy Purdy [01:29:15]:

That's all right. That's all good stuff. Feel like we could do this for a while, but edit late over there.

Dutch Silverstein [01:29:22]:

Yeah, I'm getting a little lightheaded because old guys haven't eaten. I missed early birds.

Jimmy Purdy [01:29:27]:

Your blood sugar is probably going to.

Dutch Silverstein [01:29:28]:

Your blood sugar is going off. I'm going to have to get up and get another Depends in a. Minute because it's been 30 minutes since I peed. That kind of stuff. Make sure that my paladin hasn't failed me as I talk.

Jimmy Purdy [01:29:42]:

You got them all.

Dutch Silverstein [01:29:43]:

You got no idea, son. I got socks at home older than you. What the hell's the matter with you?

Jimmy Purdy [01:29:49]:

This is awesome. I really appreciate you coming on with me, though.

Dutch Silverstein [01:29:53]:

No worries.

Jimmy Purdy [01:29:54]:

I've learned something myself. And I hope anyone else listening has also learned more than one thing.

Dutch Silverstein [01:30:00]:

Listen. If you can listen to us talk and take something away that helps benefit your business, we're doing great.

Jimmy Purdy [01:30:06]:

Just one thing.

Dutch Silverstein [01:30:08]:

Just one thing. We'll copy that ad line. Just one thing. Fuck it. We'll go with two things because we're better. We're just two things. If you can learn just two things right that make your business better. You're better off than the other place.

Dutch Silverstein [01:30:20]:

It just says just one thing. We're twice as good as they are. Son of a bitch.

Jimmy Purdy [01:30:23]:

Good.

Dutch Silverstein [01:30:23]:

Go get them. Know. All right. You be good.

Jimmy Purdy [01:30:29]:

Have a good weekend. It's good talking to you, Dutch.