Gearbox Podcast

00:00:00.73
Jimmy Purdy
Can you hear those people talking?

00:00:01.10
Josh Rainwater
ah No, I can't. No.

00:00:03.80
Jimmy Purdy
Really? ah they're like so like laughing and joking in the office right now?

00:00:05.53
Josh Rainwater
No.

00:00:09.92
Josh Rainwater
No, I can't hear a thing. No, it must be these cheap Chinese in-ear headphones that I'm wearing.

00:00:11.59
Jimmy Purdy
my

00:00:16.74
Jimmy Purdy
That or this microphone, I don't know. Maybe it's super directional. We got lucky, though. Well, Mr. Josh Rainwater, thanks for coming on.

00:00:25.94
Josh Rainwater
It's me. Yeah, glad to be here. Thanks for the invite.

00:00:28.49
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah, you of course. It's good to to connect with people all across the nation. It's just interesting that we're all in the same, we're all doing the same thing, right? But we all feel so alone.

00:00:43.25
Jimmy Purdy
Like we all think we're on an island and what we're doing is like so special, and you know? I don't know.

00:00:47.70
Josh Rainwater
and

00:00:48.22
Jimmy Purdy
Have you ever done like shop coaching? Yeah.

00:00:51.84
Josh Rainwater
So I've not ever paid for a coach. I'm in the ASOG mastermind group, which is, you know, obviously hosted by ASOG, but it is, you know, it's volunteer based. So, you know, you get a lot of really good information that, you know, I'm sure, mo you know, it's probably the same 60% that the coaches are teaching, but It's on voluntary basis, and the idea is that you'll go in this program, and then once you progress to a certain point, then you actually become sort of ah an advisor, not really a coach, but you know somebody who's, what would we call that?

00:01:37.15
Josh Rainwater
like Somebody who's just assisting in the other shop owners.

00:01:38.69
Jimmy Purdy
Like a mentor.

00:01:40.73
Josh Rainwater
yeah

00:01:41.22
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah, a little bit of a mentorship or something.

00:01:43.49
Josh Rainwater
Mentor, yeah, that's a good place to put it.

00:01:47.30
Jimmy Purdy
Mentorships is interesting too. it's just It's just wild. like The more you do it, the more you start realizing your own losses you know or like or what you need to work on and how like everyone relates to you as a shop owner.

00:02:00.68
Jimmy Purdy
And you project that without even knowing it. It's just one of the one of the last...

00:02:04.40
Josh Rainwater
Sure. Sure.

00:02:07.85
Jimmy Purdy
uh, epiphanies that I've had recently of like realizing like I'm being told these things. And then that directly is exactly what I am like having a hard time with in the shop with everybody.

00:02:18.04
Jimmy Purdy
Like, well, wait a second.

00:02:18.79
Josh Rainwater
sure

00:02:20.74
Jimmy Purdy
You think, you know, everything, right? Like, it's like, Oh yeah, I know about that. You know, you get these tips and these tricks and they're like, Oh yeah, I know that. I know that. Like, well then if you're asking about it, you know, like you're not obviously implementing it.

00:02:31.27
Jimmy Purdy
You know what i mean? Like it's tough, man.

00:02:32.70
Josh Rainwater
sure It's kind of like being married, you know?

00:02:34.77
Jimmy Purdy
Are you?

00:02:35.93
Josh Rainwater
you you

00:02:36.41
Jimmy Purdy
yeah

00:02:37.21
Josh Rainwater
You start seeing all your own flaws and faults when you're around somebody and you want to call them out on what they're doing, but you're like, yeah, I'm actually doing the same thing, so I can't really say much.

00:02:49.78
Jimmy Purdy
You're all picking up on each other's little nuances there. You don't even realize it. ah Do I do that too?

00:02:53.60
Josh Rainwater
but

00:02:54.72
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah, you do. Oh, interesting.

00:02:57.86
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. yeah

00:02:58.64
Jimmy Purdy
That drives me freaking crazy.

00:02:59.37
Josh Rainwater
That's it. that

00:03:03.27
Jimmy Purdy
And then are are you ah are you one-man shop? how's your what What's your setup?

00:03:06.84
Josh Rainwater
So I actually have a technician. Yeah, I've got a technician that works with me. So he is ah actually a friend that I've mentored for several years.

00:03:18.86
Josh Rainwater
And when it got time to, you know, look for a technician, i was like, I'm not looking anywhere else, but right here. You know, this guy's got a really good heart. He's got a great drive. So I'm going to see if I can snag him away from where he's at.

00:03:35.60
Josh Rainwater
So, yeah, it's just us two. And then we've got, you know, got a CPA and an an accountant, but they're not on site, of course. But yeah, yeah.

00:03:42.51
Jimmy Purdy
Right, right.

00:03:44.77
Josh Rainwater
What about you?

00:03:44.91
Jimmy Purdy
That's cool.

00:03:45.33
Josh Rainwater
What is your your shop setup look like? And, what you know, how you know what's your, know, I guess like your typical customer or typical vehicles that you work on?

00:03:57.45
Jimmy Purdy
That's good. Yeah. it's um So three three technicians, ah two advisors, um a service manager, and then my wife and myself.

00:04:09.19
Jimmy Purdy
um She's currently not going to be on maternity leave. So or in quotes, maternity leave. So she's been at home as of as of ah recently.

00:04:17.22
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

00:04:18.22
Jimmy Purdy
We're Asian Toyota specialty and do a lot of domestic work.

00:04:24.39
Josh Rainwater
okay

00:04:25.04
Jimmy Purdy
Um, we're looking, so we've got like 5,000, 5,400 square feet in our one shop and then about 4,200, 4,300 the other side. And it's in a little, it's like in a complex. So you were mentioning about your shops kind of off the beaten path a little bit.

00:04:38.12
Jimmy Purdy
We don't, we're the same way.

00:04:38.70
Josh Rainwater
yeah

00:04:38.76
Jimmy Purdy
We don't have a lot of drive by traffic. We're kind of like in the back of a little. not a cul-de-sac, but like an industrial complex, I guess is the best way to put it. And so the building that went up right across, you know, in front of our bay doors, there's another building that got built.

00:04:48.08
Josh Rainwater
Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

00:04:53.43
Jimmy Purdy
And then we're like, okay, well, we need to take that. So a total of seven bays now or seven lifts.

00:05:00.25
Josh Rainwater
okay yeah

00:05:01.45
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah. So we're definitely ready to, you know, with two advisors and three technicians, we're definitely ready to for bring to bring on two more techs. pretty much immediately um but just got to bump up the car count and do the marketing and all that stuff so i'm excited to see the end of the year how it how it all falls out because we've we've kind of put the cart in front of the horse that makes any sense typically you wait you know like you build and then you grow into it but we're like yeah we're gonna grow into our shoes

00:05:11.05
Josh Rainwater
yeah

00:05:22.90
Josh Rainwater
Yeah.

00:05:27.66
Josh Rainwater
anything

00:05:31.35
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. Yeah. And it also, I've found in those situations when it's, when there's a lot more on the line, it's like, Hey, I'm not, I'm not, I'm going all in on this.

00:05:35.33
Jimmy Purdy
button

00:05:42.01
Josh Rainwater
I'm not going go, you know, half throttle. Like we're going, all in or nothing, because this has to work. I've got too much you know invested right now to just take us casually. Yeah, those

00:05:53.77
Jimmy Purdy
That's a good way to put it. Yeah. That's, that's part of it. Cause you always have the those fleeting thoughts, you know, especially in the middle of a stressful week when you're like, maybe I should just like go back to working out of my garage.

00:06:08.11
Josh Rainwater
yeah yeah those those weeks yeah those weeks are are tough they really are i've I've found though, once you get through those weeks, you're like, man, I'm like, it always seems like the, the, the high right after that week is just like, it's like the, the, the peak, like, you know, you're at the top of the world, you know, like, oh, I got through that last week and now we're doing great again. We're making money. We're, you know, making clients happy, fixing cars, you know, right and quickly. And yeah, it's a, it's like the, the, the, debt what it's the dawn after the,

00:06:44.21
Josh Rainwater
The darkest night or something like that.

00:06:45.31
Jimmy Purdy
ah

00:06:46.00
Josh Rainwater
There

00:06:47.52
Jimmy Purdy
The eye of the storm, i think, or something like that.

00:06:49.51
Josh Rainwater
you go.

00:06:50.13
Jimmy Purdy
yeah

00:06:50.42
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. that's what yeah That's more appropriate.

00:06:52.94
Jimmy Purdy
Makes you appreciate a little bit more. you're You're kind of, so what's what's your plan or what's your vision? Like you're kind of at a pivotal spot now, bringing on a tech. Is that the the direction you want to go or kind of like, walk me through that. Cause I think that's like a spot where we all get stuck.

00:07:07.69
Jimmy Purdy
Cause it's like, that's that's the hardest decision there is like where you're at. Right. Cause it's like, you can either stay back and hang out there or like you get to the point where you 10 or 15 employees, but it's like, you're at that pivotal, what's your plan?

00:07:12.58
Josh Rainwater
yeah

00:07:21.00
Josh Rainwater
Yeah, that's a good question. So my plan is that, you know, right now we're in a really heavy growth mode. We're doing a lot of advertising. And as you, I'm sure, are aware of, when you don't have, you know, major drive-by traffic or, ah you know, large store frontage,

00:07:41.61
Josh Rainwater
you know, you really, you end up having to to spend a lot more on advertising or at least, you know, some extra marketing dollars to, you know, throw out there to get, you know, that, you know, putting yourself out for new clients and and making yourself visible that maybe be some of these larger shops don't necessarily have to do.

00:07:56.70
Jimmy Purdy
Sure.

00:08:01.98
Josh Rainwater
So we're in a pretty heavy growth mode right now. um The goal for me coming up in in the shop is that, you know, I need to hire a new technician, but also need an advisor.

00:08:17.56
Josh Rainwater
Really, i'm I'm at my pretty much my limit of how much I'm able to get done semi-efficiently. I'm not even doing it efficiently, I feel like, but semi-efficiently. So if I add another technician, I'm already going to be behind.

00:08:31.45
Josh Rainwater
And so really, you know, after talking with another shop owner, um you know, we're brainstorming the, you know, the the financials, like how do we make this make sense?

00:08:43.87
Josh Rainwater
And so what I've decided is the next move is going to be hiring, you know, some front of house staff or a, you know, front of house person that's able to answer phones and, you know, build appointments and estimate, you know, some light level stuff, you know, light level repairs.

00:09:02.29
Josh Rainwater
And so we figured out like how many hours that I would have to turn in a bay to get that to work. And the number was actually like really surprisingly low, you know, so that, you know, if I'm able to, you know, basically turn about six to seven hours a week, then that's going to pay somebody to come in and do, you know, do some of the work that I'm dropping the ball on. But then hopefully, you know, that's going to free me up for,

00:09:32.91
Josh Rainwater
at least, you know, 30 some hours of work that I'm not having to do every week. So that's, you know, that's the goal is, you know, just free me up as an owner.

00:09:40.86
Jimmy Purdy
as as your Is your goal to stay in the bays or do you want to take over the front office? or Where is it that you want to end up

00:09:50.08
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. Ooh, that is a good question. Cause that's something I go back and forth on. um You know, there is the, There is the sound wisdom that all the you know these coaches and and other shop owners are teaching is like, you've got to get out of the bays. You've got to get off the front desk.

00:10:10.16
Josh Rainwater
And ah see that as like the goal, you know, like you you you've got your, you know, your vision that you put up on the wall. And that's like, that's what I'm achieving after. That's my, you know, the picture of the boat that I'm having, you know, that's me is getting off the front desk.

00:10:26.80
Josh Rainwater
but I'm not at a point where I can necessarily afford to pay you know an advisor to come in and do that. Because you know an advisor to me is somebody who um they indirectly generate revenue for the business. They're not turning the wrenches, physically getting the work you know pushed out the door.

00:10:48.74
Josh Rainwater
They're just facilitating the making of money. So The goal is to eventually hire an advisor to remove me from the front desk completely and then also hire another technician so I can get out of the bays. you know I love wrenching, but you can only wear one hat at a time.

00:11:10.39
Jimmy Purdy
That's true. Yeah.

00:11:10.69
Josh Rainwater
So that is eventually I'm gonna transition out.

00:11:12.22
Jimmy Purdy
yeah

00:11:15.22
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah, the um that adage of, like, you got to get out of the bays, it's just... I don't find it applicable for technicians turned shop owners, right?

00:11:26.51
Jimmy Purdy
Like, that's that two were that who we're talking to right now, right?

00:11:27.16
Josh Rainwater
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:11:30.06
Jimmy Purdy
Like, like the majority is, like, you and i we we work on cars and we open a business. Like, that' that's our crutch, but it's also our superpower, you know?

00:11:40.79
Jimmy Purdy
And and I think there's a lot of shop owners and the coaches... I wouldn't say a lot of them, but most of them have never really worked in the Bay or worked on cars. And so all they know is the business, right? So like in their mind, I think they just look at it as, well, if you were to, if you were to work on the business instead of working on the cars, you can make the business more money.

00:12:00.24
Jimmy Purdy
Right.

00:12:00.34
Josh Rainwater
yeah

00:12:00.40
Jimmy Purdy
But like, am I business minded? i mean, not really. No, like there's a lot of like floundering for me as when it comes to like sitting down and like making an action plan and like,

00:12:12.27
Josh Rainwater
Yeah.

00:12:12.63
Jimmy Purdy
writing SOPs and like, and thank God for chat chat GBT. Right. Like, cause I don't know how would do without it.

00:12:16.98
Josh Rainwater
Oh, man.

00:12:18.48
Jimmy Purdy
Right. So that's not my forte. My forte is like, like you get out in there and like fix the car. Right. So whatever I can do to free up my time so I can go but take on some of those bigger projects, that's what generates revenue.

00:12:24.22
Josh Rainwater
Mm-hmm.

00:12:31.70
Jimmy Purdy
Right.

00:12:32.21
Josh Rainwater
Yeah.

00:12:32.23
Jimmy Purdy
The personal one for me is when I don't have to do anything all day, like, and the and the shop still makes money. Like, Oh, cool. Like, I actually didn't have to physically labor and like the shops making money.

00:12:39.28
Josh Rainwater

00:12:42.00
Jimmy Purdy
But if we start falling back, like, yeah, I'm jumping out there. Like, umm let me see the biggest ticket we got and I'm going to go knock it out. Right. Because thats that's like my that's the superpower I have in the business. I don't know.

00:12:50.48
Josh Rainwater
and

00:12:50.91
Jimmy Purdy
It's interesting you brought that up because i I've had a lot of coaches tell me that like, oh, you got to stop doing that. You got to rely on your team. got to realize like that and the other. But. well, I got to rely on paying rent, my man. Like, and if I got to go jump in the, in the back of the trenches or back in the Bay to like, to get something done, like that's, that's my, that's my, that's my hierarchy.

00:13:00.51
Josh Rainwater
yeah

00:13:10.42
Jimmy Purdy
Right. And as far as being a business owner, I'm not really too good at like the office side.

00:13:10.95
Josh Rainwater
here

00:13:16.01
Jimmy Purdy
Right. Like, and like you said, it that just builds the, the work still needs get done. Like you can sell all the work in the world, but until it gets fixed and you can collect, then it doesn't mean anything to anybody.

00:13:21.39
Josh Rainwater
Sure.

00:13:27.72
Jimmy Purdy
Thanks.

00:13:28.43
Josh Rainwater
Sure. Yeah. And, and, you know, to your point, you know, I, I don't see that, you know, if we use the analogy of the, of the wheel with the spokes and the center hub,

00:13:40.79
Josh Rainwater
you know I don't personally see a problem being the spoke, like whatever that spoke is, it's a technician, it's an owner, it's a, you know you want to do HR, maybe that's your dream and you just happen to do it in an auto repair facility.

00:13:54.23
Josh Rainwater
you know Whatever that is, you know I don't think that that's a problem. It seems to me like the larger issue is when there is no resiliency built into the business where every answer, every solution, every fix has to go through you first. So, you know, ideally we are, you know, hiring people that do our job, but they're better at it than we are.

00:14:20.16
Josh Rainwater
And so it allows us to not have the pressure put on us to like be the, the, the car fixer man, the car answer man, the, you know, appointment builder, man, like, I'd rather have somebody in here that I can afford to pay well, that does, you know, that understands the culture and what we're trying to achieve here, believes in it and just does it better than I do it.

00:14:45.39
Josh Rainwater
um And unfortunately, like you, you have to build towards that or you got to go into probably a lot of debt had to be able to do that quickly. So do you have any thoughts or any experience with that?

00:15:03.85
Jimmy Purdy
Easy if I unmute it, huh? i've I've noticed that when it comes to

00:15:11.27
Jimmy Purdy
staff, the, the, you get what you pay for. i mean, bottom line.

00:15:15.53
Josh Rainwater
sure

00:15:15.92
Jimmy Purdy
So it's like, I've noticed, or I've had, I've had those situations where i've hired technicians that wanted 65 an hour. And I'm like, I can't afford that.

00:15:23.58
Josh Rainwater
and

00:15:25.80
Jimmy Purdy
That's wild. Right. And, and I'll give the credit to the coach I had at the time. She said, you know what? You can't afford not to. And I said, are talking about? She said, how, how far out are you right now? Oh, we're about two weeks.

00:15:38.63
Jimmy Purdy
Like everybody else in the world. Right. Like, Yeah, we got a backlog of work. Like we got, we got some work lined up. Okay. So if he came in and knocked all that out and you didn't have to do any of it, like, what is that worth it to you?

00:15:50.41
Jimmy Purdy
See, but in my mind, i look at it as the efficiency of the texts that I had, right? Or like some of the ones prior in the past, but they're putting four or five hours of work in a day and it's just not good enough.

00:16:02.80
Josh Rainwater
Sure.

00:16:03.21
Jimmy Purdy
What if he comes in and again he knocks out 12 hours work? What if he gets that whole two weeks worth of work done in one week? Like, well, then he's definitely worth 65 bucks an hour. You know what I mean?

00:16:12.43
Josh Rainwater
Absolutely.

00:16:13.32
Jimmy Purdy
and And I don't get any questions. Like he just gives it. And that that's what happened. We hired him. He was in for about three months. We had um some of our biggest months we've ever had. I mean, $120,000, you know, in sales.

00:16:24.19
Jimmy Purdy
And that was like something I've...

00:16:25.21
Josh Rainwater
Mm-hmm.

00:16:26.27
Jimmy Purdy
was like, there's no way we'd ever be able do it. And just, boom, like one after and after another, I'm like, holy crap. And then he was, you know, got to the point where he's standing around, we could bump the marketing up. It's like, we've never been caught up like that. And we never had sales like that.

00:16:38.65
Jimmy Purdy
Right. And like, at the end of the day, were talking about a, cause say it's about $15 an hour difference.

00:16:39.00
Josh Rainwater
Amen. Amen.

00:16:45.41
Jimmy Purdy
Right. Which is huge when you're sitting there looking at someone in the eyes and you're like, how much you want per hour? And it's like, 45 you have someone else that wants 65 right and you're like well yeah definitely i can only afford 45 like that's a he but it's like the same thing with upping your labor rate right it's like it's like 10 if you want to charge 10 more an hour and you're like damn i can't charge another 10 an hour but like if your average hpro is three hours it's only 30 bucks on that repair order so it's really not that big of a deal but our brains always like to mess with us like that right so my point is is like

00:17:09.75
Josh Rainwater
Right. Mm-hmm.

00:17:15.56
Jimmy Purdy
i I didn't even realize that was an option for me that would work and it doesn't happen until it happens. Right. So then I can make the investment and it was like, Holy crap. Like that, that worked.

00:17:25.73
Jimmy Purdy
And it's like, didn't just work, but it like blew my mind. I'm like, okay, so I want to pay everybody as much as I can. It like totally changed my interview process and everything.

00:17:32.67
Josh Rainwater
and right

00:17:34.00
Jimmy Purdy
Like when people come from an interview, it was like, first thing I asked, Hey, how much are you looking to make? And they tell me they want 30 bucks an hour. I'm like, yeah, this isn't for you. Like come in here and ask for 60 bucks an hour. That's what I want.

00:17:44.57
Josh Rainwater
Wow, yeah, yeah.

00:17:45.06
Jimmy Purdy
Go in here, ask me, ask that you want $130,000 year. Like, because if you ask for it, then I got to hold you accountable for it, right? Like, hey, you know, that's exactly who I'm looking for.

00:17:51.62
Josh Rainwater
Mm-hmm.

00:17:53.73
Jimmy Purdy
I'm looking for the guy that wants to make that kind of money, right? So these are the things I need you to do and do well.

00:17:56.76
Josh Rainwater
Mm-hmm.

00:17:58.20
Jimmy Purdy
Can you do that? And it's like, ah but you better be able to do it well if you're asking for that kind of money. So it just that mind shift was like so big for me to like to learn that. Right. And it was and luckily for me, it wasn't a loss because I know a lot of times guys will go through that and then they'll get bitter and jaded.

00:18:14.77
Jimmy Purdy
I'm never paying someone that much for that kind of money again. That guy didn't know anything. So I think we got lucky in the in the person that we ended up hiring in that sense. But um it was a big learning experience for me, for sure.

00:18:27.89
Josh Rainwater
Yeah, yeah. And that's, ah you know, you're you're right. It's about the financials. Like, does it make sense? You know, because if you get somebody who's underperforming, suddenly, you know, maybe you think you're getting a deal at $30 an hour, but maybe because they're not, you know,

00:18:44.92
Josh Rainwater
pushing out at least 100% efficiency, that $30 is now costing you $38. that doesn't include the comebacks and you know, the, uh, all the lost sales.

00:18:55.16
Jimmy Purdy
Or all the lost sales, you know, because now you're advisors. Or if you're answering the phone, you're like, this dude is not going to get done with these cars today. So I can get you in tomorrow. And they're like, okay, I'll bring it in.

00:19:05.58
Jimmy Purdy
Well, guess who doesn't show up the next day for their appointment? Because they're not waiting another day and you just lost. And who knows what that sale was, right?

00:19:11.32
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. yeah

00:19:12.10
Jimmy Purdy
it's It's all those unknowns, man, that we have no idea until you like get on the other side of it then you start pulling. like, holy crap, this was all here the whole time, huh? And I'm just the cheap-ass idiot that decided to like...

00:19:24.33
Jimmy Purdy
Step over a dollar to pick up a dime, right? Like, yeah, it's it's kind of wild.

00:19:27.02
Josh Rainwater
That's it, man. That's it.

00:19:29.53
Jimmy Purdy
it's It's a ride for sure.

00:19:32.67
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. what is ah What is your background? I mean, like, what is your, you know, experience, you know, coming from technician to shop owner? You know, you know what made you want to make that transition?

00:19:48.93
Jimmy Purdy
That's a deep question. I've been asked it so many times and I don't really have a good answer for it. I think it was just survival, I guess.

00:19:58.00
Josh Rainwater
Yeah.

00:19:58.02
Jimmy Purdy
I probably put it the best way. So, I mean, I started out of school, you know, and it's just like cars. i always had to fix that stuff like like the rest of us. We get broken stuff. We got to fix it. So I did a little school.

00:20:09.81
Jimmy Purdy
I was what's the one thing that everybody needs is smog. I'm in California, right?

00:20:14.95
Josh Rainwater
yeah

00:20:15.78
Jimmy Purdy
So was like being in California, smog technician, thats that's going to be what everybody needs. So I did that. Got my license. Worked well. But then, of course, I wanted to see, like, I didn't do any repairs. was like, so what what does it take to repair? So I learned that.

00:20:29.74
Jimmy Purdy
and then ah And then it kind of evolved from there. What's the next best thing in in an automobile, in the car that, like, everybody's going to need or like what puts you at the highest. Right. Cause I'm like 22, 23 years old and I'm like, I got to be the best.

00:20:42.33
Josh Rainwater
Oh,

00:20:43.03
Jimmy Purdy
Right. Like, so, so what's the hardest thing to learn? Well, rebuilding an automatic transmission, right? Like that's, that's gotta to be the thing that everybody stays away from.

00:20:49.35
Josh Rainwater
oh that's up there, yeah.

00:20:52.04
Jimmy Purdy
So I decided I'm going to do that. So that's, that's my background.

00:20:55.04
Josh Rainwater
Nice.

00:20:56.59
Jimmy Purdy
And then as with the shop was working at, it he just, it wasn't ran very well. And I knew there was a lot of like lost potential. And i was just back to that same mindset. Like I can do it better. Like, how do I make this?

00:21:10.08
Jimmy Purdy
How do I make this better? How do I do it better than he does? Right. And that's I offered, you know, offered to buy it from him. And it just kind of all evolved from there. And I just had no idea what I was getting myself into.

00:21:19.13
Josh Rainwater
Oh, wow. Okay.

00:21:23.41
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. Do we, do we ever, you just got to take that leap of faith. I mean, you know, maybe you have an idea.

00:21:27.62
Jimmy Purdy
and

00:21:28.02
Josh Rainwater
I know I didn't, I just thought I was going to just grab my wrenches and start fixing cars. And didn't even pay taxes for the first, uh, maybe 15 months.

00:21:39.29
Josh Rainwater
And i was like, yeah, I'm going to get to that one day. And, you know, Some shops never pay it for 15 years. So I'm happy my wife talked me into fixing that quickly.

00:21:45.50
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah, God.

00:21:49.37
Josh Rainwater
but ah But yeah, I mean, I just, I didn't have a plan in place. I had no business acumen. So yeah, so you, I don't, know absolutely.

00:21:56.63
Jimmy Purdy
Call it bliss blissful ignorance, you know? was looking back, was like, if I knew all the stuff it takes to do it now, I don't know if I would have done i don't know if I would do it, you know?

00:22:08.50
Jimmy Purdy
It's like, the more you learn about everything you need to do and things you need to put in place, it's like, s it's like a double-edged sword.

00:22:08.55
Josh Rainwater
Yeah.

00:22:14.73
Jimmy Purdy
It's like, yeah, it makes it easier because I can write it all out and I don't have to learn the hard way. But also, it's like, man, it's a lot. I don't know if I'd want to do it all over again. But the amount of learning you get, it's like, yeah I would not do it, if that makes sense.

00:22:23.68
Josh Rainwater
Yeah.

00:22:29.53
Josh Rainwater
Sure. No, that's a good point.

00:22:31.15
Jimmy Purdy
did you Did you have formal, were you like a dealership or you were doing independent and you and you decided to kind of branch out on your own?

00:22:38.30
Josh Rainwater
Well, so I started working for myself during the first year of COVID. So, you know, I'd always done side work and that was just kind of a thing. it was like, yeah, you know, you work for beer money on the weekends and, you know, help friends out or family or, you know, whatever it is. So I um i lost my job during COVID.

00:23:02.68
Josh Rainwater
And so I had to figure something out really quickly. And I'm like, well, you know, I'll, i you know, I've got some different directions I can go. So I'm going to just, you know, work on cars until I can get this figured out.

00:23:17.70
Josh Rainwater
And i was doing a mobile repair. So going out to people's homes and fixing their cars and their driveway or at their work parking lot. and it blew up so quickly.

00:23:31.70
Josh Rainwater
I was just not prepared for it. So, you know, I was scheduling, i mean, at peak, I was scheduling five weeks out at a time. i mean, just,

00:23:42.69
Josh Rainwater
an outrageous number and and so it just it wasn't scalable it wasn't sustainable but um i knew that i needed to to transition to like a brick and mortar there's just too much that you just can't do in the field so yeah that was uh that's that was my little bit of my backstory and how i wound up here you know in the last five years

00:24:05.88
Jimmy Purdy
So what's the ah what was the push for the transition away from the mobile and more of a brick and mortar?

00:24:14.11
Josh Rainwater
um and I could see that this you know this was not a scalable business. like or I couldn't figure out a way to do it as quickly as I needed to scale it to save my body from breaking down.

00:24:31.78
Josh Rainwater
And so you know what I was doing at the time was you know, a lot of the stuff out in the field that like, you know, shop coaches teach and, you know, like this was when DVI ah started getting like popular. I mean, that you know, obviously DVI has been around for years, but you know, the real push for like the 300% rule.

00:24:51.99
Josh Rainwater
Well, I was doing that in the field. So like I'm going out to a car, they have an oil leak and I'm in their driveway with, you know, two floor jacks lifting their car up to get the wheels off the ground to inspect the brakes and the tires.

00:25:05.75
Josh Rainwater
And,

00:25:05.92
Jimmy Purdy
Thank you.

00:25:07.04
Josh Rainwater
um you know, doing that sort of stuff, it just, I realized really quickly that this was not going to be like something that easily transferred from, you know, the the brick and mortar into the field.

00:25:22.43
Josh Rainwater
And, you know, there was just logistically so many things that, you know, I couldn't do or I had to to really prep around. I mean, even things like, you know, I need to make sure that I've got you know, all my batteries charged up because, you know, um ah the vehicle i was driving, I really didn't have like and ah an air compressor.

00:25:37.86
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah.

00:25:42.48
Josh Rainwater
So I'm having to be creative with some of the stuff I'm doing. And, you know, it really just, it just logistically got to be too much. And, you know, at the time I was the technician that I i actually hired to work with me.

00:25:57.63
Josh Rainwater
Now I was looking to hire him to like, you know, put him in a truck and do a mobile thing as well. And i I at that point, I knew I'm like, I cannot ask him to do this.

00:26:10.05
Josh Rainwater
If I'm not willing to continue doing this, I don't want to see him in a position that I'm going to be in really shortly if I continue. So I just had to you know make that move away. And thankfully, it was good timing and things lined up and ended up where I'm at now.

00:26:27.30
Jimmy Purdy
That's awesome. Yeah, I guess it just depends on what you what you really want to do. But like if if you wanted to stay mobile, you could have you know invested in the truck. And I have a lot of conversations with guys that decide to be mobile instead of going brick and mortar.

00:26:42.17
Jimmy Purdy
And i kind of understand that. Right. Like. It's. It's got, it's probably got its perks. I'm sure like, like anything else, like you have certain things that are going to be a little bit cheaper.

00:26:50.95
Josh Rainwater
Definitely.

00:26:54.39
Jimmy Purdy
Obviously you don't have like the same overhead, but I don't know. Then you gotta have a truck and you gotta have the maintenance on your vehicle. And then like you said, you gotta have all your tools. Right. And like, make sure you don't forget.

00:27:04.89
Jimmy Purdy
Like, that's something I couldn't do. Like, I'm like the king of forgetting something.

00:27:06.93
Josh Rainwater
Yeah.

00:27:08.66
Jimmy Purdy
Right. And then I'm like, Oh my God, I'm so, and it's like, I'm not like cool with it.

00:27:09.48
Josh Rainwater
Yeah.

00:27:11.86
Jimmy Purdy
Right. i'm Like I'm so freaking frustrated right now. And then you just try to like get this job done with like the tool that you, there's nothing right for it.

00:27:14.74
Josh Rainwater
Mm-hmm.

00:27:19.14
Jimmy Purdy
Right. And you're just like, cause you're so hardheaded. Like I'm not going to go, I'm not driving all the way back home to get like, so then it takes you twice as long as it should.

00:27:24.92
Josh Rainwater
No.

00:27:27.96
Jimmy Purdy
so it's like, I just, I could never do it.

00:27:31.02
Josh Rainwater
Yeah, I've got so many just parts store wrenches that i've had to buy two three and four times because i didn't have them with me so i'm like yeah i'll just go buy it it's cheaper to buy it here than it is drive all the way home because you got to think too you know you're out in the field you got all these tools scattered out or you got them at least out of the truck so you can't just leave them there so you got to pack them all back up and the door still has to close at the end so you can drive away and you know i had a canopy, big pop-up 10x10 that I was using. and

00:28:04.47
Josh Rainwater
So you've got to make sure that's secure so the wind doesn't catch it and take it into the neighbors. you so like you know That sort of stuff. So it was just it's a lot to consider.

00:28:16.48
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah, it's easy to pull the doors down at the end of the day. You know, cost a little bit more money that way, but, you know.

00:28:24.41
Josh Rainwater
yeah yeah it's a trade-off, but I wouldn't go back.

00:28:25.51
Jimmy Purdy
so what what So what was the ah what was the driving force behind getting the accountant and the CPA right away? Because I think that's another loss that a lot of guys forget about.

00:28:32.91
Josh Rainwater
Yeah.

00:28:36.24
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. So for me, it, once my wife had convinced me that, you know, Hey, you need to be staying on top of this. Like we can't push this off any longer.

00:28:47.12
Josh Rainwater
um and you know, one of the the earliest examples of like, or I guess um things that happened was I was trying to do my own taxes and,

00:29:00.78
Josh Rainwater
the state of Kentucky does not make it easy to figure this stuff out on your own. And so what I did was i had estimated the amount of tax that I thought that I was, you know, paying and, you know, wrote a check out, popped it in the mail, um didn't know that I had sent it to the wrong address.

00:29:06.91
Jimmy Purdy
Thank you.

00:29:21.62
Josh Rainwater
So they ended up cashing it anyway and did not credit it to my account. So I just basically wrote them a check for, money that I will never see again. They don't know what happened.

00:29:33.48
Josh Rainwater
ah And at that point it was like, okay, I can't do this by myself. So my options are, you know, hiring somebody cheap that's going to, you know, help bandaid this for me and kind of be a crutch, ah you know, to get me where I need to be and get the business back on the right route or just, you know,

00:29:58.42
Josh Rainwater
pay them whatever they're asking, have them handle it all for the most part. And then, you know, that money, I can go spend my time much more efficiently just doing what I do and I'll let them do what they do.

00:30:11.71
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah, that's a smart move. It's definitely a lot more involved than I think anybody realizes. I've never heard of ah them cashing something. and and then ah we get We get a lot of stuff back where where're we're getting ah ah something in the mail says, you owe X amount. And you're like, what are you talking about?

00:30:31.36
Jimmy Purdy
And it's from like two years ago.

00:30:31.43
Josh Rainwater
Right.

00:30:32.56
Jimmy Purdy
Like, you owe $1,500.

00:30:33.28
Josh Rainwater
Mm-hmm.

00:30:33.76
Jimmy Purdy
Like, what? For what? this is all and then um like And then you try to call the IRS.

00:30:39.22
Josh Rainwater
Ooh.

00:30:40.22
Jimmy Purdy
that's That's my...

00:30:40.46
Josh Rainwater
Yeah, I haven't had a call for the IRS yet.

00:30:43.52
Jimmy Purdy
No.

00:30:44.14
Josh Rainwater
um

00:30:44.48
Jimmy Purdy
Oh, you're missing out.

00:30:44.59
Josh Rainwater
imagine it's wonderful.

00:30:45.95
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah. you think insurance You think insurance companies are fun to deal with?

00:30:50.03
Josh Rainwater
Ooh, yeah.

00:30:52.37
Jimmy Purdy
It's just like you wait on the phone for 45 minutes on hold, like just to talk to somebody that has no idea what they're talking about. And then they been then they're like, oh, let me get a supervisor. And then you got wait another 30 minutes and you're like, ah and nobody.

00:31:02.14
Josh Rainwater
and

00:31:05.53
Jimmy Purdy
And it's just like, I think they do it on purpose. So you just finally hang up and he's over it.

00:31:11.48
Jimmy Purdy
And then you got yeah, getting a CPA was a big one for us too.

00:31:12.41
Josh Rainwater
That's funny.

00:31:16.63
Jimmy Purdy
was like, learn that the hard way, especially cause it's not just getting one, but getting one that knows what they're doing.

00:31:17.30
Josh Rainwater
Mm-hmm.

00:31:23.53
Jimmy Purdy
We had one that I supposedly knew and it was like $20,000 a quarter in taxes that we owed. I'm like, this, this can't be right.

00:31:30.93
Josh Rainwater
and

00:31:31.10
Jimmy Purdy
This is like, and this was like six years ago.

00:31:31.68
Josh Rainwater
and Okay.

00:31:34.57
Jimmy Purdy
I'm like, we don't even like what?

00:31:34.98
Josh Rainwater
Okay.

00:31:36.99
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah. We're doing like $500,000 or $600,000 a year, and you're going to tell me we owe $20,000 every quarter? like I don't think so.

00:31:43.57
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. Yeah.

00:31:44.36
Jimmy Purdy
That does not sound right.

00:31:46.00
Josh Rainwater
Yeah.

00:31:46.12
Jimmy Purdy
So getting someone that was like that knew the rules. And we eventually went S-Corp, which made a big deal too to go to you know get getting more into the corporate level.

00:31:50.78
Josh Rainwater
and

00:31:56.45
Jimmy Purdy
But then there's obviously levels of that too.

00:31:57.00
Josh Rainwater
yeah

00:31:58.45
Jimmy Purdy
But like all that stuff just gets way over our head. like I don't have time to learn how to be a CPA. That's just' the craziest thing in the world.

00:32:06.07
Josh Rainwater
Yeah, yeah. will already have a lot of hats to wear anyway. And like, that's, I mean, that's its own, you know, whole separate profession. Like who, you know, who wants to go and just try to understand 80% of what a CPA knows that they went to school for, you know, four years for.

00:32:25.60
Josh Rainwater
And I'm trying to learn it in, what, a month, of two months to get caught up?

00:32:28.90
Jimmy Purdy
on the On the fly.

00:32:30.01
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. On the fly.

00:32:31.21
Jimmy Purdy
and and And with automotive, because supposedly automotive is like one of the harder ones to like decipher and like know what you can can and can't write off and all that stuff.

00:32:31.35
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. Yeah.

00:32:35.97
Josh Rainwater
Okay. Yeah.

00:32:39.71
Jimmy Purdy
i mean but got you know Like I said, there's some there's people that open a shop and that's their superpower. like they They're CPA and now they're a business owner and they're an auto shop owner.

00:32:45.71
Josh Rainwater
and

00:32:46.75
Jimmy Purdy
like Well, then do that. Do that, because that's that's what you know in a business. So put yourself in the business where yeah it makes the most sense. you know i get that a lot. Like... Oh, just do your own books. They're easy. Like, I don't want to do that.

00:33:01.05
Jimmy Purdy
I don't, I don't enjoy it.

00:33:01.49
Josh Rainwater
yeah

00:33:03.31
Jimmy Purdy
Why would I enjoy sweeping the floors? Like if if, if I could like be the custodian here, that'd be fantastic. That's the job I want.

00:33:11.55
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. Yeah. Low responsibility.

00:33:14.18
Jimmy Purdy
That's the easiest one.

00:33:15.63
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. Yeah. And think about it this way from a financial aspect, you know, you spend maybe, you know, what, five hours a week doing your own books, entering receipts and, you know, getting, you know, the financials just in order, not even planning. We're just talking about getting the numbers, you know, to balance out.

00:33:37.52
Josh Rainwater
to get your, you know, get it like a P&L together. You know, you spend five, six hours a week on that. And, you know, how much work would you have to do? you know, how much money could you make in that five to six hours every week? I mean, you know, for me, it's it's enough to pay for the CPA to do it.

00:33:57.05
Josh Rainwater
And I don't have the stress. And I can always, you know, fall back on them for the things that I just cannot do.

00:33:58.57
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah.

00:34:03.23
Josh Rainwater
I mean, I cannot answer a question about legality of, of this deduction or, you know, where do I find this form? I would much rather just pay somebody who has that expertise and there's, you know, at least another set of eyes on the books that, you know, they can help make these calls. And it's not one more thing on my shoulders to have to, you know, be the sole, you know, carrier of this burden.

00:34:30.99
Jimmy Purdy
Right.

00:34:31.21
Josh Rainwater
So, yeah.

00:34:32.03
Jimmy Purdy
No, absolutely. Yeah. It's another one of those things you get what you pay for, you know?

00:34:36.25
Josh Rainwater
Absolutely.

00:34:36.77
Jimmy Purdy
and I mean, and you, yeah, you said like, and you can work enough to pay for them, but like, honestly, if they are good at what they're doing, like they should be saving you enough in taxes to pay for themselves.

00:34:47.41
Jimmy Purdy
Like that's,

00:34:48.31
Josh Rainwater
and makes sense.

00:34:48.95
Jimmy Purdy
i've I've found that with CPAs. I mean, we we get a little bit more than we probably need because we we get them to build us a P&L and l we get them to do a lot of other stuff. So it's kind of an kind of an expense.

00:35:00.17
Jimmy Purdy
But it's one of those things that like shoves the numbers in my face every month, you know? And I feel like that's another important thing because it's like you, I always played it on the back foot, right? Like you wait two or three months and you look and you're like, oh, there's not a lot of money in the account. And you're looking through, then you do the percentages and you're like, why is everything down?

00:35:17.13
Jimmy Purdy
And I mean, we're, we're now we're going to the weekly, like it's time to start doing this weekly, like setting up a weekly goal, weekly sales goal, weekly percentages.

00:35:22.18
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. Yeah.

00:35:24.51
Jimmy Purdy
And like, cause even just going down to monthly and like starting to like every month, look at them that started moving the needle in the right direction.

00:35:25.77
Josh Rainwater
yeah

00:35:30.99
Jimmy Purdy
It's like, and just constantly shoving these things in my face. Cause it's, it's like anything else. Like you, you learn it and I understand it. And then like 30 days goes by and my ADD and and everything else, like just like, okay, dejected.

00:35:45.02
Jimmy Purdy
I'm going to forget about all that. And bring in new information.

00:35:48.19
Josh Rainwater
and

00:35:48.71
Jimmy Purdy
There's too much stuff going on in there. And then I look at the numbers. I'm like, wait a second. What exactly was that again? Right. And it's like and it's that's like the frustrating part. Then you're like, then you got to go read back and research. You spend all this time reiterating. OK, now I remember what that is.

00:36:02.78
Jimmy Purdy
you know? So it's like seeing it every month, got me to like start seeing it.

00:36:03.05
Josh Rainwater
Mm-hmm.

00:36:05.77
Jimmy Purdy
And I was like, okay, if we start doing a weekly, that'd probably make it even better. Cause then I can really start seeing like in real time, like where our parts margin should be, our GP number should be and like, and like start pushing that buck a little bit.

00:36:16.90
Jimmy Purdy
Cause all at first was like, I remember when we did our first ah evaluation, I was just like, oh yeah, we're going have the best numbers. Like, and I had no idea what any of it meant. Right.

00:36:27.59
Jimmy Purdy
I just was like, so egotistical. i like, oh yeah, we're definitely gonna have the best numbers in the group. Like, By like no means at all.

00:36:33.36
Josh Rainwater
Yeah.

00:36:34.17
Jimmy Purdy
I just like thought it was going magical. like oh They're just going to be so impressive. Like, wow, how'd you even do this? You know what I mean? like You're doing so well. No, it didn't go like that. Not at all. It was very, very disappointing. like

00:36:45.89
Josh Rainwater
ah

00:36:46.74
Jimmy Purdy
You know what I mean?

00:36:47.00
Josh Rainwater
Was it crickets or was it actual, ooh, you got something going on?

00:36:47.26
Jimmy Purdy
like No, it was just like... and yeah you got all Yeah, exactly.

00:36:51.81
Josh Rainwater
Hmm?

00:36:53.26
Jimmy Purdy
It was that one, the second one. like not They're not like mad. They're just depressed or... or

00:37:01.08
Jimmy Purdy
It's not that I'm mad. I'm disappointed. that was that was the yeah was like Everything was so bad.

00:37:03.67
Josh Rainwater
Yeah.

00:37:05.58
Jimmy Purdy
The parts was like 30% margin on the parts. Our net was like 4%. it was It was bad. it was like, oh, man. No wonder why we have no money in the account. i don't know why I thought it was better than that, but...

00:37:19.88
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. Well, you know, I don't know. It's, I think a lot of it has to do with, you know, like when I started, you know, I didn't, I didn't, and I didn't even know how to really, didn't know what,

00:37:33.63
Josh Rainwater
financials to be judging what KPIs to be looking at.

00:37:36.23
Jimmy Purdy
Exactly. Oh,

00:37:36.72
Josh Rainwater
And here, here, here's how ignorant I was. I didn't even consider that you could plan out your profit. That's how, that's how far away, like how, how, dude.

00:37:48.35
Jimmy Purdy
I'm right there with you, man. Like i was like, how do you do that? That's impossible. How do you do that?

00:37:53.10
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. I mean, I didn't, I didn't know anything about it. I just thought, you know, you just kind of price it this way and that way. And, you know, you go off of more of a gut feeling and, you know, emotion and does this sound like it's too expensive? Does it sound like it's in line?

00:38:09.34
Josh Rainwater
And then you just do that enough times and you'll eventually make money and then you will be a successful business. And ah did that for probably two solid years, at least, maybe two and a half.

00:38:20.72
Josh Rainwater
So once I started actually getting around people that were able to speak into, you know, some of those areas of like, okay,

00:38:32.96
Josh Rainwater
this is something that you can actually control. You can you know plan your profit so that you you know so that you actually know where your money is going and you can you know be able to scale this a little bit. And once I started you know digging into the numbers and I'm like, okay, there's something here.

00:38:52.40
Josh Rainwater
And it was like ah an area that I had no idea about like you know running a business and it's just been drinking from a fire hose since then.

00:39:02.84
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah, that's a good way to put it. I looked at it as like a like watching a watching a plant grow.

00:39:10.51
Josh Rainwater
Yeah.

00:39:11.01
Jimmy Purdy
you know It's like like my garden. i just I just plant the stuff. I put the waters on a timer. i walk away. I come back in a couple months and like stuff's growing. i'm like, right on. And just thought it was the same thing.

00:39:19.58
Josh Rainwater
Yeah.

00:39:21.15
Jimmy Purdy
You know he just just you know do the thing and and eventually it'll just start magically making money. It doesn't work that way. It's like the plant you got to watch every day. Cause you imagine watching your, like your tomato plant, like every single day, just watching it grow.

00:39:34.89
Jimmy Purdy
It wouldn't look like anything, you know?

00:39:35.32
Josh Rainwater
and

00:39:36.27
Jimmy Purdy
And I feel like that's the best like trans, like translation into business growth.

00:39:36.52
Josh Rainwater
yeah

00:39:40.77
Jimmy Purdy
It's like, you have to watch it grow or it will not grow. But like the, uh, act of watching it makes it look like it is not growing. You know what i mean? And everybody else around you looks like, Oh, look, you got tomatoes growing.

00:39:49.66
Josh Rainwater
Yeah, absolutely. That's a good analogy.

00:39:51.82
Jimmy Purdy
Like, Oh, I do. Don't I? And like, it's just like, cause you've been watching it every day. It's like, it looks the same to me.

00:39:59.61
Josh Rainwater
That's a good analogy, yeah.

00:40:01.10
Jimmy Purdy
it's it's It's kind of wild like that. you know It's funny you say that, but I think I've talked to a lot of people and that's like the going trend. that's like Typically, you don't know what you don't know. I think a lot of people get embarrassed by it and I don't think i don't think that's what it's supposed to be.

00:40:16.71
Jimmy Purdy
i mean

00:40:17.02
Josh Rainwater
No.

00:40:17.64
Jimmy Purdy
The idea is to is to open that fire hose. really feel bad for people like that open that hydrant and then they get embarrassed and upset and they shut it.

00:40:27.74
Josh Rainwater
Yeah.

00:40:27.82
Jimmy Purdy
man, what are you doing?

00:40:27.84
Josh Rainwater
No.

00:40:29.25
Jimmy Purdy
You know, like you should want the information, you know, like I've spent a lot of money gaining information and knowledge. And it's like when a lot of that stuff is like brought to you for free or no cost.

00:40:41.01
Jimmy Purdy
And a lot of guys have the ego, like, oh I don't need to know about that. I don't need to hear that.

00:40:44.48
Josh Rainwater
yeah

00:40:45.06
Jimmy Purdy
I'm doing a mile. Like what? Like the, the knowledge is like, You can't even put a number on it, right? Like it's, it's priceless.

00:40:52.74
Josh Rainwater
no

00:40:54.53
Jimmy Purdy
That's what it is. and And it's kind of sad when people, especially shop owners, they decided that they know a better way, but they're going to have the special recipe that no one's ever thought of before.

00:41:05.99
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. Yeah.

00:41:07.22
Jimmy Purdy
no I've thought of that. and I definitely thought of like, I had the secret, like,

00:41:09.74
Josh Rainwater
yeah

00:41:11.94
Jimmy Purdy
I have the way I do it like this. I'm to be the only one that's going be able make it like that.

00:41:15.25
Josh Rainwater
and

00:41:15.55
Jimmy Purdy
You know, and I've had coaches and people tell me like, I've never seen anybody do seen anybody do it like that. And it actually work. And I'm like, game on. Right. And it's like, what a waste of time.

00:41:26.28
Josh Rainwater
yeah

00:41:27.04
Jimmy Purdy
Just drop back and do the stuff that works, man.

00:41:29.96
Josh Rainwater
Absolutely. Yeah, you can you can still impress your clients and you can still do a good job and you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

00:41:39.25
Jimmy Purdy
Absolutely.

00:41:39.31
Josh Rainwater
You know, and it's, and it's um you know, one of my, I would consider it probably my, not really my introduction into a shop, but one of the most pivotal pivotable pivotal ah shop um experiences was working for an independent

00:41:39.37
Jimmy Purdy
Absolutely.

00:41:59.57
Josh Rainwater
shop. It was a husband and wife that owned it. And ah didn't, you know, of course I i knew less then than I, about business ownership than I did, even when I decided to start my own, but just seeing them struggle and go through, you know, week after week. And, you know, I would hear stories like, Oh yeah, well, we're not, we're not getting a check this month because something went wrong or You know, they, they just, they could not build any sort of like, you know, lasting profit in their business.

00:42:35.20
Josh Rainwater
And ah saw them working extremely hard and, you know, pouring their, their life into this, but just somehow couldn't turn it around. But also, you know, I never saw them seeking after the knowledge.

00:42:45.86
Josh Rainwater
I never saw them like trying something new, you know, and and I think the new is scary for a lot of people, you know, it's the unknown, you know, especially if you're going to a coach, you're,

00:42:47.34
Jimmy Purdy
Mm-hmm.

00:42:56.10
Josh Rainwater
handing over this thing, you're saying, okay, I'm giving this to you. Like I'm trusting this baby with you that you're going to help nurture it and feed it and grow it. And I, and you know, a lot of shop owners and myself included in this, you know, it's hard to give up that control sometimes, you know, it's hard to just say, yeah I need help.

00:43:17.52
Josh Rainwater
I can't manifest this. I can't just work harder. I can't work more hours and get this vision to, to, you know, to be realized. And after, you know, seeing them struggle and, and, you know, go through everything that they went through and not really make money and definitely not enjoying it. They were just so bitter day after day.

00:43:40.67
Josh Rainwater
Um, one of the saddest things is, you know, at my shop, you know, the, the wife, um, showed up one day and was saying, Hey, we're closing up the business. We're closing up shop. We're auctioning off everything.

00:43:54.07
Josh Rainwater
you know, lifts and tools and, you know, equipment. And, you know, i was asking like, hey, you know, what what sort of stuff do you have? And she was going through it, just explaining what they're trying to get rid of. And we're talking 15-year-old scan tools and worn out old battery testers and old, you know, fluid service machines, you know, 25-year-old hoist.

00:44:23.25
Josh Rainwater
I mean, it's just there was nothing of value built into the business. And at that point, I realized like I this can't be me. Like I refuse to allow this to be my story in the next 25 years.

00:44:37.64
Josh Rainwater
So how do I how do I not do that? How do I build some value into what I do beyond just, you know, turning nuts and bolts?

00:44:50.15
Jimmy Purdy
That's so true. That is such a, yeah, that's like everywhere. That story, you know, it's, it's, it's something I hear a lot.

00:44:57.16
Josh Rainwater
Everywhere. Yeah.

00:44:59.75
Jimmy Purdy
I mean, I, it's kind of where I went from too, you know, when I took over, um, it was, you know, 45 years of of his life and i gave him a check for $40,000, you know?

00:45:11.55
Josh Rainwater
yeah

00:45:12.57
Jimmy Purdy
you know um Yeah, I mean, it's it's wild. I never really stepped back and looked at it that way because at the time I'm just trying to like make the deal done, right? But it takes time to do it on your own and start realizing the gravity of that situation, like what you just explained.

00:45:22.71
Josh Rainwater
yeah

00:45:28.65
Jimmy Purdy
It hits hard, right? it's hard right Because...

00:45:33.53
Jimmy Purdy
you don't understand it until you they live through it. Right. And like, I haven't, like I have, I don't have 40 years of owning a business. Right. Or i don't know if it's owning a business, being ran by a business, I guess is a better way to put it.

00:45:46.17
Josh Rainwater
Sure. Yeah.

00:45:46.72
Jimmy Purdy
but but at the end of that, like, yeah, the idea is like, it's, that's your retirement. Like, what do you do after that? you don't go get a job at another dealership or another repair shop. Like you're, you're kind of, you're, that's it.

00:45:58.31
Jimmy Purdy
That's the end of the road. And, and it's like to not have something of sustenance or value, like, man, what were you doing this whole time?

00:46:00.10
Josh Rainwater
yeah

00:46:06.70
Jimmy Purdy
hope you're having a good time at least, but to like, to, but to like not also not be having a good time.

00:46:10.46
Josh Rainwater
Yeah, yeah.

00:46:13.99
Jimmy Purdy
And like that, Oh man.

00:46:16.15
Josh Rainwater
It seems like a life wasted. and And, ah you know, I see those those dreams that, like, man, it had so much fuel. I mean, I'm sure the day that that that couple put the key in the door, like, there was nothing that was going to stop them. Like, they had it, you know, planned out. And, you know, they had they had the game plan of what, you know, how it's going to go, where you're going to you know, put the equipment and the desk and, you know, how we're going to treat our customers better than this place that we came from. And, you know, it's all mapped out.

00:46:49.30
Jimmy Purdy
men

00:46:49.43
Josh Rainwater
And then the this the gradual slide down the hill, and it's so gradual, you just don't even know, you know, that it is, ah ah you're you know, a grade.

00:47:01.95
Josh Rainwater
And eventually, you know, after, you know, 25 years, and you don't have anything to show for it, and your body's worn out and you're just, you know, you can't, like you said, you can't go work for another shop. I mean, it's just, you know, what are, you know, if you can even get a job being, you know, hired by another shop, you know, are you going to want to work for somebody after being your own boss for 25 years? So yeah, I, I just, um, I see it as a cautionary tale and it's, it's true for a lot of shops in my area.

00:47:34.61
Josh Rainwater
I see a lot of shops. It's like, Oh wow, that old, Service station has a lot of potential. It's a great location. Unfortunately, it's running to the ground at this point. and the people that are there just, you know, they look miserable.

00:47:49.12
Josh Rainwater
You know, they look like they're just like, you know, it's pulling teeth to get them to go to work every day. Like I see the same people out front and it's like, man, what are you doing?

00:47:56.50
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah.

00:47:59.99
Jimmy Purdy
What are you doing? just showing up every day.

00:48:02.49
Josh Rainwater
Mm-hmm.

00:48:02.58
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah, I'll say too on the on the subject of coaching, it was it's definitely not handing over anything.

00:48:07.25
Josh Rainwater
Thank you.

00:48:08.31
Jimmy Purdy
um And I looked at it that way too, but I've i've actually realized that it's a lot less than that. In fact, it's the biggest problem is the person that's seeking the coaching.

00:48:22.39
Jimmy Purdy
because they're just not listening. And, and, and like, it goes, it kind of circles back to like the whole, how we had started this whole conversation. It's like learning that and having that epiphany, like,

00:48:33.60
Jimmy Purdy
I know what the right answers are, right? Like I don't need, i mean, that sounds a little egotistical, but I'll just keep rolling with it anyway. Like I don't need to know the answers like, and, and, and you probably do too. Like we all do. Like everyone listening is like, we know what the right thing to do is.

00:48:48.76
Jimmy Purdy
We know what the answer is We know we have an employee that's like not doing the right thing.

00:48:49.47
Josh Rainwater
yeah yeah yeah

00:48:52.33
Jimmy Purdy
We know it's time to have a conversation with them or maybe get rid of them. Like, We all have that gut instinct. Like we know what the right answer is. Sometimes you need validation to be told that, yeah, that's what you should be doing.

00:49:03.87
Jimmy Purdy
Sometimes you need to see validation of your poor decisions. Like you're just, like the stuff they post online on Facebook on the, on these, in these groups. It's like, they know they did the wrong thing, but they're just hoping there's one other jackal that's willing to let's say you did good.

00:49:14.23
Josh Rainwater
yeah

00:49:17.53
Jimmy Purdy
Right.

00:49:18.18
Josh Rainwater
yeah yeah

00:49:18.52
Jimmy Purdy
um and that's what it is too. But, um, I mean, I've never had anybody as a coach come into the business and like do anything for me. Right.

00:49:28.55
Josh Rainwater
Sure.

00:49:28.63
Jimmy Purdy
It's just, and, and they don't take it, do anything or tell you to do one. Like at the end of the day, you get off the call, you get off the zoom call, whatever it is like, it's your, it's your call. What, what next decision you want to make. And I think that's where the, that's where the disconnect lies. And I think, um, some people maybe take it for pervade them, pervade them and just like,

00:49:47.26
Jimmy Purdy
run with it and then all of a sudden their business is something that they don't want anymore it's like well you got to critically think man like if that doesn't align with your values like then don't do what the coach is telling you to do and get another different coach you know what i mean like you don't but then also like if they're telling you this good advice that you're paying for it

00:49:47.36
Josh Rainwater
yeah

00:49:57.31
Josh Rainwater
sure

00:50:02.68
Jimmy Purdy
go freaking do it.

00:50:04.73
Josh Rainwater
Yeah, yeah.

00:50:05.53
Jimmy Purdy
Like take the damn advice and do what you're supposed to do. But you know, it's like that double-edged sword. It works both ways. And it's like, some guys will just run with it. And just all of a sudden it's like, you have some guy that's running your shop?

00:50:17.46
Jimmy Purdy
That's running it behind the scenes. That's talks to you once a month. And you're listening to every single thing he says. Like, that's kind of wild. Like that's, yeah that's, that's not what you want to do.

00:50:28.57
Jimmy Purdy
Cause you're going be in a position where you're like, nobody knows what the hell's going on anymore.

00:50:29.10
Josh Rainwater
ah exactly

00:50:33.48
Jimmy Purdy
So I don't know. It's an interesting topic, but I've, i've that that is one of the polarizing things. And until it's like, it's kind of like therapy, like until you actually do therapy, like you don't realize it's like how much is needed a, and then be like, it's not like someone coddling you, right?

00:50:48.13
Jimmy Purdy
Like, it's not like something to be ah like ashamed of.

00:50:48.49
Josh Rainwater
Exactly.

00:50:50.97
Jimmy Purdy
It's like, it's just like, I don't know. What's another word for therapy? It's like coaching.

00:50:58.12
Josh Rainwater
Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Or a coach. Yeah. It's like, it's interesting.

00:51:01.69
Jimmy Purdy
A life coach.

00:51:03.37
Josh Rainwater
It's like you knew the answer all along. Like the answer was inside of me.

00:51:05.81
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah.

00:51:07.39
Josh Rainwater
I knew it was there. This person didn't give me any like new revelation. it was just, I just needed to, uh, to hear about In fact, like it reminds me, um,

00:51:18.63
Josh Rainwater
Earlier today, i was asking a technician, I was like, hey, where did I, you know, where did I put that jump pack? And I said, don't answer that. I know where it's at. Like, you know, it just came to me. Like, it's just like, I couldn't find it. I looked everywhere for it.

00:51:31.20
Josh Rainwater
And the fact that I just asked him, hey, where is this, you know, where is this tool at? It came in that moment. And it's like, I knew where it was. I just had to ask.

00:51:41.86
Josh Rainwater
And it's like, I feel like it, you know, very similar to maybe coaching. It's like, I know what the answer is.

00:51:47.51
Jimmy Purdy
Mm-hmm.

00:51:47.94
Josh Rainwater
I just need to ask it or I need to just have that reflected back at me and then and then I'll take the answer and and you know implement it

00:51:59.18
Jimmy Purdy
Or maybe you didn't know at all. and

00:52:02.03
Josh Rainwater
it. Or that too, yeah.

00:52:02.45
Jimmy Purdy
And that happens too.

00:52:02.80
Josh Rainwater
or Sure, yeah. There's definitely blind spots in the business.

00:52:05.32
Jimmy Purdy
but But you wouldn't know unless you asked. You wouldn't know the difference unless you actually asked.

00:52:08.78
Josh Rainwater
That's true.

00:52:10.53
Jimmy Purdy
And that's where the problem is too. That's the guy that sat down there for 20 years and auctioned all the stuff off because he just didn't ask. like And it's amazing just asking a question how like,

00:52:18.04
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. Yeah.

00:52:20.34
Jimmy Purdy
that could have changed everything for him or maybe not. Maybe it just wasn't destined to be, but I doubt that, you know, like it's, I think we see a lot of in the industry where, you know, especially even with technicians, right?

00:52:33.97
Jimmy Purdy
Like it's, it's the same thing.

00:52:34.09
Josh Rainwater
yeah

00:52:36.77
Jimmy Purdy
They're willing ask and do the research and, and, and be curious about it. It just makes them a better technician. And he applies that to like everything, right?

00:52:44.35
Josh Rainwater
yeah Oh, absolutely. You know, having curiosity, just saying, hey, is, you know, let me let me just test this. If this is so correct, if this is the right answer, let me, you know, let me straw man this and see how this argument plays out.

00:53:03.14
Josh Rainwater
If there is another point of view and just that willingness to be open to other possibilities. You know, sometimes it means, yeah, this is the right way because I have played this scenario out and.

00:53:16.00
Josh Rainwater
every road, you know, goes to Rome and my Rome is, you know, this thing that I'm already doing. So I know it's the right thing, but, you know, you have to have some curiosity and you have to, you know, be willing to be wrong.

00:53:31.64
Josh Rainwater
You know, do you, maybe that's an issue where, you know, us as technicians, you know, there's such a ah pressure put on us to, be right all the time. Can't be wrong. Can't misdiagnose.

00:53:46.52
Josh Rainwater
Has to be, you know, no, no margin for error. And I think for me, at least it's translated into the business and a larger, you know, point of view that I have to get it right.

00:53:57.18
Jimmy Purdy
Oh, 100%. one hundred percent

00:54:00.46
Josh Rainwater
Like I have to, I have to what I'm doing, it has to be right. You know, there can't be any room for for learning because, you know, if I get it wrong, that's failure. And, you know, I just don't think that's helpful. It's very short sighted and it lacks grace. And it just it's not a it's I don't know. It's just I feel like if I'm that way with myself, I'm going to be that way with everybody else that's around me.

00:54:25.63
Josh Rainwater
You know, so you got to you got to extend yourself grace so that you can, you know, show it to other people.

00:54:32.16
Jimmy Purdy
That's a good way to put it. Mindset. But yeah, you can't forgive others until you forgive yourself, I guess they say. Or, you know, and and on and on that, it's like the the failure of like, if you misdiagnose the car and you're the shop owner, then then all of a sudden, you don't know how to fix a car.

00:54:38.93
Josh Rainwater
Yeah, yeah, similar. Mm-hmm.

00:54:50.04
Jimmy Purdy
then you don't know how to run a business. And then they're going to tell their friends and all their friends are going to tell their friends. And then the business is going to fail and everything's going to fail. And everything's like, your brain just like puts all these pieces together of like, And, and like 99% of the time you go have the conversation on a misdiagnosis or something goes sideways or the first time a technician wrecks a car totals a car.

00:55:10.49
Jimmy Purdy
It's like, it's like the empathy. They like, Oh man, is everything okay? Like, I didn't even think you're going to ask me if everything's okay.

00:55:14.93
Josh Rainwater
Yeah.

00:55:16.06
Jimmy Purdy
I just thought you were going to be mad that you're going to mad and write me a bad Yelp review.

00:55:18.03
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. Like I've already, I'm already punished myself.

00:55:22.07
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah. Yeah.

00:55:22.52
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. Oh yeah. For sure. On that one.

00:55:24.69
Jimmy Purdy
yeah It's like, but then it doesn't like, and it doesn't go that way.

00:55:25.34
Josh Rainwater
Yeah.

00:55:28.03
Jimmy Purdy
It's like you start realizing the bad reviews are just usually garbage anyway. And like when actually bad things happen, most people are pretty empathetic about it and actually have your back. And then you step up to the plate and say, I screwed up, but I fixed it for you.

00:55:38.90
Jimmy Purdy
And then they're a lifetime customer. It's like, holy crap, it works totally backwards from what my brain was telling me.

00:55:40.57
Josh Rainwater
Oh, absolutely.

00:55:44.98
Josh Rainwater
Yeah, yeah, that's that is a good point.

00:55:45.98
Jimmy Purdy
It's so wild.

00:55:48.96
Josh Rainwater
Yeah, that is a really good point.

00:55:49.25
Jimmy Purdy
ah It's just.

00:55:50.78
Josh Rainwater
Those are like the, you know, the trials that, you know, we go through that really show what we're made of. And, um you know, do I want to wreck that car again and have to, you know, put the panels on it and or pay somebody to do the body work? Like, ah absolutely not. But, you know, it definitely separates the,

00:56:10.86
Josh Rainwater
you know, the guy who's in it, but the gal who's in it for, you know, the money and the person who's in it for the relationship and doing the right thing.

00:56:19.83
Jimmy Purdy
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, well, just it just totally wipes that stigma away because like as soon as you have a new customer come into the shop, their immediate, because it's an auto shop, they're going to get ripped off, right?

00:56:32.12
Josh Rainwater
Mm-hmm.

00:56:32.29
Jimmy Purdy
And so if you do the job right and they pay and everything's good, like you haven't proven that you're not going to rip them off. You just proved that you know how to fix a car.

00:56:38.22
Josh Rainwater
Mm-hmm.

00:56:39.92
Jimmy Purdy
But the minute something goes sideways and then you step up and you pay to take care of it, that's when you've just proved that you would never rip them off, right?

00:56:44.70
Josh Rainwater
Yeah.

00:56:46.69
Jimmy Purdy
And that's like... It's like a subconscious thing. It's like, obviously, like times have changed. and so That's not really what's going on. But I mean, get what I'm saying. right Like, it's like until you actually step up when something goes sideways, there's still that like, and it takes a long time to build the trust, right? Like years of like, oh I've been going into years. He would never do something like that to me, right?

00:57:06.55
Jimmy Purdy
But if it's only if his new customers have only been to you once or twice, like you still don't know.

00:57:06.89
Josh Rainwater
They're

00:57:09.91
Jimmy Purdy
Like, it's it's like,

00:57:11.11
Josh Rainwater
trying to emphasize.

00:57:12.21
Jimmy Purdy
yeah it's still like i don't know but if something goes like totally sideways and then you step up and fix it it's like oh man there's no way like would ever do me wrong like and it's like they'll never go anywhere else and it's like it's just crazy it's like now you start fucking shit up on purpose you know just to fix it what are what a retention tactic that's your that's your golden nugget retention tactic for the day on

00:57:19.83
Josh Rainwater
Yeah, that's right.

00:57:25.06
Josh Rainwater
a ah Just to fix it so you can get a good review out of it.

00:57:32.44
Josh Rainwater
ah Yeah, well, that is a marketing way. Maybe you can be the first to show how it works well.

00:57:38.56
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah.

00:57:38.72
Josh Rainwater
You'll be that you'll be the ah ah progenitor of that one.

00:57:39.21
Jimmy Purdy
ah I'll wait. I'll wait on that one.

00:57:41.91
Josh Rainwater
Yeah, yeah, let someone else figure it out first.

00:57:45.00
Jimmy Purdy
That's one of those ideas I run by a coach and he's like, don't do that. I'm like, yeah, you're probably right.

00:57:48.34
Josh Rainwater
Don't do that. And then he starts ah he starts preaching it at his next seminar. Hey, no I'm just missing it.

00:57:55.19
Jimmy Purdy
yeah. You take him all my good ideas, huh?

00:57:55.85
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. It takes your idea. Yeah. So did you have any ah examples like in the business where you, you know, really had to like make something right with a client like above and beyond?

00:58:14.20
Jimmy Purdy
Man, I guess I was going pull which one out of the hat. Which one, which one is it? I mean, I've had one, an interesting one where i had a vehicle that was, that was like between seven and $8,000 worth work. It was old F-150.

00:58:30.38
Jimmy Purdy
And on the initial test drive within like the first three miles from the shop, um, he got in a head on collision with it, totaled it. Um, and we put an engine in it, put a transmission in it.

00:58:37.87
Josh Rainwater
okay

00:58:40.91
Jimmy Purdy
What else did we do to it? This was like five or six years ago. Um, that one was pretty scary cause it was, it was within the first two years of owning the business. And so, yeah, it was like, um, not only did I need that ticket, right?

00:58:50.50
Josh Rainwater
ah

00:58:53.83
Jimmy Purdy
Like I can't eat these parts and I gotta buy this guy a truck. And I mean, I, I think I've had like $5,000 in the bank account.

00:58:58.05
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. Yeah.

00:59:01.48
Jimmy Purdy
Like it was not like a good time for a technician to go total vehicle. Um, and put the other, the other people, the main thing, the other people in the hospital, which was like the really scary part.

00:59:05.50
Josh Rainwater
yeah

00:59:11.52
Jimmy Purdy
Um,

00:59:12.19
Josh Rainwater
no

00:59:13.29
Jimmy Purdy
And so what happened with that one is the insurance paid off and he actually came in and paid our paid the repair bill. So they, when they total out the insurance, right, they give him a check and he actually took part of that and came in and actually paid our, our version of the bill or our, our, our, yeah.

00:59:26.81
Josh Rainwater
well

00:59:28.41
Jimmy Purdy
um And then we had good insurance. One of, one of the things I learned right off from day one was like, get good insurance. Make sure you get more than you need.

00:59:34.88
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. Amazing.

00:59:36.55
Jimmy Purdy
And I think that's another thing like with taxes, right? Like people try to, oh, I'll just get the minimum for now. Like, no, no, no. i need, i need good insurance. And ah yeah, I ended up settling for like $75,000, you know, through the insurance.

00:59:43.67
Josh Rainwater
and

00:59:47.09
Jimmy Purdy
So I was like covered, like totally. It was fine.

00:59:50.06
Josh Rainwater
amazing

00:59:50.45
Jimmy Purdy
Right. Yeah. It's just wild. And, and the yeah, he he was a super nice guy and still comes to me. And so it's like, it's just crazy. But the first thing I did when I heard about it called him, like, that's the very first thing. Hey, this is what happened. And he was like, is everybody okay? I'm like,

01:00:07.41
Jimmy Purdy
yeah, I think so. And he's like, okay, cool. We'll, we'll, we'll take care of it. You know, was like, it was just like, not what I thought that phone call was going to go like, right.

01:00:14.88
Josh Rainwater
Yeah.

01:00:15.69
Jimmy Purdy
When you're sitting there for 15 minutes in the car, like I got to call this guy, I got to call this guy. Uh, maybe I'll wait.

01:00:19.54
Josh Rainwater
Yeah.

01:00:20.20
Jimmy Purdy
And your brain starts like, no, we go to another, I need to, I need to call him right now. Like I'm not going just make the call and then it all works out.

01:00:24.79
Josh Rainwater
well

01:00:27.67
Jimmy Purdy
You know,

01:00:28.06
Josh Rainwater
yeah Yeah. We're fine. Uh, but did you hear about your truck? Did you hear that? I wrecked it like it?

01:00:32.76
Jimmy Purdy
you had like, it's totaled.

01:00:34.43
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. Yeah. ah No, no, no, no, no. But it's, yeah, it's wrecked. Um, are are you sure you're not, you know, upset? Like, yeah. So that's, uh,

01:00:42.25
Jimmy Purdy
like It's like gone.

01:00:42.51
Josh Rainwater
That is a very pleasant surprise.

01:00:42.85
Jimmy Purdy
It's like not fixable. It's not coming back.

01:00:44.72
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

01:00:46.89
Jimmy Purdy
And the Osilo is like $7,500. So whenever you get that.

01:00:51.54
Josh Rainwater
Yeah.

01:00:52.87
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah, it was it was a difficult one. had another one with ah pretty recently that just came to mind. with with a We did a transmission in a Suburban. And about two days after she left, it had a misfire.

01:01:04.81
Jimmy Purdy
um And it was like $7,800 or something like that. was the Was it a 6L or 10R? I guess it doesn't matter. I mean, the transmissions now are just getting crazy.

01:01:17.78
Jimmy Purdy
But anyway, she's a school teacher, obviously not a lot of money. She did that, did the rear main seal, did like an axle seal, did some front end work.

01:01:23.97
Josh Rainwater
and Yeah.

01:01:24.77
Jimmy Purdy
um She ended up paying us like close to, or if it wasn't just over $10,000 worth work, you know? And so two days she comes back, has a misfire. and We're like, oh great. This is going be, we'll see what happens.

01:01:36.28
Jimmy Purdy
Pull out plug, zero compression.

01:01:39.14
Josh Rainwater
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

01:01:40.18
Jimmy Purdy
And it was ah it was a suburban, so it's got the VLOM, right? So it ended up dropping a lifter.

01:01:43.19
Josh Rainwater
a

01:01:43.50
Jimmy Purdy
And I'm like, oh, what are we going to do? So I come back. I'm like, well, look, the best thing to do here, because I don't know what the cam is going to be like, there's a potential that the engine needs to be replaced. And it's like giving her that quote of another $9,000 was like probably not the way right way to handle it.

01:01:57.65
Jimmy Purdy
We've since changed our procedures when it comes to these situations because she about lost her mind, right?

01:02:00.13
Josh Rainwater
Sure. Yeah.

01:02:04.97
Jimmy Purdy
So, yeah, she, yeah, it was bad. At the end of the day, i had her drop it back off. I pulled the cylinder head off, replaced the lifter, did it all for her, fixed it, and didn't charge her dime. She said, you know what? I need to pay for parts. I'm like, no, no, you don't.

01:02:19.03
Jimmy Purdy
It was not handled correctly for one.

01:02:19.79
Josh Rainwater
Yeah.

01:02:21.35
Jimmy Purdy
And for two, you pretty much did everything we asked you to do when the first time you came in.

01:02:21.69
Josh Rainwater
Mm-hmm.

01:02:26.32
Jimmy Purdy
It's happenstance, right? Like that sucks. It sucks for everybody. But I have the knowledge and the expertise to fix your problem. And since then, she's come in like religiously for like oil changes, like everything.

01:02:33.89
Josh Rainwater
That's a good point.

01:02:37.69
Jimmy Purdy
Right.

01:02:38.27
Josh Rainwater
Yeah.

01:02:38.37
Jimmy Purdy
And it was another one of the situations where I think I posted it online. I asked a few people and they're like oh, no, she, you know, like that. Why is that your problem? Right. And there was a lot of that. Like, why is that your problem? Like cars break. Like she should understand that. But like in the back of my mind, i'm like, it just doesn't feel right.

01:02:52.02
Jimmy Purdy
Right. Like it's just like it it isn't our problem.

01:02:52.44
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

01:02:54.34
Jimmy Purdy
It isn't our fault because it is absolutely nothing. But at the same time, like really, like just leave her high and dry like that. And yeah, it's a cylinder head job. It's a big job. And it cost me maybe $400 in parts.

01:03:04.92
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. Yeah.

01:03:07.06
Jimmy Purdy
But it's like, I don't know. Like, when do you get to do something nice and like help someone that's like legitimately in a bad position, right? Like she just spent almost $10,000. Now she has a vehicle that doesn't run.

01:03:16.76
Josh Rainwater
Nice.

01:03:18.32
Jimmy Purdy
And she's a local high school teacher.

01:03:19.27
Josh Rainwater
yeah

01:03:19.85
Jimmy Purdy
It's like, just make it right, you know? And now she's like, comes back and brings us cookies all the time. It's like, yeah.

01:03:27.03
Josh Rainwater
nice

01:03:27.05
Jimmy Purdy
like to step up to the plate, man. Like it's like, and just do what's right. And sometimes, sometimes people take advantage of it for the most part. I don't think a lot of people do.

01:03:36.66
Josh Rainwater
Yeah, and you can get a feel for oftentimes like the clients that are, you know, coming in to use you. And, you know, a lot of that can be vetted out on the front end so that they don't make their way in the door in the first place.

01:03:52.12
Josh Rainwater
But, you know, somebody who, you know, understands and and wants to do the right thing, wants to pay you, you know, and you, you know, you're taking care of their bill.

01:04:06.77
Josh Rainwater
Like that, there is just some, there is a feeling that like doing the right thing, it it it does not have a burden attached to it. You know, like I know it's like, ah you know, it can be a financial burden for sure.

01:04:18.48
Josh Rainwater
But knowing that like, hey, I am taking care of you because it's the right thing to do. Like, you know, I don't lose any sleep over that. I don't lose, you know, I had to put a transmission in a car that, you know, I'd done a fluid service on.

01:04:27.43
Jimmy Purdy
True.

01:04:34.11
Josh Rainwater
And i followed you know step by step the the you know the procedure by the book. um It was on a Subaru. And so we had ah you know installed a i'd installed a yeah a seal in it and the O-ring rolled and I couldn't see it.

01:04:52.21
Josh Rainwater
So it rolled after it had you know after the the but plug had already been tightened down and caused this you know, guys fluid to leak out on ah on a trip and destroy this transmission.

01:05:07.53
Josh Rainwater
And so for me, you know, I knew that I did, you know, it wasn't on me per se that like, oh, I did something that was incorrect or wrong, but I knew the right thing to do was to, you know, get this guy transmission.

01:05:24.66
Josh Rainwater
So this was also when I was early, you know, starting out, and you know, it was a mobile job. that you know I was just out doing a transmission service on. I didn't have any money in the business. And ah really needed that job.

01:05:37.36
Josh Rainwater
Like I needed that that job to pay the bills. And ended up you know putting him in a loaner car, or I didn't have a loaner, excuse me, a rental car. And you know i I bought him a transmission. And I went to a shop and rented out space in a bay to be able to swap it out. And you know I made it right for the guy.

01:05:57.28
Josh Rainwater
And i would do it 100 over. I mean, I would do it again any day. Cause that's, you know, it's just like, Hey, this is what it takes to take care of people. And, you know, on the other side of that, you have to be profitable so that you can afford to do that. If you don't have any money in the bank, when this kind of stuff pops up, like, how are you going to take care of a client? How do you, you know, how do you build, you know, some resiliency into your business financially where you can afford to do the right thing.

01:06:26.49
Josh Rainwater
And, um, Yeah, so you you gotta you got to be profitable so these days pop up, you know you you don't have to worry about it. It's not ah it's not a burden at all.

01:06:34.02
Jimmy Purdy
so good It's a good lesson good lesson to learn early on, for sure.

01:06:38.01
Josh Rainwater
Mm-hmm.

01:06:38.09
Jimmy Purdy
you know Because now that you're talking about it and you're bringing it back up, it's just a blip on the radar, right? like At the time, it's like the whole world's going to come crumbling down, right?

01:06:44.15
Josh Rainwater
It's a book. Oh, man.

01:06:46.42
Jimmy Purdy
like But like now it's just a blip.

01:06:47.12
Josh Rainwater
Yeah.

01:06:48.18
Jimmy Purdy
But imagine now thinking about it if you didn't step up and how that would still give you cold sweats, right? like if you do If you weren't able to make that happen, right? And you didn't... like I would like if I look back is like, that's the that's what I look like.

01:06:59.78
Josh Rainwater
Absolutely.

01:07:00.84
Jimmy Purdy
I look back. I'm like, man, I really should have taken care of that. And now I can't. But I look back at it and I said, I took care of it and I'm OK. Like, I feel so much better about it. And the more of a cushion you can have in your bank account to take care of those situations, it helps the anxiety at the time. And then it allows you to, like you said, to do the right thing.

01:07:17.93
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. Yeah. That's a, yeah, that's a really good perspective to have. Yeah. Really. um i feel I feel the same way. You know, it's like I can't i couldn't go back and do it any differently. And I'm glad that when the you know opportunity arose that, you know, things were handled as best as they could have been.

01:07:38.30
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah, that's good.

01:07:38.84
Josh Rainwater
um

01:07:40.19
Jimmy Purdy
Mark of a true leader.

01:07:42.37
Josh Rainwater
how do but i don't know about that. I'm still working on the leadership aspect.

01:07:48.45
Jimmy Purdy
ah aren't we Aren't we all?

01:07:48.52
Josh Rainwater
So, oh, man.

01:07:52.89
Josh Rainwater
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. You find it's kind of like the analogy of being married. You know, you find all your your shortcomings and everything like, you know, once you're married, you you know, I can't do any any wrong at all until I, you know, find somebody who starts showing me these things. and leadership is very similar.

01:08:11.24
Josh Rainwater
Find all these like holes and gaps and where I'm not doing what I need to do. you know, all this, you know, tech's not. turning the hours he needs.

01:08:21.27
Josh Rainwater
Well, you know, it's because I, I'm not billing out appropriately or I'm not, you know, charging out for some of these jobs or, you know, whatever the case may be.

01:08:21.76
Jimmy Purdy
ah

01:08:32.29
Jimmy Purdy
It's all about looking in the mirror.

01:08:34.09
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. the mirror Enjoyed it myself.

01:08:37.14
Jimmy Purdy
Well, Josh, I appreciate you coming on. This has been an insightful conversation, I think.

01:08:45.17
Jimmy Purdy
Yeah.

01:08:45.61
Josh Rainwater
Yeah. It was really good speaking, getting to speak with you finally.

01:08:46.28
Jimmy Purdy
lots of but Lots of good stuff in here. So for all those listening, pay attention everything this guy says.

01:08:55.69
Josh Rainwater
Some of it's actually true.

01:08:57.95
Jimmy Purdy
And then hang out.