Talkin' Paint Podcast #14 - Jamie Werner & Mike Abens - Hiring 101

[00:00:00] Gabe: Hey Guys, this is Gabe from Detailing Growth. We’re back on the Talking Paint podcast. Today we are joined by Michael Abens from Abens. What is Abens Solutions?
They are the owner operators of Urable. Which is currently one of the top industry related scheduling and invoicing CRMs. And then we also have Jamie Werner, AKA the PPF professor from Equip Academy. So guys, thanks for joining me here today. I really appreciate it. how was your guys holiday?
[00:00:39] Michael: having us.
[00:00:40] Jamie: pleasure. My pleasure.
[00:00:41] Gabe: How was the holiday for you guys?
[00:00:44] Jamie: Lots of family time. That’s what it was all about. Family, and way too much.
[00:00:50] Michael: It was a passing of the torch time for me, actually.
[00:00:54] Jamie: Oh,
[00:00:54] Michael: This was the first time that we’ve actually gone to the kid’s house for Thanksgiving,
[00:01:00] Gabe: Oh,
[00:01:00] Michael: instead of all of them coming to our house and then us cooking and cleaning all damn
[00:01:05] Gabe: uh,
[00:01:06] Michael: finally got to go to their house and just bring vegetables, it was awesome.
[00:01:10] Gabe: isn’t that great when you don’t have to, cook the bird and then, 87 sides?
[00:01:14] Michael: Oh, it was so awesome. Kyle’s house is much nicer than mine anyway.
[00:01:18] Gabe: alright,
[00:01:18] Michael: more space.
[00:01:19] Gabe: okay. Mike, why don’t you tell us a little bit about, your background and a little bit about Urable and, what the mission is for Urable. And why you’re here participating in the industry.
[00:01:33] Michael: Oh man. I’ll try and I’ll try and give you the cliff notes version of this. So I, I had a 30 year career in the healthcare industry. That led to, lots of different opportunities, lots of odd things that just needed to be figured out.
the last job I was in, I was the president of the company. And I helped them get into a really unique area of medicine.
And that meant needing to figure out a lot of things with no road map. No blueprint, because no one had ever tried it. so That just meant that we had to figure out a lot of stuff. that, that exposed me to just a lot of different ways of thinking and hiring we hired, while I was there, the 10 years I was there, we hired about a thousand people.
Okay, so that
company was pretty small. I was, I think number 33 or 34. There was a thousand when I left
[00:02:22] Gabe: moly.
[00:02:22] Michael: 10 years later. On the hiring side of things, we had to get good at it because. we Were growing at a really rapid rate and it was a highly technical area of medicine. So it meant that we had to invest a lot in training.
So our whole philosophy, and I’ll talk about this as we get into this more, our whole philosophy and going through that process was to hire based on character, not competency. Our going in assumption was. We need good people and we will train them up, but we really hired based on character and behavior so than competency and content.
Going through the interview process, it was less about technical expertise. If we were hiring nurses or pharmacists or farm D’s, it was less about technical expertise and more about behavioral characteristics. Because we knew for us to be successful, we needed to build a team not just fill seats with warm bodies to fulfill tasks.
And that’s a fundamentally different, mindset when you’re, growing, do you just want to fill seats or do you want to build a fricking team and somebody that’s going to be with you and be part of the vision and be willing to, challenge leadership, because we didn’t want a bunch of yes, men and women we wanted people that would, Put us through the ringer as leaders of the business.
And everybody came in with different perspectives and things. So we wanted people who were open, willing to share, not afraid to weigh in, with their own opinions, even though, they’re talking to the president or the CEO the company.
It’s stand up, man. There’s no stripes in some of these meetings.
That was another one of our things. It’s no stripes in this meeting. Everybody’s opinion matters, so that all comes down to this creating a safe environment for people. So all of those things, they take time to build the culture of the company. But when we were careful about our hiring, we just hired on character.
So we knew that we could build the culture to support them.
I’m of the same philosophy here in our shop in that ceramic pro Pottstown total detailing, we almost exclusively hire on character and flexibility of character.
[00:04:47] Gabe: in that it’s not super rigid and that it’s flexible based upon the business’s needs. that’s definitely one of the things that we lead on here.
[00:04:56] Michael: Yeah.
It’s true of any, small or growing business. Like we weren’t such a small company. As we really started growing, but we were still hiring like crazy and training people up. But if you’re hiring on character, you can always plug in the content. That was our feeling.
[00:05:12] Gabe: you can always strap the skills to them. Jamie, let, tell us a little bit about your journey through the industry and where you’re at now, what you got going on.
[00:05:20] Jamie: Sure.
I totally agree with Michael as far as, hire the person, not necessarily what they know, but who they are. It’s crucial to grow in your business for sure. And I started in the industry for a startup company back then it was matrix films. We were in the midst of launching a brand called premium shield.
So it’d be part of something from the ground up was Awesome, I mean love the opportunity to be thrown into all aspects of the business from the manufacturing side to patterns and sales training, everything. So it gave me a window into the whole business structure. I had a direct line of communication to the owners.
It was very humbling, put a lot of hours in, and, got a chance to figure out the industry and I came in at a really good time when, the products were getting better technology was getting easier, were lasting longer standards were starting to get better, and it got to the point where I was able to find my niche within the company and the industry of combining sales and training at the same time because training lacked there just was lack of education and informative education.
So to become really a true salesperson became something I strive for. That’s what I was all about trying to help people even across the aisle people I didn’t sell. I still would try and help them. And then went through a, an acquisition which was crazy because, I was a lifer.
I was all about bleeding premium shield. acquisition was dirty, ugly, it was a certain culture that you and breathe. The owners did what they needed to do and corporate, big corporate was just not my thing. I stayed on as long as I could for about a year and it just wasn’t my jam.
So I had an opportunity to see my mission through that I felt education was going to be My lead and there was such a massive gap in the industry of labor the industry has constantly relied on a top down mentality of we rely on the to do a really good job at hiring and then expecting them to invest into those people then send them and take the risk.
To get them trained and hope that they last and stay with the company. if you look at the history of the industry, that doesn’t happen.
[00:08:00] Gabe: Absolutely. It doesn’t
[00:08:02] Jamie: It’s frustrating. And so I felt that if we take a look at it at a different angle and do from bottom to top where we start educating these people from the ground up and bring students in like other trade schools and Start getting them trained properly with proper standards hands on education to then be able to them to the public, to the industry be hired and with the experience of coming in and, spending a semester or two semesters, that’s a lot of repetition and experience to get then be able to hire someone knowing that they’ve got X amount of cars under their belt.
They’ve got a great education set up. They know that what these standards are. They immediately can come into our industry earning 50 to 100 grand a year. Immediately.
[00:08:54] Gabe: and not have to sweat
your neck off trying to hold the transmission up at the inside of a Pep Boys.
[00:09:00] Jamie: But even just showing our industry can be a profession. there is a career you can have that is long lasting, fulfilling, and it does pay well. So all aspects of the automotive aftermarket industry. And to focus on the automotive aesthetic side is the goal. a long mission.
But we’re trying to make way for connections in with the trade schools that are next to us trying to develop internship programs so that when we’re ready to really release it we’re able to really be the resource for installers to allow for businesses to finally be owner managers and hire the people instead of being owner operators and thrusting that like structure into the industry and expecting them to know how to manage the business and also do the installs.
Now a business owner can then hire the people and scale appropriately.
[00:10:06] Gabe: I have so many clients that I talk to on a daily basis that are ready and they want to be a business owner and they want to stop being an owner operator where they’ve got to do install work and it is like Jamie, like you said, there’s no labor pool to
pull from.
[00:10:27] Jamie: Correct.
[00:10:27] Gabe: either hiring and training from the ground up, or you’re getting somebody else with bad habits and they’re hard to train and they’re hard to mold.
And I talk to guys who are just like, they say that they want to run their business and they want to scale their business. They’re having such a hard time Understanding how to hire number one, I, from my perspective, it’s number one. Even being okay with letting go enough to hire somebody and be flexible enough.
And then not even having anybody to pull from and I think that the whole reason we called this episode was to talk about what it means and what it looks like to hire somebody and why hire them based on certain things versus others. And I, that’s the goal here, I think, today is to just lay out a roadmap for these people so that they can get their hands on quality people, not quality installers, because right now, you’re right, there is an installer shortage, but I think there’s definitely a lot of good quality people out there, and that’s
[00:11:36] Jamie: fear is in my opinion the number one Feeling that is preventing these businesses from scaling appropriately and hiring the right people because they think that the person they hire and invest in is going to drop them like they’re hot after they’ve invested a little and go someplace else and steal the business or go someplace else and then they have to start all over again. That’s what I see constantly and instead of taking their time to hire the right people, they just put a band aid on it. hire someone,
[00:12:12] Michael: back it up 1 layer from that. Actually, I think they need to figure out what makes their business attractive to candidates.
[00:12:21] Jamie: For sure.
[00:12:22] Michael: It’s do you have a good vision down? Are you creating a career path at all for these people? Or are you just filling seats? if You’re just going to act like a meat grinder, who the hell is going to want to be there long term?
[00:12:35] Jamie: It’s
[00:12:36] Michael: You really, I think people need to check themselves when they’re going to scale the business. It’s not enough to just say, I want to scale. You better have a pretty good fricking roadmap in your mind or on paper as to how you’re going to grow the company. Where are you going to take it?
What does a progression path look like for people? Again, if it’s just a meat grinder, people are going to leave, There are good people out there. I get the whole fear thing that lots
of people worry about that in this industry. I totally get that. And there’s a lot of horror stories that are out there.
[00:13:09] Gabe: I
think that’s a result of not having the foundational items
you’re talking
about,
[00:13:14] Michael: it is. I think it is. I think there needs to be more of an introspective look. Before you begin to hire, what are you presenting as the value proposition to these candidates? Are you just, are you out there just begging for anybody? You want to find the right people.
You want people to join the team, not, take a job. You want them to join the team.
[00:13:35] Gabe: that’s what it’s all about.
[00:13:36] Jamie: and they have to have a vision, like you said. And I think, again, based off of all these conversations I’ve had with a lot of guys, and they start the business off of a previous experience they had at another shop, and they want to go on their own. And they don’t necessarily know how to manage a business.
They are starting off as a self employed business then need coaching and need a mentor to help them create a vision and find that vision so that they can then actually have a business, hire people appropriately, because they’re there. They started that business originally because they were unhappy.
I’d love to know how they interview. what are
[00:14:18] Michael: the fundamental questions? What are you asking?
Because
I can tell you During the interview process, at least the ones that I was involved in, we tended to do a panel type of thing. So we’d really put people through multiple departments and then they’d end up, meeting with me and the CEO independently, cause we didn’t want to freak them out too bad.
So we tried to just, get lots of people’s opinions. Everybody has a different way of interviewing, but I know I always found myself. Selling to them as much as they were trying to sell themselves to me. And then, after I’m presenting why we had such a special place and why we are trying to hire for the whatever position it was ask them at the end of it, after, they’ve sold themselves to me, I sold them ourselves to them.
It was like. Does this seem like a place you want to come and invest your time in? Because that’s what I’m asking them to do. I’m asking them to invest their lives in us, for Pentec anyway, was, career and retirement type work, right?
[00:15:25] Gabe: hmm.
[00:15:26] Michael: term employees. So we’re not kidding around when we do it.
We’re willing to invest hundreds of thousands in your training. But I’m asking you, are you ready to invest your life in us, and I sell the shit out of the company and the value of it because
it was the greatest thing going. I thought, now we got, you’re able is even more fun than pen tech was.
[00:15:47] Jamie: Did you notice a difference in the age brackets with the younger applicants? With, their ability to want to stay on versus leaving after a short period of time to go to the next venture
[00:16:04] Michael: yeah, I can’t say we had a high attrition rate. It was in, God, I think it was under 3%.
[00:16:09] Gabe: 2017, high attrition rate really wasn’t the career norm.so I know from our nursing department, which was the one that was really growing heavily along with pharmacy. So it was more professional type people. We tried. And I was purposefully not to get like the directors of nursing from hospitals. They’d been around a long time.
[00:16:31] Michael: They tended to have a pretty crusty exterior. they were excellent, kind of task managers but they weren’t great teammates. They didn’t make great teammates. If
[00:16:44] Gabe: Mm.
[00:16:44] Michael: somebody to get things done, this is the order that they happen. Those are the people that you want. And there’s certain roles in companies where you want the task master, right?
You do. But we tended to try and stay away from them and get younger nurses in particular that wanted to, try something really different, high risk, mind you, super high risk from a professional standpoint, but that was where they counted on us to train them. But then once they’d get through that and they’d get over kind of the fear factor that, they were holding a syringe that could kill every one of their patients if they make a mistake, and I’m not. exaggerating that. That’s what they had to get comfortable with. Once, once we got them over that, they called this the best job ever.
[00:17:33] Gabe: that can be equated exact, like
maybe, a little tongue in cheek here that could exactly be equated to cutting on a car. A lot of people have fear of that. A lot of business owners have fear of that. Will my installer be okay? Cutting on a car? Mike, like you said, when you can get over that hump. that’s when the next chapter starts for an installer, when they finally realize the skillset that they have. And that’s realization of that point, is a result of a foundation of training and a foundation of picking the right people that can eventually reach that point.
[00:18:09] Jamie: There’s a strategy that’s involved in that. You can’t just send someone to training and then immediately thrust them into paid jobs and expecting perfect work to come out, smelling like roses. It
[00:18:23] Michael: No, recipe for disaster. It’s just too much stress. let me talk about stress just a little bit. Because I think stress is another real driver as to why people end up leaving, and that’s incumbent upon leadership to really keep a pulse on the workload and the stress that, that exists in the workplace.
can tell you I was super sensitive to this because we invested so much money in training, the nurses in particular, it killed me if we lost anybody if they left because they were just, they were overworked. So we had a whole thing in place when a nurse reaches 80 percent capacity. That’s when we hire another person in that area.
So that they’re so they go up to 80, they drop to 30. the two of them are. Are working their way up when they both hit 80, we hire two more, and then we keep growing up with the patient census.
It’s the same kind of thing in any business. You just need to really be super sensitive as the owner or the leader.
If you’re, shop manager, be mindful of the stress that’s on the team. And it is up to you as the leader to do something about it. It’s not up to them. It’s up to you .
[00:19:35] Gabe: I, you hear me talk about that all the time. I use the term a utilization rate and some of the content I put out there, you can figure out what you install a utilization rate is based upon strictly the amount of work that you’re doing. And the number of people that you have. Seasoned installers that have been doing it for 10 years can pump out 2 full fronts a day with their eyes closed. Danik, my guy in the shop is 1 of those guys that’ll he’ll squeegee and seal cars. Half shot in the ass with whatever, Ridiculous Russian drink he wants to come and drink. Not that he does that and just making a ridiculous joke. When I hear a business has one film installer and one ceramic coating guy, and they’re topping out at $45k-$50k, a month.
That’s way above normal utilization for any business operating in this sector, unless they’ve got the golden goose and they’re charging insane top dollar, most of them aren’t they’re doing jobs for normal or below
rate.
But when I hear those numbers, and I look at just the numbers, as somebody who hears the numbers and look, looks at it all day long, they’re like, how do I get out of this cycle of chaos Hire somebody.
You get another hand, get somebody else that can pull the squeegee and spray slip and handle film, get another person, even if it’s just to help them prep,
[00:20:55] Michael: a hard decision though, for so many of these
[00:20:57] Gabe: yeah,
[00:20:58] Michael: I don’t think they have a fundamental grasp on their numbers, it
all goes back to, really understanding your business and knowing, knowing how much can you give up to get that person.
You know, a lot of
[00:21:10] Jamie: to do. You
[00:21:10] Michael: absolute 100 percent
[00:21:12] Jamie: To bring another person on so your lead installer doesn’t get stressed and leave
[00:21:18] Michael: exactly.
[00:21:19] Jamie: one
[00:21:19] Michael: That’s what costs you the most. That’s what costs you. not hiring another person. It’s losing somebody
because you overworked
[00:21:26] Gabe: Jamie,
you and I have had that conversation many times, you know, I we’ve tried to really iron in and set the standard across the industry whenever we get a chance to talk to people is that, If you’re going to take on paint protection film in your business and you’re going to hire somebody to do film, you better be ready to do every job twice for the first year and set 30 grand worth of material on fire.
fire willing to accept that and be willing to deal with that and be willing to bear the level of stress and anxiety and channel that appropriately, film isn’t for you.
[00:21:57] Jamie: They see the upside, right? They see the profitability, the amount of money that you can bring in offering PPF, on the flip side, they see they, Oh I know it’s expensive, but they see the dollar amount and they know that the product’s expensive, then you have to then level them off and explain to them, right?
It’s not just the product. It’s your time. Your time is what’s expensive. And if you don’t have the time to invest and practice, then you’re wasting your money right off
[00:22:27] Gabe: And when that I, this mental equation to explain what that’s like. A are like, oh well, my time doesn’t cost anything. Wrong. Uh, immediate, immediately wrong. So much wrong. Times ten. time as a business owner, when you’re scaling, even if you don’t have a dollar number assigned, which Mike, you know, uh, opportunity cost is, what that’s valued at.
But for them at that time, it’s time plus stress equals mental load. mental load that you can handle, in your business drops dramatically. And then what happens is, is what Jamie said. These guys leave and they
go work
somewhere else. They’re like, bye.
[00:23:08] Jamie: Later.
[00:23:09] Gabe: ya. Bye.
[00:23:10] Jamie: And the worst part is when they book all that work, having the extra person, and the person leaves, and then they’re the ones stuck having to
[00:23:20] Gabe: Stop, attacking me right now. Stop attacking me. I’m so guilty. I did, I I learned the hard way. I attrition to few guys in my film department through the years here.
And, um, I, yeah, I am not, of it because I really, I loved Cody and I loved him a
lot,
[00:23:35] Jamie: sure.
[00:23:36] Gabe: I, overburdened him and I put way too much responsibility on his plate.
And I put, I him into a situation where he wasn’t happy because he wasn’t ready to, to operating at the level that he was. And I learned the hard way. I learned the very hard way.
And.
[00:23:52] Jamie: you also scaling the business, you were growing it exponentially. And so I think that everyone was just unprepared on how much business was going to be coming in and how busy he was going
[00:24:03] Gabe: I didn’t I couldn’t
it.
I was thinking back to that. Mike, you remember when we were growing at such a massive rate, we were doing film left and right. It was crazy. I couldn’t believe how much we were doing. And, ultimately it, it, implosion, but, you know, came on board and I pitched in and then we got Danik and, and it all worked out and came together.
And Danik’s a unicorn that like, you know, does with his eyes closed while he’s drunk. Uh, kidding. He’s not drunk. Uh, so of these guys I know that have similar situations to me. I get calls from clients. They say, Hey, my, uh, my installer just quit and he went to go work for my competitor. And when I hear that I examine, I take back in a minute and I examine all of the interactions that I’ve had with that client and the things that we’ve talked about. And sometimes I keep my mouth shut when I know that I shouldn’t. And I say, say, That makes a lot of sense. a ton of sense.
It’s not, you know, uh, day uh, be so blunt with people and, are now talking about
this to help other
people.
[00:25:03] Michael: I think everybody just needs to look at things a little bit differently and understand that the most expensive is the one that leaves you,
[00:25:11] Jamie: Yep.
And
[00:25:13] Michael: you know,
[00:25:13] Jamie: important asset is your staff.
[00:25:14] Michael: it costs you at the business level, because now you don’t have the capacity to handle the volume. So now you got customers that are
[00:25:21] Gabe: And it costs
you growth percentage.
[00:25:24] Michael: Yes. And now you need to hire somebody to fill that role and then you have to invest in the training of them. So it’s almost like a triple whammy when you
lose somebody. That’s how we looked at it. That’s why we invested a ton to make sure that we did not lose people.
[00:25:40] Gabe: had to come in and give somebody a crash course and you had to give them five things, five to be able to take and examine an individual on or, person that they’re considering bringing into their business to help and, and What would those five, pieces of advice be?
[00:26:00] Michael: numbEr one on it, and I’ve never done this, so I’m going to try and piece this
[00:26:04] Gabe: That’s okay.
[00:26:05] Michael: But the I’d say number one, how do the, how does that person deal with an unstructured environment? Because I’ve noticed a lot of these detail shops, they are a bit unstructured. not like a manufacturing type of job.
You’re doing a little of this, a little of that. You’re filling in here, there.
NuMber two, how do you deal with adversity amongst a team?
Are you the person that tends to just shut up and just be quiet so that those are the worst because then they’re just adding that up in their own little calculator until it hits a number and then they’re out.
And you don’t even know what’s coming. Those are the worst that aren’t that don’t verbalize things. Probably number three is are they bought in to the vision of the business or are they just looking to make a buck?
People who are like the hired guns and just like looking to make a buck, they’ve always been the ones that I’ve regretted hiring.
I can give you a very specific example in sales.
I hired this guy and I, and I should have listened to my little inner voice because it was telling me don’t do it. Don’t do it when it sounds too good to be true. It always is and I ended up doing it and I regretted it immediately. And I fired him about 3 months later because he was a freaking cancer.
[00:27:27] Gabe: no.
[00:27:27] Michael: terrible, but he was a super aggressive sales guy that just wanted to he wanted to make a million dollars in his first six months.
[00:27:37] Gabe: That’s ambitious.
[00:27:39] Michael: oh, he was all about it, but was so ultra aggressive. And just from a, you know who I am, but just from a, a personality standpoint.
I’m not about that kind of hardcore sales aggression. I’m more about a collegial type of selling environment. And I want to know that it’s a win. I don’t want to just push something on someone. I want to know that this is going to benefit you. And I believe it’s going to benefit you. But if you don’t believe that, then okay.
See ya, so those would be the core things that I’d look at. I know I’m falling one short. I’ll need to think about that. You gave me five. I don’t know.
[00:28:16] Gabe: All right. Let’s, why don’t we let, we’ll ask Jamie the same thing. Jamie, if you were gonna give any business owner operating in our sector advice on hiring, And you, you five minutes to give them, or things would you offer to them when it comes to hiring, people and bringing people onto their team?
[00:28:38] Jamie: I think that the first thing they need to do is look at themselves. They need to figure out what they’re best at and what they’re not.
[00:28:47] Gabe: saying the business owner themselves
or the hire?
[00:28:50] Jamie: the business owner themselves. So that way they can focus on the things that they are good at that are great at then hire accordingly for the things that they aren’t.
And therefore that gives you a nice runway of the positions and your needs for the business so that you can delegate appropriately.
[00:29:12] Michael: That’s great.
[00:29:13] Jamie: the business owners tend to try and take on everything and Don’t want to give up the power because they can micromanage and, it’s delegation. You got to learn how to delegate and know what you’re great at and what you’re not, and to delegate those things that you’re not great at.
So you can focus your attention on the things that you are great at. I think the second piece is, Being able to show value those employees that you hire. How do you value them? actually invest back into them? Or do you just expect them to be a worker bee? Because it’s all about the environment, and it’s all about how you treat them.
if you expect them to just come based off the pay structure that you’re giving them and more people They just, they’re not here for the paycheck. They want to feel like they’re part of something bigger than themselves.
[00:30:06] Michael: Exactly.
[00:30:07] Jamie: you find a long term employee.
[00:30:10] Michael: Yep.
[00:30:10] Jamie: you want.
You want a long term employee. I think another aspect is Figuring out what your goals are for the next two to five years, being able to set missions for yourself and for the business and how that next staff member is going to help you
[00:30:31] Gabe: Where’s the
goalpost and how are you going to help me get
there?
[00:30:34] Jamie: Correct. Because in the end, have no vision, no mission, you’re basically a you’re on a ship without a captain
[00:30:41] Gabe: A rudder, a rudderless ship. Is that what you said before, Mike?
[00:30:45] Michael: Yep.
[00:30:46] Gabe: ship. That’s it.
[00:30:47] Michael: this industry is full of people on the hamster wheel and they don’t
recognize they’re on it,
are spinning that wheel.
[00:30:54] Jamie: I think the fourth thing is you need to be willing to ask questions and ask for help. No one can do it all by themselves. No one has ever done it by themselves. They all have some type of support system. you better be asking questions, have a mentor, have people that, have been in your shoes so that you can get some support because it’s dirty out there.
It’s very dirty and it can get very messy real quick. And if you don’t have a few people to ask questions and what did you find work best for this situation or that situation that’s going to help you with some of your decision making because people are going to hopefully give you solid advice.
That, that’s crucial, have a good circle of people that you can bounce ideas off of, and also be willing to, learn from them because other people have, been in your shoes and have gone through a whole mess of different situations that, they don’t want someone else to have to go through.
So you got to be open and willing to take constructive criticism and learn because no one knows everything all at once.
And then as far as the fifth thing you have to be always willing to adapt. I think that I learned that very early on that you have to separate, even though you are emotionally invested into the business, there are just some things you cannot
[00:32:16] Gabe: You’ve, had that conversation about various things that I deal with and hard time with that.
[00:32:22] Jamie: It’s tough. And I did too, in the beginning. And I’m learning more and more to what I call pivot gracefully It’s tough to do especially when you’re trying to get into a process and things are going smooth And then something happens, you and I were talking about it yesterday you could tell I was a little stressed because my slitting machine was you know, not working
[00:32:46] Gabe: was very
[00:32:47] Jamie: but, when you’re in the thick of it, it can get emotional and
[00:32:49] Gabe: Well,
[00:32:50] Jamie: and there’s all these other things you got
[00:32:52] Michael: I always fall back to control what you can control,
[00:32:55] Gabe: that, that’s a really great point to, to sidestep into. That’s hitting the fan and everything’s going wrong. Everything to call when it’s just fuck city in the shop. It’s just there’s, there are F words flying everywhere.
Uh,
[00:33:11] Jamie: When you’re in the
[00:33:12] Gabe: when you’re weeds,
you do as a business owner? What would the one thing that you know that you can count on and, and to be able to Regain composure because that’s something else I see guys struggle with is that the just shits hitting the fan. Everything’s happening all at once.
How do you come out the other side of that without absolutely bleeding all over the floor? Mike, like to ask you that because I’m sure that you’ve, I’m sure that one situation or another, you’ve seen you shits just hitting the proverbial fan. And you know, in those crisis situations, what do you do?
[00:33:50] Michael: You turn the temperature down. Because it’s very easy on the shop floor, it’s very easy for that to get emotional pretty quickly. You got to come in as the cool head. You take that temperature down. If there are legitimate concerns, like Jamie, like the plotter is not cutting properly or whatever it’s going to be. You just say, okay, let’s just, if we can fix it. Who do we need to contact? But you you just de escalate things. You get very good at de escalating situations. And don’t let it just, blow up. You gotta step right in and immediately turn the temperature down. And let people know, this isn’t all that bad.
Yeah, we can sort this out. Let’s just calm down and work the problem.
[00:34:33] Gabe: situation that I’ve been in. Every time where I’ve had those moments where shit’s hitting the fan and I go and I’m just like how did it get so bad? When I’m on the other side of it and I think back none of it was that bad.
[00:34:47] Michael: It’s never
[00:34:47] Gabe: No. None of it is.
And
[00:34:50] Jamie: There’s always
a
[00:34:50] Gabe: Always.
[00:34:51] Jamie: a solution.
[00:34:52] Gabe: it’s ha
[00:34:53] Michael: And you know what?
If it’s the machine, then you can’t get the part. Then you know what? The customers just get pushed a day or two whatever it’s going to be, you just have, good, calm conversations. Cause everybody knows that stuff happens,
[00:35:05] Jamie: And
[00:35:06] Michael: you know, And that.
[00:35:06] Jamie: out of your control.
[00:35:07] Michael: Exactly. But that’s where you can control what you can control. And that includes your and it is principally your behavior the situation. That’s the biggest thing that people don’t, that they don’t exercise enough personal control in these situations.
[00:35:23] Gabe: Very guilty of
that. Very guilty.
[00:35:25] Michael: everybody’s guilty.
Hell, I’m sure I did it earlier in my career too. But once things get big and scale is big, you get good at turning down the temperature pretty quick.
[00:35:35] Jamie: I also think that can lead to escalating into blaming others and blaming your staff. And, I looked at, when I read Jocko Wilinick’s Extreme Ownership, it’s, you have to own it. It all comes back down to you. So you can’t take it out on the employee. It’s be a little bit their fault, but at the end of the day, it’s still your responsibility.
[00:35:57] Gabe: problem.
[00:35:58] Jamie: It’s your problem, and you need to be able to handle it, and make sure that they understand that. They’re human. They make mistakes too.
[00:36:06] Michael: That’s such a good point. And it leads to a really key. Characteristic that I think is necessary in all businesses and that’s creating a safe environment for failure.
If you got people, if your team is just so stressed out, they’re walking around on eggshells cause they’re worried about making a mistake.
That’s horrible. They’re out of there, right? Cause now it’s just a fricking paycheck and nobody stays for money. I don’t care what they say. Nobody stays for money. So you have to create that safe environment for people to fail and feel like, Oh shit, these guys have my back. I’m okay. Yep. I screwed up. I’ll do better next time.
[00:36:47] Gabe: is a great point so I don’t know if you’ve I’m going to hashtag shameless self promo real quick. Um, The e book that I put together, Reconciling the Gap, I don’t know if either of you had a chance to look at it. Um, Reconciling the Gap was a concept that I used AI Output to articulate on, and it was, it brought to me by Chelsea.
She said one day, she said to me, she’s like, you need reconcile the gap. And I was like, what are you talking about? around the concept of like having ADD as, an adult. And it’s, this is how long you think it’s going to take, and this is how long it actually takes, and that could be applied to, to right?
But specifically in our business, it’s, I was immediately referring to, this is how long I think an install should take. This is how long it actually takes, and the gap in between that I was reconciling was the human element, and that was something that I didn’t account for. And accounting for it now makes it 10 times easier to allow my staff and my team to make mistakes and fail.
Because I’m nowhere near on high of an edge. Sure, it’s never a great opportunity, it’s never a fantastic feeling when you have a catastrophic damage issue or you’re paying out of pocket for something. But it was the, understanding and reconciling that gap of time allowed me to build that safe space into the business.
[00:38:26] Michael: Yeah. And it goes to pricing,
right? If you understand that now you can, you can get pricing in place that lets you absorb that knowing that, okay, it takes longer to do it. That just means that there’s, less throughput. All right. Cause I’ve got a capacity threshold here and because these are taking longer, my capacity just went down. So my throughput went down. So that means to maintain margins, the price has to go up.
[00:38:50] Gabe: this work to set and I’m like, okay, so maybe let’s take a step back and raise prices and do a better job at describing the value as to why you’re raising those prices and give yourself a little breathing room.
[00:39:02] Michael: and do less work,
[00:39:05] Gabe: and I talk about grant all the time. And for those of you who are listening uh, Premium Detailing in Warminster, Pennsylvania. If, going to say that we were the best, uh lying if I said that uh, I wasn’t chasing Grant’s coattails in terms of having a successful business in the industry uh, Grant is one of those guys that conceptualizes that and has built a career opportunity for his team .and has more, that’s great, but let’s make sure that we have the business structured appropriately to do it. So for those of you guys who are listening, that don’t know who that is. Grant Menard at Menards Premium Detailing, Warminster, Pennsylvania. Absolutely chance to go out there, talk to Grant, look at his shop and see what, looks like to operate a business at scale.
and,
[00:39:55] Michael: they have that down to a fricking science, they know they bring in X amount of dollars of work, they know, okay, that means we hire one more person. But again, that goes back to understanding the fundamentals of your business and managing it from a position that you’re taking ownership of the mental health and wellbeing of your team. That was one of the big things as we really started scaling Pentec. That’s when you’re thinking, Jesus Christ, these people are counting on us to make good decisions, you need to go into things respecting that they are counting on you. So you got to really have their backs much more than you pay attention to your own well being sometimes.
[00:40:38] Gabe: I wear that very heavy. I’m naturally an individual that Cares a lot about a lot of people and a lot of things, sometimes things and people that I shouldn’t, but it’s, you know, that’s character flaw, right?
[00:40:51] Michael: No, but if you’re going to air somewhere, that’s a good spot to
[00:40:54] Gabe: Mm hmm.
[00:40:55] Michael: Otherwise you’re just filling seats and people are going to be just, it’s a revolving door, man. They’re in, they’re out, they’re in, they’re out.
I
[00:41:05] Jamie: a few months back. And, he told me his whole story, how he actually got the position and he actually had car trouble. With his car, and had to stay, Grant took care of the hotel, was gonna try and take care of him, and he wound up, buying a new car on his way back, but it was just very humbling to hear his story, hear how appreciative he was, just a great character, and I was willing to do whatever I could to help him out, because he was just a good person, and you could tell.
That’s why Grant hired him.
[00:41:42] Gabe: a few guys that might know a thing or two, just saying. He knows a guy that owns this software company that makes uh, for detailers, something. He’s got some great mentors in his back pocket. And don’t think for a second that, that. Uh, that’s, uh, something that factored in grant had a lot of great people to learn from and I think that also goes back down on, you know, mentorship.
I mean, listen, of you guys are mentors for me and uh, not to, to dms all day, but I know that if I’ve got something that I’m having a particular issue with and I question. I know that, if it’s burning me enough that I can truly ask you, and I know that I’m going to get honest and accurate feedback, that’s going to point right direction.
And that’s, these guys that run in this, in they don’t, it. Nobody, a support system to lean on.
And I think you’re, you’re heart of that culture. Right now with the Equip Academy.
you seen pictures
of, of
facility and what he has? Have you seen it?
[00:42:44] Jamie: Yeah it’s a minefield though. You take a look at some of these groups and people are, you’re in the SEO and marketing agency you’ve got guys that are pretending to be in that and they aren’t, so they’re trying to fake it to make it, so you don’t know who to trust in that aspect, and then on top of that, these shops are being pitched this and that, they don’t know who to trust.
So I get it, and you have to have real talk, and you have to go into it not trying to sell. You have to go into it trying to be honest. I have tons of conversations with people.
At the end of the day, we might be too expensive, and usually at the crux of it, but they don’t see the value like the others do when they do come to the course . The experience is just unheard of and it’s basically one on one and the amount of film that we burn through and the amount of knowledge that’s there and the mentorship that you get going forward and after you’re gone It’s invaluable,
[00:43:48] Gabe: have
[00:43:48] Michael: have, and honestly, the cost is irrelevant. , should be irrelevant.
[00:43:52] Jamie: It should be, but the thing is you have these guys that are being pitched this product and this brand and this training course at where should I go? And they look at dollars and cents. If you look at the detailing industry in general, as a broad stroke, most of it is low barrier to entry low cost to entry to get into it and all of a sudden, you know They want to get into paint protection film and then when you Have those numbers and you hear that this training course is 1500 bucks. Oh, this one’s five grand Whoa then you have to, fly there, or drive there, or whatever, it’s four days.
Again, we might not be for everyone, and sometimes they understand, oh maybe I’m getting into this a little too early, I should pump the brakes a little
[00:44:40] Michael: And that could be because, it’s such an attractive thing at least
from the outside or looking in, it looks like an attractive thing. But you need to really. yoU need to go into it like you mean it, you can’t just wade into it and just go for it. You really need to invest and because the more you invest up front, the less you’re going to lose in the short term once you get out into the real world.
So that’s how people need to look at it. Do you want to spend the five grand, getting trained or do you want to go for it and spend 10 grand on film that you just wasted, take your pick.
[00:45:14] Gabe: that money one way or the other. And listen, what anybody says. And, I stand firm on this. Um, the companies that I represent. You guys know I’m a ceramic pro shop. I bleed pink and black here. We do a great job with it. Our clients love it. My installers love it. And it’s a great culture for us. say is that out of all of the companies that I have seen nobody has a better training regiment or facility than Equip Academy does. Nobody’s
got,
[00:45:44] Jamie: Thank you.
[00:45:44] Gabe: has half a car on uh, uh, rig. Nobody’s got uh, has the, of, of expertise that Jamie brings to the table.
And has as strict of a training regiment and does. I’ve seen, I’ve looked at all of them. Nobody has anything that comes close to what Equip Academy brings to the table. And, Jamie I’m, I’m you up and I’m putting you up
on the
pedestal. I’m putting you
up on the pedestal right now because you’ve taken what everybody has done for such a long time and you’ve completely obliterated the ceiling.
And it’s at a completely different level now. And if, people adopted the mindset that you have surrounding training and put that type of facility in place. granted, I manufacturers took training as serious as you did, the level of quality installers and people that would be available in our sector would be 10x .and to applaud you for that because I haven’t seen anybody come to the table with anything else like that with skin in the game besides you. uh,
to applaud you for that because it deserves noticing. And I’m sure that if, if chimes in here, he’s probably have a very similar opinion.
[00:47:02] Michael: I’m all about invest early, bear in mind, I’m selling against, sticky notes. So that’s why, in these groups drive me crazy,
[00:47:09] Gabe: my God.
[00:47:10] Michael: I
try to, limit my exposure
[00:47:12] Gabe: bother. tagging you anymore. I really don’t.
[00:47:14] Michael: I limit my exposure because it’s like, yeah, who’s got something for free to run my company? It’s Hey, you can run it off a fricking three leaf, notebook if you
want. It’s just, but what kind of company are you trying to run? Do you want to run a, a professional business or do you want to like, look like
[00:47:30] Gabe: Well, that’s, that’s
an important segway, Mike. You
know, we talked
Jamie and Equip Academy and what he’s about. We talked about your past You know, we really talked about Urable and what it currently brings to the table for these, uh, these out here and businesses that are growing.
you know. value and, and in terms of how Urable stands on the market and where, force behind Urable
[00:47:55] Michael: I’d Like to say it’s our pleasant disposition, everybody likes to be hanging around with the, Urable crowd, but no, honestly, it’s the system’s ability to help company of large or small size to really look professional, because so many things transcend off of that professional imagery that you’re projecting to your customers that is licensed to increase pricing. Number one. number two, it changes a business from being a transactional focused entity to a relationship focused entity, because that was one of the first things I noticed in this industry and why we ended up choosing it.
Nobody did anything about client retention. Everybody was focused on new customer acquisition, almost to a fault. It was like, once you spent money with somebody, that was it. You never saw him again. You
[00:48:45] Gabe: hmm.
[00:48:45] Michael: pursued him.
So I think that’s really changed over the years. We’re five years into it.
[00:48:50] Gabe: that long already?
[00:48:51] Michael: It’s fricking crazy, dude, It’s crazy. When we first got into it, it was all about new customer acquisition. Now, I think things have really come around. We’re offering subscriptions through Urable now, right?
[00:49:02] Gabe: Sirius
called me today, talking about you. I was like, wait, didn’t I see something about that? And, and I got the group and I was like, son of a gun, I was gonna call you. And I was like, is Sirius scamming me right now?
[00:49:13] Michael: they’re not. but it’s stuff like that, right? Like I offered that up to everybody because I thought that is a very unexpected thing for a customer to go to the Mercedes dealer and buy a new car and they get the three months free for Sirius. They, okay. That’s become like an expectation, right?
certainly don’t expect to get that same offer. By from their detailer, right?
[00:49:39] Gabe: Wait, So detailers can offer that
to clients? What?
[00:49:44] Michael: your able, I set this
[00:49:46] Gabe: Wait, wait, thought, I I got the call today. I thought they were offering us as a shop the three month trial. I was like, okay that’s, that’s a perk. So you’re saying we’re a trial endpoint to offer value to clients.
[00:49:59] Michael: Yes.
[00:50:00] Gabe: absolutely amazing. And I didn’t realize that. My mind is
blown. right
[00:50:05] Michael: It’s totally unexpected. But that’s the kind of stuff I focus on. I focus on what helps these businesses that are willing to run their company off of Urable. What is going to help them separate themselves in their market? So Carfax was an easy one,
right?
[00:50:22] Jamie: Yeah.
[00:50:22] Michael: Add value. nobody saw that coming, so I did that. Now we’ve got the marketplace with places like Adobe Road Winery in there.
[00:50:33] Gabe: cool.
[00:50:33] Michael: expects That now you get the opportunity to use gift ology
[00:50:38] Gabe: That’s one of my favorites.
[00:50:39] Michael: transaction based to relationship based. So if somebody is going to drop five, 10 grand, I’m getting, a
[00:50:46] Gabe: What’s a
[00:50:46] Michael: or a
why aren’t you giving them a good premium experience.
And part of that
is, okay, here’s this beautiful gift. It’s got a great motorsports heritage behind it. It’s totally unexpected and they’re going to look at that bottle and they are going to think of you.
Every
fricking time, right? So those are the kinds of things that I try and, bring into the community. It’s so different than just, technical this and that and features
[00:51:14] Gabe: I’m a big technical feature guy. I love and that’s just because I’m a nerd but Mike that’s why I try and do things so much with you and Urable is that it’s the philosophy and Philanthropy that comes to the table with the culture that you’ve built is that’s what’s always been the most attractive for me.
and
[00:51:35] Michael: Yeah, I’m not getting anything out of these things. I’m doing this for you guys, cause I was like, guys can’t go out and set these deals up like fricking Mercedes and Audi. I’m going to go do it.
[00:51:45] Gabe: That’s, uh, That’s awesome. Now I, him tomorrow. I have a, his sticky note from my, from Dom when she answered the phone is sitting on my monitor in the other room. I’m calling
him in the morning.
No,
[00:51:56] Michael: I don’t give any of your guys information
[00:51:58] Gabe: That’s
[00:51:58] Michael: And we started hearing this in the private group too. It’s geez, Sirius is calling all our people. So I had it out. I said, Hey, where are you guys getting all this info? They said you guys have that awesome, your story you,
know, you,
[00:52:10] Jamie: about, managing your business. I mean, that’s what Urable allows you to do is operate it as a business instead of just as a side hustle.
[00:52:19] Michael: yeah, and carry a heavy load. So
like, cause I’m constantly mentoring people that are struggling with this whole concept of growth and, maybe they’re going from two people to three people. And how do I do that? I don’t have enough money to be able to do that. I said, that is when you lean on the system.
Right. You lean on the system to create that headspace for you, but you let it carry a heavy load. So they end up going from like a pro subscription to enterprise for a period of time because the enterprise plan with these automated workflows carries a crazy load. So it’s like, okay, with those two people that you’ve got.
Push the fricking system to the max until you’ve got enough additional revenue that you can take that step back and hire that person, right? Because it is about you’re going up and then you’re coming down because you’re laying out more money and
then you start climbing again and you reach new heights.
It’s, that’s always going to be a steady thing in business. It’s always going to be this S shaped curve that kind of never ends, but you know, hopefully you’re not. Up and then slamming back
down. Hopefully it’s smoothed out. You smooth out that transition to hire that next person and make that investment by leaning on the systems to create more headspace for
[00:53:40] Gabe: that use Urable and when we use the Zapier integration and we combine that with our CRM GritSUite, of customization and the level of absolute cash printing power that comes from this. Is mind blowing these guys just it comes all the way down to when jobs are marked complete.
They’re dispatched a specific text message and email. To serve aftercare products. Uh, or the aftercare care instructions
and when they
click on that link. It starts a timer to send them uh, uh, purchase those products from wherever that may be. And sometimes it’s right back to the virtual store and Urable and like, it’s infinitely customizable down by the second and action that these, clients interact with these communications.
And it makes this a powerhouse tool in ways that I never really thought possible.
[00:54:40] Michael: See, but that’s what I’m talking about. It creates headspace that you can operate really at a much larger scale than you could have without a system. so that gives you the opportunity to go ahead and hire somebody. And then if you want, then you can just drop back down from the enterprise plan to the pro plan. but almost nobody does that. Enterprise plans, fricking awesome.
[00:55:01] Gabe: value built into that enterprise plan more than I, see with some
of the other softwares
[00:55:05] Michael: my God, the ROI is crazy with that thing.
[00:55:08] Gabe: enterprise that ask us to create these, these integrations have gone from, I had one, particular client who came on board. And he was some, something else. He was kind of piecing it together with his scheduling and invoicing.
Right.
[00:55:23] Michael: that’s
[00:55:24] Gabe: typical.
right? So he’s doing
like 40 to
50 grand a month.
And then, uh, you know, signing up for Urable and he was also using GritSuite and he, he up jumping up to like 70. When we tied Urable and GritSuite together and he made a small adjustment to how he sells, shop is now gone in, in four months. He’s gone from having his gross projection in a year be like, thousand dollars to now he’s pushing up on like I think he’s pushing up on like 000 in four months.
That’s was going to be his yearly projected growth rate. Like that’s blows my mind.
[00:56:08] Michael: Yeah, this is the stuff that’s possible. Because, I couldn’t operate these companies. I was operating before we did this thing with Urable without having systems. I’m not an I. T. Guy. A business guy. You learn to develop systems to solve business challenges and you just have to have that foundation, man.
it has to be something that can take a fricking punch when you need it, you know? So when you’re trying to scale heavy, it should carry a heavy load. I don’t know that there’s anybody in the community that’s using Urable that hasn’t had the opportunity to significantly raise prices simply because of the more professional just communication that happens as a result of it.
[00:56:48] Jamie: It’s amazing what technology does and how much it adds value to your life and to the business.
[00:56:53] Michael: Yeah, but yeah, there’s, we’re fighting people that just, Hey, it’s not free. I’m not paying for it. I can run this off a three leaf notebook and I’m like, then fricking do it. You’re not going to run at scale,
you know, or, you know, they’re the types that they got their badge of honor working 15 hours a
[00:57:11] Gabe: there is no honor and grind in 15 hours a
day, zero
[00:57:16] Michael: but that whole,
the grind mentality is fricking out of control in this industry. And I get it. And I mean, it’s one of the things that I really love about this industry is nobody’s afraid to hard
work.
I really want to see people work smarter. be able to make more money doing less, not, making more money only as a result of doing more.
You can make more money by doing things differently. Get smart about what are the services you offer that are making you money. How about do more of those?
[00:57:45] Gabe: Maybe
just
[00:57:45] Michael: Yeah, this isn’t rocket science. You can make tiny little shifts. Like Grant. We talked about Grant earlier. I think Grant moved away from doing any of his detail work.
[00:57:56] Gabe: I to give that up because it was such a great entry barrier and he really doubled and tripled down on the big three and now he’s than I’ve ever seen.
money to be made in detailing and there’s tons of people that that are always looking for it and it’s always a fantastic opportunity to cross sell. But after amount of time, that shift to being a big three focus only type of business, but you got to put the time in and you got to invest in the right systems to get there. It does not happen immediately.
[00:58:28] Michael: And you better be willing to invest.
if you’re trying to do it on the cheap, you’re not going to
make it. You’re going to be a statistic,
[00:58:37] Gabe: in your vocabulary as a big three operator, it’s not happening
[00:58:41] Michael: Nope.
[00:58:41] Jamie: Well, you said it, and we’ve said it, we’ve all said it, it’s invest. It’s not spending, it’s investing. And that’s how you have to look at it. If you’re looking at it as, well, it costs me this no, you’re investing in this because this is what my output’s going to wind up being, and the opportunity that it creates, It’s amazing when you invest you invest properly
[00:59:04] Michael: Yeah.
[00:59:04] Jamie: can help you scale is huge, huge.
[00:59:07] Gabe: listen, guys, I want to wrap up tonight. We’re pushing up on time. Mike, I appreciate you hanging out with us tonight. It was fantastic to hear about your stories from, your experience with Pentec and then booting up Urable and creating an asset for the industry to lean on where there wasn’t one previously. Thank you for joining us. Jamie, thank you for hanging out with us. Your story coming up from premium shield and then coming into equip academy.
Creating a system of value and foundation where there was not one previously.
You two guys are quite literally pillars of our industry and what I would consider true leaders in terms of creating opportunity where there, there was not. Creating opportunity for real vertical growth and real vertical gains for businesses. So I just want to say thank you to both of you for everything that you’re doing.
Thank you for joining us tonight, on talking paint.
For those of you who are listening, you can, if you can jump over to our website at talkinpaint. com that’s T A L K I N paint. com. You can find us on Spotify. Amazon music, apple podcasts, and Google podcasts as well. You can find us on YouTube. You can join our Facebook group.
You can also check out the agency website at detailing growth. com. Don’t forget to look at equip academy and Urable online.
Gentlemen. Thank you so much for joining us. I hope you have a good night.