Episode 49 - Troubleshooting Your Business - Round 2 - Andrew Houston

In this episode, Andrew Houston discusses the changes he has made in his detailing business based on the advice given in the previous episode. He has eliminated one position and is considering eliminating another to improve employee retention and cash flow. He has also focused on upselling existing customers and tracking inventory and product costs. Andrew has found success in buying from local distributors rather than relying on Amazon. The hosts discuss the challenges of letting employees go and the importance of building a solid foundation before scaling a business. In this conversation, the hosts discuss the topic of raising prices and the impact it can have on a business.

They emphasize the importance of eliminating weak links and increasing prices strategically. They also discuss the benefits of slow growth and the potential for future price increases. The hosts encourage the business owner to take pride in their progress and reward themselves along the way. They also provide advice on finding and hiring quality employees, emphasizing the importance of work ethic and cultural fit. The conversation concludes with a reminder to seek support and ask for help when needed.

Takeaways

• Eliminating positions and taking on more work in the shop can be a temporary solution to improve cash flow and employee retention.
• Upselling existing customers can lead to larger jobs and increased revenue.
• Tracking inventory and product costs can help reduce expenses and improve profitability.
• Buying from local distributors can provide better prices and support for professional-grade products.
• Letting employees go can be a difficult decision, but it may be necessary for the success of the business.
• Building a solid foundation before scaling a business is important for long-term success. Eliminating weak links and raising prices strategically can help a business reach its goals
• Slow growth can be beneficial and allow for future price increases
• Rewarding oneself along the way is important for motivation
• Finding quality employees involves looking for work ethic and cultural fit
• Seeking support and asking for help is essential for success

Chapters

00:00 Improving Cash Flow and Employee Retention
04:47 Upselling Existing Customers for Increased Revenue
06:13 Tracking Inventory and Reducing Product Costs
08:07 Benefits of Buying from Local Distributors
11:58 Challenges of Letting Employees Go
16:10 Building a Solid Foundation Before Scaling
25:23 The Impact of Price Increases
26:48 The Benefits of Eliminating Employees
28:14 Rewarding Progress and Taking Pride
35:24 Finding Quality Employees
38:39 The Importance of Seeking Support

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Transcript

0:05

Detailers Roadmap Cruise Control, where we navigate the roadways of life, business, and everything in between. Hey guys, it's Kevin Davis from the Cruise Control Podcast. We are here doing the part two and the last one of our troubleshooting series that we did. We're going to be here with Andrew Houston. Before I get started, I wanted to remind you to go to detailersroadmap .com, go up to the demo button and book a demo to talk about SEO and kick ass websites, because you know, that's kind of what we do and find us on social media. Make sure you go back and listen to all these podcasts, especially these troubleshooting ones. Everybody says we beat the crap out of these guys, which is true, but we don't have much time to try to help them. So we're trying to beat them up. So we'll see how Andrew did. Uh, and we will, uh, we'll come back and see whether or not, uh, he did what we said he said to do. We'll see how much we need to beat them up. I'm going to share my screen real quick. Why you do that Kevin? Uh, Andrew, is that a 66 behind you? Yes, it is. That's the, uh, Hertz, the Hertz rental car. Is that real or do they just do a livery off it? No, it's, it's real. That's awesome. Do you know what they used to, you know, you know why they had to discontinue that program by the way? No, because I don't know. People were taking them and renting them over the weekend, pulling the motor out and putting the, putting their motor back in it. and then taking it back to the rental company. Yeah, they did it with the wheels. It's like things they do now. That's a great idea. We should all do that. People are doing that now to get LS is out of the U -Haul trucks, by the way, which I do not recommend. All right. So we got a hard out. So we're going to make this quick. We got Andrew Houston. This is years in business. A couple team size four to seven revenue was 15 grand a month operating costs, 5,600 bucks labor. 31 fixed costs 1900 and the margin was 29 percent We went through some of these so you would I would encourage you to go back and listen to the original episode Also, so you can go back and kind of see how those change Website he's doing his own website. He's got our DR Details roadmap website does his own PPC paper click ads pull posting tons of times on social as you're able which is good about 50 ,000 people in his population area Basically does it all ceramic coating exterior detailing maintenance washes paint correction and mobile detailing Says his strengths or outstanding service quality interior detailing and he's well known in the community also enjoys long walks on the beach challenges cash flow employee employee resident retention due to pay and inconsistent bookings overall Original goals that we talked about were 25k in monthly revenue at about a 15 % margin book large jobs consistently, retain employees and add additional services, which I assume is PPF and some of these other things that we talked about. All right, we're good. All right, so that kind of takes you through that. We had given you, you know, grants magic three columns. We know we went through that. We kind of went through some of the other things. Walk us through some of the things that you remember and you took out of that initial conversation that you were like, all right, these are definitely the things that I want to change and things I need to work. Yeah, so the biggest one was, you know, Barry came out and told me, he said, you got to do, you got to do one of two things, you know, either get rid of a mobile unit or get rid of the mobile units or get rid of the shop. We didn't do any of those two things. However, the other part of that was get rid of an employee or two employees. So where we're at right now is we've eliminated one position, which has. inevitably brought me back to the shop a little bit more. So I'm a little bit more involved in the shop doing the physical detailing, which is okay for right now. I'm managing it, you know, and that's one of those things on that, that three columns that I've been listing out, which I forgot that listed home today. So I'm super pissed off about that. But anyway, so we eliminated that one position I'm working on. what I would like to do because employee retention with pay, because if pay was an issue for us, I'd like to eliminate a second position and bring in one full-time person who's very good at what they do, very good at detailing, can do every aspect of detailing from paint corrections, ceramic coatings, general maintenance detailing, and kind of manage that portion of it. starting with just one person as if I did when I started this business, you know, doing everything myself in the detailing side. So, and I'd like to bring that person in, pay them very well and grow that side of the business that way, just kind of scale back just a little bit and not bring as many customers on board, new customers, maybe retain the maintenance customers I have and upsell them as we go. One of the big things that I've done this year, It was something Grant brought up last time with pushing the existing customers that we have towards the coatings and the additional services. I think we've done a really, really good job of that. I'm booking more of those larger jobs right now. The 66 is an existing customer. You know, he's getting a full paint correction and coding. So, you know, he's somebody that I've been kind of slacking on not going after. And I made that I took that opportunity to go talk to him and now his car sitting in my bay. So, you know, that's been working out really, really well for me getting consistent bookings of larger jobs in the shop. So those are the really the big key items that we've kind of taken away from the first session and kind of instituted in our business along with really honing in on tracking our inventory and our product costs. I've been able to. to bring some of those down substantially. So, you know, our full details went from like $12 a car down to about eight to $10 in products. So we've done a really good job with that too. So we're doing better. How did you walk through that? Walk us through, just because I want to share this with the people that are listening, how did you go through that process and drop 35 % off the cost of your products? Yeah, so I really just... It was really where I was buying and purchasing the products from. You know, you've got, you know, Amazon such an easy thing to go online, purchase on Amazon, you get it two days or the same day. Sometimes it was really convenient for me versus buying from the right sources and waiting, you know, waiting for that product just a little bit longer. So now I just have to, so I just got, I was able to negotiate prices and discounts with certain vendors. I just have to wait a little bit longer for the products. Yeah, here's as a guy that sells chemicals. Here's the secret that a lot of guys don't think about with Amazon. Someone is paying for that shipping and that someone is usually you because if I want to sell a 16 ounce bottle of something on Amazon, they have to pay to ship it to them. Then they charge me to ship it to the customer. And so I have to then charge the cost. I have to inflate my prices. in order to make sure that I cover that shipping. And when you're talking about like a two liter or five liter freaking thing, like that's a lot of money shipping wise, even though they get discounted. So that's a huge thing for you to move to either, like, do you have a local distributor or anything or a truck that comes around or any of that stuff? We have several trucks that come around. Only one in particular that I do business with, they come out of Charleston. And they also have a retail store down there now too. When I need something, he's on it. He's bringing it to me. And they sell a lot of the products that we use in our business. And there were several products that I used to use, but I found out that he can hook me up with products that are very similar. And we were able to hash that out and negotiate prices and discounts. And so he's pretty much my standard guy. And his truck comes usually once a week or so. And I stock up then and if I don't if he doesn't have it then he overnight's it to me So it's been really really good relationship. So I don't really have you know, we have a Jack's wax store here in Myrtle Beach I don't really buy much from them, you know, occasionally I'll go get some pads or something if I need something in a hurry but as far as the professional grade products, it's it's all coming from pretty much him and a body shop Supply store that we have local in town, but that's about all we have around here Yeah, I like that you said, and I'll let these other guys jump in, but I like that you said that, you know, he's, he's giving you advice on comparable products, right? Like this stuff ain't rack rocket science, right? Like the, the old story is, you know, this product was developed by from the sweat, the ass sweat of an Australian tree frog, you know, like it's not like this stuff is not, this stuff is not that complicated, you know, like, and most of it comes from one batch that then gets diluted into 15 different products. And so. Especially if you're doing you know if you're professional and you're doing professional level detailing that's one or like you want to use it in order to deliver a certain level of quality but if you're doing any production level stuff there's no reason to overpay for some of that kind of stuff. Hey guys can we disagree to accent one out to make sure no customers hear that and everything's produced by a tree frog and deleted you know reproduced the two times over. I'm over here trying to think how does he know it. an Australian tree frogs sweat like what's your Google look like here Kevin? The guy that makes ammo told me that. Why you don't think you think that I'm offending people? You leave it out. Okay. No, your level of knowledge is one that we need. Anyway, you and Grant and Barry, feel free to chime in here and ask questions and follow ups and all that. Andrew, I think it's awesome. It sounds like you're doing a lot better so far a little bit. Definitely some huge improvements. And I do agree with you at buying local sometimes is huge. Definitely huge. I remember we used to have a truck that came by and I bought 80 % of my chemicals off that truck. You know what I'm saying? Just for the simple fact that you could buy large by bulk. And you could break it down if you know your dilution ratios, things like that. As a detailer, you can really save money. And a lot of problems that I see with detailers is they'll need the product tomorrow and try to order it today off the internet. You know what I mean? Because they can't afford to order that product realistically. They're waiting for a deposit or something like that. But no, I'm actually excited to see that you're doing better and making improvements because that's all it's about. At the end of the day, if you can improve one little 1 % today in six months, you're going to see drastic changes. So even though you didn't listen to me about getting rid of one or the other, I commend you for toughen it out, making it happen. Um, yeah, other than that, man, I'm just happy to see that you're smiling, laughing. Life is good. And you're finally, you're finding some traction here. You're actually putting some good effort in to, to see the costs and the numbers that Grant gave you. Um, cause doing this podcast with Grant, I'll tell you, Even now I'm looking at numbers more, you know, and I'm not even trying it. It just from listening to Grant, it's rubbing off on me. So kudos, man. Good job, Andrew. Truthfully. That's yeah, that's all I can really say, man. You're doing well. It looks like you froze up on us, but that's okay. Bye bye. Let's actually talk numbers while Andrew's away. I mean, think before he gets back here, let's see if us three can, can, you know, convene here is that when losing somebody, I mean, letting somebody go. especially in a position that you thought was extremely important. And then now seeing it that, hey, I might have to let two people go. I mean, that's a very tough, because for us as entrepreneurs going back and trying to relive being like, we all feel like it's a step in the wrong direction when we're letting somebody go, especially people that we build relationships with. I mean, you're with them more than sometimes with your own family. So how do you think Andrew's feeling here when he's letting that one position go with the detailing? Now he's positioning, potentially letting a second position go. And then now he's back in the shop. Like he was running a business, you know, doing everything right in his mind. And now he took all of our advice and now he's like one or two positions go that stuff. Yeah, it is definitely tough. Do you think, do you think that a lot of entrepreneurs, small business owners get ahead of themselves? with with getting out of the shop like how does that you know help us walk through that because I think you know if you're able to step back that quickly you know and with that kind of impact is that would that indicate that you push that envelope a little bit too fast and I'm not saying Andrew dead I'm saying you know I'm saying that that can be and I think this is where Grant and I are a little different um you know Grant likes to scale and grow and make things happen fast. You know what I mean? And that's my opinion, Grant. Don't correct me if I'm wrong. But for me, I would rather take an extra day to get to the top of the mountain without running out of energy, knowing that a solid foundation was built. So when I talk to people, one of the biggest things I tell them is it's not about now, it's about five years from now. How are we gonna get in three to five years? How are we going to get you to where you need to be? Because I've seen a lot of people and I hate to say it, it's the 10 X crowd. You know, those 10 X people think that because they're well, they think because they listen to Grant Cardone, they're going to be successful. The reality of the, of it is Grant don't sell a service. He's always sold houses, properties. He's selling physical items, which is easier to scale than a service based industry. in my opinion. Yeah, I mean, I mean, I haven't, I haven't done everything right under any means. And I'm a fiery, I'm a fiery dude, because you know, you launch, you launch people in these positions and you give them everything that you think they need. But eight months later, six months later, shit, two weeks later, you realize, Oh no, what did I do? But then, then it's, uh, it's tough to tell yourself. especially us as men that you did something wrong potentially, uh, or that you didn't do everything right. And to have to retract is, is very difficult to do. So to go from the start. And the thing is to you, you, you, you give these people this dream of, Hey, it's a five year commitment. I want you part of this. Like it's a massive deal to everybody in place. And then to have to go and let them go, it's, it's tough, man. It's toughest thing. So I mean, Barry, I'm right there with you on the five year. Uh, I'm also, you know, I get that too, where it's like, I, you know, have I grown too fast? I questioned myself that all the time, all the time. It's very difficult. Andrew came back. We'll see. Can he, can you hear us? Andrew? Poor Andrew. No, I get it. He's struggling. Cause the, the way, the way I did it was when I stayed in my shop. for about four years, five years. Granted, I was in a different position than most because of the fact that I had the auto auction right there and I had cars coming from all over by the trailer loads, that made it easier, but I was doing the work a lot cheaper as well. So I had very little margins to get, basically, so what I always thought was everybody always preaches, You've got to get out and work on your business versus working in your business. How I looked at it was I worked in my business until I knew 100 % that I could walk away. And then that's when I started to work on my business. So when I hired Scott, he was my first employee, believe it or not. Scott was my partner. And when I hired him, he looked at me and said, what can I do? I said, you're not going to detail cars for me. I need you to run my business. I'll handle, I'll handle what I know best. And by doing that, what happened was eventually I replaced somebody to do interiors. I replaced somebody to do the wet bay. I replaced somebody to do the final detailing. And there I was buffing, you know, with a couple other people until I got to the point where I say, okay, now I got the buffers. I'm going to sit here and wet sand. And it's funny how my career started as a wet sander. and my detailing career kind of ended as a wetsander until I walked out of it. But by that time I had every piece laid out, every puzzle, everybody knew what they were doing. I just had to replace myself in an easier position at that point. And that's, I think that's where my success came from. This episode is brought to you by Detailers Roadmap. Hey, spoiler alert, that's us. We all know you need a kick -ass website in order to be successful with your business. The good news is at Detailers Roadmap, kick -ass websites, that's kind of what we do. With the latest performance, designs and SEO strategies, Detailers Roadmap is your one stop shop to be successful on the web. And don't forget, we have the best support team in the industry. Whether you're an existing partner looking to improve your lead generation or you need a brand new website, Detailers Roadmap is here to help you be successful on the web. So go to detailersroadmap .com forward slash success and get started today. That's detailersroadmap .com forward slash S -U -C -C -E -S -S. Oh, so what Grant was saying when you popped off the first time is that it must be, why don't you just say it, Grant? Why do I need to say it? Yeah, dude, it's gotta be super tough, especially going from when you think as a business owner, you're going through everything and everything's so right. And the next thing you know, you gotta let the first person go. Then again, now you gotta realize you gotta let the second person go. And how difficult is that? Like what's the process internally for you from? Like just internalize it all. Like you feel like you're doing everything right. And then you listen to yourself and you're like, Oh man, this person really isn't doing things. Well, I got to let them go. And you took it even a step further. Now you realize, now you're realizing, Oh, the second person isn't even doing everything right. And now you got to step back into the shop. And now it's like, I'm trying to, I'm trying to put myself in your position, Andrew and say, okay, what's it like to step back? And then how important is that decision to say, I got to let these people go. Yeah. Yeah, so it's definitely not an easy decision and it definitely wasn't made overnight. It was, you know, I think the first decision was a tough one because I like the kids so much. The good thing for him is the fact that he's got, you know, he's got a career that he can go into with heating and air conditioning. So, you know, he got a good job with the county down here working in the school system doing heating and air conditioning. So. you know, it kind of worked out better in his favor anyway. And he's young and can make a career out of that. And I would never want to hold anybody back from doing that and having a good successful career. So kind of worked out there. I just want to say they're probably a hell of a lot more millionaire HVAC owners than there are detailing HVAC, detailing millionaires. Yes. So, you know, the second, the second one's, you know, I'm kind of quickly getting to that point. And I think that's purely out of frustration. The last thing I wanna do is give credits to customers and give money back to customers. And when people just aren't reaching the expectations that I'm setting forth and my customers have come to expect, it's time to part ways and move on. And the biggest thing for me is, now that I've... eliminated one position and I wasn't planning to fill that position. You know, that set me back. You know, now I'm instead of being two to three weeks now, four weeks booked. So it's like that taking that step back is very, very difficult for me because it's, it's putting in my brain a little bit more stress than what I really wanted to have. But at the end of the day, I see the positives, you know, saving, you know, six, seven, $800 a week. Um, and payroll is more money in my pocket. Um, and I'm, and I just take that as I'm paying myself. I gave myself a little bit of a pay raise to come into the shop and, and I gave myself a promotion to, to shop detailer, you know, I'll cut, I'll cut grant off and pretty sure what he's, what he's about to say. If you're four weeks out, here's the math you have to do though. If you're four weeks out, you gotta know whether or not you're losing dude. That's one job in a month. If you lose one job because you're slower, then that's, you know, and I think Grant was Grant. I could see him loading up. So I'll let you go grant as you contemplate your next things to say. I mean, Andrew is it $800 forever or is it$800 right now? Well, right now, you know, like I feel like I'm getting into a position where, you know, that's where it's really difficult for me because I want to, I want to grow the business. but at the same time I want to do it. not allowing, hold on. You're good. Okay. I just wanted to make sure, um, it's not allowing me to get to that point, not having the employees. So it's, it's really difficult for me to say, Hey, I'm four weeks out. I need to hire. But then again, I'm not bringing in the jobs that I'm needing to meet that number that I need to hire another person, you know, or bring back that position. I want to get my numbers. Now, another thing we did at the beginning of the year was we increased our prices. We did a small increase and I'm getting ready to probably do another pretty significant increase on top of that. So we took everything up at minimum. Each service went up minimum $50 just to give it a little bit of a try there. A detailing too? Yeah, everything. Mobile? Everything. Yep. at mobile and in the shop, everything went up. Nobody has scoffed at that price that truly wanted our service. So that was my test. And I've done since the beginning of the year, 151 jobs completed. So out of 151 customers, none of them complained about the price. So I think I'm going to, after I get - 500 bucks right there. Yeah. After I get rid of Weeblink. after I get rid of a weak link, I think it's going to be the point where we increase again, because right now, I don't that weak links keeping me from hitting the expectations that I want to set forth that represent that price. So I'm just kind of leery. What's that percentage? Just what's the percentage of increases? So because people have different, you know, 50 bucks, maybe 2 % somebody and 10%. I would say I would say that would be around probably 10%. 10 to 15 % roughly on most services. So. And you guys, I want to ask you a question about this price increase, right? Like, you know, the old adage when you're is like, keep raising prices until people stop buying. Right. But it's, it's, uh, you know, cause if, if you, if you did 10 to 15 % and people didn't even blink, like, and you raise them again, when you raise them again, you may get a better indication, but it's this, it's this equation and this math of like, All right. Well, I lost, let's say $2 ,000 worth of bookings, but I made an extra 10 or whatever because I raised my prices. That's math that you like all day long. And Barry and Grant, feel free to comment on that. Cause I'm genuinely curious, like your thoughts about raising prices and being strategic about it, how the impact goes, how to do it, you know, how to do it by time, all that. Uh, for me, it sounds like raising your prices work. at the end of the day. If you had 150 customers or whatever and not one of them complained, I would like to think you didn't raise your prices high enough. Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting at. To be honest with you. But listen, again, I like slow growth. So when you look at the slow growth that you're going to see here, that 10 % is pretty good. You know what I mean? You didn't push a button and jump it up to 25%. and scare half your clientele away. They accepted it. So you gave yourself some room maybe at the end of the year or next year to look at it and reevaluate and say, okay, do you know what? That 10 % health, but maybe I could squeeze an extra five or 10%. So you still left some juice, some juice in the squeeze, if you know what I'm saying, which I think is awesome. And I, you know, I also realized that by you leaving a person go or to go and you go back in your shop, That could almost feel humiliating to somebody, you know? Don't let it go that way because remember, Andrew, this is your business. You, yours. You know what I mean? You're gonna have to put some work in. You're gonna have to put some sweat in. You've gotta earn that equity in the company. And until you get to that point, that's when you bring that other person on. And it sounds like by eliminating two people, You gave yourself a chance to pay, give yourself a little pay raise, you know, and then also it sounds like you could soon be able to bring on one person and pay one person better than two cheaper employees. And I think by doing that, I mean, listen, we're all humans at the end of the day, you know, we know what it feels like to be mistreated or not, not feel like we're appreciated or something like that. You bring on that one employee that's appreciative. That employee will change your life. I'm telling you, because it happened with me. That one employee now is my business partner, to give you an idea, Andrew. Literally. So I think you're on the right path. And I think you're going to see a lot of great changes. But I don't think you'll realize the changes are going to happen until one day, a month or two months from now, you're going to look back and be like, wow. I didn't really realize all this changed because it's a slow steady change. But one day when you look back and you're like, Whoa, did this really happen? It did. And that's when you should be really proud of yourself. That's when you take an extra hundred bucks out and go and get your wife some steak and eat properly. Eat good for a night. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. You know, reward yourself and don't be afraid to do that. because rewards motivate you. I do it every year. I buy something new every year for myself. If you know me and you follow me, I'm sure you can put it together. But every year I buy one thing I always use, but it's new for me. But that's my motivating factor. That's what keeps me going. It keeps me pushing harder. I enjoy my cars. Truthfully, I buy a new car every year. And I do that for the simple fact that it motivates me. People think I'm crazy. People think I'm nuts, but I got the equity. Why not? Let's have some fun. I'm here to enjoy life, not working away. Just like you, you know what I'm saying? So good job, Andrew. I honestly, I mean this, but I'm proud of you, man. I really am. You're at a point where you had to step back a little, but you're going to see the rewards. And I think you're already starting to see them. And I know you are because you got money in your pocket. I see, I seen Grant gringe a little bit when you said, I gave myself a raise, you know, I'm okay with that. Let's hear it. Let's hear it. Let's hear it. Let's hear it. Let's hear it. Grant. Let's hear it. Your turn. No, no, I can, I agree more with Barry actually. And the coolest part is that Andrew, you deserve the rewards. It's the coolest part is that you deserve every bit of it. And it's not even a step back. It's just that you're just making the hardest decision as being a business owner that nobody will ever be able to comprehend until you become a business owner. And so you have to go through the decisions that you're doing now. You two people, one that was obviously like going to another person that's in the position that seems like you're going to have to be letting go too. It's the hardest decision, bro. It's not easy, especially when you build a relationship with them. It's extremely difficult. And the fact, Andrew, that you were able to make the decision not just for the business, but for you and your family is something that we can all applaud you for. It's not easy. All of us have been through it. It sucks. It sucks, dude. And it's a great lesson, though, right? Oh my god, yeah. Sometimes you literally just, when you're a small business owner and entrepreneur, you do what you have to do. And all of us, I think, those of us that are taking care of families and all that, too, it's like, dude, I'm going to work at McDonald's if I need to in order to pay bills. I'll get back in the shop. I you know, I could go back to detailing if it were me. I don't want to but I could same thing with you. You're back out in the shop, you know polishing cars and washing cars and because that's what needs to be done. But it's this temporary thing like right like you can do anything for a little bit of time, but you you took this step back. It's almost like you know the retreat where the the sometimes people talk about retreating from a military standpoint as like giving up. But the reason that you retreat is so you can regroup and go back and fight some more. And that's really the idea of what I think that you're doing. And I agree with the other two guys. I mean, that's super cool that you were able to make those changes and make those decisions. And here's hoping that you find a person that will be that person that helps you just skyrocket the business for the rest of 2024. And here's this was the real. easy decision for me is, you know, I look at, you know, we had talked in the first podcast about the referrals, you know, not the referrals had kind of slowed down a little bit and I was relying more on, you know, Google and running ads and stuff like that to get business. And the biggest thing for me was let's look at why let's do a deep dive into our business and look at why the referrals are slowing down. And it was, uh, It was the customers came to expect a certain level of quality. I threw some employees out in a van who weren't quite up to snuff on their quality. The passion that they have for this business, it's a paycheck. And that's a lot of what you find when you're going to be paying $12 to $15 an hour. So I quickly realized that and I said, OK, well, what do we need to do to get our... get that quality up to where getting those referrals against people aren't saying, well, I'm stupid if I refer Houston Shine because, you know, you know, they didn't do a good job for Joe Schmo down the street, you know. So I want to get back to that. And if these guys aren't willing to to uphold that, that quality and the the the processes that I have in place in our business, then they got to go, you know. So that's just kind of. where how my thought process worked with that, you know, it wasn't personal. It's 100 % business and you know, like I'll still be their friend outside of this. But at the end of the day, I'm a business owner first and I have to take care of my family. So yeah, well, that's the thing. It's not just your business. I mean it is business, but it becomes it's personal when it's your business, right? Like it's it's you, your family, your livelihood, your future. And so that's that's definitely the right way to go. Andrew, I want to kind of bring it back around. We you know, we got. a little bit of time left. Are there ways that we can help you, things that we can still talk through to kind of help you? Cause we, you know, it's been more than we, we originally planned 60 days on this has been more than 90, just kind of how it happens. It just seems kind of crazy how, how fast it, how fast it went. Um, but is there, how can we help you in the next like 15 minutes, you know, to be able to kind of walk through anything that w that we're still looking at, that we're still trying to tweak a little bit. you know, how can we be of service? I mean, the biggest thing for me is, I guess, you know, I'm booking consistently more of the of the higher end jobs. It the biggest thing for me is getting the quality like, how do you how do you find that that needle in a haystack or that unicorn for your business? You know, like that's the biggest struggle I'm having right now is You know, I feel like if I offer somebody, you know, 50 grand a year, that's pretty dang good money in Myrtle beach. There's not many people around here that make 50 grand a year. And, you know, if I offered something like that, you think people would come flooding in your door, but it's just, it's just not how it works. Like, you know, where do I go to find these people? It's a dealership. That is actually true. We did find a person from a dealership. I'm telling you, Andrew. Oh, well, there you go first. And then I'll drive you out first. Here's why I say this, OK? We all know the rumors, dealerships do bad work, blah, blah, blah, blah. Don't hire somebody from a dealership. I was a dealership background guy. I'll put my skills up against anybody in this industry. I promise you that, Andrew. OK? With that said, a dealership employee has to turn work around fast. They have to get the job done, okay, as quickly as possible. They know how to hustle and they make shitty money at the end of the day. Okay. All you have to do is come in there, treat them with a little respect, bump up their pay a little bit, become their friend and teach them how to do it properly. That is very simple to do. Very simple. Instead of going out there looking for the guy. that says, oh, well, yeah, I want a job as a detailer. But right now I'm working at Sheets, which is a gas station, making $18 an hour. So you deserve to pay me $25 an hour. No, I don't deserve to pay $25 an hour. I deserve to pay you what your time is worth in my business. There's a difference. You see what I'm getting at? No. I'm telling you, go to a dealership. Find somebody that's been there for a year or two that knows their way around the car. All you have to do is just dial them in a little bit and tell them to slow down. And you'll be amazed at what that person can do for you. And if Grant counters this, I'm going to say, Grant, who runs your business? Because I know you don't. Tell me his name, and I know I'll win that battle overnight. First off, his name is Jim Hutton. Jim Hutton and Mike Spicharni. And no, Barry, he's definitely not wrong. 100%. Work ethic out of a D. detail or out of a dealership is extremely important. Some of it shows up and is willing to be worked around, but there's burnout that comes with that. And one of my top guys here, his name's Christian, he's a new guy. We actually didn't steal him out of it, which is, I have a couple of points here, but he came to us and he said, hey, I'm ready to get out of this industry. You're my last hope. Like I love cars. I love what I do. I love detailing, but you're my last hope because the burnout was real. And I said, well, dude, if you can give us a shot, I can't pay you. We're getting over there. We actually. We actually discounted his pay just to make sure he's the right guy and the work ethic was there. And then we went well past when he was getting paid before. Okay. So 100 % Barry, I'm not going to, I am a little afraid of you bud and working on call duty later. I don't want you to shoot your own teammates. So I'm just going to stick with this one. But Barry's 100 % correct there. 100%. But to that point, Andrews, you got to stop searching. Stop searching for that needle on haystack and start building. You can, there's not, it's very rare that you're able to find the got, we, out of my whole shop here, I have two guys actually knew what they were doing. Yeah. We have 22 guys that are phenomenal at what they do now. It's because we built them up and you can go and steal them from other places too, 100 % and give them a better work life balance and give them a better work life just in general and give them a better environment there and give them better pay. But Andrew, the coolest part is when you know that somebody could go and make double. what they're getting paid at your facility, but they love every bit about walking in every single day that pay has nothing to do with it. Look at us four right here. Just pay up anything to do with what we're doing every single day versus the impact that we're putting on to other people's lives every single day. That is why we do what we do. 100%. We could, any single one of us could go and make a half million bucks a year going anywhere else. But why would we do that? We love to do what we do. So stop searching and start building. is the message when it's when it's especially around employment in building team members. And that that will get you so much further than trying to find that one person needle in the haystack that actually knows what they're doing. Guess what? Even if they're needle in the haystack, you're still going to have to train them. You're still going to have to build them on the Houston way. Yeah, yeah, because I mean, that's a great fallacy, right? With people hiring, I want to hire this. It doesn't matter what it is. I want to hire this the best detailer. Right. That I can for 50 grand a year. I want to hire the least, the, I want to hire somebody that doesn't know anything about detailing, but like in our area, like I w I have the girl that actually does my shipping and receiving in my shop is a farm kid. Like find a farm kid, find a ranch kid. And that work ethic that comes with that is, is amazing. So like hire work ethic attitude and cultural fit because, because anything, I mean, We're not curing cancer here. We're cleaning cars, right? Like you've got SOPs in place. You can train anybody to do what we do. And I'm sorry if I'm insulting anybody out there, but this isn't, if you have SOPs in place, you can really teach someone how to do it. You just want to make sure that they're a good cultural fit, which also, which points to what you're dealing with right now. You have a culture of excellence because you want to deliver the best result you can for the customers. Your current person that you're talking about doesn't fit into that culture because they want to get it done as quickly as possible and get it out the door and hope they get away with doing subpar work. Right? Like that's the work ethic. So hire work ethic. And there's tons of places to get that. You know, you can, you can get that in different, there's tons of places to find those people. And I like personally, I would rather hire somebody that doesn't know anything about detailing all day long. That's always been my philosophy. Cause you. Cause then you don't have to break any bad habits. You know, there's, there's no habits to break then. Cause they all, I mean, how many people in the detailing industry think they're the base best detailer that ever lived? I don't care what level of detailer you really are. All of them. So eliminate that attitude and ego. And then the person's ego is tied in with how good they do for Houston's, not how good they are as an individual. So that's my advice on that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And Andrew, one more thing too, is that when it comes to pay too, you feel like you got to pay all these dudes so well, which dude, it's all we, all four of us, all we want to do is pay every single person around us hundreds of millions of dollars. All we want to do is support. We're not even business owners. We're just, we're just lovers and we love to connect and we love just to build others up. Yeah, that's the end of the day. That's what a business owner truly is. You share the vision and you build people and surround them around it. It's very difficult, especially where we're at in business where it's like, Oh my God, I can't pay this person what I know they're worth. But Andrew, when you set that vision out there and when you show them what you're going after, dude, you might not be able to pay them today, but if I was to look at you, Andrew, and say, hey dude, I'm going to give you an extra 100 Gs in the next thousand days, which is three years from now, I'm going to add, three years, only a thousand days later, I'm going to give you an extra hundred Gs in a thousand days, as long as you're willing to build this with me. And here's what I want to build. And here's how I visualize this. Bro, oh my God. the amount of people that are gonna jump on board with you, dude. It's gonna be through the roof. It's gonna be awesome. So. Andrew, I gotta agree with that. And I think when I look back on my career, my, if I remember correctly, who is now my business partner, I hired Scott, I think at $10 an hour when I first started. That's what I could afford to pay him, was$10 an hour. Look at that. Today, I know how much Scott makes because I make the exact same amount. You know what I mean? And he's doing, he's doing okay. We'll let it at that. But, um, you, you just, you never know what the future holds, but I'm a firm, also a firm believer, what Kevin and Grant said, creating a culture within your business provides an experience. You know, that doesn't, that experience just doesn't extend to your customers. It extends to everybody in your life around you. Make sense? Yeah. You gotta bring the best version of Andrew first before you hire that person. Mm -hmm. Think about that for a moment. That could get deep, depending how hard you think, but bring the best version of yourself first. The rest will happen. Definitely. All right, I'm gonna be the first one to say it. Andrew, I'm so stoked for you, bro. Me too. I'm so stoked for you, dude. Dude, even just your... You're the way that you look right now compared to where it was almost a hundred days ago, bro. You just look so much better. Yeah. Counting it. So right like that, that countenance and how you carry yourself like it, like you're trying, you're trying not to try not to smile when Grant talks about how awesome you're doing. Like it's, it's great. I mean, it's, it's super cool to see this progress. We're going to do a, I'm going to try to get a round table with all of us, which would be, which would be seven of us. Right. So we're going to try to, or six of us. Try to get all six of us on. So I'll let all the listeners know when that comes. Any final parting words in the last couple of minutes, gentlemen, from anybody? Grant's still ugly. Just saying. Wow. This episode was also brought to you by my bowling shirt. I love Grant. For everybody listening, I love Grant. I'm just envious of his good looks. So I gotta call him ugly to make myself feel better. I do want to point out one more time that like, you know, we, I know we got to, I know we can, cause we've gotten the comments that we kind of beat up on people on this thing, but we genuinely like we, the reason we do what we do is cause we love the people that we're trying to help. Right. Like we were, and we're genuinely heartfelt excited to see Andrew, uh, David and Michael do better in the business. And we're super excited to get other people on here and talk more about business and, and you know, Both these guys, Barry and Grant, both have helped me in my business and in my life. And I'm excited to be able to, you know, if we can pass that on to others, both on this podcast and those that are listening to it. So that's super cool. Andrew, we're super excited for you. And just reminder, this episode brought to you by Detailers Roadmap, and we build websites and do SEO. Andrew can attest to that. Grant can attest to that. Barry can attest to that. Go to details roadmap .com to learn more there. And Barry will give me one or a grant will give me one more thing. I got one more thing too. Uh, you know, we are hard on people, but the cool part is at the end of the conversation is, Hey, I would love for you to do this for our business too. The reality of what we do on this podcast and thank God for Chris and everybody at detailers roadmap for allowing us to do that is that each and every one of us, Barry, Kevin, and myself. just like you, Andrew and the other two guys that we have that we have done this with, we all need support. There's not a single person on his pocket. It doesn't matter if it's Kevin, Barry or myself, each and every one of us seek out support every single day of our lives. Don't be afraid to ask. Okay. We, it's not any support, just humanity as it is. And when you reach out, it's really cool when you get some awesome dudes around you that have the same heart and dedication towards something of what you've started. So. don't ever be afraid to ask for help. Yeah. And you'll be surprised that the people you'll be you'll be surprised at who helps, right? Like that's I mean, you know, I reached out to Grant. Grant's always a great source of inspiration and encouragement to me, but also reached out to a guy that's worth a few hundred million dollars this week. He gave me a half hour of his time, which he normally charges like 10 grand for and just was willing to help, right? Like he legit wanted to just reach out and he thanked me. This is crazy. He thanked me for giving him the opportunity to serve into my, you know, to, to serve into my life. And so that should encourage everybody that's listening to that to look in your, you look out into the world and don't be afraid to ask the questions, especially people that are, you know, seemingly doing better than you. So Andrew, awesome. I appreciate you coming. Any final words for the team? No, I think, I mean, thank you guys. I mean, this is, it's unbelievable. The amount of. knowledge that you guys have collectively and the support that you guys give when I send a message, you answer. And I'll forever be grateful for that. So just to have the awesome community that we have in this industry is awesome. The support group is insane. It's beyond belief. Andrew, I do want to be serious here and just tell you one thing. Keep being yourself and keep smiling, man. Yeah, dude. 100%. That's it, dude. Just keep being yourself. Keep smiling. You're there. It's going to come quicker than you think. Thank you. All right. All right, guys. Well, thanks for joining me. We will see you again soon. Head over to retailersroadmap .com and get your one -stop success solution today.