Carter Pembridge: [00:00:00] Carter, uh, here with Khrist. Say hello there, Khrist. How do y’all, we’ve got, we’ve got Scott Harville. How you doing today, man?

Scott Harville: How we doing? We doing?

Carter Pembridge: Right on. Well, this is gonna be a really cool one here because we’re gonna touch on some stuff, um, with,fleets, which we didn’t touch on last time and how we can, you know, navigate that area.

But Scott, um, thank you for joining today out of your busy day, man. I know you got a lot going on in the shop, as every shop does. I can only imagine. But you’re, you know, putting a little bit of time with us, which we always appreciate. Um, Scott, I wanna start from the beginning. I think it’s always interesting and, uh, get to really know you, uh, the person running the shop and, and of course our, our Shop Boss clientele here.

So Scott. Gimme a background on you, man. What made you get into, um, really get interested into cars wanting to fix ’em up? Right. Gimme where, where did that all start with you?

Scott Harville: Man, it’s kind of been just kind of around it through growing up. My family, most of my family’s [00:01:00] been in the mechanical field of some form or fashion.

Um, coming up, you know, my granddad worked on semis, drove semis for a lot of years,

Carter Pembridge: right on.

Scott Harville: My dad was a semi tech for a little bit. And then, uh, I got an uncle that is a, uh. He’s been mechanic pretty much all his life that I’m aware of.

Carter Pembridge: So did you start fixing semis first? Was that kind of, or helping, helping dad out or what?

Scott Harville: I, I used to, I used to go down the road with my granddad for a while, you know, it was kind of the, the, the gearing up and the shifting and the whatnot that really kind of got me hooked into the, the automotive world. But I’ve done very little work on semis, period.

Carter Pembridge: Okay. No, no. Gotcha, gotcha. But you kind of grew up around them.

Right on, man. Um, and getting into what, when did it really kind of become more of a, an actual like, hobby, I’m gonna make money, hobby, I’m gonna make money. When did that, or even think about it, when did like that concept start, right? Like, Hey, maybe I could actually do something like this for a living. When did that kick off?

Scott Harville: Well, [00:02:00] I guess it’d really have to be, I, I don’t know. I was probably 12, 13 somewheres in that room. And, uh, my dad sucked a carburetor bolt through the intake of his truck on going down the highway and we got stuck having to rebuild it. And I dunno if it was one of his friends or a family member’s garage over the weekend so we could try to get home.

Hmm. And had a crash course tearing one apart in the garage somewhere. And that was kind of where it started.

Carter Pembridge: There you go. So there’s three in the water. You gotta, you gotta sink or swim then kind of situation. Right on. Right on. That’s a crazy situation, dude. If I, man, I tell you what, when I was 12 or 13, last thing you want me to do is fix your car, man.

Fix your, can’t even imagine my dad, he’d be on his own, lemme tell you that he. I’m guessing for you it probably wasn’t really much of a choice. It was, Hey, Scott. Yeah. Kind to become a technician, pal. It’s it’s ready to roll.

Scott Harville: Yeah, exactly.

Khrist Hussein: It the same kind way that Batman, that Batman started, but Scotty went the car way, so, uh, yeah, he, he kind of got thrust into it.

Carter Pembridge: Minus the parents thing with Batman, but yeah, exactly. I know you just watched Batman this morning, but [00:03:00] you know, it’s, there’s a key thing you’re missing there, Khrist. Um, okay, so 12-13 young, um, got into, so what was your first job in the world as a, as a technician? Um, getting into it officially.

Scott Harville: Oh man. Um. I wouldn’t necessarily say the technician side of things really.

That started it. I was, uh, I got on at a, at a salvage yard working tear down reps. Okay. And kind of got started into kind of ripping ’em apart and I was there for a little bit. And then I got an opportunity to dive into another shop. One of our customers was looking for an entry level tech, and so I, I go on in with him and start off with the oil changes and the brakes and that kind of deal.

I’ve been around it quite a bit. You know, I said my uncle was a, was a master tech for a big performance shop here and down south from me here that, uh, you, you just kind of go by and visit and have lunch or whatever with him. And I kind of got some of the shop experience, but [00:04:00] that’s kinda where I started.

Carter Pembridge: man, you’re in, you got your hand in all kinds of different cookie jars growing up, man, fixing all kinds of different stuff.

Right on. Right. What were some things that you kind of picked up in this, this first job? What are some things that, being in there, entry level, doing some break jobs, oil change jobs, what are some things that you picked up? You, you caught your eye. Then maybe you’re like, you know what, maybe one day I might be able to take this full-time for myself.

Scott Harville: Man, it was really just kind of some of the projects that some of the other guys, the actual, the, your heavy line techs were working on that I was able to kind of see, come in and out.

Carter Pembridge: Um, okay.

Scott Harville: I, I will say that, you know, now, uh, I’ve actually got a car in my shop that’s been kind of one that I’ve eyeballed and, and, and wanted to have a chance to work on something of this caliber, uh, for a long time that my uncle built, and it’s now sitting in my shop years later.

So it’s definitely one of those things. You can see it where somebody else is messing with something and they’ll want to drive to do the same. And then here we are [00:05:00] way later and it’s actually sitting in my shop waiting to be worked on again.

Khrist Hussein: Now a total sidetrack. Um, you’ve got, uh, one really old car, uh, sitting there, don’t you?

Carter Pembridge: Which one?

Khrist Hussein: The really, really old car.

Carter Pembridge: What are we talking about, man? I didn’t, I didn’t hear about this.

Scott Harville: Are we talking like the twenties or are we talking like the sixties?

Khrist Hussein: The twenties. The twenties. The twenties.

Scott Harville: It’s not here. It’s at the house, but yes.

Khrist Hussein: Okay. Yeah. Tell me a bit about that one. Tell, actually, tell Carter a bit about that one.

’cause.

Scott Harville: Oh, okay.

Khrist Hussein: So I say it’s a flex of the knowledge.

Scott Harville: I picked up a 1927 Model T that we are turning into a little Roadster hot rod build,

Carter Pembridge: shoot, man. That’s a, that’s a car show car right there. Do you take it out in any, uh, any car shows?

Scott Harville: Man, I’m still building it. So it is currently sitting in my garage that we’re building.

Carter Pembridge: Model T nine. What year did you say it was?

Scott Harville: It’s a 27 [00:06:00] Model T touring.

Carter Pembridge: I’m looking at picture right now, 27. Model T touring, dude.

Khrist Hussein: I mean, this is one of those cars that like, um, you know, anybody’s had a shop wants to have one of those cars that you can just sort of mess with a little bit on the side. And this is truly what a lot of guys get to love out of from, you know, to go into a shop.

When you have something like that, that Carter’s looking at smiling right now, any car guys can look at it and do the same

Carter Pembridge: dude, you gotta crank the engine on that thing. Is that to get it going?

Scott Harville: Well, the original yes, but not the new one.

Khrist Hussein: He actually sticks his foot out the side like Fred Flintstone. You have to slow down, so, yeah.

Carter Pembridge: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That’s how he drives it. Yeah. Yeah. No, fair enough. Absolutely, man. Um, no, no. Right on. Okay, so when was, uh, the shops, okay, before we get to the opening day, what was the, when did you start realizing, man, I. I could actually just do this myself and, and maybe take a risk and jump jump into it.

Like, what, what was that thought process like? And then how did that actually start? [00:07:00] Because that’s gonna get into really the, the meat and potatoes here. Right? Um, what was that intro business plan era like? For you, Scott?

Scott Harville: I guess it, I guess the safest way to say it is it started off by, I was greedy, um, working for another shop, having customers.

Carter Pembridge: Right on. Yeah.

Scott Harville: The shop was, was turning away work that we didn’t want to do or take a chance on. I started leaving little handwritten notes in somebody’s glove box or on the dash formulator do, and I was working on stuff at the house after hours and then, uh, I got to a point where I’ve got a real bad habit of.

Being where, where people try to talk down and belittle and disrespect people, you know, their authority, their authority complex kind of gets the best of them. I just never didn’t wanna put up with, and so I’ve, I’ve, I’ve burned through a lot of jobs working for somebody else ’cause I don’t put up with it and I don’t handle it very well.

And I, uh, I got [00:08:00] fired from that shop where I was stealing work, they called it. And, uh, oh yeah, I was sitting on the couch next to my granddad and I told him, I was like, you know. I said, shops are cheap. I’m gonna go down the street here and go get me a shop and I’m gonna start working for myself. And he laughed at me and he goes, yeah, we’ll revisit this in a month and see where you’re at.

And so, uh, I went and sold, I sold a truck of mine and a few other small odds and end things and mustered up enough to get my down payment and two months worth of rent paid up front. So I’d get started in it and, uh, wow. I, I think I was, I was 21, 22. I was way too young. 21, 22. I was way too young to be trying to run a business on my own.

Carter Pembridge: Wow.

Scott Harville: I thought I knew what I was doing and I ran it that way for about eight months, believe it or not. It actually worked out real well for me for the longest time. Um, I knew nothing about how to keep track of books. It was cash in, cash out, and I felt like I was on top of the world with it.

Carter Pembridge: That’s something that we hear so often, talking to people who.[00:09:00]

’cause we talked to, you know, we talked to a spectrum of, uh, different people who are at different parts of the journey of becoming a shop owner, right? Some people who, Hey man, this is day two. They thought about the idea yesterday. They wanna start up in a week. Right? Those kind of guys. Um, and then we have people who are obviously super established, um, shops such as yourself.

Um, I really think it’s interesting that, you know, people, I feel like they almost don’t know. Really what they like the idea of, you know, being boss man starting up a business, but they don’t really realize what that’s going to entail. And it’s almost like, uh, sometimes we talk to people who, who this happens to.

Um, they jump in and then we get a phone call a month later and things are just, dude, everything’s kind of falling apart. Right. So what would you say to the guy that we bring on, that we talk to? You know, they’re may, they might be in that situation, this is their first month. What are some key things to get a handle on quick?

What advice would you have for someone like that?

Scott Harville: Um, [00:10:00] man, really, realistically, it’s, it’s one of those things that you’ve gotta be able to understand what you’re diving off into. Um, the ones that get started, you know, that, I mean, this is my third attempt and this is the first time that I’ve done it with support and a backing system from somebody that’s been in the game.

Sure. So, um, my business partner is one that has been, he’s done so much, still does a whole lot of business aspect of, of different avenues of things. Mm-hmm. It really took somebody that understood what it took to make things happen, to really be able to succeed with it. Uh, not that I wasn’t able to make it happen on my own.

I mean it did, but it was short term. Right. I, I never had any kind of invoice system software nowheres. It was just, you know, the Walmart shelf had the little handwritten invoice tickets or whatever, and that’s what I ran with. Yep, yep. I never thought about, you know, a warranty issue. Yeah. I got warranty on it.

Yeah, you’re great. And then, you know, six months from now they come in, Hey, you just did this. Do [00:11:00] you have your paperwork? Because I don’t

Carter Pembridge: Yeah, that’s a good point. Yeah, that’s a good point.

Scott Harville: And that was a big one that was really a big downfall, uh, is that I wasn’t able to keep track of anything in a, in a, a productive way.

And so, yeah not to shy away from it, but yeah, having an invoicing software like this is definitely something that. It has made a huge difference in it. Um, I think I was lucky enough that I’ve fought so hard, long enough that once I got the tools at my fingertips to really run with it, you know, and Khrist is one to, to see it go from day one to month three and how quickly it just blew up.

Khrist Hussein: Blew up.

Scott Harville: So it, it’s definitely doable if you, if you work it, you know, um. The, the biggest thing that I’ve put into this and kind of a, kind of my mentality of to make it work is that I’ve had a lot of friends that wound up in the system and having to go to drug facilities and [00:12:00] whatnot, and then the, their biggest thing is, you know, use the system, work the system to your advantage.

And that’s probably the one thing that’s always stuck is learn to work it to make it work for you and what you’re needing it to do. That’s exactly where it’s popped out, is that I’m, I’m working on year number two right now

Carter Pembridge: congratulations, man One of the biggest

things that people talk about is kinda that first year and the different things that come up as challenges.

And not to say challenges, uh, don’t go away. They’re always here, right? It’s like life every day is a new challenge. It just depends what it is. But that first year is a absolute accomplishment. You said a lot of different things there that, um, I would love to, to spend an hour on each of them. I’m not kidding.

Um, one I wanna touch on though real quick is something that’s very important. It’s not just for what we’re talking about here, but it’s in life. Um, you know, mentors, uh, people that you can learn from. Um, you know, I, I had my, my share. Khrist, I’m sure you had your share. How important, Scott, is it for a guy, like, let’s say he [00:13:00] thinks he knows it all?

Well, we all were, you know, 20, 21. At one point we all thought we were, we knew shit and we think back and we think, look on it. And we’re like, dude, we didn’t know anything at all. How important, Scott, is it for you to find. Um, someone to, to study from and really be proactive in, in developing that connection?

Scott Harville: And it, I, I’ll say this, that I, I’m not gonna sit here and single out, that it’s, you know, important to find it because if you think about the right way, um, everybody you come into contact with is a mentor in some way or fashion. Whether you follow or steer away. Everybody’s gonna be in that mentor position.

It’s whether you need to follow suit or follow after what they’re doing or how they’re doing it, or to do something opposite. And for me, that was an easy one to jump off into because, you know, without getting too far in it, you know, my, my growing up style of things was never really the best. Uh, and so I learned from a really long age, young age that certain people you follow and certain people you do the [00:14:00] opposite of.

Um, being able to accept that and understand how to take something away from somebody of what they’re willing to give you and understand whether it’s something to crush you or to build you is the, the biggest takeaway from anything you deal with on a day-to-day interaction.

Khrist Hussein: Good for you, brother. I. Yeah.

Carter Pembridge: How true is that? Man, you know, I gotta, I gotta stay away from Khrist here, man, because he’s just one of those guys do the opposite of, you know, definitely don’t do anything.

Khrist Hussein: Although that’s what I’m there for, right? Uh, one way street, don’t go down it, you know what I’m saying? Arrows pointing at you.

Carter Pembridge: No, that, that’s really good stuff, man.

I mean, when you think about it, it, it almost just jumps into. Everything you do day by day, if you really want to get granular with it, you really could. There’s learning opportunities in so many different aspects of it. Um, and now in terms of, and you said to yourself there, and we deal with it all the time, is I wanna bring it up again.

You know, tracking everything, you know, warranty stuff, uh, what I did for someone six months ago, a [00:15:00] year ago. Um, where did I get this part from? Right. People, I, I feel like sometimes they. They almost don’t see the value in it. Um, and, and really it’s because they just don’t know what they don’t know. They haven’t had the situation yet.

Scott Harville: They haven’t been faced that until it’s too late most of the time.

Carter Pembridge: Exactly. Scott, I know you did already kind of touch on that. How, how much of a, of a difference would you say, I mean, how important is it for, for a guy who’s week one, day one, month one, if he’s been running pen and paper for six months, when is that gonna bite him in the butt?

Scott Harville: Man, the first time he buys a bad part. I mean, I don’t know. I can’t tell you how many times, you know, on a personal level or even on a, on a, a business level that I’ve ordered a part and instantly it was bad, or two days later, the part failed. Uh, and you know, I, it, it all depends on how you keep up with things, on how it works before, you know, depends on how long it’s gonna take you to get bit by it.

The, the pen and paper version of things is it’s old [00:16:00] faithful. You know, if it, if the system crashes, then hey, it’s crashed, and you gotta try to hope that everything’s gonna be there when you get back somewhere. But the pen and paper side of things, it’s, it’s one wrong move if thrown it in the trash and, uh, this $400 part that you just bought, that’s now toast Brand new off the shelf and you gotta buy it again.

It’s your cost because you can’t prove that you bought it somewhere else.

Carter Pembridge: Um, you find out when it’s too late that they’re looking for that proof.

Khrist Hussein: Yeah, and it’ll kill the entire job, man, because even if you

Scott Harville: Absolutely, your, it takes your GP to throw it right out the window from any ticket. Yeah.

Khrist Hussein: Well, actually, you know what, you mentioned gp.

That’s one that’s always on every shop’s mind. And again, running Lean is great. Two, lean is hurtful, and. KPIs are probably one of the biggest things that a lot of guys don’t track. That pen and paper’s never gonna give you that opportunity. I know you’re a big numbers guy. Uh, we’ve gotten together how many times and just analyzed numbers and it’s been great.

From your side, [00:17:00] getting into it and learning it as you went, what did you find is gonna be, you know, these are the numbers I wanna focus on. This is what I feel is gonna be a true metric of what’s happening in my shop. If I see it goes south, I gotta fix it. What’s that one thing you look at and you kind of obsess on?

Scott Harville: Uh, it, it’s, honestly, it’s gonna be my GP numbers. Um, you know, I, I, I focus on that probably more so than anything else, because with that, you know, as a shop, you know, you never wanna get in a situation where you’re losing money. You know, you never wanna have to pay to open up your doors every day to, to try to fight for it.

So as long as your GP is in the realm of where you need it to be to cover your day-to-day expenses. Then you can adjust your numbers down to accommodate a, a good customer, a new customer. You know, you have that cushion zone for when you have a, uh, a clerical error on an invoice somewhere you can kind of cushion some of that and make it keep work, uh, without completely losing everything.

Khrist Hussein: And that’s an important, important fact. And [00:18:00] one of the things that we touched on, and I I Carter’s right there is gonna be a lot that I’d love to just unpack and dig on, but I’m trying to pick and choose. So if I’m all over the place, I apologize, but there was a lot that we touched on that is extremely valuable information.

Um, the fleet side and focusing on that gp, again, same thing. You aren’t typically gonna make as much on fleet, but what’s fair? What’s the right way? How do you determine it? I know you’re currently actively in the middle of this, which is why I want to hear your opinion on how you’re,

Carter Pembridge: it’s important I’ve just brought on a handful of fleet, um, shops, which would be really interesting to hear.

Scott Harville: Yeah. So you’re, you’re looking for what now? Exactly. About the fleet side of it?

Khrist Hussein: Well, let’s think about this. Put yourself, so I call you up, Scotty. I’m starting to shop tomorrow. Um, you know, I respect everything you’ve done. I, I’ve got a couple guys that, um, they’ve got some fleets they want me to look after.

What’s your advice? You’re gonna say to me that, you know, Scotty, he’s got a hundred, he’s got a hundred trucks he [00:19:00] wants me to take care of. In your mind, there’s some bells going off. Hang on kid, here’s where you should start. What’s that conversation look like? If you’re telling me what to do,

Scott Harville: man, the biggest thing is the kind of work that they’re gonna want.

And do you have the time and the availability to focus that time and effort to that one vendor? Um, fleet work is never gonna be quick work. You know, the, the biggest red flag that comes when you say fleet is that 90% of fleets out there have a fleet management company that control what they can spend, where they can go certain, uh, brands, certain requirements that you have to meet to be eligible to work on those stuff.

And, you know, right. Typically, typically your new person, your entry level technician or business, um. I’ve got several accounts that I deal with that require, uh, COIs to be able to be on the premise to even look at vehicles. [00:20:00] Um, you’ve got

Carter Pembridge: What’s a COI?

Scott Harville: certificate insurance,

a certain insurance policy or coverage that you have to be eligible to have look at their stuff.

Um, and then that’s just one of the very small, but one of the bigger hurdles to, to deal with. Um, I’ve got a fleet that requires me to carry a $10 million insurance coverage. Right. And that’s just to be able to walk in their yard and go look at things because of the, the chemicals and the, the, uh, the gases that they deal with.

Um, but when it comes to, to deciding whether you’re gonna jump in on a fleet or not. Um, you gotta make sure that you understand what these fleet management companies are gonna want, how they’re gonna pay. I’ve got several that want to pay by, uh, like net 90 accounts and mm-hmm. Yeah, I’m a year in, but I still don’t have the, I don’t have the capital to back it, to float a big account the way they do on average.

I mean, just, just in the last 30 minutes, um, that very account has dropped off three vehicles to me to work on, and I guarantee you when I get back on my phone, they’re gonna tell me they want all three of ’em back by today or tomorrow.[00:21:00]

Khrist Hussein: No, they don’t want it right away. That’s never like any customers whatcha talking about?

Carter Pembridge: Yeah. Where, where’s that? Where’s that part, Scott? Aren’t you the, aren’t you the, aren’t you the guy fixing the car? Don’t you know where all the parts are? You, the parts are right. Aren’t, you know where they’re, you must know. Yeah. Where are they at on this computer?

Scott Harville: Exactly, exactly.

Carter Pembridge: It’s funny you say that.

I, so I used to work, I, I kind of know, um, a tiny bit about what you’re dealing with. I used to work with, uh, Chrysler and um, I would be the guy for the US government, so. I would basically just government vehicles, sheriff’s departments. We try to keep ’em driving Dodges and keep ’em off Ford interceptors.

And I’m dealing with people, you know, municipality, people who manage fleets and stuff. Man, I know how they were with me being the corporate guy. I can’t imagine how they are with you being the shop guy, dude. ’cause for me, every day, dude, where, when’s this car gonna be fixed? When’s it gonna be fixed?

When’s that engine block gonna be rolling in? It’s like, dude. I don’t know.

Scott Harville: No, this, this is [00:22:00] something that, you know, I, I think it really ties into what we’re talking about is, you know, lean, being too lean. Yeah. Um, I’ve developed a, a working relationship with a couple of my fleets where their fleet management, the vehicle may be done right now, but I won’t get paid for a week.

Mm. They won’t process payment for several days for me to be eligible to collect that no matter how long I hold onto. But with me, it’s one of those that I’ve developed the, the uh, the relationship with him enough where I can release that vehicle today. And I know that if they don’t pay me in a week, he’s gonna bring me a credit card or he can bring me a stack of cash and cover it and then he’ll fight with his management department later to, to be reimbursed.

Um, so for me, it’s not a problem to release a vehicle to certain people to be back in service, so that way the faster they get back up and rolling. The faster they get me another one. And the more work they get done, the more work they can pay for.

Carter Pembridge: Um, it has a lot to do with your [00:23:00] relationship with them too.

I’m assuming you, you must have great relationships and that’s gotta, I mean, that’s pretty paramount too, I would imagine. Making sure that you’re, everybody’s happy, right? It’s kind of symbiotic in a way, for sure. But gotta keep that relationship.

Scott Harville: I don’t necessarily worry about whether they’re happy or not.

Um, as bad as that sounds because it’s, it, to me, it’s a business thing. Yeah, I like being able to call on my guys and let ’em know that I’m here if they need me, but at the same time, like when they need me, then I need to be compensated for what we’ve put forth. Right. Um, I’m not, at that point, I’m not here to be your friend.

You know, I, I separate the two very, very well. Um, you know, my, my particular situation, you know, I work, my dad works for me, my brother works for me, my wife works for me. We, it’s a, it’s a family run, family operated business. And to being able to separate what does and doesn’t work and how to handle all that is gonna be a huge piece for anybody trying to start.

Um, you know, you’ve gotta have a, a support system or a network around you that’s gonna support [00:24:00] the way that you need to be. Whether they agree with it or not, you know, I don’t know anybody that’s gonna be in there. Late fifties, early sixties, and gonna wanna go work for their kids somewhere and not have a say about what’s going on.

But they know that whatever’s happening is what’s gonna have to happen regardless.

Carter Pembridge: Right. We talked to a lot of shops and I, I do wanna touch on that. So is, is all family business, is everybody in the family in your shop, or do you have anyone who’s not?

Scott Harville: Uh, my, my business partner’s, not family, but I mean Okay.

So part, but everybody else in the family.

Carter Pembridge: Okay. Okay, gotcha.

Khrist Hussein: The, the, the baby is at the shop most of the time.

Carter Pembridge: Um, yeah, there you go. There you go. Um, yeah. Yeah, everybody,

Scott Harville: when I, when I say family, man, I, I mean family. I’ve got four kids of my own. Um, my brother’s daughter has been up here at work with this, um, I mean, down to the dogs, man.

I mean, it’s, it’s really a big part of it, so I love it.

Carter Pembridge: So the reason I bring that up, we, we do talk to a lot of, a lot of shops and I always find it fascinating how, you know, not to [00:25:00] say that you can’t run a shop without family, but it does seem like those family shops. It just seems like the trust is like so there and paramount and everybody’s in sync.

And I love hearing about that man. Like, it, it is gotta be just refreshing to know that you can count on. Everybody, uh, in that shop for sure. Have you ever, have you ever had, um, an experience, positive or negative, uh, you know, hiring, hiring some hands? What are some tips that you would have on hiring? I guess that would be a good, a good question to ask you.

Scott Harville: I, when I started this, I was, I was independent, so my wife were in the computers. She did everything on the, on the bookwork side of things. Um, and I for rich work, um, I hired my first tech about six months in. And, um, you know, I made the mis and I say the mistake because it wasn’t necessarily a mistake, is an oversight and a lack of, of, uh, knowledge of ownership on my side of it.

But I hired a friend, I hired a really good buddy of mine, I worked with him in [00:26:00] mm-hmm. And I knew from when we worked together, he did great work. You know, he was one that I learned from and we was both about the same age. We was both able to kind of keep up with one another and make it work. The biggest thing that I’ve learned is that there’s a 90 day curve.

No matter what it is, it doesn’t matter who it is. My dad, my brother, the other two people that I’ve hired, the two people that I’ve had to fire, um, there’s a 90 day curve. Um, I would definitely put something in place before you hire somebody to at least give you 90 days to see where they’re at in the 95, 96 day mark.

You’re gonna see a change in ’em. They’re now gonna get to the point where they’re comfortable, they’re more relaxed, they’re gonna start slacking off, and they think that you can’t do it without ’em, and now you’re stuck because you can’t do that. Mm mm Um, and it’s, it’s been proven to my face within the last year, that 90 days [00:27:00] is that curve.

That 90 day curve is where gonna make or break.

Carter Pembridge: Very interesting. Yeah. I mean, good point. So you’ve worked, you, you obviously have experience working in a shop as well, right? With other people too. Um, how, how big is, um, ’cause I never worked in a shop, man. I’ve always been a desk jockey my whole life. How, how big is that?

Um, ego. Shifting in a shop? I mean, can it be like, is it something you have to manage? Is it, what’s, what’s that like? I mean, I, I, I genuinely just don’t know. I know me and Khrist, we, we have to other ego, but he’s trying to hide his face now. I can see it coming. Yeah.

Scott Harville: So, I mean, yeah. It’s like anything else you do.

I mean, the ego in a shop is gonna be there. You’re gonna have the guy that thinks he’s untouchable and that thinks he’s, you know, 10 foot tall and bulletproof and he knows it all. And then you’re gonna have the kid that comes in that’s trying to prove himself and, you know. Yeah. It’s the, it’s the, it’s the new kid on the block that’s trying to earn his, his, his right and, and earn his ability to get certain things and do certain jobs.

Hmm. And, [00:28:00] um, you know, the, the biggest downfall to that very scenario about the. You know, the, the mentality in the shop is that your, your seasoned techs see anybody coming in as a threat. They’re taking money out of their mouth. They’re taking

Carter Pembridge: Oh, really?

Scott Harville: Absolutely. ’cause a lot of shops, mine is not, but a lot of shops, um, are a flat rate.

They run x amount of dollars per flat hour that the system says you’re supposed to take, do this job. And Yeah. For, for a flat rate technician, every job that somebody else is doing is money out of their pocket. Mm-hmm. It’s money their losing.

Carter Pembridge: Understood.

Scott Harville: Um, a lot of guys get very, very touchy over that. And, um, that’s the other thing that really kind of dictates and changes how you’re gonna perform and how you’re gonna last in the industry is your, your labor rates and how you’re gonna set things up because you don’t want to charge too little for too less.

Or you know, not charge enough for a bigger job because then you’re shooting yourself in the foot before you ever get started.

Khrist Hussein: [00:29:00] So that’s an interesting point you bring up that I never even thought of in my head, but is so apropos too lean, being too lean. How much do you gotta be setting that rate? It’s probably one of the biggest things that I have a discussion with, with a lot of shops.

Uh, you know, the mentality is I’m gonna undercut until, you know, I get to a point. But, you know, they’re only doing a disservice a majority of the time. Um, if your quality of work is there, you know, you gotta charge the proper amount. How do you determine what that proper amount is Like when you started, did you go by what’s in the neighborhood?

What typically you’ve used, what work it is you’re specialized in? How’d you kind of develop, uh, what your labor should be?

Scott Harville: Well, man, I mean, you’ve, you’ve been with me from, from day one, pretty much. I think we was a month and a half, two months in before we swapped over. Um, and, uh, you watched kind of how we came from where we were and where we started with these numbers was we, I personally sat down and I called around to the, the shops around me within 30 to 50 miles.[00:30:00]

Here in town and out of town and kind of got an idea for their basic shop rates to see what they charge an hour for different jobs. Um, and the two things that I pretty much already knew but didn’t know I was the only one, or that everybody did it the same way was, you know, you have a one labor rate for physical wrench work and you have another rate for like electrical stuff.

Mm. And then a lot of places carry like a fleet rate, you know, for your fleet accounts, right. They have a labor rate because they charge differently. They pay differently. Right. Um, I’ll be honest again, you know, I, I’m greedy about it. I want all the money, I want all the work, you know. Um, so I took an average of what everybody around me was, was charging for an hourly labor rate, and I undercut it by 40, 50 bucks.

Mm-hmm. You know, and, and a lot of people say, oh, well that’s just because you’re cheap. Well, you, I may be cheap, you know, maybe I am. But within the first year, I did well enough that I was able to go back and re recalculate everything is where I was right. And [00:31:00] be able to adjust my rates for the next year.

And now that I’ve got my clientele base coming in and still growing, not only am I less than everybody around me, but my quality of work is so high above because I’m so small, right? I can quality control a lot more at my size than I can. These bigger shops up the street. Absolutely. Dealerships mainly.

Khrist Hussein: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Carter Pembridge: That’s a balance for sure. Yeah.

Scott Harville: You know, it’s definitely something to kind of keep in mind and, you know, we just, we just upped our labor rate, you know, you know, right off the bat, you know, the new year, new pricing, new structures that we ran through, we changed everything.

That’s, uh, so the numbers that we ran the first year are numbers that I never thought I would see me as, as a a, an individual or even a, a small business. Be able to run as quickly as

Carter Pembridge: Right on. Right on, man. Um, no, it, it’s something that we talk to, to, to guys a lot and it, it’s almost a touchy subject to talk about labor rates with a lot of guys.

You know, we want you to start that [00:32:00] conversation to get a bit. A bit, um, a not agitated, but anxious,

Khrist Hussein: like it’s a guarded secret.

Carter Pembridge: Yeah. Yeah. They don’t wanna get into it and they’re almost a, and if it’s too low, you can kind of say, well, it’s only, you know, $75 or $80. And, and then they kind of have to, then they follow that up with like defending themself after.

Right. And, you know, it is something that I do frequently tell people you said it a few times, right? Um, greedy. Well, at the end of the day, like we’re, we’re in, you’re in this to make money. You’re in this to support your family. You’re in this to, to, I mean, let’s be honest, like we we’re all, we’re all in in this game that to support our families and have a better life for ourselves.

At the same time, we wanna provide the best service possible to grow our client base and keep them safe as well. Right? So it is, it is, it’s both and people need to kind of understand that too and not be hesitant. Um, to, to ask for, for more. I’ll give you an example. Um, on my side, Scott. Um, I, I’ve had a past, a past job where we would sell, uh, marketing [00:33:00] packages.

And what people would do is, is they would throw on discounts. For no reason other than they felt guilty charging a certain amount. They would just throw it. The guy was already sold and then they would, they would throw it 25% off at the end just for no reason. And it’s like, dude, the guy was buying from it.

He was happy. He likes the service. Why are you doing this to yourself? And there’s a lot of shops out there probably doing the exact same thing. They, they could charge more, but they feel guilty and they’re shooting themself in the foot. It’s gotta be tough, you know?

Khrist Hussein: Self-sabotage. Self-sabotage.

Scott Harville: Here’s, here’s where you have to stop for a second.

If you think about it as from the customer standpoint, if you walk into a shop and you tell ’em, Hey, I need X, Y, Z done to my truck, and they tell you what it is, cool, I’ll do it. When can you have it done? And then they tell you when they can do it. And you’ve already talked about a price. Mm-hmm. And then now like, oh, well let me give you this discount.

Why?

Carter Pembridge: Hmm. Right?

Scott Harville: Like, why would you throw away money? You’ve already got my [00:34:00] work. Well, as a customer, I’m gonna start thinking twice. Like, I don’t understand why we’re gonna do this. Yeah. Right. And then the next thing that I’m asking, uh, the next thing that I’m asking myself is, what is it that they don’t know how to do?

Mm-hmm. They’re gonna go ahead and discount me before they’ve ever even touched anything. Mm.

Carter Pembridge: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Um, happens a lot. Don’t, it happens a lot in every industry. Mm-hmm.

Scott Harville: You know, in, in, in, in the year that I’ve been open, I don’t think I’ve done very many discounts on anything. Um, you know, I, I don’t discount anything hardly.

Uh, discount your work, man. You know? Well, I mean, but if you discount your work for what though? Did you mess up somewhere? Did you do something wrong? Exactly. Then absolutely take care of it. Mm-hmm. But just to throw a discount out there, to throw a discount out, I mean, I, that makes no sense to me. ’cause that’s taking money outta my pocket.

Carter Pembridge: Exactly. Exactly.

Scott Harville: We’ve got specials that you run. You know, just like happy hour at the bars and whatever else, you know, I’ll run specials, right? Promotions. Yeah. We have law [00:35:00] enforcement Monday, we do military. You know, we have a military discount seven days a week. I mean, there’s several things that we run through for discounts that people are eligible for.

Um, I think we do a, a teacher Wednesday and, you know, all kinds of different stuff. You know, nurses days and all kinds of stuff. Just to kind of give back and entice people to come in, but I, I don’t think I could ever justify discounting something because I felt guilty or some ill way about what I was selling unless I was doing something wrong.

Carter Pembridge: No, absolutely. I think it’s more of a new shop. They, they almost, yeah, want to grow their, their client base and they want to gain loyal, uh, you know, loyal customers. But it’s like they’re just going to you because you’re throwing discounts. They’re doing it ’cause you’re cheap, man. They don’t care about about you, you, so you,

Scott Harville: you hit something right there on the top about wanting to gain the loyals and get the business.

Two outta ten, the one thing I’ve always remembered. It doesn’t matter what you charge and I’ve done it. Uh, so before this, um, you know, I worked for a [00:36:00] tire shop for a lot of years and I was a mobile service tech, and two out of 10 was the one thing they all always told us. So after, after midnight, if my phone rang, it was up to me on what I charged to get my butt out of bed and go do a job somewhere.

Yeah, I had the basics that I had to turn in, but over that, it was up to me what I charged. Right. And it never failed. If you played the numbers just enough, it didn’t matter what it was. Out of 10 calls, two of ’em are gonna worry about the price. The others just wanna get it done and get back on the road.

Mm. And it’s the same thing here in the shop. Two outta 10 people are gonna complain about either your shop rate, your timeframe, or whatever else they can come up with the complaint about. The rest of ’em are just wanna get it done, get it right, and get back where they need to be.

Carter Pembridge: Right on.

Scott Harville: It just depends on how much you wanna play with.

Khrist Hussein: Yeah. And 100% plays into if you’ve done your proper job and making sure you’ve priced out which work of that is, they’re there. Very rarely is that discussion of [00:37:00] issue afterwards. Your foot’s in the door, it’s just making sure you do the proper work so they keep coming back. That’s, that’s what that lean too lean making sure you run right, is on your labor rate.

Mm-hmm. All day. Absolutely.

Carter Pembridge: Right on. And, and, uh, you know, we’ve been going for, for about 37 minutes here. And, and Khrist, I think you’re, you’re, you’re more like four outta 10 for you, right, man. Um, but you know, I’m picking on you too much and you’re not throwing it up at me, dude. It feels like I’m bully, dude.

You gotta say something back to defend yourself. Defend. Defend young gentleman. Defend yourself anyway.

Scott Harville: No, Scotty knows me. He knows me. He’s being quiet too. I don’t know to say too much.

Carter Pembridge: Yeah, you never talk. Yeah, exactly.

Scott Harville: You be quiet since when?

Khrist Hussein: Half hour ago.

Carter Pembridge: Exactly. Um, but no, to, to summarize, you know, the key things that we’re learning here, and you tell me where you wanted to elaborate, where you want, maybe I missed.

Right. The biggest thing is, um, listening to the people who’ve done it before. It’s important to find someone like that or. If you have someone like that, it’s okay to lean into ’em a bit and use ’em for advice. Uh, second [00:38:00] off, keep track of your stuff, man. Like, it’s so easy to keep track, to be in some serious trouble from not keeping track of your stuff.

Um, you know, and, and we also wanna make sure that we’re keeping an eye on that gp, right? That’s your, that’s your metric that you’re paying attention to. Um. Anything, anything that you want to touch on before we wrap this up? Anything, any final notes, um, we didn’t touch on that you were hoping that we would get to?

Scott?

Scott Harville: Uh, I wanna, I wanna touch back on this deal that you made about the advice and, and leaning on people. Okay. Make sure that the people that you’re leaning into or that you’re trying to, to get the advice from is giving you the advice that you can trust to support you. Mm, not the ones that are trying to get you in the door to cause you to go under so they can come in behind you and take over what you’ve lost.

Um, especially in this field because Mechanicing is definitely a cutthroat game. I’d be lying if I told you that I haven’t walked in through a shops parking lot somewhere and looked at company names in a parking lot waiting to get serviced, [00:39:00] and then gone and talked to their office somewhere and seen about trying to service something different.

Mm-hmm. Because if I haven’t, I wouldn’t have two of the biggest accounts that I’ve got now. Mm-hmm. But it’s, you’ve gotta take the advice from who it is that’s willing to, to put it there, to support what your goal is. Not trying to take it away from you and make sure that you’re gonna fail somewhere else.

Khrist Hussein: Love that. Choose right. Choose wisely. Right on.

Carter Pembridge: Well, that’ll go ahead and, uh, wrap this one up here. Scott, thank you so much, man, for taking time outta your day. I, I know you’re busy, dude. You’re ta you’re checking your phone, making sure everybody’s being okay, but while you have the door shut, you know what I’m saying?

I get it. That’s, that’s just fleet account. That’s a fleet account. That’s what it’s so, okay. It, that’s how much, that’s how much time. I bet you’re on your phone all day with those, with those guys, man, I bet that’s your life. I bet that’s your life, man. A hundred percent. Okay. Right on

Scott Harville: three phones that I run and only one of ’em is personal and it still rings off the hook just before.

Carter Pembridge: Well, people just like being around you so much, Scott. That’s what it is. Absolutely. Gotta, gotta [00:40:00] make some changes. Yeah, exactly. Uh, no, appreciate you. Um, anybody wants to book a demo with us, by all means, fill out your information. Um, we’ll, we’ll make sure it gets routed to me in instead of Khrist. Uh, I again, I, I gotta better, I gotta quit beating up.

I gotta quit beating up on Khrist here, dude, man. Anyway, no much love everybody. And uh, until next time, I think we are planning to get another one done here. Um. Within the next month, I believe, actually. So we’ll keep you updated on that. Appreciate you guys. Have a wonderful day. Take care guys, next time.

Scott Harville: Thanks gentlemen. Enjoy.