Jimmy Lea sat down with Loren Winfrey (Stress Free Auto Care) to unpack how he scales two San Francisco shops—inside a 23-store network—without losing the customer-first soul of the business. Loren detailed how empowering teams to “work you out of a job” creates consistency across locations, why radical transparency (DVIs, live tech feeds, clear follow-ups) builds trust and approvals, and how smart incentives keep advisors and techs thriving—even when car count wobbles and budgets tighten. From solving urban parking puzzles to living by a data dashboard, this conversation highlighted culture, process, and profitability in real life.

Host(s):

Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development

Guest(s):

Loren Winfrey, General Manager/Trainer of Stress-Free Auto Repair

Show Highlights:

[00:01:11] - Loren frames leadership as “training the bench,” empowering advisors and techs so the shop isn’t dependent on a single decision-maker.

[00:02:38] - He manages two high-density SF shops a mile apart, each moving 12–15 cars daily with AGMs and advisors per location to cover five techs apiece.

[00:04:37] - With no parking at the Geary site, a porter rotates cars through smart meters on timed alerts—and earns a monthly bonus for a ticket-free record.

[00:08:47] - ARO is softening (~$1,000 → ~$800) as customers prioritize safety-critical work; Loren layers sales by red/yellow/green and explores in-house financing paths.

[00:11:29] - As a “fully deployable” operator, Loren travels to other markets (e.g., Texas) to realign processes and culture across the 23-store network.

[00:12:27] - Radical transparency: live technician video feeds and DVIs shift the conversation from “trust me” to “see for yourself,” boosting approvals.

[00:14:43] - Once skeptical of DVIs, Loren now calls AutoFlow indispensable—photos, video, and clear write-ups eliminate confusion and drive decisive yeses.

[00:19:16] - Pay what people are worth: strong base + utilization/GP bonuses keep techs and advisors engaged, consistent, and customer-focused.

[00:23:35] - Hiring is the constraint; he sets clear standards, mentors C-techs under stronger Bs, and advocates rebuilding the trades pipeline.

[00:29:22] - A custom dashboard (utilization, GP, spend) guides daily action and human check-ins—numbers tell the story, but leadership asks “Are you okay?”

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Episode Transcript:

Jimmy Lea: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, or good night, depending on when and where you're joining us from. It is a great day outside. My name is Jimmy Lee. I'm with the Institute and this is the Leading Edge podcast. Thank you for joining us today. My guest today is Lauren Winfrey. He is the general manager of two.

Jimmy Lea: Stress-free auto care shops in the San Francisco area. He is part of a 23 store network and does get transferred all over the country to help coach and train advisors and technicians all over to be the best that they can possibly be. And Lauren, one of the things that I learned very early in my career, had a great manager.

Jimmy Lea: Her name was Michelle, and she said, it is my job to work myself. Out of a job, my processes and procedures should be in place so that I as a manager, don't have anything to do. Bingo. Yes. So you understand it. Yeah. She has people in place, process, procedures, so that the business is not dependent on her to make decisions.

Jimmy Lea: She has empowered the team. To make the decisions.

Loren Winfrey: Yes. And I think it's I think it's one of the, a lot of us in this industry, you know, we are control freaks. You know, we feel like that we, in order for the ship to be steered in the right direction, we always gotta be, have our hand on the rudder, you know?

Loren Winfrey: And so. Relinquishing control and trusting in our employees that we have, and for me anyways is one of the hardest things that I had to develop in my career, you know, is putting my trust in another individual that, you know, I, they can make the shop as successful as I can. You know, make their job successful, you know, and so that, you know, I had a really good mentor growing up and in this business, you know, and he said exactly what Michelle told you.

Loren Winfrey: You know, our job is to train the bench and work yourself out of a job so you can move on to better things or bigger things or whatever,

Jimmy Lea: you know? Oh my gosh, Lauren, that, that's freaking awesome. Four advisors kind of blows me out of the out. That just blows my mind. What is the makeup of your shop with four advisors?

Loren Winfrey: Well, I have two shops. As you know. San Francisco's a really has a really dense population, you know, and oh yeah. The culture here is that if you want anything done, you go to your neighborhood and you get it done. So there's little districts in San Francisco, upper Richmond, Noah. The hay, you know, wherever.

Loren Winfrey: And so in those little regions is, you know, a really dense population of people. And so I have one shop on McAllister Street, and then I have one shop over on Geary, which is two different districts. You know, and thir San Francisco is only 13 square miles big, you know? And so I'm a mile and a half away from each shop.

Loren Winfrey: It takes me five minutes to drive over there. And but the amount of overlapping customers is very minimal, you know, and so they're doing, you know. 12 to 15 cars over at one shop and then 12 to 15 cars, you know, at the shop where I have my office at. And and I have one assistant general manager at each location, and then one service advisor at each location.

Loren Winfrey: And then I manage both locations, staffing, you know, all the fun stuff.

Jimmy Lea: Nice. And how many technicians are each of these service advisors booking business for five each shot. Five techs stuff. Yeah. Oh, that's solid, man. That's a lot of kittens to herd. And these five techs, how many bays, how many lifts are you functioning at each of the shops?

Jimmy Lea: We have six

Loren Winfrey: bays at one location and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5 bays at the other location and two flat bays. And then McAllister has four flat base and six lifts. So we can have the capacity here for San Francisco yeah. Is 25 cars I can have on site at one time.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, and that's huge for San Francisco.

Jimmy Lea: You guys really don't have much for parking your properties at a premium.

Loren Winfrey: Yeah, absolutely. And the rent screens it, you know, believe me. Oh

Jimmy Lea: yeah. For you to close up at night. Not only are you bringing the cars in, you put 'em up on the lift and pull another one under it.

Loren Winfrey: Yeah. Yeah. Well at, yeah, at the Geary location.

Loren Winfrey: Yes. And Geary's. So we don't have any parking at all. There's no parking. In fact, Gary, I have a porter that his job is to get cars for the technicians, go around to the parking meters. Pay the parking meter fees with this, you know, a little company credit card that has a couple hundred bucks on it. And oh my

Jimmy Lea: gosh.

Loren Winfrey: And then I reward him for no tickets. I give him a $500 bonus every month if he gets no tickets for us. You know, and definitely an exercise and strategy, you know, at both locations, you know. Oh, no

Jimmy Lea: doubt. So like what, like every two hours? Is this boy running around with the credit card, paying the meters?

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

Loren Winfrey: Well, so in San Francisco they have smart meters, so they're all connected to to satellites. And so we go onto a website, it's S-M-M-T-A website and he has all the meter numbers written down on a piece of paper. And so he goes, he has them on the timer, on a clock. And you know, he is like, okay, meter 1, 2, 3, 6, 3, 4 time to put another quarter in it, you know, or this is two hour parking, you know, it has a little alarm on his phone.

Loren Winfrey: Alarm goes off, he goes, grabs that car from the two hour parking and then goes and looks for a parking place around the corner that, you know, isn't metered parking or or two hour parking. So it's. It's fun. Wow.

Jimmy Lea: It's

Loren Winfrey: fun. Yeah,

Jimmy Lea: bro, that's a constant dance that, that boy's performing for on a daily basis, going from paid meter to non metered to holy cow.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Now I understand The $500 bonus that's quite the dance that boy's performing. Oh, that's great. Yeah. So what are your challenges that you face? You managing two shops, you've got two unique cultures, makeup. Technicians, you got five at each service, advisors at each, there's different challenges.

Jimmy Lea: What is the challenging thing for you right now these days?

Loren Winfrey: You know, I. Car counts up and down. You know, we have a pretty, you know, this company's I came from a company that I worked at for a long time that sold to a big corporation, you know, and so, the CEO of this company had recruited me, you know, when they were opening up the San Francisco shop and, you know, I had been with the old man over at the.

Loren Winfrey: At the other shop for so long that I wasn't going anywhere. He had, he was like family to me, you know? And when we got bought out, the culture really shifted into a set of principles and values of a company that didn't align with what I felt that customers deserved in this business.

Loren Winfrey: Transparency, quality reliability you know. Just a, an overall experience that isn't like, your name is John. You are $20 to me. You know, it was your name is John. You have a few kids. You know, we wanna service your car, your wife's car, your kid's car, and we wanna build a foundation of trust so we can generationally work on your vehicles.

Loren Winfrey: That was the company that was there before, and that I was taught in. And so I came over here, you know, and I tell the big boss like, look, I wish I would've came over here sooner, you know? Oh yeah. But you know, my loyalty lied and you know, that's how I am. I've only had three jobs in 30 years. You know, and I just, I get somewhere, I like someplace and you know, but this place is challenging.

Loren Winfrey: So we have a really good marketing team. The dollar spend, you know, on customers is, you know, getting new customer acquisitions is really good. Car counts just up and down a little bit. We keep a pretty good a RO. It's slacking a little bit right now, but I mean, both, you know, this shop at McAllister, we average about eight 50 a RO.

Loren Winfrey: The gear locations of about a thousand dollars a RO over 220 cars. And it's down this month, probably two right around 800. So a r o's slipping a little bit and. I think the challenges that we're having is I think a lot of customers are maxed out on their credit or whatever, you know, and so we used to be able to present, you know, Hey Bob, this is the job we wanna sell you.

Loren Winfrey: This is the maintenance items, these are the, you know, do the whole stoplight method with 'em. This is the red stuff, the yellow stuff, and the green stuff. And, you know, they would say, do it all. Now we're having to kind of backpedal into the. Second, third layer of repairs, you know, when we're presenting our sales strategy to the customer, you know, and they're not doing the 3000 or the 2000, they're like, let's do, you know, the safety stuff only, you know?

Loren Winfrey: And so, gladly we'll take care of anything the customer needs, you know, and with, you know, the backing of our company, we're in TechNet, so, you know, we have their nationwide warranty behind us and you know, through worldpac and you know, it, it's that's pretty much the challenges is just car count kind of being a little unsteady and people not, they don't have so much to spend on fixing their cars anymore,

Jimmy Lea: So I just heard of a new program, I don't know if you're aware of this, with 360 payments.

Jimmy Lea: That allows a client, a customer, to be approved for all of the services that they need to have done. Similar to a credit card. Yeah. This is in store credit just for you? Yeah. We use 360. You use 360? Yeah. I'll have, yeah, check out the I forget what they call it. Client financing option. Yeah. And tell 'em I told you to give 'em a call.

Jimmy Lea: 'cause they're good people over there at 360 payments. So

Loren Winfrey: yeah, we love them. They're our we got 23 stores and they're our guys for all 23 of our stores.

Jimmy Lea: Nice. So you're part of 23 stores now?

Loren Winfrey: I'm in charge of the San Francisco area. You know, I'm kind of like a, I don't know what you like a general hitman.

Loren Winfrey: So if they need me at another location to go. Help or fill in or you know, any of that type of stuff, you know, I'm there and I always talk. Yeah. Look, I'm fully deployable wherever you want me to go. You know, I'm here, you know, the company's going on five years old. We're trying to grow anything that I can bring to help that growth.

Loren Winfrey: You, I'm there. I want to build with the company and and I want to grow with the company. They're sending me to Texas next week. We have some shops in Texas. So I'm gonna go out to Texas next week and help with one of the shops out there with with one of the regional managers and see if we can't bring some light and some processes back into play that you know, make our company successful.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. So what what I'm hearing is you went from, large conglomerate corporate environment and came back to a small repair shop, which has 23 locations, and you're working really hard to preserve that customer-centric culture. Yes. Across the board, you those process procedures and everybody needs to know that this is Mary and John and they have two kids and they have, this is their dog.

Jimmy Lea: They're not just 20 bucks.

Loren Winfrey: Yes, absolutely. You know, and our company culture here is, you know, the principles in our company represent all of that stuff. You know, do the right thing, you know, speak the truth, demand excellence you know, all the things that we were taught growing up in this industry, you know, that makes the customers trust you.

Loren Winfrey: You know, and we have a lot of. Proprietary software that we've developed. You know, we use a lot of software from, you know, the companies around Auto Techs, me at TME, protractor, all that stuff we use, you know, and we have a lot of revolutionary stuff that we're doing for our business. So we have we have live feeds that we send the customer a text message.

Loren Winfrey: Hey, Bob the technician's working on your call right now if you'd like to click the live feed and watch the technician work on your vehicle. You know, so transparency is one of the biggest things, you know, and I try to explain to the new customers that look. You know, gone are the days of, you know, Joe in the back saying, Hey Lauren this customer has this, and this.

Loren Winfrey: Wrong on a piece of paper, you know? And I say, Hey John you know this, and this is wrong, and if you want us to fix it, I can gladly do it for you and it's gonna cost you 1500 bucks. Now we, with all the advancements in technology, you know, and all these guys have iPads and we do the digital video inspections and all this stuff, we're able to be.

Loren Winfrey: Transparent more than any time in this industry, you know? And

Jimmy Lea: What program are you on? What shop management system are you using and what DVI are you using? We have

Loren Winfrey: we have protractor for our shop management software which is, you know, and they have Epicor, they're at the root of all estimating, right.

Loren Winfrey: Pretty much have horizon everything. But we use auto text me at ME, our, which is our DVI software.

Jimmy Lea: Yep. Yep. Yep. Auto Text me. They're now called Auto Flow. Auto

Loren Winfrey: Flow, yeah.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Craig O'Neill. Super good dude. Yeah.

Loren Winfrey: You're thinking back when you signed up. Yeah. Yeah, I remember. So back in my old shop.

Loren Winfrey: Yeah, over on the other side of San Francisco when auto Flow was CR first creating their platform. They, yeah, they brought me a, they brought me an iPad. And they say, try it out. Right? And so this was, I don't know, 2017 or something, or 18, I was

Jimmy Lea: gonna say 5, 6, 7 years ago. Yep. Sounds alright. I was

Loren Winfrey: like, and so the owner's like, well, what do you think?

Loren Winfrey: And I go, my guys can do a, my guys can do a multi-point with a pen faster than this thing. Let's not do it because I thought, you know, the time. But you know, thinking back, you know, of course hindsight's 2020, you know, always, you know, instead of me embracing change in technology, I kind of, you know, shied away from it, you know, and that was a.

Loren Winfrey: Hard lesson learned, you know, about having a closed line to something that could revolutionize, you know, the game, you know, and so, learning lesson, you know, that I learned, you know, the hard way. And now here I could not live without ATM E. I think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, you know, and I think that showing the customer, you know, back in the day I would.

Loren Winfrey: I would take a bunch of pictures with my cell phone and say, Hey, Joe, I'm gonna text you some pictures, man. I wanna show you this stuff on your car. It's really dangerous, you know? And I would text 'em from my cell phone, you know, and they, wow, how much is that to fix? You know? And I would tell 'em, they like, go ahead and do it.

Loren Winfrey: And so now I'm doing on my phone and the amount of sales that I get from presenting a DVI to a customer followed up with a text message. You know, and, you know, asking them, Hey, is there anything that you don't understand that I could help you understand to get through this? Yeah. The amount of times that say, they say, how much is it to fix it?

Loren Winfrey: And I tell 'em a price and they don't blink and say, do it. Because of the transparency with the systems that are in place. It's just crazy that, you know, I slap myself every day now that I could have brought this back a long time ago, you know? But it is what it is, you know, and I embrace it now.

Jimmy Lea: Well, good. I'm glad you're embracing it. It is a world of difference. 100%. I'm so glad that you've embraced it because it, it is probably one of the technologies that has the biggest tick in the needle. Yeah. It's the DVI and the beauty of this too, regardless of the DVI program, you're on. We love auto flow.

Jimmy Lea: We, we love all the Ds. This also helps you to not have your cell phone number out with the public. Exactly. And they're gonna call you at midnight, two o'clock, three o'clock, four o'clock in the morning. Hey, my car won't start. Are you safe? Do you need a tow truck?

Loren Winfrey: Yes, exactly. Yeah. You know, and it's.

Loren Winfrey: The new shop is two miles from the old, from my old shop where I was at for many years, and so most those customers that have been coming to me for a long time. You know, the first six months I was here, they were texting me, you know, like they get like having my phone number at six 30 at night.

Loren Winfrey: Hey Lauren you know, I got this going on my breaks. And I'm like, yo, hey Joe. Well, I'm not with todo anymore. In my old company, I, you know, I'm with stress free now. I would love to service your vehicle if you feel comfortable following over to the new shop. And so, like, I don't know, 90% of my VIP customers, my key tossers, you know?

Loren Winfrey: Yeah. They, me over at my new shop, you know, and it's crazy because most of my folks, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 of my technicians have been with me. For seven plus years and oh, that's rad. That's so cool. Followed me over here. One of my assistant general managers followed me over here. Another one of my advisors followed me over here.

Loren Winfrey: They turned down manager positions to come be a service advisor over here, you know, and the biggest thing is that, you know. This company pays people what they're worth. You know, gone on the days of trying to nickel and dime someone in the door, especially for me. Yeah. I'm not gonna nickel and dime someone in the door that, you know, is worth a significant amount of customer base and customer service and giving the customer everything that they need to trust us and bring their car back.

Loren Winfrey: You know, I'm not gonna nickel and dime those guys. I'm gonna pay 'em with their worth. Same with the technicians. I'm gonna pay 'em with their worth. I'm giving 'em, give 'em a great bonus structure, you know, so when they, when their utilization is really high, they get rewarded for doing a hard job, you know, for busting their butt, you know, they're gonna get, yeah, they're gonna see dollars because we don't do this.

Loren Winfrey: You know, we all love it, but we don't do this ultimately at the end of the day because we wanna pat on the back, you know, we want something in our pocket, you know, and so. The technicians get paid at this company when they do a really good job and they bust their butt for us. And, you know, and they strive to get cars out the door and, you know, they're doing 30, 40, 50 hours of labor in their 40 hour time, you know, they get rewarded, you know, and the same with my advisors.

Loren Winfrey: I put 'em on a really good bonus structure, you know, that they're on salary, high salary, you know, plus I give 'em 5% of the gross profit on everything they sell. You know, so, you know, the advisors that would get paid $25 an hour over here at this job making 60 KA year, they're making over a hundred K over here.

Loren Winfrey: And, you know, and that translates to them being happy at their job and them giving the customer they're happy to be here. So they're giving the customers the best experience they want, they're making sure that they follow through with all their tasks. They're from start to finish on a repair. They're taking care of that customer, you know, and that's all I, that's all I can ask.

Loren Winfrey: You know? Yeah. Is that you bring a customer in, you take care of 'em, start to finish down. Does that go perfect every single time? No, it does not. You know, are there people that don't understand, you know, that one plus one equals two on auto repair? No. They think it equals five. And, you know, we gotta do our best to explain it and, you know, and we can't make everybody happy.

Loren Winfrey: And I just try to coach them into, look, you can't make everybody happy and don't try to, just try to be the best you can be every single day, you know? And so, no, I love it. Man, it's it's a good gig, man. This company's really great. I don't see myself you know, I'm gonna retire from here. They have they have a remote service advisor team that we have.

Loren Winfrey: And so, you know, when I'm 70 sitting on the beach, you know, I'm gonna go work four or five hours a day just to keep from being bored, you know, and be a supervisor, you know, and hang out with the wife on the beach, you know. And, I love it. I love it. You know, this is, most of us in this industry we are a people person, you know, we love interacting with people.

Loren Winfrey: We love building relationships and conversating, you know, and learning about people and and you know, and so this is the one of the industries that we get be service and we also get to meet people and relationships. And it is great. You know, I get happy. I get to have a new experience or a new person I get to experience every day.

Loren Winfrey: You know, I get to make someone's day go from really crappy to, you know, really good, you know? And those are my favorite Yelp reviews. Lauren was able to get in and do this. Prepare for me. We're on a trip from out of town, you know, I brought the car in at nine o'clock. I had it out by 11 o'clock and we were able to carry on with our family vacation, or my daughter was in town and I was able to take her to her graduation, you know, and those are the most rewarding things for me, you know, and it's just it's a great industry to be with Matt.

Jimmy Lea: Well, and Lauren, that goes right to the name of your company, Stress-Free Auto Care. Stress-free. You have absolutely maintained that, that company culture, that mantra, that vision mission, that is deep within not only you, but your entire company to you, to your leadership, to your culture that you have created.

Jimmy Lea: You are recruiting. You are obtaining people coming to your culture and not going to a different job, even though they may have a higher position. So what. What is one of the challenges that you face as a leader in developing this culture in, in helping others to see it? Because not everybody is born with the same mindset that you've got.

Jimmy Lea: How do you implement that or what are the challenges you face in implementing that?

Loren Winfrey: I think that, some people fit in with the culture we have and the ones that don't, they weed themselves out, you know? I just try to offer an opportunity, you know, and I'm very upfront when a technician wants to come work for me, this is what I expect of you.

Loren Winfrey: This is what the company expects of you, and we're gonna hold you to that standard. You know, I'm not. I'm really not here to be your friend. I'm here to be your boss and your mentor, and to help guide you to be the best technician you can be. Any type of learning or tools that you need or things to make your job easier and be more productive, let me know and I'll make sure that you get those things.

Loren Winfrey: You know, we'll pay for all these guys. A, we pay for all their a SC certifications. You know, right now I think the biggest thing is finding finding technicians. That aren't working someplace else and bringing them over here. There's not a lot of new technicians out there that wanna come into our field anymore.

Loren Winfrey: You know, and so I have a couple of CT techs, you know, and. I really want the CT techs. I have one of my B upper BT techs kind of mentor them, you know, and when we're a little slower on the day, I give them challenging jobs, you know, so, to help them learn. So I just really think the influx of people in our industry is one of the biggest challenges we have.

Loren Winfrey: Like some stores you know, we have an ad posted for an A Tech or a B Tech or a ctec, and it takes us a month to fill it, you know? So, you know, I, I remember back in, you know. 2000 and at 10, 11, 12, you put an ad, you got 15 applicants coming in the door, you know, Hey, I'm here. What's up? You know, all competing for the job.

Loren Winfrey: You know? Now when you put an ad up wanting quality people, they either come from the wrong type of environment that we want, you know, or they don't have the qualifications minimally that we need, that we expect when someone starts or they're just not a really good fit, you know? Yeah. You know, it's just manpower's tough right now, you know?

Loren Winfrey: So, I'm all for the automotive repair colleges and getting people brought back into the industry, you know, it's like, back when we were in high school, you know, we were told go to college, get a degree you know, you'll make all this money. And we didn't get told that, you know, the electricians and the auto repair technicians and the plumbers, you know, those are the guys that are staying in work throughout the recessions.

Loren Winfrey: You know, the guys that are that have degrees in, you know, computer science are getting laid off, you know, so I hope that you know, I watch Ro you know, and he's talking about the, you know, the people in the trades are the next set of, you know, and you know, I, my, my youngest son is, you know, he's like, you know, dad, I'm either gonna go work for the elevators union or.

Loren Winfrey: I'm gonna go to automotive repair school and come work for one of your shops. And I said, look, whatever you want to do. But, you know, he's like, well, you're not gonna get mad if I don't go to college. And I'm like, no, you don't have to go to college to make a successful life. You know, you, you could, the elevators union, you know, they top out at 70 bucks an hour.

Loren Winfrey: Master technicians top out, you know, $150,000 a year. You know, electricians, you know, they're making two, $250,000 a year, you know, and you get to be on the sunshine and be in the open air and, you know, you choose the path that suits you the best. You know, so if you know, if my kids or my God kids, if they want to get into this.

Loren Winfrey: You know, business then I'm all for I'll back on the 100%. They can't work directly for me. You know, 'cause that would be you know, weird. I would like my son, I would treat him like my son instead of treating like my technician, you know? So, but I could get 'em in the door someplace, or my God kids, I could get 'em in someplace, you know?

Loren Winfrey: And help me develop their career.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, Lauren, I love that because I think you're exactly right. You kids come into the industry. Absolutely. We'd love for you to come in here. I get you a job somewhere else. 'cause I want you to always be my kid, not my employee. Yes. It's hard. I love that. Yeah. Yeah, it is.

Jimmy Lea: It is hard. It is hard. Well, Lauren, if you were to have a magic wand, if you could wave a wand, what would you change in the automotive aftermarket?

Loren Winfrey: I would say that I would have the availability of parts in 10 minutes for any car.

Jimmy Lea: I love it. I love it. It would definitely take a magic wand for that one, but yeah, for sure.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. If we could do that, that, that would be so rad. Hey with your leadership, with your territory that you're managing the general manager, you're over a lot of different stores, how important are the numbers to you?

Loren Winfrey: I mean, numbers are important. It's what pays my paycheck, you know?

Loren Winfrey: We're blessed that our CEO is a rocket science rocket scientist, you know, and we have our own, he's created this phenomenal admin panel. And so like

Jimmy Lea: a dashboard? Yeah, it

Loren Winfrey: tracks everything. Spending utilization, gross profit tracks everything, and so I can focus on those numbers. With a click of the mouse, you know, every single day.

Loren Winfrey: And I live in the numbers, you know, and the numbers tell me everything. You know, the numbers always tell the story of the health of the shop, what's going on. If a guy's utilization is falling, what's going on with Joe over here? Is he going through some family problems? You know? So the story of the health of the shop lives in the numbers, and we have to live and die by those numbers.

Loren Winfrey: So. The numbers are very important because they not only tell a story of, you know, how much you know, Tim over here selling, you know, but it tells us a story of the economy, how customers are responding to you know, presentations, you know how a technician is doing, you know, and like I said, you know, if we have a really good technician, his numbers continuously are falling, then we know that we need to go have a talk with this technician.

Loren Winfrey: You know, not as like. Hey, you jerk. You know, you're not making me any money, but, you know, hey, are you okay? Is there anything going on in your life? Do you need my help with anything? Do you need some time off? Do you know, do you need a couple of vacation days? You have some family stuff that you need to work through.

Loren Winfrey: Ma'am, is there anything I can do to help you with your personal life, you know. Just because, you know, we're human beings and it, you know, and if there's anything I can do for one of my employees, you know, because they're having personal problems I will gladly do it. Give 'em the shirt off my face.

Loren Winfrey: Yeah. You know, because we're all in this to win, or we're gonna lose together or win together, you know, and you know, I would rather win together.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, amen. That's so true, man. I want us all to win together. And that's the plan is that we all lock arms. It's a crazy storm we're in. Not all ships are created equal.

Jimmy Lea: But if we lock arms together, we're gonna survive this storm. Yeah. We'll be together for the long haul, so

Loren Winfrey: Absolutely true.

Jimmy Lea: Yep. Yep. I'm glad to hear that you're listening to Mike Rowe and the Sweat Pledge. Make sure everybody signs one of those sweat pledges.

Loren Winfrey: Man, I listen to old Cecil too, you know?

Loren Winfrey: I listen to

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

Loren Winfrey: There too. Yeah. You know, I, it's, every once in a while I, you know, I see something and I wanna share, you know, I'll share this video with HR is trying to develop, you know, training or like thing, watch this video about auto, they don't know, you know, their hr, they don't know, you know, their job is to, you know, to make sure the company's healthy, you know, and compliant with all of those things that the state requires of us, you know, watch this video about our industry.

Loren Winfrey: Just so you kind of understand where we're coming from, you know? Oh, thank you. That was so helpful. I appreciate it. You know, I'll watch that. You know, so, and not only that, but you know, I watched you guys and a lot of the stuff, you know, it just helps reiterate some of the things that I was taught that I might've forgotten, you know?

Loren Winfrey: Yeah. It's we, you know, if you're, if we're not open and learning, then we miss things, you know, and sometimes we forget important things that we need to, like, reiterate to ourselves, you know, like, oh, this procedure is important because, you know, it helps this, or it helps that, you know, and we forget.

Loren Winfrey: You know, everybody's, I'm egotistical and sometimes I think, you know, I'm a god of auto repair management. You know, I don't need any help. And then, you know, something happens and I get slapped back into humility, you know, and I gotta watch a couple of videos and I gotta rethink my strategy on some stuff, you know?

Loren Winfrey: But, you know, we gotta remain humble and teachable. Man. I think is the biggest thing.

Jimmy Lea: Love it. Love it brother. That's awesome, man. Thank you. Thank you for your time, Lauren. I really appreciate it.

Loren Winfrey: Thanks, Jimmy.

Jimmy Lea: Thanks for taking the time. My name is Jimmy Lee. This is the Leading Edge podcast, and we are the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence.

Jimmy Lea: All right, cool. We're out. Thanks, brother. That was fun. Dude, that was awesome. Hey and listen man if ever you're looking for a sounding board or backboard, if you're looking for a coaching company that's gonna help you or a group, a mastermind group. Yeah, dude, I got some managers that are managing the 20 threes, the 30 sixes locations.

Jimmy Lea: We're looking at starting a second mastermind group just for managers. I've got. One right now, and it's too big. So we're starting a second one. Yeah. Gonna make this more involved with those guys like you that are managing many locations. That way you can bring a problem and say, Hey man, I'm really struggling with this.

Jimmy Lea: Well, this guy over here's gonna say, dude, here's your solution. We solved that last Tuesday. Yeah, there you go. For sure, man. So if you're looking for anything that can help man, I, I'd love to throw you. Into the mix, if you will.

Loren Winfrey: For sure. For sure. Man I know that a long time ago. I think you probably guys got some of those a TI guys come work for you now, right?

Jimmy Lea: No, I don't have any a TI guys with me yet. Yeah. Let me think now. Cecil used to be at a TI, so there's one. Let's see I got Parker and Chad, and they're not a TI I've got Aaron. Aaron's not. And Jennifer's not Michael's. Not Michael's, not Mark's, not Ryan. Ryan. Ryan's not Aldo. Aldo's not. No I don't think I have a lot of a TI that are with me.

Loren Winfrey: Okay. I, yeah, I just, I mean that was like,

Jimmy Lea: is that where you guys are doing your training right now?

Loren Winfrey: No. That's where I got my training back. You know, I had my mentor, Vince, right, the old Italian guy, and he, you know, he was really Italian, like Christmas time. He would. Hey, Lauren, come here. I wanna talk to you.

Loren Winfrey: And he would like slit me an envelope of cash, you know, and like, for Christmas bonus, you know, here you go. Thank you so much. You know, and he would talk quiet. Oh my God. It was, he was the godfather. I mean, he was a great, if I can be, if I can be half the human being that guy was in this business, then, you know, I'm doing great things.

Loren Winfrey: You know, the guy was, you know, he, but he's, that's a

Jimmy Lea: riot.

Loren Winfrey: Yeah. And so I went to, like, back when the, you know, the world. The world collapsed back in, you know, the housing crisis, right? Yeah. And I had been working in technology. I had a installation company for low voltage, and I had 700 employees.

Loren Winfrey: You know, I was all over, I was working for Comcast, time Warner, brighthouse Networks, you know, California, Texas, all over the place, you know, and the. The bottom fell out. And so, yeah I went to this guy, you know, and like, I've always worked on cars, you know, as a, you know, just as a hobby, you know, and I always did my buddy's breaks and all this, you know, I was, that I always, the, I was that neighbor, you know?

Loren Winfrey: Yeah. This guy gave me a shot, you know, nobody hired me for 14 bucks an hour back in 2010, right? So it was 14 bucks an hour after I just got done making 150,000. But I couldn't really get any jobs, right? There was nothing out there. And so I needed some money. And so this guy though, the Italian guy, gave me a job and I started doing tires and oil changes and brake and service and all that stuff.

Loren Winfrey: And then I got hurt and he's like, oh, I think you'd be good on the counter. And he put me on the counter. And I outsold his lead service advisor by 35% my first month on the counter. And he's like, well, what do

Jimmy Lea: you mean, dude? You killed it. You killed it.

Loren Winfrey: I crushed everybody. And like, pretty soon I was like the number one salesman in the whole company and it was nuts.

Loren Winfrey: And then like. So I was a service advisor for this guy for a long time, you know, for three years. And then he is like, you're gonna go up to this store I have, and you're gonna be the right hand man of Craig up there. You've got the sales side down. Craig is the business guy of this company. He's gonna teach you the business side, you know, but.

Loren Winfrey: Then I was a service manager and then he said, look, this is what I want to do. I'm gonna send you to a TI I'm gonna pay for all the classes for you. And so he invested in me, like he sent me to Wow, the shop manager class. Then he sent me to the shop owner class. And so the dude invested thousands of dollars into me out of his, you know, the company bucket and nobody else.

Loren Winfrey: You know, and so a lot of stuff is in line with, you know, you guys, a TI, you know, and the core set of procedures is the same, right? And so I was able to take the core set of procedures, you know? That you need to concentrate on and implement it to all my service advisors, you know, and it, my shops have always been really done really well.

Loren Winfrey: You know, so I just I really appreciate what you guys do and helping people understand, you know, the reasoning behind, you know, why we do what we do, you know? And it's not just about, it's not just about how,

Jimmy Lea: it's not just, it's not just about the 20 bucks. No. Just like you were saying, it is not about the 20 bucks, it's about the client.

Jimmy Lea: It's about the person, yeah. That you're talking to.

Loren Winfrey: Yeah, man.