From a gas station side job to franchise leader turned independent owner, Bob Ward shares how he built The Auto Guys in St. Thomas, Ontario on process, people, and pride. He unpacks the leap from technician to manager to owner, the 15-year coaching run that shaped his systems, and why culture shows up in photos, bay huddles, and a joke-filled street sign. Bob dives into apprentice pipelines, the state of Canadian tech education, and what he learned serving as Midas’ Canadian dealer rep. He explains the million-dollar shop formula: manage the customer journey, run the back-of-house with clear policies, and sell from thorough DVIs. We hear how “never say no” equipment strategy, specialty tools, and daily/weekly rhythms keep work flowing. He offers recruiting and retention nuggets (from oil-filter stickers to recognizing big diags) and maps his succession plan with his service manager, Nick. The episode closes with a call to elevate trades education and transfer veteran wisdom to the next generation.

Host(s):

Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development

Guest(s):

Bob Ward, Owner of St. Thomas Auto Guys

Show Highlights:

[00:01:52] - Bob’s unconventional start: he aimed to be a teacher, but a gas station job and early-’80s Midas brakes era pulled him into the trade and into management.

[00:04:12] - Franchise to ownership: promoted to store manager, then part-owner in six weeks—fast lessons that pushed him to seek coaching and systems.

[00:08:22] - Building a brand beyond the franchise: “Make them come for you, not the logo”—earning Midas’ Presidential Awards before launching The Auto Guys.

[00:10:22] - Culture you can see: a cohesive crew, pro photos, and visible joy signal a place customers and techs want to be.

[00:15:15] - Fixing the pipeline: Bob details Ontario’s apprenticeship path and why high schools must rebuild hands-on tech education.

[00:26:59] - Million-dollar lever #1: Manage the customer base: scripted intake, clean protections, readable DVIs, proactive updates, and timed pickups reduce end-of-day pileups.

[00:29:30] - Million-dollar lever #2: Policies in the shop: enforce standards, invest in equipment, huddle daily, meet monthly, and publicly recognize tough diagnostics.

[00:35:04] - Million-dollar lever #3: 300% rule in action: inspect every car, estimate every need, present every finding; target 2.5+ billed hours beyond the original concern.

[00:39:59] - “Never say no”: keep programming, A/C, diagnostics, and light-duty diesel in-house so customers never need to go elsewhere.

[00:41:26] - Street-smart marketing: replace competitor oil-change stickers, keep a free-water fridge, and use community touchpoints to create memorable “wow” moments.

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Episode Transcript:

Jimmy Lea: Hello friend. This is Jimmy Lea with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence and you are listening to the Leading Edge podcast. Joining me today is Bob Ward, and he is joining from his shop. Are you at your shop, Bob? Yes. And your shop is in St. Thomas up in Canada, is that correct? The balmy south of Ontario.

Jimmy Lea: Yes, balmy south of Ontario. I heard that there are more Canadians living south of. Was the, there's more Canadians living south of the border of the United States because of Ontario dipping down, being so populated. I don't know if that's true or not.

Bob Ward: Well, it is. Ontario is the has the heaviest population density in Canada.

Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah, it certainly does. Yep. And what a beautiful country, Bob, you guys. My two favorite places in the world that I've been to, well, two of them that are on the top 10 list is Niagara Falls and Banff.

Jimmy Lea: Yep. You've been to both.

Bob Ward: I've been to one. Banff is still on my bucket list.

Jimmy Lea: Bro. You gotta go.

Jimmy Lea: Oh my gosh. It's absolutely gorgeous. And I went during the unseasonably. Pre spring season, the snow had melted, but there was no growth happening yet. Okay. So one would've said, oh, everything is still dead. Oh my gosh. It was so gorgeous. It was so beautiful.

Bob Ward: That's typical of Canada. We've got so many natural resources and wonders that we could share with the world.

Jimmy Lea: You, you really do. You really do. And there, there's no reason to travel outside of the country because there's so much country to see. Absolutely. Oh, I love it. I love it. Bob. How did you get into the automotive industry?

Bob Ward: Mine is kind of an unusual story, Jimmy, because when I went to, when I graduated from high school I decided to go to university to become a high school teacher.

Bob Ward: And I graduated with a double major. But in my final year my marks weren't enough. I had to repeat my final year to go back into and get my grades up to get into teacher's college, but I decided not to because while I was going to university, I was working at a gas station and I started learning stuff from the mechanics in there and back that this is the day I'm showing my age because I tell you, I dye my hair white.

Bob Ward: Okay. Nobody believes me.

Bob Ward: But that's when I started in the automotive trade. And what it did is it morphed from that and I started working in the bays and getting an apprenticeship and then it morphed from there. And I went, I worked in several small, independent garages. Yes. But I couldn't see myself learning anything from those places.

Bob Ward: Because I wanted to get back then propane was a big ticket item. And I went and got my licenses for that. There was three licenses and I did this on my own. Well, then I joined Midas because they were getting into breaks back then in the early eighties.

Jimmy Lea: Yes. Yes.

Bob Ward: And I worked for them for a while, but I found that, the managers in the stores weren't very reliable back then, and I found I was having to do a lot of managing my own sales and selling stuff that the managers were supposed to do. So I started learning all that stuff.

Jimmy Lea: Interesting.

Bob Ward: And then the owner of the franchise saw that in me and he upgraded me to a manager to run a store.

Bob Ward: Nice. So I ran a store for him for eight years and I really enjoyed it. Jimmy, I mean. There's a lot of diversity in the clients and dealing with the staff. You know what, in hindsight I thought, boy, maybe I should have gone to school for daycare daycare education when dealing with staff.

Jimmy Lea: Right. Early childhood development.

Bob Ward: Yeah. So then an opportunity came up where there was a franchise in St. Thomas that had. Midas had repossessed, so to speak, and I went in six weeks, I went from being a manager in a store in London to a part owner of a franchise in St. Thomas. Nice. So that was a big learning curve for me.

Bob Ward: Yeah. Because, you know, all us technicians think that, you know, 'cause you're a good tech or you're a good business owner. And I sure found out quickly that I needed help. Yes. And I found that help through automotive Training Institute. Nice. And we were in one of the first groups that Chubby took in.

Bob Ward: Nice. And we were with them for 15 years, Jimmy.

Jimmy Lea: Wow. Wow. A lot

Bob Ward: of, a lot of good relationships and a lot of good friends from that.

Jimmy Lea: Yes.

Bob Ward: And that's the training that I needed to help me along and get me where I am today.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. That is a band of brothers that, a TI is able to put together and with chubby and

Bob Ward: he

Jimmy Lea: has since moved on, retired and sold the business and, you know, all honor to his day. It's still going on, Jimmy. Well, it is. And it's wonderful. And I'm just pleased that I was able to meet Chubby and get to know him. I was right at the very end of his career, if you will.

Jimmy Lea: Right. Like, I think I was at one of the LA my first was one of his last conferences. Super conference. Right. And then Richard and the Karens took over.

Bob Ward: Yes. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. No, I know quite well.

Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. They are awesome people. We love them. So you went from managing the franchise to owning in a franchise.

Jimmy Lea: Yep. And from owning in the franchise. 'cause you and you talk about a different skillset. I talk about a lot is technicians have the ability to turn the wrenches and cars talk to them. Then you've gotta learn a new skill set of talking to people and you have to speak human. And then you've got a third skillset of running the business, and that's a totally different skillset.

Jimmy Lea: Did you find it easy to transition and learn each level along the way? Or was that challenging?

Bob Ward: It was challenging on two fronts. One is. I'm not the easiest guy to knock outta my comfort zone. Okay. And I think that's characteristic of a lot of people. And I went through several coaches at where I was before, and they were all great, but they all had their strengths.

Bob Ward: Okay. Yes. And they taught me to be a little more open-minded and try something different. And that's what got me, I think. Where I am today. There's still some things that I do resist, but I think that prepared me without that I wouldn't be where I am today because, you know, I was with a Midas franchisee for 20 years, and I got involved in the franchise industry.

Bob Ward: I was the International Midas dealer representative for all of Canada. Nice. And I was down in corporate meetings with Midas at the executive level. Quarterly and that's where I really flourished. I really enjoyed doing that, but had I not had the training that I received, I couldn't be able to leave my business and be away for several days.

Bob Ward: Right,

Jimmy Lea: right. Yeah.

Bob Ward: So, and then, but again, I kind of got away from the Midas, so they were great. Yes, and they still are. They're a very good organization, but I couldn't see myself going where they were going. Right, because I'm more of an independent shop owner, and even when we were a Midas franchise owner, I was operating outside the franchise agreement by doing tuneups and oil changes and things like that, that Midas was not doing.

Jimmy Lea: Right. No, that's interesting. Okay. Keep going. Well,

Bob Ward: yeah, and it is because the guys at a TI, they told me if you wanna be a successful franchisee. You have to make the people come to see you, not the brand.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, bingo. Totally agree. If you do that, you're gonna

Bob Ward: succeed. Okay. And I succeeded doing that.

Bob Ward: And we were one of only, well back then there was about 1600 Midas franchisees franchises in North America. We were one of only 10. They had the presidential award. That was given out. You had to tick off a lot of boxes with business operation, customer satisfaction, purchasing, warranty ratios, all kinds of things.

Bob Ward: We were only one of a 10 that won all three. Okay. Oh, I still got that on my wall here, and I look at it every day. Right, because that was a big thing in my mind to get that accomplished. But. I let my, at the end of my franchise, I bowed out and we started the Auto Guys. I love it.

Bob Ward: And I learned all of the stuff I learned from a TI and I learned from Midas. I transitioned when I made Auto Guys because people come here and they think we're a franchise, and when we set the company up, we made it set up so that it could be a franchise. All of that was done at the start. Right. And I had I not had that training and had a good corporate lawyer, we wouldn't have done all that stuff.

Bob Ward: Right.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, and I'm looking at your website by the way, your shop looks. Phenomenal, your team. Thank you. Looks amazing. Everyone looks like they just got finished telling a really good joke 'cause they're all laughing. They're all having a great time. What a wonderful culture you must have set up here in your shop that everybody enjoys working at your shop

Bob Ward: currently, Jimmy, it's this crew that I've got.

Bob Ward: All of the people that I've had that's come through the shop have been great people.

Jimmy Lea: Okay.

Bob Ward: And each one of them has had their own strengths and they've moved on, whether it's my choice or their choice. Right.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

Bob Ward: And I don't begrudge any of them, but without a doubt, the current crew that I have here is absolutely the most cohesive group and best working group I've ever had.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. Yeah. Tell me who is, I'm gonna call him hair. Who is that guy? Who is, who's the hair dude's got like a mop on his head. I mean, it's, that's some glorious locks that boy's got going there. Who is that?

Bob Ward: Well,

Jimmy Lea: that could

Bob Ward: be I'm not on my website.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, let me show you.

Bob Ward: Okay,

Jimmy Lea: here we go.

Jimmy Lea: Whose hair?

Bob Ward: Oh, that's the guy on the right. That's Vish. Yeah. He's the most photogenic guy I've ever seen. 'cause you never see him not smiling? Yeah. Okay. So he got headhunted by another company and he's doing well with his other company. Oh, congratulations. So, Vish, Vish was an awesome character, right?

Jimmy Lea: Bi, his name was Bish,

Bob Ward: V-V-I-S-H, VIIs. Yep. Oh wow. He is actually, believe it or not, Jimmy, he has a degree in mechanical engineering in India. Oh my word. And when he came with me, yeah. He was an apprentice and I had him do the a SE tests for both brakes and electrical. And he passed them both.

Jimmy Lea: And he'd never worked on brakes or electrical.

Bob Ward: No, he's that smart. Right? Good

Jimmy Lea: for him

Bob Ward: that Wow. But he's moved on.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, that. Congratulations. Yeah, I can, you can just, you can, in some shops, you can look and you can see, and you can feel that culture of happy and enjoyment. And we like each other and we like working together. And I can definitely see it from your website that you've set up a really great website and a really great shop.

Jimmy Lea: It looks, and I see three bay doors. Are they double deep?

Bob Ward: There's actually four bay doors and one of them is double deep. Ah, very good. I must be missing the one then. Yeah, there's the one at the front of the building and then the side of the building, there's three more. And the center bay is a double deep bay.

Bob Ward: That's the one for a long term, like for engine jobs and stuff.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, very good. Very good. So the current setup for your shop is the three bays and one that's a long term. How many technicians do you have? What's the makeup there? Service advisors. What does that look like for you?

Bob Ward: Well, I have one service manager slash advisor, Nick.

Bob Ward: I work with him out front. I'm licensed myself. Yeah. But I don't work on cars unless it's an old car that comes in or it's, the guys need a hand with something.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah,

Bob Ward: I have so there's Nick and I up front and I have four guys in the back, two ap, two apprentices, and two licensed technicians.

Bob Ward: I gotta say Jimmy, both my licensed techs were with me before and they came back to me again and they're two of the best teachers ever. The two of my apprentices are in a really good spot from learning 'cause both these other tech techs will share any of their information and guide them into doing jobs and that's, and they don't even bat an eye, they just do it.

Jimmy Lea: Brother. I love that. That is awesome. Is that Chris and Steve? Are they your texts that came back? Well, Chris is no longer with me.

Bob Ward: Okay. We're updating our website there. So it's Steve and Rob. Oh. Which is in the process of uploading their pictures and their bios.

Jimmy Lea: Yep. I love it. I love it.

Jimmy Lea: You, you, those are some of the photos you have to do professionally. Because it's on your website. It's there forever. Every other photo that you take with your cell phone, yeah. It's appropriate for social media and we can share it and all that jazz. Yeah. But I love your professional shots. It speaks volumes to what you're doing in the shop.

Jimmy Lea: That's very cool. Thank you. Yes. And thank you for building our apprentices, for those that are coming into the industry as well. Do, does, is there a path for them to follow? Have you laid out a path for them?

Bob Ward: It's all pretty much orchestrated. It's the apprentices in Canada are governed by each province.

Jimmy Lea: Yes.

Bob Ward: And currently it's the Ministry of Skills and Development. Excellent. But before that, it was the Ontario College of Trades. And I got involved, I sat on the Board of Governors for the College of Trades, representing the Mode of Power division. I sat on that for two and a half years.

Jimmy Lea: Oh wow.

Bob Ward: Right. So, yes, there's a good path for them to follow. And of course, it's all digital now. Yes. But it's, well, currently I'm working with the ministry of Skills and Development because we've got an education system problem here in Canada. Okay.

Jimmy Lea: The

Bob Ward: young, the young kids that are coming through now, there's, they're starting to push or promote the trades again.

Bob Ward: And for the longest time, all of the technology courses were being dropped and it was all academics. Well, now it's swinging back to this, but the education system is not geared up. The kids now are not taking the courses they need to be in the trades. In North America and I'll speak for Canada.

Bob Ward: I can't speak for the US Jimmy, but Sure. The trades skilled trades in Europe are handled totally differently. So when these young people decide they go into high school or whatever it is over there, and they decide they want to trade, they're automatically funneled into predetermined courses.

Bob Ward: They have to take over there. They're not optional, they're mandatory.

Jimmy Lea: Yes.

Bob Ward: And during their time over there, they are sent out to co-op in different locations. Now, in Canada, we have co-op here as well. Okay. What I'm finding is because the education is lacking, it's fallen right back that some of the kids that the co, the high schools are trying to send to me, I can't take them.

Bob Ward: Because they, they have had no experience working around equipment or they haven't got the training to work on the cars. And it's sad. So we're working with them to get that back up and running and get these kids geared more for, technical training. 'cause I mean, you know, when I graduated from high school and I started my apprenticeship, I had no automotive experience whatsoever.

Bob Ward: I didn't take any technical courses. I graduated from Western, I had two degrees from Western. Okay. And when I got into trade school, I was like a fish outta water. Okay. The hardest ones for me were machine shop. I knew electrical and I knew carburetors. I knew all of that stuff. And the guys that I met in trade school, I helped teach them the electrical and the carburetors, and they taught me how to do the machine shop stuff.

Bob Ward: So we got each other through the class. Right. Oh, that's good. I still have good friendships with some of those guys that I've kept in touch with over the years.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's beautiful. But it's a

Bob Ward: close knit group, Jimmy.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, it is.

Bob Ward: It's just, it's the same thing with the shop owners. We belong to several chat groups with shop owners and one of them we meet every once a Thursday a month.

Bob Ward: And it's, you can call it a bitch session if you want, but we talk about things and we, you never know where you're gonna get a nugget from.

Jimmy Lea: Right.

Bob Ward: And they come from all over the place. And it's these chat groups. These memberships that I belong to, that's where you really flourish.

Bob Ward: Yeah. Okay. And I can't say enough about shop owners. You get drawn into your shop and it takes all your time and you can't you build walls all around yourself and you've gotta stop and break down those walls and get out, and then you can educate yourself. 'cause that's the big thing with shops now, shop owners.

Bob Ward: Is all of the red tape that you've gotta go through with the government and with the local bylaws and everything and learning and keeping up, up, abreast on everything. Yeah. If you don't keep up abreast and you stop, the other shops that are doing it are gonna just storm right by you and you're just gonna be left.

Bob Ward: I call 'em lud eggs. Right. So the shops, oh, lu eggs, Lud eggs. Oh, I get you. Yes. Oh yeah. The shops that don't do anything and they just keep doing the same thing and don't progress. You're just, you're gonna find yourself in a hole and you're never gonna get out of it.

Jimmy Lea: That's so true. It's so true. And the education problem that you're talking about, Bob, that is rampant all across North America even here in the lower 48,

Bob Ward: right?

Jimmy Lea: It is just as bad as it is there in Canada. And we've gotta work to correct the ship to, right the ship. Yep. There's an available 70 to a hundred thousand positions for technicians to step into. Yeah. But this year in North America, we're only gonna have 30,000 graduate from technical schools.

Jimmy Lea: And after the first year, half of those aren't gonna still be in the business. Not to mention the 50 to 60,000 that are retiring every year too. 'cause the body just can't take it.

Bob Ward: And that in itself is a tremendous loss of knowledge and wisdom that is not being transferred over to these young kids.

Bob Ward: Truth,

Jimmy Lea: right? Truth.

Bob Ward: And the other thing that we're finding too, Jimmy, is when we do interviews. By the way, I hate doing interviews, right. I'm not good at it, but I've got a system down. But you've gotta look at the individual deeper than what their schooling is. Everything you've gotta see if they have a good mindset, if they're gonna fit into your team.

Bob Ward: Right. And they're gonna be there for the long haul. Because what I'm finding too, with some of these kids, they want the big bucks and they want the jobs right away and they can't have it. No.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah, they're not qualified

Bob Ward: yet. Well, they're not qualified and they can't see it because up here, the education system, they don't fail kids or hold kids back anymore.

Bob Ward: They keep promoting them. Right? So all of a sudden the kids are coming out into the real world where they're getting into hitting a brick wall because, so those of us that are shop owners, we've built our business up and we've got certain criteria that you must meet. And if you don't meet it. Right.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah, that's, and I

Bob Ward: hate to throw people to the curb.

Bob Ward: Yeah. We always try and help them and get them, and some of them have really flourished because it's amazing when you spend some time with these young kids and teach them of what they can be and how they can get there by themselves and utilizing friendships and stuff how some kids flourish and those are the keepers.

Jimmy Lea: Totally.

Bob Ward: But it's unfortunate because there's places in my town where they're constantly headhunting my techs.

Jimmy Lea: Oh

Bob Ward: yeah. Yeah, they are. Yep.

Jimmy Lea: And in fact I was talking to Tyler Nichols yesterday from extra Mile Auto Care out of where's he out of? Steelwater, Oklahoma.

Bob Ward: Okay.

Jimmy Lea: He had an interview with a technician and he's the general manager.

Jimmy Lea: Tyler's the general manager. He called Aaron the owner and said, Hey, I just interviewed a guy to be one of our techs. However, he's really gonna be a great service advisor. Can we hire him to be a service advisor? Yep. To your exact point, when you see the potential inside of people, you're hiring for that potential.

Jimmy Lea: Not just the tick on the box that says they have an education from this place. You know, what are their pastimes, what are their hobbies? What do they like to do outside of work? Is that gonna be fitting into your company and your culture?

Bob Ward: And you're absolutely right, Jimmy, because like my service manager, he was with me a while ago and he clashed with my then manager.

Bob Ward: I'll be honest I didn't know how to deal with this manager. He shouldn't have been where he was, but I was coping with him. And then when he left my service manager, Nick came back. Now Nick I got him from one of my parts suppliers. He was a Counterman. Oh, nice. And he was really good. And he's an awesome guy, but he also races super stock stock cars.

Bob Ward: Oh yeah. You have no idea the number of people that know him from that.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah. And

Bob Ward: how the people from the stock car side of things,

Jimmy Lea: the community, they actually

Bob Ward: come in and talk to him. And people recognize, you know, they say, well, well, I saw you on TV and on watching you racing.

Bob Ward: Yep, that's him. Well, it's a instant bond.

Jimmy Lea: Oh my gosh. This

Bob Ward: kid knows cars.

Jimmy Lea: Right.

Bob Ward: And he can answer questions that people, nothing impresses people more than going into a place and asking car questions and getting an answer from him rather than saying, well, just a minute I'll go get somebody that knows what they're doing.

Bob Ward: Yeah. Which is what happens in dealerships.

Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. Yeah.

Bob Ward: Okay. And I love dealerships, Jimmy, because we get more business from them. Yeah, they're your MVP, right? That's right. So, it's amazing. What people pick up too. When people come in, like my wife, she keeps on me about changing the signs out front.

Bob Ward: We, we got our a street side sign. I put jokes up every week.

Jimmy Lea: Okay.

Bob Ward: The number of people that comment on, oh, I see your signs. Signs all the time and everything. It's little things like that don't realize when we do put a serious sign up, it gets noticed.

Jimmy Lea: Right. Yeah. So

Bob Ward: she makes sure the shop is clean and people notice that we got a Tim Horton's franchise beside us.

Bob Ward: And it's a compliment when people come in and they say, I went over there to get a donut. I've got a Tim's card that I give 'em. I said, you're going over there. Here. I give 'em the Tim's card, buy yourself a coffee and a donut. And some of them, a lot of them come back and they say, your place is cleaner than that.

Bob Ward: Tim's next door. Okay. That's pretty good. I know. So when people notice this and they also notice what we were talking about before, how well the guys joke and kid act amongst themselves. People notice that. Right. I love

Jimmy Lea: it. Yeah.

Bob Ward: And that's the thing that's gonna set you apart from other places, is what people notice.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, for sure. Okay, so I just did a little bit of searching here to discover your sign. Is this the old school? Put the letters up. On the sign kind of sign. Yep. I hope my ship comes in before my dock rots.

Bob Ward: Well, that's a story I'll tell you about that because the, I put that up and a customer came by. She brought me a little silicone boat.

Bob Ward: Okay. Did you see that picture? Yeah. The little blue boat right next to it. Yep. Yep. So I put on the sign today, right? My ship finally came in along with donuts. Okay. And I put that out on the sign because only that person will see that and know what it means. Yes. I love it. And we get customers that come in all the time and they say, here's, this is what I found.

Bob Ward: Right. And I put their stuff up there too.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. I love the company, the culture, the look, the feel. I love what you're doing, Bob. Congratulations. Thank you, Jim. That does not happen by accident. That takes a lot of work to make it look effortless.

Bob Ward: And that's right. And we've all heard it.

Bob Ward: I mean, it's a hard thing to get something in place, but it's even harder to keep it in place. Oh, amen. It's very easy to let it slide. Right?

Jimmy Lea: Yep. Well, let's talk about what do you think are the three things holding shops back today? From being a million dollar shop?

Bob Ward: The number one thing is managing your customer base.

Bob Ward: Okay. Okay. You have to have policies and perche procedures in place for everything, but how the customer is handled when they come in, how the communication, the ongoing how they're checked in how the car's prepared. We put slip covers and seat covers and floors in all the cars before they come in and people notice that, right?

Bob Ward: So it's our attention to detail. So it's the intake process with customers. The we even design and put in our own digital inspections and they get inspections that they can actually read that the shop, the texts, fill 'em all out. Yeah, there's no tech handwriting. A hundred percent.

Bob Ward: There's no dirty finger marks on 'em or oil on 'em or anything. I love it. And the customers expect that now. So, it's the procedures that we follow when we call 'em and let them know what's wrong with their card and how much it'll cost and how that whole transaction transpires. And then the same thing when the cars come in.

Bob Ward: They come in and pick up their car. Yeah, right. Because we give them a time of completion. We call 'em and tell 'em when their car's ready so that everybody, you know, in the old days everybody used to come in at five or five 30 and you'd get slammed. Well, we don't do that anymore.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. People

Bob Ward: come out through the day and they'll pick up their car.

Bob Ward: So at the end of the day, it's quiet. We can get all our paperwork done and everything done. So how you handle the customers and the fact that you exceed your customer's expectations every time they come in, you have to do that. And it can be a wow factor from a Timmy's card. Or we give car wash coupons out from around the corner to everybody that comes in.

Bob Ward: It's little things like that they like. Or here's the thing that I put in, 'cause we're, our temperatures can be in the eighties and nineties, in the summertime, and it's very humid here. I got this old beat up fridge that I had in my upstairs lunch room for the guys. It was becoming too small, so I bought another fridge.

Bob Ward: I took that fridge downstairs and put it in the showroom, put an auto guy's label on it, and I put free cold water on it. There you go. And people come in and they just go right to the fridge. Right? Is little things like that separate you. So there's your customer management.

Jimmy Lea: I love

Bob Ward: it. Okay, so the other thing there, there were three things, right?

Bob Ward: Yes. The other thing is policies and procedures in dealing with your technicians out back, okay? You have to have rules and regulations that are followed. They have to be monitored and they have to be enforced. So I've got a very good lady that's an HR person that helps us and she keeps me on update on all the new laws and regulations and helps me keep my guys in line.

Bob Ward: And the guys actually appreciate that. They know that if there's, I mean, nobody's perfect, Jimmy, even I've done things where I've gotten in trouble with my wife or whoever, or my HR lady who gives me hell every once in a while, but it's there for a reason. It's to keep us going in the right direction.

Bob Ward: That's right. Right. So we've got, not only do we have technician and bay management, right. The other thing is equipment. If you wanna play in today's market, you've gotta take the word no outta your vocabulary,

Jimmy Lea: okay?

Bob Ward: Okay. So if you bring your car into me, Jimmy and I do everything. I do air conditioning, we do diagnostics, we do programming, everything.

Bob Ward: There's nothing we don't do. I will not give you a reason to take your car somewhere else.

Jimmy Lea: Love it. Love it. I love, there's no

Bob Ward: way, okay? Because if you do that, you can lose a customer.

Jimmy Lea: Yes.

Bob Ward: And I don't wanna take that chance. So that's what we do here is you're you've got all the top end equipment.

Bob Ward: We have daily huddles with the techs before, so they know what's up for the day. And we have a monthly staff meeting where I buy the guys lunch and it's a, like a down and dirty thing. We give agendas out. The guys know what's gonna be talked on. And sometimes we ask the guys to give a little speech and talk about something like we've got a bulletin board up there where sometimes the technicians go above and beyond.

Bob Ward: They've had a very difficult dag job and we recognize it on the bulletin board and we recognize it on our monthly meeting that say, Hey, Steve had this really nasty. Diag and we leave them alone. I'm not a guy that harps these guys. If they're head deep into a diag, I leave them alone.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Well, yeah.

Bob Ward: I don't bug 'em.

Bob Ward: I don't tell 'em You've got 15 minutes or whatever to finish this. And those guys love it when you do that.

Jimmy Lea: That's right. You can't interrupt their thought flow and process. Nope. Let 'em have at it.

Bob Ward: Yep. But again, you keep up with the customer. You say, look, this is where Steve is in your diag. This is where he is.

Bob Ward: He's finally got an area that he's go, he knows he is gonna go in this direction. It's costing you this much so far, and this is what we're projecting. And if you keep the customer in the loop with that they're more aware of it. So you're not giving him a heart attack at the end.

Jimmy Lea: Yes.

Jimmy Lea: And the

Bob Ward: technician's happy. Ultimately, the customer's happy because their car's fixed. Okay. It may not be cheap, but I'm not the cheapest shop in town and I don't wanna entertain that.

Jimmy Lea: No, that's right. We're here to fix it.

Bob Ward: Right. We know this is one thing that a shop owner has to know. You've gotta know your breakeven point, your minimum sales target to make Your expenses.

Bob Ward: Yeah. If you know that,

Jimmy Lea: then you can build from that. Amen. If you know what it takes to break that nut. And the challenge is, can I break it by the 20th of the month? The 15th of the month? The 12th of the month. How is it? The 18th of the month? Is it the 31st of the month? Yep. That's a challenge. We got things to talk about.

Jimmy Lea: The sooner you can break that number to know that you've got everything covered, the better it is for your shop. I love that. Thank you, Ben. And,

Bob Ward: And you know, I've been to some. Some places where the shop owners haven't got a clue Yes. What's going on? You know, and I feel sorry for them, but there again, you can't, you can tee a horse knows how to drink, right?

Bob Ward: You gotta lead them to where they drink, what trough to drink from, right? That's the part that you can't do. And some of us have found troughs to drink in multiple troughs. 'cause you can't just stick with one. You've gotta go in through a bunch. Right. But it's the shops that find those and can get pulled themselves out because in, in town here in it is Heyday.

Bob Ward: There were probably, we're in a town of about 40,000 now. There were 35 shops in, in our town Independence and franchises and stuff, which was crazy. Now there's 20.

Jimmy Lea: Okay.

Bob Ward: It doesn't take long for these shops to fall off and go bankrupt because they can't keep up.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Well, and so to your third point, your first point is manage your customer base.

Jimmy Lea: Manage your customer's experience. I love that. Number two is your policies, procedures, working with your technicians and making sure that they're on top of their game. What is your third element that says if shop owners can do this, they'll. Break that $1 million per year sales.

Bob Ward: Okay there's two answers to that one.

Bob Ward: Okay. One is doing thorough vehicle inspections and the, that then it's passed on to the service manager. The service advisor, how to sell that stuff, how to sell it right away or project it into the future. For your next visit, Jimmy, we're gonna be servicing your transmission and your breaks. The visit after that.

Bob Ward: We're gonna be, we're gonna be doing something else, right? So, you know, ahead of time, everybody works on budgets. So if you can tell people your next visit's gonna cost this much, right? They can strive to that and it's an easier sell. So that's the first thing is doing thorough inspections. Now, the caveat from that is you can do an inspection, but you've also gotta sell that work.

Bob Ward: So what I'm looking for on invoices is I'm looking for. At least two and a half hours of build time on each invoice. Minimum for other categories Yes. Than what it came in for. Agreed. A hundred percent. Okay. Love

Jimmy Lea: it.

Bob Ward: Keep

Jimmy Lea: going.

Bob Ward: Then you know that you're working towards your goal of seeing the people more often, right?

Bob Ward: That's the thing where customers are our customer. They're not a number. That's right. And when, and here's something else I keep thinking about. If customers come in, if you go to a, we've all got our favorite restaurants, Jimmy. Yep. If you go into that restaurant and you see the same servers all the time, that says a lot about that restaurant.

Bob Ward: Same thing in our business. If you see the same guys out back and you see the same service advisor, right? That says a lot.

Jimmy Lea: I love it. I love it. We have a favorite restaurant that we go to. It's called the High Red. It's a sushi bar. And when we walk in, they know Playboy role, executive role. It's on the way.

Jimmy Lea: There you go.

Bob Ward: Yep. And that says a lot. So, yeah. And the other thing is you've gotta give your techs the equipment to do their job. Yes. I do not expect my techs to buy these specialty tools. We buy them all the time. Nice. And that they bring it up at the meeting or they bring it up at a huddle and say, look, you know, we got a particular job we're doing on a, we have a lot of German cars that come in here now.

Jimmy Lea: Yes.

Bob Ward: And you know the timing belt jobs, you need those special kits for the timing chains and timing belts. Yes. We got them. We get them ahead of time so that when the car comes in, the techs know they've got everything at their disposal to do the job properly.

Jimmy Lea: Good. Right.

Bob Ward: And that's where you've gotta, if you wanna play now you gotta pay.

Bob Ward: That's my model. Right. So if you give the techs what they need to do their job, they're gonna be happy.

Jimmy Lea: Totally agree. Totally agree. So I love your third point here is not only are you doing, and we would call this the 300% rule on your inspections, right? Every car gets inspected, every need, every red or yellow has a picture, and it goes to the service advisor.

Jimmy Lea: Estimates every needed repair. So number one you document every needed repair. Number two you estimate every repair. And number three, you show the full inspection, the full estimate to the customer. Right. And very easily you'll have two to three, to four to five to six hours over what they brought it in for.

Jimmy Lea: Because there are safety issues on every vehicle that is not being taken care of. Until a shop like yours, Bob steps in and says, these are the things we need to do to keep you safe on the road. So thank you and props to you for doing that. So thorough, DVI. And then the final is tools, scanners, probes.

Jimmy Lea: You've got all of them. Everything. You've got everything. So are you, do you focus, are you all makes and all models or do you focus on European or domestic or Asian, or are you truly open to all.

Bob Ward: All models,

Jimmy Lea: Jimmy. Woohoo.

Bob Ward: Yep. Even light duty diesels we work on, there's a lot more of them now. Yeah, that's true.

Bob Ward: Yep. But there's not a lot that we don't actually, you'll see one time we were goofing around in the shop and I had a lawnmower shop lawnmower. I put it up on the hoist and I had two guys, one with a scanner and one working underneath it. On a creeper say, we work on everything here. Oh, that's hilarious.

Bob Ward: And that got a whack of likes on Facebook when I posted that. Right. Oh, that's awesome. But and every shop has we have a huge following of mini people. Yes. Many. Yep. Yep. And they love to hear that you've got texts that work on minis or a particular car. 'cause everybody's got their favorite cars, but sure, sure.

Bob Ward: You know, if we can work on them all and we have the proper lubricants. To work on them all and maintain the warranties for people's cars, right? Yes. Yes. And that is credibility for the shop.

Jimmy Lea: I love that. And I'll say this too, Bob, not only do I want to know as a consumer, not only do I want to know that you can work on my mini, I want to know that your technician likes working on minis and they enjoy it and they're good at it, and they excel at it.

Jimmy Lea: Because if I bring my mini into you, I don't want to be the first guy that you're fixing. I want to be the 12th in line or the 13th in line because you fixed it 12 times already this year. This is just another day on the week. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I love it. That is very cool

Bob Ward: because you know, in, in dealerships, and they still do this, they still tell the people, when you buy a car, you've gotta get it serviced with us, and they don't.

Bob Ward: Right. Once you talk to people about that, I look at the oil change stickers that are in there. Now, here's a little nugget I'm gonna give you. Okay. I'm taking notes. Go ahead. When I see a carve with a competitor's oil change sticker on the windshield, I take it off, I go into my label printer and I print one up with the exact mileage that was on that one and the due date, and I put my sticker on the windshield.

Bob Ward: When your car's next for service, you look up there and go Auto guys. Okay. I'll phone them. 'cause my number's on Love it. You can steal a lot of people away just by doing that. Oh, interesting. Okay. But again, if you see the oil chain search I absolutely detest fast lube places.

Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah,

Bob Ward: the quick

Jimmy Lea: lubes.

Bob Ward: Fast lube. Yes. And we'll tell people that we can, we do it cheaper. We've got licensed techs, we sell ourselves and I can take a lot of people away from these quick lube places simply by looking at the oil change sticker that's there. You've gotta look at all your resources and say, where can I get new business from?

Bob Ward: If an oil change sticker's one of them, and you get one customer from that, your job's done.

Jimmy Lea: I love it. Can I tit for tap for you on that as well? Yeah. So right along with your lube oil sticker. What if you put a sticker on the oil filter? If you're a technician looking for a really great place to work, gimme a call.

Jimmy Lea: Awesome. They're gonna call, I'm writing that down. Right on. I love exchanging really good ideas and marketing concepts. Yeah. We know technicians are. Difficult to find these days, and if you can find a good one by putting a sticker on an oil filter and it goes into another bay and another shop and another dealership somewhere down the road.

Jimmy Lea: Yep. It would be great for them to come back and talk to you. I love it. I love it. I love it. You gave me a nugget. There you go. There's the nugget. So Bob, if you were to have a magic wand and you could change anything in this industry, now of course you can't wish for more wishes, but if you could change anything in the industry, what would you alter?

Bob Ward: I would alter the education system for upcoming. Youth. That's the big thing that I would change to not make it shameful to be in a trade. I love it. That's the one thing I would change. Love it. And we're in the process of working on this.

Jimmy Lea: I love it. Yeah, that's a big wand. And you are in the trenches, you are working on that big time.

Jimmy Lea: Have you ever watched Mike Rowe and his sweat pledge? Oh yeah. Here in the United States? Yeah.

Bob Ward: Yeah.

Jimmy Lea: Oh man. He is all over the trades and the trades industry and specifically in the automotive world, he has very specific automotive things that he does for. Technicians and technician training and schooling to really help this industry move forward.

Jimmy Lea: So I applaud you. And I applied Mike Rowe as well. I think that you guys are phenomenal human beings. Thank you. You're welcome. Yeah. Thank you for your wand as well. So what does the what does the future hold for you, Bob? What's next?

Bob Ward: Well, I'm at the point where I'm still gonna start to take some, a little bit more time off here and there.

Bob Ward: Right. Okay. And enjoy things because I built a very good working relationship with my service manager, Nick. Right. And actually we're having a an after hours meeting tomorrow night, and we're gonna make a bunch of policy changes in the shop.

Jimmy Lea: Okay.

Bob Ward: And it's through these meetings that you can keep him A, his input, right, and B, his ideas.

Bob Ward: Where we, you never know where we're gonna go, right? It's more than just raising prices or whatever. It's changing policies and things. And that's the thing that I think we need to focus on is your relationship with your key staff. Okay.

Jimmy Lea: Love it. I love public on that and 'cause

Bob Ward: ideally I can't be in this forever and with all of the online stuff, like I'd be kinda lost without Nick.

Bob Ward: Nick knows the online stuff, but he doesn't know the stuff that I've got up in my head. That's right. And it's my job to share with him that stuff and then he shares the other stuff with me. Right. And helps me along. 'cause I wouldn't be as far along computer wise had it not be for people like Nick.

Jimmy Lea: I love it.

Jimmy Lea: I love it. The two halves make a whole for sure. That's right. That's beautiful. So is Nick on the list? Is he possibly one of your succession plan? Do you Absolutely. You're looking at a key employee situation here. Have you started that process or is it in the beta?

Bob Ward: Well, no, we've started the process.

Bob Ward: It's in the beta, but it's in the late beta stages. And that's one of the things that we're gonna talk about tomorrow night in my meeting with him. Right.

Jimmy Lea: Beautiful. Congratulations. That's awesome. That's awesome that you've got a succession plan and then it becomes the onus comes onto Nick.

Jimmy Lea: Now, Nick, what do you wanna do? Yep. Do you want to optimize a single location? Do you want to really reach out because you've set him up with a beautiful floor plan that he could become a multiple shop operator and have that look and feel of a. Mega shop. You bet. Yeah. That's beautiful. Well, congratulations, Bob.

Jimmy Lea: Thank you very much for your time today. I really appreciate it.

Bob Ward: My pleasure, Jimmy. Anytime.

Jimmy Lea: All right, brother. Thank you. Well, you're welcome.