From sweeping shop floors at ten to running a dealership and repair operation, Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli shares how Pristine Auto Group balances retail service, used-car sales, and in-house reconditioning. He explains the technology behind his shop setup, including Autel ADAS systems and multiple scanners, and how space, tooling, and software updates shape modern repair costs. Hiring remains his toughest challenge, with big-box chains driving wage inflation, so Billy focuses on loyalty, training, and building career paths. He highlights the importance of customer education, from DVIs to explaining diagnostic time and warranty coverage. Billy also stresses networking with other shop owners to share resources and strengthen the industry. Looking ahead, he plans to develop in-house training and structured SOPs to expand into small, efficient satellite shops that maintain high standards of service and culture.

Host(s):

Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development

Guest(s):

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli, Owner of Pristine Service Center

Show Highlights:

[00:00:47] - Billy’s roots: growing up in his dad’s shop, wrenching by 13, and building a career that now blends dealership and retail service.

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Episode Transcript Disclaimer

Episode Transcript:

Jimmy Lea: Hello, my friend Jimmy Lee here with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence, and you are listening to the Leading Edge podcast. My guest today is Billy and he is with representing the Pristine Auto Group, auto Group Y, because it's more than just auto repair. He also has a dealership, a small dealership out front as well.

Jimmy Lea: So Billy, thank you very much for joining me today.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Thank you for having me.

Jimmy Lea: Billy. I'm, I'm so excited every time I do. A podcast, I'd like to do a little bit of research to find out a little bit more about who I'm gonna be speaking with. And I was super interested to find out about your shop because it looks like you're fairly new.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. But in conversations with you, you're not that new. Tell me what, what's the history here, Billy? So I've been

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: in this business, uh, since with my dad since I was 10. I'm pretty old now. Yeah, that's sweeping the floors. Taking out the tray. Yeah. Crushing the oil filters. Okay, carry on. So, um, I've been in the automotive industry since 18.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: I'm 47, so over 20 years. Um, I, we had a, a service shop. Just a service shop. Then we increased it to a dealership with the service shop, and we went more directions of servicing our dealer vehicles and dealer customers rather than, uh, retail. And in the past year, I've been attacking the retail up more and it's almost separating the two businesses.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: But we've been in this business for over 30 years. We have all the equipment, all the all top, all the scanners you could think of, top of the line, eight dos programmers, um, but obviously they're costly.

Jimmy Lea: So you're doing all makes and all models,

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: all makes

Jimmy Lea: all models. So all Euro, all Asian, all. Uh, domestic.

Jimmy Lea: You're, you're working all those vehicles? 

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Yeah. We go from rebuilding engines to even Range Rover, to regular Toyotas.

Jimmy Lea:  Oh my goodness sakes. That that is one heck of a wide swath. You've probably got $300,000 in scanners on the shelf.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Yes. I spend a lot of money updating them every year. Yeah.

Jimmy Lea: All that too.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Oh my gosh. 10 years old. You started the business. Did you start, when did you start? Did you start on the, uh, uh, sales side of automotive or on the service side of automotive service side. Okay. When did you start turning a wrench and changing oil, changing

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: pads, rotors, I wanna say by the time I was 13 I was under a car doing oil changes for, for chips for lunch.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Yeah, you wanna coke with that, change you away. Yeah, exactly. Um, I had no summers. I was, my dad would be disciplined to take me to work every summer, every day, you know, thank dad. If I'm not doing anything, I'm sitting. But, you know, good dad

Jimmy Lea: that, that work ethic. Priceless. Thank you dad. That's the key. You can't find that these days.

Jimmy Lea: No, you really can't. Oh man, I'm so, that's just amazing. Alright, so your technical background. I'm hearing a lot of school of hard knocks. It sounds like Pops threw you in the shop and said, go. Is there any technical training?

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: So I went to, I went to a bunch of courses obviously that our parts was, everything does.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: I went to, I got my bachelor's in business, four year Bachelor's. Uh, I did that during the process. Um, and I've, I've had a couple of shops in process in between before I settled into this. Um, but all, all based with same people, not changing companies, not changing stuff like that.

Jimmy Lea: Oh man, congrats. Yeah. That, that, awesome.

Jimmy Lea: And, and you're Service Bay now you're servicing retail and servicing the dealership? Yes. Your own dealership? Our own dealership,

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: yes.

Jimmy Lea: Anybody else? Okay, so. How long have you been on the retail side of servicing?

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: On the retail side, I wanna say for the past seven years I've been mainly on the retail side.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Okay. On the servicing, not really turning too much wrenches myself. Um, it's, it's hard because

Jimmy Lea: you're up front now, you're now the surgeon

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: upfront. Everyone wants to speak to me, so how am I diagnosing when I'm speaking or explaining certain tech, uh, technical stuff? You know, it's not like a dealership. We have 15 people doing one job,

Jimmy Lea: right?

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. No, this is a small operation. How many, so you have three techs, right? Mm-hmm. Three techs. How many bays? Uh,

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: I'm a warehouse that fits about 20 cars inside.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, okay. Yeah. How many lifts do you have? Any side then? I

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: have four lifts. Four lifts, uh, plenty of space. Do you have an alignment rack too? We have an alignment, alltel alignment rack that does the ADOS program and everything.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Okay. Um, so we, you know, uh, I, I was in a different location a year ago. I have like seven lifts, but I moved to right next to my dealership, back to next to my dealership, same size warehouse, which, you know, we're in the process of transition.

Jimmy Lea: Yes. Congratulations. That's awesome. Thank you.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: So are you

Jimmy Lea: gonna add more lifts in the, so

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: I, I think the top lifts I'll have is about five lifts.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Okay. Okay. Um, just because these days you need space for these ados programmers, all these scanners. You, and once you throw these lifts, you can't move.

Jimmy Lea: No, that's right. That's right. Once they're up, they're up. Oh, man, that, that's so exciting. Yeah. That's a bright future. And taking a warehouse, converting it into an automotive repair shop.

Jimmy Lea: That, that's some props to you, that that's a heavy lift, man. Yeah,

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: and, and, and it's, and it's about 6,000 square foot and it's on a main street. That was where I was lucky, right next to my dealership. And this was my, uh, this was my second shot that I got into doing my service. Before I got into the dealership side and um, and then eventually I saw the dealership side.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: So I merged it and I shrunk down my service, which was a mistake while back. 'cause I lost a couple customers because I concentrated on the dealer, but my dealer grew.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So it was a

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: give and take, you know? Right, right, right. But um, through that, through all that hard time COVID happened, all that stuff, you know, and we still survived.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: That's the, that's the plus. Oh yeah. That is, lot of places are not surviving.

Jimmy Lea: Brother. That's awesome. Congrats. Thank you. That is so cool. Uh, what, what a challenge. How many, uh, cars do you have on the lot that are for sale right now?

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: For sale? I have about

Jimmy Lea: 55. Dude, you got a big lot. Mm-hmm. That's, that's awesome.

Jimmy Lea: My, uh, uncle had a lot in Vegas and he was maybe 15 to 20, 22 would tap it out. He couldn't do any more than 22, so he really wasn't turning a lot of cars, but it was one of those buy here, pay here. I type a lot, so I, yeah, we

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: do about 40. We sales wise, 40 cars a month and then we service for the dealership about 45, 50 cars.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: That's just first time service. And then obviously customers bring back their cars as well.

Jimmy Lea: Nice. Do you have a program that incentivizes the buyer to bring it back to you?

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Um, so. We, since we offer a lot of, uh, extended warranties with our vehicles, yeah. Local customers are not comfortable going other places because they don't know how to use a warranty.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: They feel, so they come to us naturally. Um, I, we do get free oil changes when you buy a vehicle. We have a detail shop in-house, which is attached to my service shop. Which is a good bonus that you can give someone. You do an engine, you get a free wash, you know?

Jimmy Lea: Yeah, I like that. Yeah, that, that's the Pristine Auto Spa.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Yeah, it's actually, it's called Pristine Auto Spa. Yeah,

Jimmy Lea: I know. I did

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: some research. I know who you're, yep, yep. We like to do everything in house where, you know, and we have a lot of networking, so I have a lot of friends of mine that are, uh, total precision, that does a high-end vehicles Mercedes rain draw.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Anything that if I've been a jam, they have the programs I, I'll just, we work together. That's the key. Networking,

Jimmy Lea: networking, uh, and, and locking arms with others in the industry. That, that's the mantra here at the institute is building a better business. This is you, helps you provide a better life for you, your employees, your, the technicians, the their families even, and a better life even for your customers and clients, which are in our, our final is better industry.

Jimmy Lea: So if we can help you build a better business, you have a better life at built a better industry for everybody. And we all lock arms together just like you're doing here. Right. That networking is critical. All right. Let's jump into, uh, some of the critical things that are facing shops today. What are the, the top five areas that you think a shop really needs to be aware of, whether they're long in the tooth or trying to start a shop up tomorrow, or maybe it's only been a year.

Jimmy Lea: What do you, what do you see as some of those challenges? For shops today, e

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: employment is the most challenging that everyone has because, you know, everyone knows how to turn a wrench, but I hate to say it, it's not old school. So turning a wrench doesn't cut it. But when you are interviewing someone, they know how to do everything until you hire them.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Yeah. And um, the problem that I've been seeing is, you know, you got these companies like, especially in Jersey, Mavis, pep Boys. Yes. They're paying their oil change people 25, $30 an hour. They only know how to do oil changes, so how am I gonna hire a top technician for affordable technician when they're paying so high for people just to do oil changes?

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: You know? So it it, it makes it difficult for us to hire a good, affordable technician to grow with us, you know? Yeah. I, so you're getting a lot of turnovers, or they work for a mile. We need more pay because my friend works at Mavis and getting paid this, and he does half the jobs. You know, um, but they don't get the knowledge.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: I've hired people from there. When the tire gets stuck, won't come off the wheel. They don't even know how to take it off. Oh my God. You know, they're, they're, we, we, we torch things. We do things to get things done. These big corporations can't do it, and these guys are losing that experience, spending time there for the next five years, you know, you're not gaining any real life experience how to solve problems.

Jimmy Lea: I heard of a technician, graduated, um, uh, had all the, the certifications that he was a, by all stretch in the imagination, a master certified technician, but uh, just outta school, he really didn't have the chops to be able to do things. And he was in one of these big boxes, still sweeping the floors and doing oil service.

Jimmy Lea: And someone like you came in and said, Hey, I've got an opportunity. Let me know what you think. Well, I'm graduating in a couple months and they've really promised me the moon here. Three months after and they hadn't delivered. He called and, uh, he has been with that shop ever since and they absolutely love him and he does a phenomenal, phenomenal work.

Jimmy Lea: You are probably gonna find somebody like that that wants to do more than just an oil change or a break job. And because you're not working weekends, which these guys were required, you're gonna be an automatic magnet for these people.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Yeah. I mean, that's the, uh, that's the goal. Um, and I do have a couple of workers that are very loyal.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Yeah. You know, they, they, they came to me, you know, they knew how to do everything, but they never worked on a Range Rover or Timing J Job. Right. But we, we taught 'em that in house, obviously, as doing it. Do you learn now they've rebuilt, they rebuilt engines on a Range Rover. That Range Rover doesn't even rebuild.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Range Rover, you have to buy the whole block. They don't, they don't sell parts for it. Well, we know how to rebuild it in house. Congrats, obviously, you know, that makes our costs go down and we could give the service to customers that buy these Range Rovers. They're stuck with it because to change an engine is $20,000.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: The car was 10,000.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. No, they, the Range Rover, it's a plug and play. Mm-hmm. Engine doesn't work. Take it out and put in a new one. Mm-hmm. You're like, no, no, no. We can fix this old one. We got this. Exactly. So I agree with you, the quality of employees and, and there's a, there is a technician shortage in the industry and it might be a, a situation here, Billy, you might look at your business model and say, Hey, you know what, if I raise my door rate by 10 bucks, 15 bucks an hour.

Jimmy Lea: Maybe I take half of that and give it to the technicians. Maybe something to think

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: about. Yeah. That, that is, that is something to think about. Um, like I said, it's mainly the qualification. I don't mind paying someone if they can do what I can do.

Jimmy Lea: Yep.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: But if I still gotta hold their hands, why am I paying you that much money?

Jimmy Lea: Well, that's a ctech. C technician, not a B technician. And, and definitely an A technician is somebody who can have the car, take the car, diagnose it, replace it, fix it, and it's ready to roll you, don't you, you qc it just to CYA cover your Yeah, yeah. Right. Uh, those C techs, man, you gotta verify everything.

Jimmy Lea: And you're like, bro, I got a job up front. I gotta do you, you need to be able to take care of this business.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Lea: Exactly. Get 'em into a B. So do you provide your technicians with a, uh, path of training?

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: So, um, I give them all the opportunities. Like, for example, I'm part of TechNet, um, I was part of Poncho program.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: I'm in, uh, I just signed up with, uh, AutoZone has their program. Uh, I forget what it is. They're sending me pamphlet. They all sell, send train your, your CLA guys to trainings and stuff. I give that all to my guys for free. They can get take, they can take, they, they can get out, get out a little early to go do it if they want, you know, or they can do it at most time.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Nice. I do give them that, you know, sometimes they don't take the advantage of it, but I do give that,

Jimmy Lea: there's a show, a trade show, it's in Philadelphia, so I know it's a little drive from you. Uh, it's called Super Saturday. Technical training.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Okay. What is it called?

Jimmy Lea: Uh, it's called Super Saturday. Super Saturday.

Jimmy Lea: It's put on by the Mid-Atlantic Auto Care Association.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: I gotta, I gotta look into that.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah, yeah, I do. Uh, how far is Philly? Is it a drive from you? It's about an hour from us. It's not too crazy, bro. That's so close. You gotta get, bring all your techs shut down the shop for those couple of days. It's, uh, like November 13th, 1415.

Jimmy Lea: You, you'd want to be there. Yeah. Your technicians would thank you for it.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: What I usually would do is I would take one with myself, and the next year I would see who gets to go next year. So this way we have a, you know, something to fight for.

Jimmy Lea: Bro. I love that. Yeah. Now it's a, a, uh, if you work performer comes, well, so yeah, you can do one of two things.

Jimmy Lea: You can either bring the guy that or the girl that performs the best, or you put a benchmark that says, anybody that performs over this level mm-hmm. Gets to go to super Saturn. And mine would

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: be, I mean, performing the best in their level. So you're not gonna compare ATech to a ctech, you know, if he improved from last year to this year, he gets go.

Jimmy Lea: Bingo. Ooh, there's another one too. It's called Tools, T-O-O-L-S. It's in April. April 29th to May 2nd in somewhere in pa. Also put on by the Mid-Atlantic Auto Care Association. Definitely look into that one as well. That one's a bit larger. Whereas Super Saturday is a bit more intimate, uh, uh, tools is, is a little bit bigger and it's growing.

Jimmy Lea: They're doing a really good job getting this going.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: I would appreciate if you shoot me the

Jimmy Lea: email on some of this stuff. Oh, absolutely brother. I'll send it to you for sure. Alright. Quality employees. I, I agree with you. Technicians, uh, that's the bane of this, uh, existence because mm-hmm. Because their time is perishable.

Jimmy Lea: It goes on a shelf. You gotta book it today where it's gone. How efficient are your technicians? Uh, well that's a question for you, Billy. How do you, do you track your technicians? Do you know where they're performing?

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Um, I, I, I do track their per job. Um, they obviously, my, my shop manager, even though I paid them, I don't pay them per job, like dealer.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: It shows what jobs they did for the week. So, you know, obviously if I built someone, uh, 800 hours this month, this week, and my workers got all of it done, that means they're performing well. They're, they're doing, you know, their time. But, uh. The fact that we do, a lot of my dealership used car dealership sides.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: It's hard to gauge it because a simple car comes with something simple and all of a sudden taking these screws down and stuff is hard because it's someone else's problem. We're fixing not a customer, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And obviously the dealer doesn't have deep pockets to do everything at any cost whatsoever.

Jimmy Lea: Right? Oh, so true. Basic, they gotta turn a

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: wrench and make a profit.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So a technician, each technician has 40 hours a week and. How are they performing? Are they, they're, uh, my tech 50.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: They, they do over 40. The jobs that they do, they do over 40, so they're off perform well.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's, that's awesome. That is a beautiful situation for any automotive repair business.

Jimmy Lea: So congrats to you, Billy. What, what would you say is the second challenge? That you think, uh, small shops or, or even shops face today?

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: E every shops, I, I think what they're facing is this technology and these dealerships being in our way, like the, the franchisees being in our way. So we, we no longer could service every car.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Like I may have the tools, but a lot of small shops aren't gonna have these tools and for them to even build up to that, it costs a lot of money. Right? Yeah.

Jimmy Lea: So

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: these new dealerships, we can't even get part numbers from these new dealers anymore because they don't wanna give it out. When we do warranty jobs, they want the part number of what part we're gonna put in before they approve the claim.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: So even when we're ordering, unless I'm ordering the part, I just want an estimate. They won't gimme the part numbers these days that they know I'm gonna shop around maybe for Yeah. Uh, so that puts a difficulty on small businesses, uh, businesses like us because that's what we depend on so we can do our job.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Yeah. Without getting access to dealer proprietary things like programming. We don't know what car needs, what, what programming you could be doing a RA swapping out a radio for a car and all of a sudden Chrysler says it could only be programmed by us. Yeah. So I got the job I got, so the car starts to go to, uh, Chrysler.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Now the customer's like, why don't not just go to them to do it in the first place?

Jimmy Lea: Hmm.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: You know, so, and these accesses, one, they don't allow like, access to us. And even if they do, it's expensive. So, you know, we, we have patch through tools, you know, we call them, they program for us. You have to call and find out if they can program that part in that pro module because they don't have access to it as well.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: So who has access to them except the deal. Yeah, I think that's monopolizing something, you know, more than, you know, GI giving us a chance to do all these jobs that they don't wanna do. Technically, all the cover.

Jimmy Lea: No. That's right. That's right. Yeah. It is a challenge to be all makes and all models. Have you ever thought of perhaps specializing or niching into Euros or Asians or domestics?

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Um,

Jimmy Lea: and it would affect your dealership side too,

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: a hundred percent. So I thought of that a while back. Instead of doing that, like I told you, I partnered up with, you know, other teams that do that kind of cause that I can't have access. At least I have hand reach out for, which I recommend every. Small shops is network with their other shops around them instead of being competitors, building it together.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: 'cause there's plenty of jobs out there, you know? Yeah. Like there's no way that everyone could do everything. We don't have the tools, we don't have the pockets for it, you know, and we don't have the customers that come every day. So if I don't work on BMWs, all of 'em, what's it hurt to send it to a friend of mine that works on BMWs and we're still getting good, good reputation and you know, vice versa.

Jimmy Lea: Nice. Nice. Yeah, that's good. You send it to dealers, building friends together, having locking arms together, that that's, that's paramount. I agree. Alright. What, what would you say is a third. Challenge for small business today.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Um, cost of operation with no control. And what I mean by no control is, for example, we do leases for our buildings five years at a clip because we're not a huge franchise.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Sure. After five years, my landlord technically can jack my, because he sees my businesses really well, double my hands. I either move, which I just built my business in here, right? Or I gotta take the hit. Um, where when you work a franchise deal, they're doing 20 years leases. Five years before the lease is up, they start negotiating.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: If it's not working, they have five years to make their move. You know, where us, we just settled in. We just got the business established. Now my landlord's being greedy, there should be a little cap on. You know, you can't just, just like rent, rent, rent, uh, home, home rental. You can't just increase. Yeah, same thing with commercial.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: You shouldn't be able to just increase the whatever you want. You know? You should cap, because I technically spent all this money building this business.

Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. You built the business, the reputation, you did all the upgrades and all the maintenance and upkeep of the property. And I gotta move because my landlord's greedy.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So do you own your property or do you Um, one of 'em is

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: under contract. The other one's leased. Okay. So hopefully soon.

Jimmy Lea: Hopefully soon. Yeah, hopefully soon. But you know,

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: these days. Some, someone, some news comes down, everything changes.

Jimmy Lea: It's true. Yeah, it's true. It can change at, at a moment's notice. Oh yeah.

Jimmy Lea: A lot of the leases that I've seen shops get into would be, uh, a five year lease and two to three, uh, additional five year options to renew.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: We, we have that. Um, but these new landlords with every, but after COVID, these prices jumped up. So high landlords do not. Commercial landlords don't wanna lock themselves in because what if we get another boom?

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Now they're stuck with me for another 10 years. Oh, 15 or 2015. Yeah. And I'm not a franchise company where they know that this is steady for the rest of their life.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: If I go out, what are they gonna come after when, you know, Mavis or something like that. They can't just go out and walk away from a property, they gotta walk away from the whole business.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah, yeah, yeah. True, true. Interesting. Okay. Cost protection for operations. I like that. Uh, what, what would you say is a fourth area that shops should look at?

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Uh, the shops having a problem with customers understanding repairs on their vehicle. Um, okay, so these cars are much more technology than it used to be.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: You know, back in the day, my dad, I remember could listen to a car and tell me, Hey, that's a valve. Now you could have an alternator issue causing a valve move. So if you. You need to diagnose this and it takes time. So, you know, time is money. So when you deliver a card to us, customer's still expecting, okay, you know what, they're gonna charge me small diagnostic and fix the problem.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: But I spent a half a day diagnosing just a wire issue. How do I charge that customer a hundred dollars to fix the wire? You

Jimmy Lea: know?

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Uh, it's

Jimmy Lea: $400.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Yeah. So it is half a day. It took half a day. You gotta get it approved upfront. Yeah. 400 plus then, then you got the diagnostic, you got the parts, anything you have to get.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: And then you know, these customers. Don't understand. Well, you told me it's a code, you told me it's an oxygen sensor. Well, it could be. But you have a catalog come, you have other things that are tied. This is the first thing you have to change, right? Yeah. With us, they don't understand it. Dealerships, they give avail.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: They have no choice. They do it, you know? Yeah. And the dealers know everything. Yeah. So it's a, it's a customer's, uh, educating the customs is a problem. You have to educate your customers before you start a job. Any

Jimmy Lea: job. Ah, I like that. What are you using to help educate your customers? Are you doing digital vehicle inspections?

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: I have. I have digital vehicle inspection. I have a TechNet performs a i I have a loop in my waiting room that shows what importance of timing belts are. Timing jeans are importance of break jobs, importance of regular maintenance. Right. Love it. A lot of customers, you know, these days all cars want 10,000 mile oil changes.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Well, you have a lot of timing chain issues these days. Why do you think. 10,000

Jimmy Lea: miles.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Yes. So what if you did your oil change? Every 5,000, you won't have as many issues. Oh yeah. So educating the customers to that is very important. And while you're doing it, five instead of 10, you know, obviously you still gotta leave it up to them.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: 'cause the, that's what the car requires every 10. But I, I explained to them, you're gonna keep this car long term. This is what you have to do to maintain it. Otherwise you'll never be able to put it back together.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Oh, I totally agree. My Ford F-150, I treated it like a Honda. 5,000 miles full synthetic, 225,000 miles on it.

Jimmy Lea: I sold it and I shouldn't have, I should have kept it.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: I'm telling you, some of these older ones are much better than these newer ones.

Jimmy Lea: 2012 Ford F-150 V eight had the good transit. My

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: dad does nothing but put premium on any car he drives.

Jimmy Lea: Right. I

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: agree. I agree too. If you don't have a heavy foot, you're saving

Jimmy Lea: money on miles.

Jimmy Lea: Amen. Amen. Yeah. Cost repairs. Uh, so customer, it's, it's all about the customer's understanding. They need to understand. What it is that you're talking about. And, and you, you come onto their side of the conversation. So they're, they're looking at the car saying, oh, it's the car's fault. It's not your fault anymore.

Jimmy Lea: It's the car's fault.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Yeah. So, so that's what that, so I pretty much direct them into understanding, you know, you, you, you, you, you buy something, you gotta maintain something. If you wanna keep it long term, if you're leasing something, I mean, it's up to you. But what if you get stuck with the car and you don't maintain it?

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: You know now, now you have the junk and the dealer still gets his money, you know? Yep. So at the end of the day, you wanna drive something. Spending a little extra now saves you a lot more at the long run. Right. Um, and these key customers get, you know, they get these extended warranty service contracts.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Yeah. Understand how they work. They come to us thinking it's bumper to bumper coverage, and then now once I give 'em a bill for additional bill, they're like, why is this? You have to educate them prior to the job because if you don't. At the end of the job, they're gonna get upset even though you did a great job because they didn't understand that they had to pay out of pocket and why they're paying out of pocket.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: And it's not your fault, it's the service contract that they bought. Yeah. And a lot of people blame the service contract, know the service contract, know how to explain their service contract to the customer, and explaining what can go wrong during the process that they might be responsible for a bill.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: And it's not your fault.

Jimmy Lea: No. No. It's not your fault. Oh. That's what I

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: mean by customers understanding repairs.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Because you didn't build it, break it or buy it. Exactly. Customers, they're the ones that gotta work with. Exactly. You know,

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: they, they buy the car, they don't maintain it. They think we're magicians.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Yeah. Like you got a magic wand, you can just fix everything. All the smog has gone out of the car.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Good luck. Alright. What, what would be a, a fifth challenge you see that's facing a lot of shops these days.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Um, like, uh, it's, it's always gonna be mainly expenses. Like everything's, equipment's getting expensive and you need these, back in the day, you didn't need as many equipments to do the same job.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Now you need five equipments to do the same job on three different cars, you know? Um, so it's not as standard as vehicles as they used to be. Yeah, so all this is hard for someone starting a new business. What tools do I buy? What's the important tools? You know, back in the day one scanner range tool, you could do almost anything.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Yeah, almost, almost now. Almost anything. Now you need two, two tools to want to scan your car and want to scan your tire sensors and program 'em, you know? And these are regular maintenances. Yes. So what if you don't have, what if you don't have those two tools? If you do, you gotta update them. You know, spending $1,600 a a year, it's not much.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: But a small shop, it might be,

Jimmy Lea: you know, it adds up quick too, Billy. It adds up really fast. 'cause that's just one of the scanners you have. And how many scanners do you have? I have five. Scanners and I, I have it and say it's 2000 per year. It is 10 grand.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Mm-hmm. And then, and then I also have a patch through that, uh, that allows me to go through Snap-on to be able to program other vehicles.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: That alone was 10 grand for the computer. Yep. And, and I really, it's pretty much a screen that connects someone else to another for 10 grand. I mean, I could have done that with my laptop,

Jimmy Lea: right? Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: But these are expensive stuff for any shop. And an established shop might be able to build it into their, uh, portfolio slowly, you know, as, because they got customers coming already, a, a mom and pop that has a two big garage.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: He's gotta be very, like you said, pick either A, a, a a a. A model to work on, specialize in something. Mm-hmm. And, and find out what those, that those vehicles need minimum to be able to specialize in them. You know, you still need minimum computers, minimum, uh, you know, maybe not five different computers, but two, you know, you need certain and, um, sort of some space to program these.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Like if you're doing ADOS programming, forget it, you know, and I believe they charge here, each sensor's about $350 per program. So in a vehicle, there's maybe two sensors, three sensors, you know, so you're talking about just the program was like $900 and same at dealers, you know. Oh yeah. It's not even, uh, it's very expensive.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: And, and I didn't realize why until, you know, since I was able to buy the equipment, realized, oh wow, I need a lot of space. Yeah. So you dedicate a lot of space for these programming. So how can you not, how can you charge minimum when you're taking up so much space?

Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah, yeah. I was just talking to, um, Matt from Long Meadow Garage.

Jimmy Lea: Uh, he is a small two bay garage, three technicians. He's doing about 1.6 million a year, and he's working in that niche market of Rolls Royce, Lamborghini, Bentley. And all those scan tools, they are not cheap, they're expensive and he has to maintain 'em all as well. He does do all makes and all models, so he'll do all the domestic and the foreign, yeah, the import.

Jimmy Lea: Uh, but he does specialize in this higher level of, of, of car, which is interesting because it's a two bay gas station. Mm-hmm.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: I mean, I have a friend of, my cousin of mine actually has Zach's garage, same thing, two Bay garage. He stopped doing all big jobs. Because he, he was able to build enough that he, he's good on, you know, niche job breaks.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Yeah. Uh, tune up, stuff like that. But he has enough customers coming in. But I remember when he started, he was on the Yes. He was rebuilding engine that shouldn't be rebuilt, you know, but you, you need to, you need to start from there and then get that experience and then get the customer to follow you that then you can choose some jobs that you don't want to touch because it's not profitable in the long run, you know?

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Yeah. To what you're expending.

Jimmy Lea: Nice. Nice. What, uh, point of sale system are you running? Uh, I use uh, VIP shop Manager. Okay. Um, and DVI do they have a DVI that works, integrates in with it, or what do you do? Uh, I, what do you mean, sorry? Uh, digital vehicle inspection.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: So, so my, my hotel does, my hotel connects to my, um.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: To my computer. Okay. Not recorded. As we do it, it, it sends it right over there and then it gets the, you can get the images of anything and goes into my invoicing through photo I shop, um, a, a photo of something. It says like, uh, okay. And it just, everything goes right to it. But they do, I like, I, I'll put a for VF shop manager 'cause I've tried 'em all.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: I've had all data as shop manager, they're so difficult to use. Especially if you wanna cancel a, a, a statement of go. I had to jump through hoops like I'm an accountant. Right. So, so the vi shop manager, the person that built it was a me mechanic himself. He's a tech, uh, and he built it to what mechanics need in their invoicing, and he's been building upon that himself.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: And now he's got, it's now it's a real good system. Yeah, for sure. Not cloud based. It was actually, now it's cloud based and it's, I'm, I'm, oh,

Jimmy Lea: that's awesome. Orders for you and everything. I've heard of another shop in Sacramento that's also using VIP. Mm-hmm. So it is a newer software on the industry. It's very cost efficient.

Jimmy Lea: You've been with him a while. That probably means you were one of the

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: beta groups. I was, I, I think I was just out of the beta group. He had just started selling it out to people. Okay. Me and Mark communicate all the time and I'll give him, and he is very nice. I, I'll give him, Hey, you should add this. Put this there.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Calendar should be changed. And next month it's changed.

Jimmy Lea: Nice. Mm-hmm. It's really, that's awesome. When you have that sort of a, a relationship with you, one of your service providers mm-hmm. One of your products, your programs, one of your systems that helps you to run your business, not only are you able to pick up the phone and talk to them, they're listening and they're responsive and they're implementing.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: That's, that's the, that's another key that I think, you know, everyone should do. Like, if you're dealing with a certain company, get to know them. You know, I get to communicate with them because you might be not using their system to the best of analogy. You're thinking it's not as good quality, but it is, you know, um, I, how to use it.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: I like to build a relationship with my sales, my sales reps, my part guys, my delivery guys even, because guess what? Sometimes they do me a favor. Why they do have it, because I don't forget the little guy, you know? Yeah. You know?

Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's good. Yeah. I, I've heard it said that we are in the relationship business.

Jimmy Lea: We just happen to fix cars.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Exactly. You know, and listen, you know how many times customers come to me, we've done a tire in the back, and they're telling me, well, there's noise in the phone. What did you do? You know, you have to, you have to have that relationship, be able to explain it and have the patience to do it.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Yeah. And, and the relationship sometimes solves everything. You know, sometimes mess up, sometimes customer doesn't understand. But when you have that relationship. You can, you, you're not speaking at a 10. You're always calm and you're able to solve problems and it's easier to help a customer that understands you than it is someone that's coming backwards.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, dude, I love it. I love it. So what does the future look like for you, Billy? What, what's the next 5, 10, 15 years?

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: So if all goes well, I was actually looking to, um, merge with, uh, prestige. Like I told, told you before about where we can actually train in-house our own workers. And start, you know, locating into maybe other smaller shops that we have.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: We, when we grow out of it, where, you know, everything's done in-house or we train our own guys, we train on the cars that we're working on and we place them into our, our little, uh, service, small service shops, nothing big in local spots, which again, two big garage can pull in a lot of money if you have the right technicians.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: If you have the right tools. So if you have a company behind you, sporting you like a big chop, but trading your guys to the service that we really see out there,

Jimmy Lea: it's true. It's true. So the future for you is expanding the kingdom. You're looking for some additional footprints

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: mm-hmm.

Jimmy Lea: In the kingdom. I, I think that's phenomenal.

Jimmy Lea: That's, and, and

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: already to do that, you need to be able to partner up with the right people. Mark. Mark is very good technician. He's a very good teacher. So he'd be great in that teaching at department, working in my shop here while he's teaching everyone instead of turning the wrenches, you know?

Jimmy Lea: I love it.

Jimmy Lea: I love it. That's very good. Yeah. And, and as you do that, as you get ready to do that, make sure your process and procedures are right and they're in order. Your handbook is up to date and in order. 'cause that's that process procedure that you want every single other location to follow. Because it's a proven method.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Exactly. So that's, that's the way that I, I built my dealership as well. And if it's wor, if something's working, just improve it. Don't change it, you know? Oh, I love it. Don't try

Jimmy Lea: stuff. Best point number six. Yes, it is. Know what your process of procedures are and document 'em. 'cause if it's not written down, it doesn't exist.

Jimmy Lea: It doesn't exist. Oh, that's awesome, man. Very cool. Well, if you were to have a, uh, a magic wand. And you were to wave this magic wand, you can't wish for more wishes, but you can change one thing in the industry. What would you change, Billy?

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Hmm. One thing would be, would be to be able to get, uh, information better, easier, like, you know, information, because that's what solves the problem.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: If I can't get my diagnostic information from the dealer of manufacturers, I'm, it's costing me more time to try to figure it out. If you look at all talent and stuff, that's how they've solved the programming problem. They do the Chinese programming in, in the system, and it overrides the original manufacturer, but it's the same.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: They decode it. Well, why are we going through all these hoops when the manufacturer can make it a little easier on us, you know, and, and allow access for more cost efficient. But we don't have to go to hotel, you know, we'll have them do stuff like this.

Jimmy Lea: It's always gonna be found, but that's

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: my magic.

Jimmy Lea: W have, have magic wand.

Jimmy Lea: Access to data, access to data information. I don't mean for free, but affordable for every. Yeah. And, and you know, when you get out to some of these trade shows that we were talking about earlier, uh, these conferences and trade shows and these associations, these are the people that you wanna surround yourself with because they are going after the Right to repair act.

Jimmy Lea: Mm-hmm. They are supporting Right to repair, they are actively going after Congress to make sure that the manufacturers do share this type of data and information. You are going to absolutely love being part of Super Saturday Tools, Mid-Atlantic Auto Care. You are gonna love this. So yeah, if you

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: send me couple, I probably would take trips myself just to see them for first.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: You see what's about,

Jimmy Lea: um, check it out yourself. I totally agree. Mm-hmm. Once you are convinced, which I think you're gonna be convinced Yeah. Then, then there are shops that shut down the whole entire shop. They make it a a, a team building experience. Yeah. They all go together, they all travel together and, and it, it might cost the shop 20 or $30,000 for everybody that's there, blah, blah, blah.

Jimmy Lea: But it is so worth it. 'cause when they all come back to the shop, production is better. It's higher. They learned how to work. This picoscope just a little bit better. Now they're fixing these cars and they're saying, you know what, if I'd have known what I know now, those other three cars that I couldn't fix last month.

Jimmy Lea: I would've been able to fix 'em. Mm-hmm.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: It, it, it does, uh, trade shows. I actually was reading a book, it's called Choose Your Enemies Wisely. And he says that in there too. You, you have to bring your workers, he's in the insurance business to these, uh, tr uh, trade shows. Close them up because when they, you might spend 50 grand, but when they get back, they make you an additional a hundred.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: But you gotta track it.

Jimmy Lea: Track

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: it. Oh yeah. It works for sure.

Jimmy Lea: What is the ROI on getting you guys out to these different mm-hmm. Conferences and trade shows? A hundred percent agree with you.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Mm-hmm. A lot of new guys might just be throwing that money around and not actually implementing what they learned.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: So now you just wasted 15 rent and you're small shop. Yeah. That's big money for you.

Jimmy Lea: Oh it is. It is. It is. Absolutely. Billy, I look forward to meeting you.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Alright, I, it was great meeting you as well.

Jimmy Lea: Thank you very much for your time today. I love your insight. I love where you're going. We've gotta do this again.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Anytime.

Jimmy Lea: Alright brother. Thank you very much.

Bulent “Billy” Demirbulakli: Thank you.