Standing at the Crossroads with Mike Simard, owner of Simard Automotive in Alaska, follows his journey from small-town beginnings in Vermont to leading a successful seven-location auto repair business in one of the most challenging environments in America.

Host(s):

Kent Bullard, COO of The Institute

Michael Smith, Chief Strategy Officer at The Institute

Guest(s):

Mike Simard, Owner of Simard Automotive

Show Highlights:

[00:04:08] - Mike describes how curiosity and a drive to serve others led him into the automotive industry.

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Episode Transcript Disclaimer

Episode Transcript:

Kent Bullard: Hello, and welcome to the Institute's Leading Edge Crossroads podcast, where we're looking at examining the crucial decisions that professionals make that can steer careers, that shape industries that inspire thought leadership and ultimately build lasting legacies. I'm Ken Bullard. I'm joined by my esteemed colleague Michael Smith, and today we have the privilege of speaking with Mike Simard of ARD Automotive out of Alaska.

Kent Bullard: Mike, thank you so much for being here today.

Mike Simard: Hello. Thank you, Kent. And hello, Michael. Michael.

Michael Smith: Hello, Mike. How are you man?

Mike Simard: I'm great. Great. It's really balmy here. It's about 25 above in Alaska, so we're having heatwave winter shorts today.

Kent Bullard: So, tell us a little bit about yourself. Introduce yourself to the audience who's listening at home right now.

Mike Simard: Sure. My name is Mike Ard. Originally grew up in upstate Vermont where I think there's more cows than people up there. And you know, I worked various jobs on a farm and worked in a shop since I was 13 years old. So I've been at this business for over 39 years, if you want to count since I was 13, 'cause that's what I did.

Mike Simard: I even I learned to work before I learned to party, so I was that kind of guy that I would you know, work ethic if you're you know, looking at that. So, what I love to do is take things apart. Now, when I was young, I couldn't figure out how to put it back together. So, you know, I met some people in my life that liked to tinker on things and farmers always had to fix things in the middle of the field.

Mike Simard: So, they just kind of hung around people that had to make things happen, grow food just get people to work and hung around people like that. So, 13 years old, worked in a shop after school, weekends, nights. During the summer, you know, time. And I learned how to split wood, you know, almost as tall as myself by hand.

Mike Simard: And so I, I didn't have any you know, I had the old school, I had the old school training back then. So when I was about 19, I decided to pursue my goals. And I moved to Alaska and my future wife wanted to get outta state, just beautiful state up there but pretty isolated and moved to Alaska.

Mike Simard: And so we have three beautiful children. I'm blessed to say that two of them are pursuing medical careers and one's wants to be an attorney. So I never thought I'd see that coming. And we have 40 sled dogs and a couple of boats and that we saved up for 20 years. And we just love to go hunting and fishing and raise our children on organic natural.

Mike Simard: Food, if you will. And we have seven locations, one tire shop. And I just love pursuing the things that are hard and hopefully giving other people an opportunity to grow and pursue their purpose and their God-given talents in life, and use those to help humanity. That's the goal. So I hope that's the.

Mike Simard: 39 years, like really fast.

Kent Bullard: I'm just gonna say that's, I, I am very excited to dive into the wealth of knowledge and experience that you've had over your 39 years in automotive and beyond today. Those of you who are listening at home, this is a dialogue, this is a conversation and it is designed this way so that you can participate in that.

Kent Bullard: If you have questions, if you have comments, if you have thoughts about the content we discussed today, let us know in the comments below. We wanna invite you into explore this content with us. If you're looking for more information about what we do, you can also find that at we are the institute.com and obviously if you enjoy the content today, like and share, so the algorithm likes us and we can get this content to as many people who need it as possible.

Kent Bullard: So with that, I want to talk, you know, you, you gave a brief introduction. Of how you kind of came into this industry. I'd love to dive in to what originally drew you to this industry, but more importantly, what inspired you to commit to it?

Mike Simard: Well, that's a great question. Again, I think the, there was always an internal drive to figure out how things work.

Mike Simard: And so for me it was almost, you know, it was almost like a spiritual sense, but I didn't necessarily know that it's just like, how are things work? How does the world put together what makes things tick? And so I was always the guy that I'm a di for anybody that knows discs, so I'm like, I'm gonna take it apart before I read the manual.

Mike Simard: Right. So I just love taking things apart. Got a little frustrating. I couldn't get my remote control cars to work again, and my buddies were already put it together. I take my bike apart. It's like, what are you doing? It's like, I'm gonna go faster, right? I'm gonna go better. I'm gonna figure it out. And I liked, I think I also liked helping people.

Mike Simard: So it's the old lady, the old neighbor, you know, I mow the lawn for 10 bucks a week. The lawnmower back then, you know, those things weighed more than I did. I wasn't a big guy. So, but you know, it had a self-driving wheels on it. Old school, I had to figure out, it's like, I wanna make my job easier.

Mike Simard: So I figured out how to fix the wheel. So I just loved trying to fix things and I realized people appreciate that 'cause not everybody's mechanically inclined. And it's like, oh, I love fixing things. Figure out how they work. And I like making people happy. By serving them and giving something they need.

Mike Simard: So, that's really, you know, I'll tell you what I was blessed with is that I went into it because I'm excited to do it and I found my purpose. Not everybody has that today. It's sad. And that's one of the things I want to help the industry. It's like we have a purpose, we have potential regardless of what society says.

Mike Simard: And so, I found my purpose not because it was a paycheck, and I think back, I mean, there was times, you know, my paycheck was in the drawer and, you know, 'cause I gave payroll to my people, but I didn't go into the industry for money. And I was just blessed since I was 13 years old. I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

Mike Simard: And not everybody has that. And I realized what a gift that was in my life. And so, now how did I learn? I kept learning. I kept making mistakes. Resilience and grit's. A huge factor to get back on the horse. When you're kicked down. And so I think I wanna make sure I answer your question, but that really motivated me and also my first boss.

Mike Simard: I've told Michael Smith this before I worked for most of my leaders were poor leaders. I didn't know that. It just didn't my job. And they didn't know how to appreciate or recognize. My first boss I found out later was it was that mood disorder bipolar. It's like, oh man, that explains a lot.

Mike Simard: And I wonder how that's affected me. You know, 13 to 19 years old, I had a bipolar boss could barely read. So I was writing repair orders at 15 driving cars. I wasn't old enough to drive learned to fix tractors, dump trucks. And I also learned my customer service skills and I really like seeing the repair go out the door.

Mike Simard: And in a way that the customer felt good about and that they were empowered to choose what they needed to do. It felt safe. And that just gave me a good feeling. So hopefully answered your question there, Kent.

Kent Bullard: It did do you, was there anything, like one event or instance that got you to say, this is where I'm gonna live the rest of my life, this is the path I'm gonna take?

Mike Simard: Yep. Absolutely. I will tell you what I've also learned is I work a sacrifice, right? Discipline, you know, was really sacrificed in the now for the future self, right? So back that person I worked for in my life you know, he had a business to run and things weren't going good financially.

Mike Simard: And he said, I gotta let you go. And this person was the guy in one of my, my, you know, mentors in my life, one of the men in my life to help build me and make me who I am. And you know, he, that was hard because he didn't know how to let his brother-in-law go, didn't tell you that part. And he didn't know how to say that.

Mike Simard: And I felt. I felt bad, you know, and I talked to Michael about this a little bit, but it really affected me and it drove me and it drove me because I wanted to, and this isn't necessarily a positive thing, but that hurt, that wound drove me to say, I, I need to be the best person I could be. You know, there was early days wanted to, to figure out and show them who I could be and prove who I was.

Mike Simard: You know, all young men really need that challenge to grow up and mature. And it's really awesome because that was a wound and it drove me. And then I matured. I talked to guys like Michael or just leadership people and, you know, some counselors as needed, whatever we gotta do to be good fathers and good leaders to work on ourself.

Mike Simard: But you know, this August I had an awesome thing happen. My dad had passed away and that was a beautiful thing. It was a beautiful thing. And but that man was there and I got to thank him. For that. So what seemed like, and that was healing for me and him and what seemed like a huge, like, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do?

Mike Simard: I'm 19. You know, you think you know everything, but later on you're like, you didn't know anything. And that hurt drove me to Alaska. 'cause me and my buddy, so there's this, me and my buddy were on the back of a tractor with a six pack beer at 10 o'clock at night. 'cause the Hay's gotta get in. And I'm like, hurry up so we can go to the party.

Mike Simard: You know, I did my 12 hours. You do your 14. We did the math. He was making a dollar 20 an hour working for his dad on the farm. You wanna talk about hard workers? Okay. I was making like seven. So I thought it was, I was in heaven. This is back in the nineties. And so we had convinced each other, we're gonna Alaska for the pipe dreams.

Mike Simard: Well then we met our soon to be wives, changed our whole perspective. I got laid off and I'm like, now's the time. You're ready buddy? And he is like, no, she wants to stay. So I. I opened a map and like my dad's like, where do you wanna go? Because he drove up with me. He was great. I was like, well, Anchorage looks too big.

Mike Simard: Everybody else looks too small. Fairbanks looks about right. And I drove to Fairbanks and I've been here ever since. So that difficulty in my life and that pain and that hurt drove me to go to Alaska, and I know now it was providential. I didn't know that. It felt like pain. It felt like running away.

Mike Simard: It felt like proving myself. But this is where I'm supposed to be.

Kent Bullard: Well, you could have just as easily, I mean, I can't imagine the rejection of a mentor that you look up to and they're kind of saying, you know what? Nevermind, I'm done. I'm kind of done with this relationship. That's gotta be exceptionally painful.

Kent Bullard: And you could have taken it completely sideways. You could have let that destroy you. You could have let that eat at you. But you pointed it in a productive way, if not, you know, fully a healing way at that point. You know, and it might have taken time, but I mean, you put, you pointed it in a very productive way.

Kent Bullard: And that takes a lot of grit, as you would say.

Mike Simard: Yep. Absolutely. You can let the pain either transform you or you can spread it out. Puke it out all over everybody else, you know, I mean, we have to choose and so, didn't always do it right, didn't always make the right choices. Right. But you know, it's trying to live your highest potential.

Mike Simard: It's gonna fall down and scrape your knees. You gotta get back up and I just, I love doing that. I love helping others do the

Michael Smith: same. So how long ago that you showed up in Fairbanks? How many years? I moved

Mike Simard: here in 1995. It was May 13th at 11:00 AM and my dad and I drove a 1984 Chevy with a straight six from the salvage yard with some bearings are rolled in with some 400 grit emery cloth.

Mike Simard: And made it all the way here. And the engine blew five days later with a 1979 banner, double actual travel trailer that weighed more than the truck. I cannot believe the Canadians let us through. It was awesome. And

Michael Smith: yeah. And when did your wife come.

Mike Simard: So she was back there finishing up school that year, and she showed up that summer.

Mike Simard: And I worked for the dealership for the first eight months of my time here. So, and we didn't know it at the time. We stayed in a terrible part of town. It was bad, but that's all we could afford. Right? So, did what we, the adventure

Kent Bullard: begins the adventure. So there by providence. What did the first bit of your life there look like?

Kent Bullard: You know, leading up to when you know you're there, you're in a new place to when you actually decided to have your first shop?

Mike Simard: Well, I always had that dream right. I always knew what I wanted to do. Again, I'm blessed with that. I always knew I wanted to run a shop. Now I, you know, sometimes you can't always perceive what's in store for you, but you kind of get see through the fog and I just always hung onto that and it kept driving me to get outta bed in the morning when nobody else wanted to.

Mike Simard: And so, I remember when my dad went home that night, it was a lonely time. I had no money. I think I owed like five grand on my credit card. My engine blew up five days later. I just landed the job. I had to get to the job. I was living 30 miles outta town 'cause it was $200 a month and that's all I could afford.

Mike Simard: And so I went and bought a 1979 Chrysler Cordova two door. And they needed a radiator from the local used car place for like 500 bucks and two debit transactions. I mean, I was right at the bottom right, but I was gonna make it happen. And so, I went ahead and figured out to get a place in town closer so my wife, my future wife would come up and I just met, you know, it was a cool thing how things work out.

Mike Simard: I met two good old boys that lived. Up two, two of my redneck people that I knew from other people they were they were there, they lived the town over and we had known each other and who each other was, but we didn't know each other. And the best thing I ever had not much of a beer drinker, but that was the best cold beer I ever had 'cause I couldn't afford it.

Mike Simard: And they're like, here's a beer out in a gravel pit. And that just, those little things helped keep me going. I landed the job at the dealership and got a place that my wife would would appreciate Stan. And that got me started. What was the rest of your question, Kent?

Kent Bullard: So, so this is kind of about the major decisions that, that, you know, shape you and your career and the industry.

Kent Bullard: So you're there, you're working for the dealership. What was the pivotal moment where you've always wanted ownership, but how did you make the decision? How'd you move forward with that?

Michael Smith: What was that day

Kent Bullard: like? Yeah. What was that like?

Michael Smith: Yeah.

Mike Simard: Yeah, so what I remember is working at that dealership, what I did is I met some good people, made some friends and then we ended up renting a shop.

Mike Simard: My wife had come and upgraded the Chrysler right to a two-wheel drive Toyota. And what I did was rented a little shop outside of town and with a friend. We went in on it and we just started fixing cars at night. I mean, it was crazy. We were heating it with a torpedo heater and getting sick in the fumes.

Mike Simard: We didn't know what we were doing. And it was just really to, I love fixing cars. And I wanted to make a life for my wife and I, and start a family, and I knew I needed a good support structure for them. And in Fairbanks, Alaska, you know, there's a lot, it's a harsh climate, so there's always something to fix up here.

Mike Simard: And so I would say it was more of a undetermined, relentless drive that I couldn't. I couldn't turn away from that. That really led me to, to the goal. And so, you know, things come up all the time. I can tell you about a hundred of 'em come up, some serious life things that came up that, but I never ever questioned what was in my heart.

Mike Simard: So I always knew where to go, and I just kept reaching and reaching for it. So fixing a few cars having some side money was helpful, but I just loved when people were like, thank you so much. Nobody could figure it out. Of course, they didn't know. It took me 20 hours because I didn't know what I was doing all the way.

Mike Simard: But I just wouldn't give up and I would do the work to the point where I'd be proud for anybody to look at it under the hood. And so in 1997 we bought a duplex and I built from scratch a 24 by 32 square foot garage behind the house. We're about to have our first kit. I guess one customer at a time.

Mike Simard: So I actually quit my job and my first job, you won't believe this, but it was a D nine bulldozer that I did an in-frame and I didn't know what I was doing, but there's a manual. I actually had to read that manual, right? And I put it together and the only problem I had was one valve was ticking. He called me up, I got this weird ticking, and I was like, oh my God, please, I can't afford any screw ups.

Mike Simard: And it was just a valve adjustment. And that was my first job. It was like $2,500 labor. And that fed my wife and I for two weeks. And so it was one customer at a time. It was the grind, it was a slug, but I remember those times as a challenge, but I wouldn't change it for the world because of the lessons I learned to begin that operation.

Mike Simard: I learned all about customer service again. You're on your own. If you mess it up, they're not happy, right? They're not gonna pay you. And I really just got in with some good people that just kept telling others that I did good work. So that's kind of the beginning and the birth of of the company.

Michael Smith: Were there weeks that went by at the beginning after you quit your job, that you didn't have the flow, and you guys are sitting over the milk cartons looking at each other going, gee, I hope there's food next week. Did it ever go that low for you guys?

Mike Simard: I would say there was a lot of ramen noodles and hamburger helper.

Michael Smith: Yeah. There you go.

Mike Simard: Absolutely. But, you know, my wife probably has a different perspective. But I would say that you know, if you do good work, then they tell someone else. It, it grew pretty fast in my mindset. My goal was to be at a bigger shop for 18 months, and I remember one of the hardest things I did was I wanted to grow down the street.

Mike Simard: Michael, you've been to that, that other, that first shop? Not the first shop, but the second shop in 1999. We grew, it was about six months late. And I remember going into banks I needed like 180,000. Right. And you know, I got two, no. And, you know, I was just a young kid that thought I knew everything, but I went into third bank and I said, look sir, I know exactly what I need to do.

Mike Simard: I know I'm gonna, I'm gonna make it successful. I have a plan, you know, and I really, you know, I'd like to borrow all the money from you. And it's, I just gave it all I got. And I don't know what I said exactly that day 'cause I had been rejected. And that guy gave me the, yes. So it's really about people in your life.

Mike Simard: I think that, you know, the right time, the right conditions, and I can kind of look back. It's always easier to see that that if you keep trying for the goal and it's the right goal and your heart's orientated in the right direction for the right reasons, then the right people will come along to help you get there.

Mike Simard: And that banker, I'll still remember who that guy is, name's Gary. And he took a chance on me and that's what I needed in the moment. To go forward and build that next shop that I built.

Michael Smith: Knowing you that's really all you needed, just gimme one leg up and I'll be fine. Right. Just lemme get that one leg and I'll do what I say,

Mike Simard: like, I won't sleep until I do what I say is extremely important to me as well.

Mike Simard: That I do what I say and I did it. Yep.

Michael Smith: Great story.

Kent Bullard: What was the, was there a turning point in that single location? Because this is a garage on your property, right? Yeah. This first place. Are you still

Mike Simard: there? No. So that, that we sold that property when we, in 99, built the bigger shop. We ended up living upstairs in a bigger shop, sold that whole duplex off to fund the new program.

Mike Simard: And then grew that one location. That's really where I actually joined the institute, two thou late 2007. So there's a lot of cooking time there. It's like what, 8, 8, 9 years? After saying no. Several times I could see now how much that's cost me money. When I didn't join the 20 group that GPT three used to be called Bottom Line Impact Group I said No.

Mike Simard: And finally, you know, guys just did a good job back then. Are you sure? Are you sure? Sure. 'cause there was trainings. And finally I like, I gotta really learn how to run a business and I gotta learn how to manage people. And so, what was your question again,

Kent Bullard: Kent? If you could repeat it, just kind of looking to see where you were at when you've, when you had the single location and things started running smooth, you were kind of in that area of, Hey, this is working.

Kent Bullard: I'm feeling that this is successful. I am starting to step away. You know, 'cause at some point it's not a, it's not the same type of grind. Right? Yeah. This grind is, I'm working on these vehicles I'm working on directly with these customers. At some point you made kind of a transition to leadership and management and weren't in the trenches, so to speak.

Mike Simard: Yep. Yeah, I can speak to that. So I do remember those days as I was learning to be a better technician and I loved working on cars. Then I discovered that I love teaching people. I brought a lot of people up from the ground up. And a lot of, some of these people are still in this town and appreciate that.

Mike Simard: And so I also, I needed to learn how to sell work in the front. And I remember I'd been doing that since I was 13. I didn't necessarily know how to make money. I mean, the p and l, what's that, right? Do I have enough money to pay bills today? I mean, that's what it was.

Michael Smith: Book Living, right?

Mike Simard: I had a really good person for my bookkeeper.

Mike Simard: She was like my grandmother. She was like my guide kind of like Tara is now, but I had somebody else there, so that helped me manage that part of it so I could focus on the front and the back. So eventually I felt a good enough to hire some people that knew what they were doing. And I was already really good tech, had a really good reputation.

Mike Simard: The brand was really strong, no marketing. And I started moving towards the front to manage. And sometime around there, you know, GPG came, you know, Ling Impact Group came. And what I realized, I think what happened or a couple things happened, if I can take a pause for me in my life it's fairly significant.

Mike Simard: So again, more of those, that adversity that you got two choices. You can let it beat you down or you can use it to, you know, realize there's a lesson there and you go, so when I first opened my, my, when I first opened a shop, actually, when I first moved into the new location. So you got a new mortgage now, right?

Mike Simard: And a kid on the way. I felt, I started feeling successful, so I had a little bit more money. Instead of just ramen noodles, I could buy a steak. And then I started, I don't know what's weird, but even though the company was growing, I felt a little bit of a a hole somewhere. Right? It's like, what's missing?

Mike Simard: So I started seeking a little bit back to my spiritual roots and going to that. But at that time, and I didn't realize what was going on. I can reflect on it, you know? I was really looking what's the meaning of life? You know, you go through, you can go through why am I here? And and that time I had my first kit and super excited.

Mike Simard: I was a boy, you know, I'm a dad and you know, so that was hugely significant and this was a pivotal moment for me. I think that made me who I am. So my son was born with half a heart and he had heart surgery within three days. And it was a, it was the craziest thing 'cause it's the only time I got to, if you will play God.

Mike Simard: And back then they said you got three choices. You know, you can wait for baby to die and take heart lung transplant. You can do this radical surgery that sometimes works or you can you can let 'em go. And so that was a pretty tough one at whatever I was 23 and to say you could just let your baby die.

Mike Simard: And I'm like, well, if there's a chance, okay then I have hope. So that changed my whole life. My son's doing great now. He's the one in medical school. It was three open heart surgeries and a lot. So I was running a business that was successful. It was awesome 'cause my friends came when we were down there.

Mike Simard: I'd never left his side and mama's side during those open heart surgeries. And my friends came outta the woodwork and ran the shop for me. They had no idea what they were doing. The techs knew what they were doing. The team came together. And I think what I learned about that time was that running the shop and where this business can go wasn't about me anymore.

Mike Simard: It was about, I needed to learn about how to help others and serve others. And I think I needed that. I was searching for something. I didn't know what it was. And again, another large piece of adversity, another huge challenge that I don't wish upon my worst enemy came up and, I had to kind of contend with life again and what it meant and where should I go and how am I gonna choose to navigate?

Mike Simard: And I choose to look at this as as this are my cards, and this is, you know, we're the parents for this young man that needed us in the situation that he was in is William. You've met William, I think Michael. And that I'm gonna keep going, like my dream's still alive. And there's a couple detours and I never give up.

Mike Simard: And it also changed me as a person to where that whole if you will, that I had of like, what's the meaning of life? All of a sudden? Like, ah, serve others, help others grow this business to do that, Mike, that's why you're actually doing it. Sometimes you just see, I'm gonna fix cars and make all this money.

Mike Simard: It's like, if that's what your goal and dream is, then eventually that might dry up and that may not be enough to carry you through hard stuff, making money's fine. That's what we do. But what are you gonna leave when you're gone? What kind of legacy are you gonna leave? Earth and are you gonna leave it better than you found it?

Mike Simard: So that's what I did is I used those moments to take and say, you know, this business is about helping others. And so eventually I think you guys end up calling me Dan Gilley's crew and and said, Hey, are you sure you wanna join 'em? Finally, I'm like, yeah, I need to learn around a business.

Mike Simard: 'cause I gotta take care of my people. I love that. So a personal about that, I don't know if Michael's heard all that, but that's really what I went through and I think what drove me made me who I am. Yeah.

Kent Bullard: You know, I just to commiserate here I feel a lot of familiarity here with myself.

Kent Bullard: You know, I've made some choices in my life and I've often felt that, you know, a lot of, often oftentimes people go, oh, there's these things that inspire me. There's these, you know, nice, beautiful, positive things. But for me personally, and it, you know, it sounds a lot like with you it's the times in my life where I've had to face adversity that I really was able to use that as fuel to grow and develop and make those changes.

Kent Bullard: And sometimes it's not gonna be a beautiful, inspiring thing that gets us to move. Sometimes it's the ugly, painful stuff that, that goes, you know what? I gotta be tougher than this thing in front of me. 'cause I know I can be, you know? And

Kent Bullard: so. You're dealing with a lot of this you've got a lot of people that came outta the woodwork to help support you and help you grow this. And you realized, you know, this is, I'm really building this for others to serve others. And you've got a single location and you're starting to figure things out.

Kent Bullard: What's the transition look like between the single location and deciding I'm going to, you know, grow, I'm gonna expand, I'm gonna make this as big as possible to help as many people as I can?

Mike Simard: You know, I think it's what we told our kids too, in, in you know, I think if I would've stayed in that little town of Vermont, if you stay hidden in your room, if you put your head down and don't look up and see what's out there in the world and what the possibilities are you're never gonna even know how to dream.

Mike Simard: You're never know how to pray. You're never gonna know how to seek. Like, what should I be doing? And you're limited in your thinking 'cause you just don't see. And so I think what happened was I was ner a little nervous to join a 20 group 'cause there's a stigma. I was like, everybody's out to make money.

Mike Simard: I came from, look at man, I came from upstate Vermont where the farmers were always complaining that the rich bankers and lawyers are the ones that dockers are screwing it all up. Right? All these corporate people, right? And so that was my narrative and I was nervous to join a 20 group. 'cause probably a bunch of crooks, right?

Mike Simard: They're just making all this money. And of course I was doing better. But you know, if it's 3% net with no debt, I mean that's better than from zero right now. Now 3% net doesn't cut the mustard, right? So, I think what changed is that I realized I needed some help. I needed to grow. I needed something, you know, high school taught me a lot.

Mike Simard: The real world taught me a lot. I needed to get my education. So I joined the 20 group. The cool part about that is you know, still friends with a lot of these guys. I just saw five of 'em. My good buddies in Denver here last week with Michael. Had a good dinner. You know, I met these people and we formed a new bond with people.

Mike Simard: I was like, wow, you're just like, I am. And then I was like, oh, you started wrenching too. And and we all really, I felt their hearts were good and they had skills. I didn't, and I had skills. They didn't. And we shared ideas in the 20 group. Again, this is institute and Dan Gilly and RLO and that whole transition of what you guys are carrying forward.

Mike Simard: That, and then seeing other shops and the group process that, you guys aren't paying me a dime. You didn't tell me. I had to mention at all the institute. I just wanna say that right now. Nobody told me to do this. But that's what opened my vision and my horizons. 'cause like, wow. These are good people in this industry and wow, there's a lot of things we can do for the industry and I can learn and I can contribute.

Mike Simard: And then to answer your question, I think it was, I think it was Jeff that came in the group and he's like, got five stores and just kind of comes in do. And and then someone else bought a store and then I'm like, dude, I mean, I'm still struggling to, to run my store. It's actually starting to get better.

Mike Simard: I'm learning how to run a p and l and how to market and take care of people better. You know, you get a little bored. I was like, well shoot, I'm not gonna let you beat me. So how did you do that? And then they share, then they tell you what not to do. And then then I bought a second store and 2000 what the heck was that?

Mike Simard: A few years later, I'll say. And I think it was just 2016, but then a another store, and then I had a bunch of friends that now it's like, Hey man, where, when are you gonna buy a store? And so next thing you know, group three is, you know, that's the infamous beginning of the story of group three of how we went multi-store

Kent Bullard: operators.

Kent Bullard: So I want to get into that, you know, from one to two and talk a little bit about that. But before we do that, I'm curious to know how you addressed that stigma you had about these guys are. Crooks because they're trying to make money. And it's something that we hear often, you know, when we're out and about and people are asking us, well, you know, obviously they're really greedy and they're, you know, what about that Got you to shift your perspective to, you know, these guys actually are full of love and full of care and they're doing this because, you know, I mean, they wanna invest in people.

Kent Bullard: What, what got you

Michael Smith: to kind of, they're multiplying their impact, right? It's a shift in mindset. So how'd that happen for you? Well, I think it's

Mike Simard: because we all I would say everybody, you know, again, it's the circumstances that you're put in and the people that come at the right time. I mean, it's all these different things that happen that are outta your control that you can choose how to use that, right?

Mike Simard: And so I just happened to be in a group with a bunch of people that got along well that challenged each other to grow. So when I realized of like, oh, goodness rest of the world, there's a bigger world out there. And the reality that I grew up in and was taught isn't the reality that I'm seeing.

Mike Simard: So that's where my 10 pegs got wider, right? It's like, oh there's a larger world out there. And I started understanding different ways to operate the shop. And I had friends that could call. And I think at that point I realized, you know, there's a narrative going on in society that I don't agree with.

Mike Simard: And COVID was a great example. Who was the essential workers? All of a sudden we became essential. Before, I don't know if you guys ever remember this. Not everybody remembers this. In the high school guidance counselor's office, there was a picture of a college graduate. And a grease monkey mechanic.

Mike Simard: Has anybody ever seen that? Ever? 'cause if not, I'll send it to you later. And it was like, I wanna see it. You don't wanna be this guy, you wanna be that guy. Has anybody seen that? YouTube? I didn't. I wanna see it.

Kent Bullard: But when I was in high school at that time, at that age, they were actually rolling back a lot of those what I would deter, you know, say now are really essential jobs like shop and, you know, automotive.

Kent Bullard: And they were pulling those programs outta my school and they were investing in things like the football team, which by the way, we never won a game. Okay. During my whole time at that high school. But they were pulling back these really crucial. Programs at that time. And that's, you know, I look back, I'm like, that's such a, it's such a travesty.

Kent Bullard: Right? That's my experience with that. You know? Send

Michael Smith: us the picture.

Kent Bullard: Yeah. Send you a

Mike Simard: picture. But that was the, you know, the backdrop of Yeah. Of the narrative that was working against me and the narrative that I had in that, that upstate Vermont farm town, which I'm so grateful that our dad brought us there.

Mike Simard: I mean, that was a great place to live. And so what I realized is that the world wasn't that way and that, look, I mean, I've got three kids going to school, okay? But the thing is that we raised them in a way to show them different perspectives of the world. And we never once told them what they should do.

Mike Simard: It's like, you gonna pick, well, everybody in the world says, I gotta go to college and get this degree. I said just look at, man, if you're gonna do brain surgery, you better go to stinking college. Okay? Like, you're not working on someone's brain without it. But there's a lot of good jobs in the trade and that's why I'm like, there, there's a undercurrent, I don't call it a lie, I'm not a conspiracy theorist guy, but it's like they're undervalued the people that make America go, that build houses, that fix cars and make stuff work.

Mike Simard: And that's been undervalued and it really irritates the crap outta me. 'cause there's really good people back to those people. A lot of the guys in that group and guys and gals started their own shop, either wrenching or working on the front end. And they were good, honest people. And then I realized it's okay to make money.

Mike Simard: You're, you know, I think Waffle told me years ago, it's like, you know, every business should be ready for sale at any time and you're building it to sell. And it's like stinking little things like that I never thought of. I ran it 'cause I loved it and then it was like, I should run it in case something happens to me.

Mike Simard: I need also it to carry on. You know, I want something to last. And I also want to take people that have been marginalized in society. I bought tire shops. If you wanna talk about going back 10 years in technology from the comprehensive model. There, there's this like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize that a lot of people in the tire industry have been there forever and haven't moved.

Mike Simard: And it's like, geez, you guys need to see what's out there in the world. Maybe you want I'd make me laugh all the time. Maybe you wanna be an astronaut. They look at me, wait, well hold on. I said, well, you could start with like being a mechanic or being an a tech or being a service advisor or run a store, but maybe you wanna be an astronaut.

Mike Simard: And like where are you? Where are they limited? And how can we show them what's available and how do we help people get outta poverty? And so that's what really drove me to wanna multiply and influence in a larger scale. I hope I answered your question to

Kent Bullard: that. You did.

Kent Bullard: And I, you know, I wanna follow this up 'cause now I want to talk about, you know, exploring that, that. You know, step from one to two. And my question that I have written here is like, what were your greatest concerns or fears? You don't seem like a person who has fears. It's almost like you're just ready to take it on head first, so you know more.

Kent Bullard: So what were the, what were some of the obstacles that you got to destroy as you conquered, stepping from one location to the second location?

Mike Simard: Well, the, some of the hardest things to do is to figure out and there's multiple layers that you run into, right? And so you have to figure out, first of all, how do you keep what what the good processes are and the things that keep your company back.

Mike Simard: How do you keep the experience the same? So it was really important to me. So, so we wanna fix cars here in this brand and want the same brand and the same out outcome. We want the phone answered the same. We want the quality to be the same at both locations. So, you know, when you have to, when you run two, maybe three stores, you can pretty much control everything and it's still you doing everything and you don't really, you know, yet have to really up your leadership skills.

Mike Simard: I mean, I was reading and I was learning and I was growing, of course, I was learning to be a better leader. But you can pretty much like bounce between all the stores and keep things going. Then you start getting, you know, past two to three and above. You've really gotta learn how to empower leaders.

Mike Simard: You've gotta learn to, or you gotta learn to put processes in place. So, one of the things actually the team's asked me to go back to doing this. I'm actually doing this now. Put a few things back because we went to two, to four to seven, like in 18 months. It was pretty rapid. Lots of growth and maturity and, you know, we doubled our net profit every year in a row.

Mike Simard: That's not easy. It's not easy. And so, and we kept reinvesting the money. That's another thing. You gotta keep reinvesting in your teams and the company and make people successful to wanna stay with you. So in early years, I did a lot of lunch meetings and we just hammered things out. We collaborated what's, what went right today, what went wrong?

Mike Simard: What can we do different? What did we learn? So we constantly use every hurdle is learning curve. What do we do when someone takes vacation? You know, how can we fix the cars better? What do we do when a comeback happens? You know, it's an opportunity to learn and it's an opportunity to serve the customer and show our integrity.

Mike Simard: And so back then we didn't have our values quite set. We were living our values. But, and people might be able to articulate 'em, but we didn't go write 'em on a wall. We didn't know how to do that. And we kind of learned how to do that later. So we wrote down processes and then we learned from our peers, like, here's a process we didn't know how to do.

Mike Simard: And we adapted it. And then I would take it back. And those lunch meetings, I'd continually coach my team and we would do that for both shops. So I'm actually going back in now, like we have two groups a point s tire lube model, and the comprehensive model. And so what we're trying to do is not mess up the models.

Mike Simard: 'cause there's two different types of customers looking for two different types of things, but kinda cross pollinate some of the leadership principles and meetings and communications and processes. And it was really enjoyable because I tell people, even to this day, you know, I was just upstairs at the airport shop of the day saying, this is the very table and the very place that we built this company and you're part of that today.

Mike Simard: And we're gonna teach you what we know and. We're gonna grow and we're gonna laugh and cry together. I said, but know that you're part of the company and this company's about you, and you guys make the company and you guys can keep contributing and you're an important contributors to this company.

Mike Simard: We keep growing these things out to make things better. So that was extremely important that we included the team in building building things and they really appreciate that.

Michael Smith: How did you come on the wisdom of collaboration? Just intuitive, historic

Mike Simard: well, I am an I, so there's the part about, Hey, let's get together and have some fun and have some lunch.

Mike Simard: It feels good to be together. Sure. It feels good. I don't know. You know, it's one of those things that I hear it from a friend at the group process. But I think because I enjoy people and I like seeing the customers happy, I'm like, I just I gotta get everybody together.

Mike Simard: 'cause you know, here's the thing, man. You come back from a meeting or a conference, you're all fired up. You wanna do all a hundred things. Everybody knows this. You know, if you get 10% of 'em in place and you get back, you're doing pretty good. So I probably tried that a couple times, Michael. I was like this isn't working.

Mike Simard: So I had to slow down and we had to say, okay, I have a few different things here to fix the problem we've had. And so what do you guys wanna try? So once the ideas, once you kind of get them involved with helping you make the decisions and having them own it then everything became alive. And once I started learning how to do more of that, then it was able to continue to grow.

Mike Simard: And that's where it was really the launch point. So it's really back to I'm here to serve people, not just to do my will. I mean, it's I'm a d I'm a directive, right? So come follow me. You know, as a good friend of ours will say, you know, come follow me. We'll storm the gates of hell with a water pistol.

Mike Simard: I mean, I'm right there, right? I'm gonna have water and you got a team there need, but I need you to carry the backup water 'cause I forgot. Exactly.

Michael Smith: Exactly. And you're there with a team. You, your old team's right there with pistols. You got it. Yes,

Kent Bullard: sir. So did you have, in your strategy, were there some assets you knew you could really invest in that, that you felt would make a di a big difference as you were scaling

Mike Simard: assets?

Mike Simard: Like, trainings, learnings? Is that what you mean? You mean people tools?

Kent Bullard: It could be, it could even be a network, right? Are there connections you have, you can leverage it. Just assets that helped you build and grow. And what were they and what did you invest in?

Mike Simard: I think learning that

Kent Bullard: you felt made the biggest difference.

Mike Simard: Yeah. So I think a few things that I kind of skipped over a few things. So of course the group process was huge. Coaching was huge. I mean, until you, again, how do you expand your horizons? Now I realize I come from upstate Vermont and I come from Alaska. So you wanna talk about Alaska is the largest, smallest city.

Mike Simard: I mean, it's largest, it's tiny city in North America. If you kept driving through Canada into Alaska, there's nothing else for 500 miles except the pipeline. Okay. So it's pretty remote, but I'm used to four seasons. It's just a little bit more extreme. So a lot of the things that happen in the states they get experienced to see those things.

Mike Simard: So I really had to get out and see things. And so talking to people with my coaches if I, for example, I told my wife, I said, I've got, I've had a lot of coaches. She said, yeah, but Mike, you're willing to try and seek out the information you need to learn and grow. So it's okay. I have some good coaches that I've stuck with a long time, but sometimes there's like a specific learning I need.

Mike Simard: So I'll read a book. I'll find an expert on it. I'll ask my friends. You know, I really then I'll usually, what I love to do is try it out on the people. It's like, Hey, I've learned this concept. Let's talk about this. Let's share, what do you think? And then what I find out is there's a enrichment to me and them back and forth in, in, in learning and growing.

Mike Simard: So another thing was Napa Autocare. So the Napa Autocare was a big program for us. Because it got me off first time to Las Vegas. I mean, I, for me, I'm not a big Las Vegas guy. I mean, I know some shows go on people excited. It's like, okay. But I got to see a larger world. I got to see a new support structure.

Mike Simard: So it's really nice to have support. If I fix ball joints in Alaska and the car drives to Florida, I may want my customer taken care of. So I would say coaches, group process reading John Maxwell, Patrick Lencioni. Good leaders like that. Remember I didn't have those when I was a young man, so it's like I tried something and it didn't work, so I had to go kind of figure out what it was.

Mike Simard: So seeking and learning and trying to always understand, again, back how the world works now, how people work. And I'm still working on that one by the way. That's the biggest hurdle is how do I help people and 'cause it. Everybody's not the same man. It's not a car, it's not a Ford. You know, it's, people are complex and it's one of

Kent Bullard: the hardest challenges.

Kent Bullard: I love. I'm talking about leveraging assets and all he can talk about is gaining knowledge. Essentially. It's just give me as much information that I can use as possible. I love that.

Kent Bullard: I don't think he meant tire machines, right.

Kent Bullard: As you were expanding, what were some of the big developmental hurdles you had to face?

Mike Simard: Well I would say that probably the biggest one again, is back to people. So how do we how do we find good leaders? How do we identify good leaders? How do we grow good leaders? You know, I would love to continue if we could focus most for energy on, and we are, we actually hired a chief people officer this year, so I'm gonna fast forward a little bit.

Mike Simard: One of the things the difficulties in any area, and especially in Alaska, it's probably five to 10, 15 times harder finding talent. And there's some there's some cutthroat with good tight knit group of shops that won't do this to each other. But there's some larger brands will just say that they don't care.

Mike Simard: It's just about the dollar. And they'll see how high they can go to pay to get your people. So you really have to have a strong culture. You have to have values that are lived, not just spoken. You've gotta talk about what that is. You gotta provide opportunities. This is the challenge.

Mike Simard: You gotta provide opportunities for people to grow, especially in today's environment. Growing shops today, when people, you know, before COVID, I think it was three years, people would roll their box technicians, I believe. I don't know what it is now. I don't think it's improved. And I think people are encouraged to go look around right, all the time.

Mike Simard: So, it's how do we provide the training and the resources? For people to grow. One of the things that we try to do now in our executive leadership team is everybody has access to a coach. Everybody has access to somebody to learn and grow and bounce their ideas off of. So I'm trying to do that.

Mike Simard: We've pretty much accomplished that as well. So the other thing too is and Michael and I have talked a little about this, is, you know, again, you can run a few stores yourself and then bring up those leaders to run those stores, but after that, it gets a little tougher. And you really need area managers and you need good leaders to take care of your leaders.

Mike Simard: So the biggest challenge, and that's really still my current challenge, is to be a little vulnerable, is that, how do I don't know how to articulate this, but running a few shops, being intimate with the car, fixing and doing that is hard enough. Okay, now when you've gotta grow. 10 to 11 leaders that grow, other leaders, that grow other leaders I don't know what you call that.

Mike Simard: Maybe Michael has a word for that. That is a different skillset. And if I would go back now, I would spend more time on learning how to do that better. And because that's, to, to me, that's 100% one of the most important things. You don't seem, you need money to grow, but if you don't have good people, if you don't have people that care, if you don't have people that are serving your customers, I mean, you're not gonna have money.

Mike Simard: So focus on the people. Focus on what you need to learn, find the people to help you learn what to do so you don't have to reinvent everything. And then figure out how to grow other people and contribute to their lives in a meaningful way. And I think the sky's the limit from that point on.

Kent Bullard: I I'm drawn back to something you said in the beginning. You have a, a. Sled dog team. I do. What are some of the correlations you see between, you know, taking care of your team at in your business and taking care of your team at in the snow?

Mike Simard: It's funny you asked. So, I actually have a little bit of a leadership story.

Mike Simard: I tell some of the team I learned a lot. So first of all, one of the things I love to do is help people achieve their goals and dreams. And so my wife about 10 years in, up here in Alaska, she's like, and all our family's back there and our business is going right. I mean, it's, we're invested in the community.

Mike Simard: And she's like, I don't know, I'm getting a little bored. She'd been staying home with the kids. Her kid has kids, had medical issues. She's involved with a college degree. She was searching out what, what's going on in her life and what her purpose was. And she so she was, I was like, oh man. Like I gotta, what are we gonna do here?

Mike Simard: Like, I gotta. Stay with my wife forever. I committed forever, right? But gosh, I don't wanna move back and what am I gonna do back there? And so I I was floating down a Yukon River one day. And, we had just shot a moose as their first moose hunt up there, and we were successful and we were flown down 120 miles.

Mike Simard: It was just beautiful. It's like, it's never gonna happen quite like this again. We got our moose early, we had all this time to relax. And so I had a friend of mine from church who was a, happened to be a vet which contributed a lot to my kids being doctors. He cost me a lot of money, but gave my kids a lot of a perspective of what their purpose was.

Mike Simard: And so we're floating down there. I just remember, I remember almost exactly where we were the day, the temperature and everything. And he said something we had a guy named Lance Mackey, so he run the Iditarod, he won I think four back to back. Don't quote me exactly four, back to back Iditarod Yukon quests.

Mike Simard: And just did stuff that no one's done. These are a thousand mile races. Okay? So you got 16 dogs and you're hanging on for dear life. There's no motors, no gasoline. Okay? And so. He said you know, 'cause Lance Mia might have been saying, oh, he owes me some money and these guys are like farmers. I had no money.

Mike Simard: He said, you know, the way dogs mushers pay bills is by dogs. I don't want no dogs. Right? I got enough dogs and they get hair everywhere and all. I was complaining and my wife's a dog person. So, so here's the deal. I was like, I know how to keep my wife in Alaska. I got five champion sled dogs from a guy that's done amazing things.

Mike Simard: Guinness Book, a real world record stuff. I said, hi honey. Here you go. Five beautiful sled dogs. You always had a dream to be a dog musher. Now I have 40, right? And so what it did was, I'm like I got really, she got really happy. I was happy that could contribute to her dream. And and so I'm trying to remember your question here.

Mike Simard: 'cause I got oh, back to dogs. So what ended up happening was what I learned about leadership in dogs. I'm gonna tell you that. So I actually realized that going to hang out with my wife is cheaper than marital therapy. I mean, just spend some time with what they're interested in. Okay, that's super obvious, but that's my advice for anybody.

Mike Simard: So I went out and I realized I actually enjoyed going out in the woods in the middle of the night, even if it's 20 below, with my wife learning how to mush dogs. And the beginning, the dogs taught us, 'cause we got a couple leaders knew what they're doing. So what I end up learning over those years is that in leadership especially, and with dogs, here's the thing, man, they know a few commands, but they do not know the English language.

Mike Simard: Right? They don't even know kindergarten level. So in with dogs, you can, it's either the carrot or the stick. And so what I had to learn was the stick doesn't always work, okay? Because if you have dogs that are scared of you. Apply this to human relationships and leadership. If you have people that follow you for fear, you know, positional authority, positional leadership doesn't work.

Mike Simard: So what I learned with dogs is that with dogs, they have to know you care if they know you care, you're gonna take care of them and protect them, right? It's your you're the dog musher, you're part of them, but you're also the leader of them. You're here to protect them. That, that you have to encourage them.

Mike Simard: You get a dog that's nervous and he is chewing the line and used to get mad. He chews the lines, they chew 'em up and then they try to go everywhere. And you need 14 dogs all pulling the same direction. And on a dog team, you're only as fast as your slow as dog. So, I dunno if you knew all this, but if you apply this to people, you have production environment in the shop and a guy that says he wants to make his hours, but he is sabotaging the team, you're not gonna hit your numbers so you can go out and yell at him.

Mike Simard: There's a stick. Well with dogs, same thing. I'm 35 miles out in the woods. It's 20 below dropping to 40. Okay? I'm warm, I'm okay. I gotta take care of my team. And I can't tell 'em, just go faster. 'cause they're like, dude, I've been running for 40 miles. I'm cold, I'm tired. So you have to know how to encourage your team.

Mike Simard: And what it taught me is it's beyond English language. It's your body language, it's your encouragement. So do you have the right things? Are you removing the obstacles to your dog? You know, you got two dogs that are fighting. Why are they fighting? Well, there's personalities with dogs, but you can't just sit 'em and say, sit down and tell me about your problems.

Mike Simard: So what I learned and my beautiful wife taught me in leadership and teams with the dogs is that it's the carrot of the stick principle. It's trying to understand why, you know, Jed doesn't get along with the other dog and how you can kind of move them around a little bit and all of a sudden the team is pulling hard.

Mike Simard: It's 'cause they didn't like that guy or that gal behind them. And so that, that was enriching in my life to realize that, there's another level of leadership to continue to climb. And that even the dog teams, if I wanted to get home and not walk I had to learn how to encourage them and care for their needs, attend to their needs.

Mike Simard: Like you would any other shop team as well? Excuse me. The noise there. Any other shop team. And that the carrots always better than the stick, or in this case, dog treats

Kent Bullard: because you're kind of encouraging either your people or the dog in their respective areas of excellence, like to pursue their best self there, which has only upwards potential.

Kent Bullard: Whereas if it's the stick, it's really, the limit is, well, I just don't want to get hit again, or I don't want to get yelled again, or I don't want to get punished in some sense. And so that's really the only, that's the limit. That's the, I hit the bottom at that point. There's nowhere else to go from there.

Kent Bullard: Right. But there's, on the opposite end of it is nothing but upwards potential.

Mike Simard: Absolutely. So it applies in a shop. So, you know, it's like we have personalities that lend to to they build rapport really fast. Those are usually your service advisors, right? And you have technicians that, that look at the world as black and white because it's either 12 and a half volts or it's not.

Mike Simard: And so, you know, and looking at where the best fit and strengths of each individual is, it's just like that dog team. It's crazy, man. Not every dog is a leader. There's dogs in the back that steer the team that steer the dog sled. I mean, so you don't hit trees. And then you've got dogs behind the leaders that help the leaders pull the entire team in a direction.

Mike Simard: So I remember asking some smart old mushers, and it's the same thing with our people. It's like, how do you sense, how do you know a leader in a dog world? And it's like, well, they have propensity to go forward no matter what, through adversity. Okay? They wanna please you. They wanna do what's right.

Mike Simard: And if you say, gee, I mean you're coming on open water and you gotta go left. Gotta go right to your ha you gotta go left or right. Someone's drowning. So you gotta have dogs that you have a bond with. You gotta have people that you can, you gotta understand them, like they gotta know you care. Okay, well this translate, gotta figure out where they belong.

Mike Simard: This,

Michael Smith: and this translates back to the shop too, right? If you push people stand there and push back, right? We talk about the tugboat model doesn't work very well. And if you want 'em to go, we you're the sailboat. You put the wind in their sails and they move into it. And then they bring the best of what they have to it and they go farther faster.

Michael Smith: And it's a model. And I love the fact that you learned that from the dogs. I think that's fantastic. There's a side story I want you to tell. It's a total rabbit trail, but I want you to go there. What was the gift that you gave your wife that was so special to her? For her, I think it was her birthday.

Mike Simard: Oh, geez,

Michael Smith: Michael. Really? You gotta tell the story. It's beautiful. Yeah.

Mike Simard: Come on now it's, I gotta do this appropriately for PG audience.

Kent Bullard: There

Michael Smith: you go.

Mike Simard: I cannot believe you asked me that.

Michael Smith: You have to because it's all part of the picture of Alaska. It's beautiful, right?

Mike Simard: Yeah. I don't know how this relates at all to shops, but,

Michael Smith: it doesn't, but it's a great rabbit trail.

Mike Simard: Well, there's actually a really good story behind it because it's serving a community and I don't know if you got this part or not, but, so again, my wife has a lot of champion sled dogs from Mitch Seay and now Joe May and Lance Mackey's, dad, Dick, these are the people that actually.

Mike Simard: There with Redington, it started the Iditarod race. So if you know the Iditarod race, a thousand doll, a thousand mile race, it's the biggest race in the world. It's televised. There was a dog that Lance had and we sponsored Lance for a long time. Lance had cancer. And I mean, talk about adversity.

Mike Simard: This guy had a lot of mental and physical ailments. He had cancer. His hands would get cold. He didn't, couldn't make saliva. I mean, this guy was out doing stuff that most people just wanna curl up on the couches to stay. And, but he was brilliant and he understood a team. He understood how to bring a team together.

Mike Simard: This does translate. And so we worked a lot with Lance Mackey and he got really ill. I mean, at the end of his life his new wife died. He had two kids. I mean, it was just sad. I was like, gosh, this guy can not get a break. But he did amazing things through adversity 'cause he decided how to use those things to be better.

Mike Simard: And really serve humanity by showing what's possible through his God-given talents, including living with his blemishes, right? With his things that he struggled with. And so he ended up passing unfortunately. And his widow needed help and have some friends that in, in, in the community and customers, and they needed to get cars fixed and generators running.

Mike Simard: And I don't fix things anymore, but I still have the knack. And I went up there and I did that. I helped them get it running and for their kids, right? He's got two beautiful kids still. And it ended up being where a friend of mine had been asking for years, you know, you know Lance.

Mike Simard: And there's a lot of competition by the way. Not only shop owners, but dog mushers and a 40-year-old dog mushers. You know, Lance, you know, Lance, I wanna get a hold of very important sperm. Okay? So this one dog, yeah. Now can't know where this is going. This one dog, Lance built his entire team.

Mike Simard: So think about an AEC that if you could make babies and have 'em, you know, dogs can run in two to three years. Technicians take a lot of years to make. Okay. Just saying. So he had this frozen specimen of sperm, but a champion sled dog. It's in all the books, man. It's like, this is what all of these leaders of worldwide want to have a dog like this and breeding, like breeding stock.

Mike Simard: Like this one dog called Zoro. You can look it up, look up Zoro, Lance Mackey. And it's expensive. Very expensive. And there was three, three breedings frozen. And I'd asked about it and tried for my friend. He wanted to see if he could get it. 'cause they don't really talk and it's like they're competitive.

Mike Simard: And finally out of the blue I forgot about it. She's like, you've helped us so much. We gotta pay the taxes here. We agreed to sell you two vials, but we wanna save one vial for Lance's kits. So for a pretty penny I won't mention here. For her birthday. Yeah, Kent. I bought my wife champion.

Mike Simard: Anybody would want this dog farm so we could breed with our current stock.

Michael Smith: Just proof positive. Proof positive. You two ended up in the right place. I gotta say that. Right. That's a great story.

Kent Bullard: You have a way of going and finding exactly what you need to invest in the opportunity for the people you care about.

Kent Bullard: And I see that in that story and also in your approach with, you know, your team and what you're doing there. As you know, this whole series is really about looking at the decisions that shape industries, right? You are doing something that is gonna be massively impactful and not just in your community, but this is going to change kind of how our industry works.

Kent Bullard: That's what happens, right? And I see a lot of correlation with this. Like, we've got adversity, but I'm investing in people. A lot of these interviews we've done over the past couple days are, it's all people focused.

Michael Smith: The people. The people at the top of the game that get it, understand the power of the human factor and the interest in tapping into it.

Michael Smith: And Michael, your history, your intuition, the practices that you developed and the leading edge that you all are on now. All this is just proof positive, watching you be able to grow and take territory and dream big and actually see how you're gonna get there from here. This is extraordinary.

Kent Bullard: So, so going back let's go back to the shop, back to the business.

Kent Bullard: As you're growing, what has been the impact on your team having pursued this growth about saying, Hey, we're gonna see that mountain over there, we're gonna go climate. What's been the impact on your team?

Mike Simard: Well, first of all, I think, I think one of the things that I constantly astonishes me is that now this assumes you have vision, okay?

Mike Simard: So with, without vision, the people shall perish, right? So it's important that you have vision and you cast a vision. And so if you don't know what that vision is, there's people that can help you find it, you know, they'll show up at the right time. So what happens though is that when you have people that believe in the vision, and it should be bigger than you, right?

Mike Simard: The purpose has to be bigger than you. It has to be more to serve just you. If you're not right with that, start there and find out what are your operating principles and what your values are. But it's amazing what people will do when there's adversity, when they believe in what you're doing and they're doing it not just to serve themself because they believe that it actually is impactful to.

Mike Simard: Humans to people and they care. You gotta get people around you that care about people. You gotta pay the bills. But we have a saying, you know, if you take care of the people, the money should come. If you do the right thing, the money should come. If you fi, if you take care of a customer, the money should come.

Mike Simard: And so you can charge more for that. If you need to pay your people more for that, like get 'em out of poverty, whatever it's gonna take, get 'em health insurance when it's a struggle to get health insurance. Like, don't stop fighting. And so, but you've gotta figure out what gets you outta bed. And the thing is that you've gotta have people, and this is the hard part, I think this isn't easy, right?

Mike Simard: So it's like being a best basketball player, dog musher. I mean, nobody, dude, I did, we did a hundred miles in two days. Once. I'm like, this sucks a hundred miles on a bag of a dog. So 50 miles each way. You don't sleep as much as the dogs 'cause they get to go sleep. After you feed 'em, you gotta go take care of yourself.

Mike Simard: So. You've gotta be able to take care of others. First. Leaders eat last, right? And so, having good vision and then really with the people, you'll see them step up. When, especially if you're willing to go first, fight for them. I think that's the most important to surround yourself with good people.

Mike Simard: And then really supplement. You know, if you're not strong in an area, find someone that is

Michael Smith: so, so Michael, not everybody steps up. I'm not telling you something you don't know. How long do you wait? What process do you go through? How much redemption until remedial? What's your model that you operate?

Mike Simard: So I'll tell you how I handle it because I have superpowers and I have kryptonites, and

Kent Bullard: I think Michael leads me into these questions. I'm be Superman without being alert. You know, you gotta have weak to kryptonite. So

Mike Simard: Michael knows what he's doing with these questions. One thing, it's a gift and a curse.

Mike Simard: I don't like to give up on people. I don't like to give up on anybody. And so the gift side of it, you kinda know your gifts and your weaknesses. And so with people I have been told I have a knack to help people find hope. I'm good at that. I can help you find hope that you didn't know you had about something.

Mike Simard: But you still have to do the work. So how long, you know, I haven't figured it out, but I tell you I have people that know that around me. So I've surrounded myself with a good team that I will always say, have we done everything we could to make this person successful? Have we coached them? Have we given 'em the tools?

Mike Simard: And sometimes the answer's no, which is, that's what keeps me up at night, you know, people and paying the bills. But it's like, if someone leaves us, did we do the right thing? You know, what could we learn? Is it us or them? You know, it's usually a mix, right? Could we have led them better? You know, the best kind of departures I'd say if, you know, not knowing, but if you could do it in a way that makes them better, if you left some something in their life that, or gave them something in their life that, that they can improve on, or I should say that they can carry forward that I would say that's a win.

Mike Simard: But to answer you, Michael the people around me see it before me and I'll push back for a while and then I've learned to trust them. I'm like, okay

Michael Smith: finally, surrender. Yeah. Yeah. But I also want to hear you reflect on this when you determine they're toxic, you have no tolerance for that.

Michael Smith: It's like you, you fully understand the power of the high performance culture. And I've watched you guys, when you finally determine that person is toxic, there, there's no space for, I mean, that's done at that point. Yep. It's time. It's time to put an end to this thing. You don't let the cancer stay and

Mike Simard: grow.

Mike Simard: Nope. Nope. And so, you know, a lot of times what the problem is, I think is if, look, if someone steals from a customer, it's obvious. We have a core value of integrity, do the right thing, even when it's looking, if you can't trust them and it's obvious, that's an easy one. But a lot of times though, it's the self-sabotage that they're doing or the the little things they're doing to the team that are more subtle.

Mike Simard: It's like, did you just see something over there? Like, I don't know. I thought I did. I thought I heard something. Then if you start digging and looking, so getting the team to stay vi vigilant to making sure that they're getting to know their people. Because we're all people, right? We're all broken in some way, right?

Mike Simard: So, but we can't help everybody. And that's the other challenge I had to learn. But that's the harder, more subtle part of the leadership aspect and building teams that, that we gotta continue to look for and we talk about it. I mean, we talk about our values every day and what I ask the teams a lot of times I said, do you just talk about it?

Mike Simard: Do you just read it or do you engage? Do you ask them, you know, tell me about someone that showed integrity yesterday. So really it's trying to help people think teach them to think and really unified in in who we are. So, l Lou Holtz said a great thing, you know, I'm a better leader, but better players.

Mike Simard: So the stronger people you can get, the people that believe in your mission, your vision, your purpose are gonna, the people that are gonna be there when tough times come. And, you know, at the end of the day too, when tough times come you're gonna know who friends are. And so, that's really, I think something that helps build character is going through hard times together, also builds trust.

Mike Simard: So I think it's super important that you show them as a leader. It's like, you know what? This sucks. We're gonna make it through. And let's go.

Michael Smith: And when you do your recruiting, you know when you buy somebody, when you go out and find somebody who's a senior person in the industry from somewhere else, you get all their wonder, but you also get all their problems too.

Michael Smith: And all the other bad training they have and all the other bad cultural tenants and all that stuff comes along with 'em. You're gaining scale. That's seven plus stores on your way up to a very large number. You can begin to train internally and you can begin to have a pipeline for the younger. Guys, gals that come that are super talented, that you can then grow up into your culture and teach these tenants along the way.

Michael Smith: And it's very powerful to watch that happen, especially in Alaska where the talent's hard to come by, you know, and also hard to import, right? You live a long way away from the lower 48. Not everybody wants to make that jump to minus 25 in the wintertime, right? So it's very powerful with the strength of your culture that you have and the way you roll, being able to grow from within.

Michael Smith: It's a very strong model that you guys have.

Mike Simard: They were actually started down and we're actually measuring now a number of internal promotions. So we're trying to get some other things solidified, like training programs and some development conversations with some performance metrics. So we can recognize who's really contributing and in an impactful way make sure the tools are happening.

Mike Simard: And so one of the things that we decided to measure. As an output of our effort is number of promotions in the company. So it's exactly right. We have I think six apprentices now. And I was just thinking about this last night. I said, we gotta come up with the math of how many apprentices we want to build a year for our growth plans.

Mike Simard: And yes, like you said, Michael it's really easier I think, in a way to home grow people. And so we wanna accelerate that pathway of homegrown good quality people that like to come to work, like to work as a team, like to have a challenge, like to live our purpose and values. And I just really enjoy like giving my wife those dogs and helping other leaders grow.

Mike Simard: I mean, that's why I get outta bed in the morning. It's not because of, you know, the problems. I mean, problems come as leaders. That's our job to help our people solve them and teach them. But I just really give the joy when someone can make a career outta this. And you know, my kids just two of them graduated four year business degree.

Mike Simard: Okay. We can take a technician. They can make quite a bit more money, depends on their capacity, right? Than a BA in school, I can tell you. Without a hundred thousand dollars stinking low. And so that just gives me great joy to be able to do that. And that's what's gonna, that's really gonna set us apart, I think, as we grow, is that we're investing in our people.

Kent Bullard: Not only that, but I think you're setting an example for not only, well, I mean yeah, the industry, but excuse me. You're not only setting an example for the industry, but you're setting an example for society in a sense, because now you're, you are able to show that there's a pathway other than, and not to disparage college, right.

Kent Bullard: Or the higher education. But you're gonna show mothers and parents that their kids can actually have a very successful career in our industry. 'cause you're pro, you're proving that and that's gonna speak volumes into, you know. I mean that, that is far reaching consequences in the best way.

Kent Bullard: You know, I'm not antico

Mike Simard: at all. I wasn't exposed to it and you know, I'll be honest with you, if I probably if I probably had gone to college, I'd probably be like an er, emergency surgeon guy. Like, I want to be the guy right there at the point of death to see if I can save you. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Simard: That would be, because I think the adrenaline and would remind me of running a shop. Okay, there's a hundred things.

Kent Bullard: It's

Michael Smith: like, it's one of two ways to get that adrenaline excitement there er doctor, and owning a shop, right?

Mike Simard: Yeah. And so, that's what, how do we do that better? To me it's, yeah, growing, but it all is through how do we serve our people better?

Mike Simard: How do we train them better? How do we have people that really are excited to go on the journey with us? And how do we apprentice people? We were just talking last night, Michael, about the model, leadership intensive about you take a store manager into running five shops. Tara and I were talking about it.

Mike Simard: Now they're apprentice again. And then we're like, you know, she's like, wonder what we should do to apprentice them because sure, they got a pay raise, but new skillset, and we might actually talk to you about that, Michael, but it's like, we want to help people go through the promotions.

Mike Simard: A tech from the back to the front, that's another example. Like, that's a huge chasm. So we're working on how do we build programs to help get them there and give them some success and 'cause that's really the name of the game. So we're gonna, we're gonna count this next year how many promotions we could do internally.

Mike Simard: And we have a ratio of how many internal hires versus external hires. And that way we know, I think that we're, our training programs are not just in, in a playbook or that we're actually as leaders growing our people. And so we're trying to find ways to measure what that looks like so we can have a sense of achievement.

Mike Simard: Recognition as well.

Michael Smith: Well, and you, we'll get to this later, but you have a high store count ownership count in your future and, well, you said something earlier, I just didn't wanna lose. You're trying to figure out now how many apprentices do we have to start with now based on the growth strategy that we have to be able to fill the pipeline with the family at all these different levels as we grow?

Michael Smith: I mean, that, that is strategic planning like many of us don't have the opportunity to do. Right. And so I just didn't want that to go by. That's very interesting.

Kent Bullard: I mean, as of today, you're. Seven locations. Right. But what does the end look like?

Michael Smith: Yeah. Okay. Now's the time. What's the end look like?

Michael Smith: What do you thinking? End

Mike Simard: of what? Life. Hopefully a nice, beautiful light. Someone named Jesus, whatever you deem as me.

Michael Smith: Yeah. End of this

Kent Bullard: chapter. You know, like what, what does that look like? End

Michael Smith: of the growth run? Yeah.

Kent Bullard: Employees. Oh, that in you the best

Michael Smith: of friend? Yeah. We're bringing it in from Jesus.

Michael Smith: We're bringing it a little closer. Okay. So

Mike Simard: the end. Well that's a great question. I tell you what the first of all is how do we expand our influence in the state? This is a tough state. We have a lot of local knowledge and there's a lot of need out there now. There's a lot of need out. Believe it or not.

Mike Simard: There's places that you can't drive to in the, we call it the bush, that there's a lot of need out there. And there's companies like Napa and there's oil pipelines and there's a lot of natural resource places that they need a lot of tires. They need a lot of service and they'll pay whatever it takes 'cause they don't have it there.

Mike Simard: So we could. We gotta mature. Okay. But we could possibly expand. You know, I've got a shop, I guess I won't say too much, but I have shops all over the state. It's huge. It's like from Minnesota to stinking tip of Florida all the way to the panhandle of Texas. And so, we have a lot of opportunity to serve in those remote areas.

Mike Simard: That's, that comes with a lot of logistics. Just having shops in Anchorage and Fairbanks is like, it might as well be Seattle. I mean, it's the same, it takes six hours to drive there. So we're trying to figure that out. And we are figuring out, we have hired some leaders in Anchorage as well to grow continue to grow.

Mike Simard: And we're not doing it just to swallow up other shops. Like it's not gonna just like, we're gonna take 'em out and be the lowest bidder. It's like, how do we help other shops? So what does it look like? How do we help other shops? How do we, how do we have a mutual relationship, you know, like a Napa, BDG group.

Mike Simard: We wanna make some connections, hopefully in Anchorage and get to know people there. And anything that we can help contribute, we think's gonna help the community and the society. And you know, and here's why I think it's like, well, why would you teach them some of your secrets? I'm not gonna teach 'em all our secrets and all our strategic plans, but we can help them find text, for example.

Mike Simard: Because, you know, most people, I wrote this down earlier, most people won't pay the price. So there's a sacrifice to wanna do something meaningful in your life. And doing things meaningful requires going through difficult times and doing hard things and getting up before someone else wants to. So, you know, they have to be able to do the work.

Mike Simard: And so where are we gonna go? I'd like to be able to share whatever success I have with the leaders that I have. That's one most important thing. If I. If I was to die tomorrow, I wanna make sure that everybody here is taken care of, all 75 employees and their family. So that's the immediate monetary stuff.

Mike Simard: I want to grow a company that scales to a point where you know, someday I'm gonna retire. And you know, how's that gonna look? I tell you how it's gonna look. And it may be dollars and lots of zeros and that's great. That's fine. But the most important thing is that whatever happens to the people and the teams that we built the culture of anybody was to buy us or invest in us or take it over internally, whatever that looks like when my time is done they have to take care of the people with the same values that we did.

Mike Simard: Or else it's not worth selling. I don't care how many zeros because I can't take the zeros and the millions of dollars to the coffin. I guess you could. But that's where the other end comes in hopefully. Sure.

Michael Smith: Let's, let me add this question to it too. Michael. You all are very busy in your communities.

Michael Smith: It's, you're taking care of your team, you're growing them. You love your customers, and you work hard at that. You're also active at the community because you believe fully in what you're talking about. You walked this talk. Can you tell us a little bit about some of the things that you've done in the past and some of the projects that you've gotten involved in to touch the folks even outside of the customer group, right.

Michael Smith: You're stretching beyond that to make a difference.

Mike Simard: Yeah. A few things recently and one of the more impactful things that we wanna do more of is like I just had Jay and my brother Rob and one of our technicians go to a local high school. And they got pretty excited 'cause they showed up how to run a lap scope.

Mike Simard: That's something that we're getting a lot of ATECs that, you know, they still don't, they don't know how to use those technologies. And so we get to show 'em a little bit of advanced technologies and show 'em, you know, not because we wanna hire 'em. I mean, that'd be great, but it's like, we just wanna, we wanna show you again.

Mike Simard: We wanna show you what's out there in the world, so they get to go see them the other day. We also belong to a, the community technical college. I highly recommend that people look at seeing what you could do to support your technical college. You know, they're there to support industry. I think last night there was most people in that room from all shops are getting together and saying, how do we help?

Mike Simard: You know, there's a major crisis for good top talent. We know that as crisis, I don't know if I like that word, there's a problem. It's always been there, but it's just it varies and it's difficult. And how do we grow more top talent? So what I'm excited about is finally is we have an apprenticeship with NAPA program.

Mike Simard: It's a good program and we actually expand it and multiply 10 times the money they recommend you give to technicians. We spend 10,000 on tax for tools, for example. But the community technical colleges now finally talking about apprenticeship and the cool part is what I'm really excited about. You have military as a feeder.

Mike Simard: There's this I think skill path maybe that's the wrong word, the program to get 'em into programs like this. The community technical college is a great program. And I believe my vision of coupled with apprenticeship, okay. OJT on the JOBB training, which isn't always formalized in all communities.

Mike Simard: Some communities I heard have this, okay. If your community doesn't have it, I'd recommend that you go out and look and see how do I really get people in the shop that get their education component? Right. Figure out how to help with that and really keep 'em in the stores working for you and growing them.

Mike Simard: Michael, like you were talking about, and that excites me. Now, there's also other components of the high school wants to see the people that don't wanna go to school, get further education and can, you know, have a good career. And there's actually the labor board, so all these people aren't necessarily talking together in some communities, the labor board's, like we got a lot of money in grants that we want to give to people to help them have a great career.

Mike Simard: I'm like, can we just get all you in a room and do apprenticeship? 'cause apprenticeship is like, apprenticeship is better than the college and the college's like college is better than the apprenticeship, the labor board's. Like, we got all this money and we don't know how to give it away. I'm like, how would we get together and figure that all out and help people get started in industry that you know, you gotta have a bunch of tools start fixing cars.

Mike Simard: Your wages aren't that high. You can go to McDonald's and Walmart and get x. That's what you hear today, right? And so how do we do that? I think it's getting together with community one more thing that's super impactful. We actually kinda, I didn't expect this to work so well, but we did a kinda a fundraiser thing where our rewards points you could donate your rewards points to a community.

Mike Simard: Cause, so we picked the stone soup kitchen. So we picked these people because, and we've done some work at the food bank and volunteer packing boxes. Really good team exercise. I loved that. But they're like, let's do something like right where the people that have no jackets are no food tonight. And so we went in there and said, I got another dog musher, you know, I just found someone, Hey, people know who you are.

Mike Simard: Would you just get on TV and let's go together and see if we can call people to action. And so we donated some money to them, but the impactful thing, I didn't realize what happened is, they get on there and said what the stone soup kitchen's doing? And, you know, come on down and help them.

Mike Simard: This is where their needs are. So we didn't focus on us. And we served a couple times with them, which was great. Talking to real people on the street, man, like literally don't have a jack and don't have food. And that really helps change your perspective too, by the way. When you're, you know, sitting in your nice warm house and you think you've got problems and you're like, you don't even have a house.

Mike Simard: It's

Michael Smith: good. It's good for the team to be involved in that too, because it really keeps us all connected with what all of society around us looks like. So, yeah. That's great. Great. If

Kent Bullard: if there's any technicians out there listening to this. Podcast, for some reason they stumbled upon, I've never heard of a better sales pitch for a company to go work for.

Kent Bullard: I mean, somebody who's gonna invest in you and believe in you and basically put everything that they can into your future. I mean, that's, there you go from the heart just to hop and to skip up to Alaska. And it's from the heart.

Michael Smith: It's the real deal. It's not just a program. Right.

Michael Smith: So, I want to, thanks for sharing. Michael.

Kent Bullard: I wanna pivot 'cause we're about, at that time. I'd love to do kind of a lightning round, Mike, if you'll humor me. Okay. I'm gonna ask you some we're three questions,

Mike Simard: firm birthday, present questions warn me.

Kent Bullard: No. Okay. So we're gonna do a lightning round here.

Kent Bullard: How has your growth, what's the biggest way that your growth has affected your leadership?

Mike Simard: The growth of the company and my leadership in the company. Again, the biggest thing is I have to help leaders at the top stay connected with the leaders at the bottom, if you will. And so how do we stay connected and still know each other?

Mike Simard: This isn't a corporate company. We have certify employees. I mean, it's corporation, but it's like the biggest thing is how do we stay connected with our people and what they need. And so, that's constant conversation that I'll ask every single day. And we keep seeking out information great coaches to make sure that we're doing that.

Mike Simard: How do you measure success? Well, one of the ways simple's walking the shop and seeing smiley faces, customers are happy. Like, are we taking care of our people? Period. Now, can we pay the bills? I mean, look it's equally important, but you can't do one without the other. So if you put the money first, people see through that.

Mike Simard: So success to me is doing something meaningful in life affecting the people in a positive way around you? And if you can do that and make money, I mean, that's awesome. There's my way.

Kent Bullard: And last question over your career or even your lifetime, what is the best decision that you have made?

Kent Bullard: The best

Mike Simard: decision I have made, honestly, there's a couple things from personal love. I married my wife. Marriage is not easy. It's work. But I tell you what, she has changed me. Look man, she made me eat like lettuce and lentils and like she kept, she's keeping me alive and she keeps me centered and she compliments me.

Mike Simard: And also another relationship of commitment through adversity. You know, and the other thing too is really meeting, look man. If I hadn't, if I hadn't listened to Dan Gilly and LER and then Michael Smith come in my life and all my friends in the merger and acquisition groups I don't know if I'd have a business today.

Mike Simard: So the personal side and learning how to do business and that business isn't just about money. It's about people and treating people well. And if you're doing your pa, if doing what you're passionate about and trying your best to finally live your purpose, the money should just come. And honestly, you should have a little bit of fun more days than not.

Mike Simard: So, I think meeting guys like you guys and all that you guys have done to contribute to our life and how it's trickling down through other communities across the country in Burbanks, Alaska is is hugely impactful.

Michael Smith: There's nothing we'd rather do either than what we're doing together. This is great stuff.

Michael Smith: So. Thank you Mike.

Mike Simard: Appreciate

Michael Smith: you guys.

Kent Bullard: Thank you, Mike. Mike, thank you so much. I understand how busy you are and everything that you're doing. I just wanna express my appreciation for the time that you've devoted to this and coming and talking with myself and with Michael today. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for this.

Kent Bullard: This has been fantastic.

Michael Smith: Now go buy some more shops, you guys, right? And then go buy some more shops. Now go buy some more shops.

Mike Simard: I'm gonna work on that. Yes, sir, definitely fine. Thanks Kent. Thanks Michael.

Michael Smith: Thanks buddy. It's good to see you. Those who are

Kent Bullard: listening, if you enjoyed the content that we discussed today, if you wanna be a part of this conversation with us and see about how we can maybe help you get pointed in the right direction, or if you have something to offer those who are seeking this guidance.

Kent Bullard: Please, we invite you to join this conversation in the comments below by liking and sharing this content so others can benefit from this opportunity and this valuable insight. Please help us out and again, if you want more information about what we do at the institute, you can visit us at We are the institute.com.

Kent Bullard: Mike, again, thank you so much for being here today.

Mike Simard: Take care, friend. Thanks guys. Have a wonderful day.

Michael Smith: You too. See you soon.