Lance Lupi shares his unexpected journey from live sound engineering and financial services to running his family’s Lee Myles franchise in New Jersey. He explains how stepping into the shop during the height of COVID opened his eyes to the opportunity within the industry. Lance talks about the advantages of small-business ownership, the steep learning curve, and the value he places on his technicians. He discusses why he finally committed to coaching after five years and how it reshaped his vision for growth. The conversation explores leadership, culture, and the decisions needed to scale a shop built on integrity. Lance closes with his hopes for the industry and the future he wants to create for his team and his family.

Host(s):

Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development

Guest(s):

Lance Lupi, Owner of Lee Myles Autocare + Transmissions

Show Highlights:

[00:03:24] – Lance recalls his winding path into automotive and why he never expected to own a shop.

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Episode Transcript Disclaimer

Episode Transcript:

Jimmy Lea: Hello, my friends. Good to be with you again. This is Jimmy Lee with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence, and you are listening to the Leading Edge Podcast. My guest today is Lance Lupe. He's with Lee Miles, the franchise of automotive service and repairs. He is out of Haslet, New Jersey. Lance, welcome to the show.

Jimmy Lea: How you doing brother?

Lance Lupi: I'm doing great, Jimmy, how are you? Re great to see you, although a little disappointed in the attire. No, no flashy

Jimmy Lea: Jacket today. Alright, hold on. I'll get my jacket.

Jimmy Lea: You know, everybody's listening to this. They can't see anything. You gotta call me out like that.

Jimmy Lea: Hey Lance, we've seen each other at many different trade shows over the years. I'm thinking of tools. Super Saturday Asta. Yep. Yep. And I'm twice Asta. Twice asta, and I'm told we're not supposed to pronounce it Asta, because you're not supposed to pronounce acronyms. It's supposed to be a STA.

Jimmy Lea: Okay. You're welcome, Lorraine. Calling out Lorraine on that one. Yeah, we've seen you twice at Asta. I, and I think that they have done a phenomenal job with that conference, the new location. Oh man. Did you go this last year better,

Lance Lupi: better this year than la Great. Last year better and I wasn't there for the entire time last year.

Lance Lupi: I was there for the full event, but definitely a b Huge improvement. Yeah. Location and everything about it. The scope of it was tremendous.

Jimmy Lea: Yes. So you gotta go again. You gotta go. This next move, what is it? September? I think it's September. Mm-hmm. October.

Lance Lupi: Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Lea: Put it on your calendar. Save up your pennies and nickels and dimes.

Jimmy Lea: Whatever you gotta do to make sure you're there for that one. Have you been to Tools? You go into the tools one in Pennsylvania.

Lance Lupi: I went last year and then go into the one plan on going to the one next year. I've heard they've changing locations po possibly don't know if that's true or not. Yes, we're,

Jimmy Lea: it's gonna be at the Hershey.

Jimmy Lea: Hershey in Hershey, Pennsylvania, the Hershey Chocolate Factory, and it's inside of there. So you want to get on it quick? They've got rooms available. I believe the classes are gonna start to be available to register here pretty dang soon. It's in April.

Lance Lupi: Okay.

Jimmy Lea: Right after on the calendar.

Lance Lupi: Yes. Get it on the calendar.

Jimmy Lea: It's right after my wife's birthday, so we got that going for us.

Lance Lupi: Absolutely.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Super excited. Hopefully she'll be there. Let's see. Yeah. Yeah, that would, it's gonna be right. So we're going on a cruise for her birthday and then this is gonna be right after her birthday, so we'd go straight from wherever we're cruising from directly to her.

Jimmy Lea: She Pennsylvania. Dude, that would be awesome. I'd love to introduce you to Rhonda. She's awesome and amazing. I met her last year at A STA. Well, well, there you go. There you go. That's right. She was there last year, not this past one, but a year ago, correct?

Lance Lupi: Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. That was awesome. Or

Lance Lupi: at least I didn't see her this year.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Well, you weren't there to see her this year. I went there

Lance Lupi: year last year.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah, dude. No, that's awesome. So we've had a lot of conversations over the years of shops and process procedures and, advisors and needing technicians and franchisees and franchise fees and franchise support and everything you're doing.

Jimmy Lea: So, what I'd love to do here first, Lance, is to get into the history of how did you get into the automotive industry. Wow. So

Lance Lupi: great question. Long journey to get here. Long, long journey. I don't know how far you want me to go back.

Jimmy Lea: I've had some dudes start when they were two years old and they're holding the wrench for dad 'cause dad was working on the cars.

Jimmy Lea: So it, so, so not that

Lance Lupi: path. That was not the path at all. Oh. You know, I did do work on my own cars when I was younger. Started to drive oil changes, you know, break jobs, simple stuff like that. But nothing really beyond that. Learned a couple things from dad. Tremendous influence on my life all over the place, but.

Jimmy Lea: Was dad in the industry? Was he a technician? No. Was he a shop

Lance Lupi: owner? No.

Jimmy Lea: No. Just

Lance Lupi: he was a mechanical engineer.

Jimmy Lea: Mechanical,

Lance Lupi: In the driveway out of pure necessity. Correct, but a mechanical engineer by trade.

Jimmy Lea: Oh wow, okay. Very good.

Lance Lupi: Yeah, so nothing to do with that, but you know, he was a young man as well at one point he worked on his cars and, you know, a different time when he did more work on cars than you do now.

Lance Lupi: But in any event so, so that was really the extent of my automotive history and knowledge. Got into actually doing live sound. For five years for bands. I worked in clubs and, you know, did some small little tours with some people and things like that. And that went on for about five years. And during that time, I, you know, I still was in school, going to college, wasn't really sure the path yet.

Lance Lupi: Got out of that after about five years and ended up going into financial services. So, whoa. 20 years that you went from being a roadie to being a financial advisor? Not a roadie. I was not a roadie. Hold on, let's back up, Jimmy. I know that was

Jimmy Lea: my word.

Lance Lupi: I, I ran the front of house, the audio systems for the bands.

Lance Lupi: I was a house engineer at a club in as famous Asbury Park, if you've heard of Asbury Park, New Jersey. And that's where I spent the bulk of my time.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, okay. Doing

Lance Lupi: that.

Jimmy Lea: So you had a club, you weren't traveling on the road with the band.

Lance Lupi: Not, I think some little bands come to your, some little stuff with some different people.

Lance Lupi: Actually provided a PA system for Chubby Checker for a few gigs you know, in, in the northeast area for a couple days. And and then did some bands that I was friends with, things like that. We would travel a little bit, but primarily I was in one location. Okay. For the majority of that time.

Jimmy Lea: Alright, so were you the AV guy that would balance the sound or would you just blast the sound?

Lance Lupi: No, I wouldn't just blast the sound. That's not the objective. The objective is to make sure that everyone can hear everything the way that they want it to be heard the way that it sounded on the record or whatever it is.

Lance Lupi: So yeah, setting up the mics and, you know, doing sound checks and all those things and making sure the people can hear themselves on stage, making sure the fans could hear the. Stand out in the front of house and yeah, that was, oh, I love it. Five years of my life.

Jimmy Lea: Alright, from from, and that

Lance Lupi: shut down and then I decided that, you know, this is probably not what I want to do for the remainder of my life.

Lance Lupi: You know, it was fun, but giving up my weekends and all those things was not the greatest thing for me personally. For a lot of people it works. So, finished up school, got a degree in finance, and went into financial services for 20 years. Then I needed a change. Yeah. About five and a half years ago.

Jimmy Lea: My

Lance Lupi: in-laws

Jimmy Lea: go ahead. Five and a half years ago. I think we must have met shortly after you started your shop then,

Lance Lupi: so, so the shop, been in the family.

Jimmy Lea: Been in the family for 20 years. 20 years, yes. Okay, so it was your in-laws that

Lance Lupi: had

Jimmy Lea: it first.

Lance Lupi: Correct. They owned it. They bought it. My father-in-law loved cars.

Lance Lupi: He needed something to do. He felt that this was a great opportunity to combine work with his passion of cars.

Jimmy Lea: Okay? He didn't work on

Lance Lupi: cars. He just loved cars. Not that he didn't work on cars, but he wasn't a mechanic or anything like that. But he, he loved automobiles. Had a bunch of hot rods and all kinds of different classic cars and things like that.

Lance Lupi: So he felt that this would be a good way to, to combine both his passions of, you know, providing an income and working on cars.

Jimmy Lea: Love it. Love it. What do you know what steered him toward Lee Miles as the the franchise to follow?

Lance Lupi: It wasn't necessarily that it was just, this was something that was available.

Lance Lupi: It was proximity to the house. Was really. Great. You know, 10 minutes. Okay. Be being 10 minutes away. Great location. We're right on a main highway, you know, main artery in the area. So tons and tons of traffic that passes by the building every day. Love it. So, you know, just it was a fit for what he was looking for and what he was looking to do.

Jimmy Lea: It's like every bit of successful real estate location. Mm-hmm. Location,

Lance Lupi: Location. Absolutely. First of three else. Yeah. Yeah. So, about five and a half years ago, I needed some sort of change and he was kind of looking at the exit door a little bit and I said, well, why don't we why don't we see what we can do with this?

Lance Lupi: That was, you know, right at the heart of COVID. The heart of co. Right? The beginning. This was 2020. This was like, you know, right in the thick, right when we first really started to get into, you know, this was like June, July of that year. 2020.

Jimmy Lea: So this is past the two weeks?

Jimmy Lea: Two weeks. Two weeks. This is not just two months. Two months. Two months. This is the serious lockdown. Okay,

Lance Lupi: very good. Sorry. Yeah. The be the very beginning. Yep. Yeah. So pop and I said, well, let's see what happens. Okay. So, came in and started learning. 'cause I knew nothing, you know, I mean, I had been here before, obviously it's my father-in-law, it's right around the corner from me.

Lance Lupi: I've, you know, we, he his team worked on our personal vehicles, my wife and I, and so not as if I didn't have any exposure, but didn't really know how it worked.

Jimmy Lea: Right. Yes. Because it's different than financial services. Sure. I mean, it is business. So you have business acumen, but it's mm-hmm.

Jimmy Lea: It's its own unique leopard with its own unique spots.

Lance Lupi: Yes. But I did work in the operational side of financial services. I was responsible for budgeting for different departments, so. Able to leverage some of those types of things, SOPs. Right. You know, while I don't still don't really have them, I know about them.

Lance Lupi: I'm familiar with them. I've written them, I've supervised people, writing them and rewriting them. So, you know, there was a lot of things that either are or can be leveraged in this space that I take away from my old roles.

Jimmy Lea: Oh that's very cool. So you're starting to work on SOPs.

Lance Lupi: Starting is a long journey ahead.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So it's a five year journey so far, and it, you know, it's been well, so a lot of, go ahead. The great thing about SOPs is it's a document that never dies. It's a living document, you living breeding document to add and add and work with. It seems to be a subject, a topic that comes up in a lot of the podcasts that I've been doing here recently.

Jimmy Lea: Mm-hmm. And I think one of the most successful. Conversations I had, a gentleman was talking to his technicians and saying, Hey, look you guys are my beta. I am using you to see if what we're making, what we're creating is going to work. Is this gonna work? Is it gonna be good? Does it read right?

Jimmy Lea: Did I write it right? What did I leave out? What do we need to add? How can we improve these SOPs? And the brilliance of that process is getting their buy-in.

Jimmy Lea: I just thought it was brilliant. I totally geeked

Lance Lupi: out. Yeah. And that's an area where I, you know, I struggle with a little bit in the sense that the team that's here tremendously talent, tremendously fortunate to have the people working here that are working here.

Lance Lupi: They're not used to those types of things. And that change is a little hard and I try every day to challenge them and let them know that we need to be much more consistent than we already are.

Jimmy Lea: Yes. And that's how

Lance Lupi: we got, that's how we have to get there.

Jimmy Lea: That conversation was very recent with his name is Chris.

Jimmy Lea: Pete Zach and his shop is Matt's automotive, and in fact he's in New Jersey as well.

Lance Lupi: Oh really?

Jimmy Lea: Yes, he is in,

Jimmy Lea: I don't remember. Don't worry. Nevermind.

Lance Lupi: Small state. But it's a, but it's a big state.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, we have a lot of, we have

Lance Lupi: a ton of people here, so there's a lot of of.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. No it, it was awesome. I just loved what Chris was talking about on that because it's so true that the buy-in the input the company culture mm-hmm.

Jimmy Lea: It becomes this is us, this is our program, this is how we do things. And it's when you get it down and you get it set up Lance, I think you're gonna love it. I think you're gonna let, no, absolutely. So what is your take here? The difference between the franchise world and the automotive world?

Lance Lupi: I don't know that I really have one because this is all I really know. And the reality is we kind of work very independently. So it's not as structured as what most people might think of when they think of a franchise agreement.

Jimmy Lea: I said franchise, you know what? And I was thinking financial, the, between the financial world and the automotive world.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, I said, I did say franchise. You did pick that up. Yeah. And I apologize. Sure. I wanna know between your financial world and now in the automotive. Sure.

Lance Lupi: The differences.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Differences, similarities, challenges reward rewards.

Lance Lupi: Yeah. So you see what I'm wearing?

Jimmy Lea: Yeah, got a hoodie on looking comfy.

Lance Lupi: Okay. So that's a lot different than a suit and tie. So

Jimmy Lea: yeah, you got,

Lance Lupi: there's definitely, you know, one advantage you know, I'm about seven minutes from my house versus, you know, an hour plus each direction. Plus a huge cost in commuting expenses. At the end of my that part of. Career. I was in the city.

Lance Lupi: I was taking the ferry into the city every morning to get to work and back to work. And that was, you know, if I told you the number of what I was spending every month on commuting and then the time, all that time back and forth, I mean, it's so much different, you know, so my stress level, while it probably should be greater, is actually less.

Jimmy Lea: Believe it. I believe it. I believe it in this role.

Lance Lupi: And I think that's partially because I'm in control.

Jimmy Lea: Yes.

Lance Lupi: Right. I'm not beholden to, to someone else. Other

Jimmy Lea: than the customer.

Lance Lupi: Other than the customer. But I mean, I control all that.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

Lance Lupi: Right. So, so that's something I'm empowered to do anything.

Lance Lupi: Yeah.

Lance Lupi: Right.

Lance Lupi: Yeah. And I don't

Lance Lupi: have to, you know, take orders really from anybody else. But me.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Well, yeah, I drive that. And your commute is glorious.

Lance Lupi: My commute is glorious. I need to run home and, you know, the, until my daughter just left for college prior to that, her, you know, being here for high school for her was a tremendous benefit.

Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. She could just pop in and say, Hey, pops, how you doing?

Lance Lupi: Or if she needed something I needed, she forgot something at, you know, home, I could run it over to her or whatever. So, so that, that was a a huge win, you know, for the both of us.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's very cool. The,

Lance Lupi: The other side of that equation, well, the.

Lance Lupi: Not the same.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah, no, it's not the same. But the re reduction and one of the things having to pay for the commute, that does help. That's true. Mm-hmm. And then you've also got the, the less stress factor that's gotta happen as well. Correct. So what does, but I'm trying to change all those things so that, that's why I'm here.

Jimmy Lea: I love it. I love it. So what does the what does it look like when you approach father-in-law and he's looking for the escapee, the escape, the exit door. Yeah. And he is ready to go out. What, how does that conversation go? And where do you settle on getting to a number?

Lance Lupi: Well, it was, you know, they were just like, listen, we're thinking about getting out of this. And I said, well, let's not do that just yet. Why don't we wait and see how things go? Okay, let me step in. Let me start learning. Let me see what we can do with this thing. I think even during that,

Lance Lupi: the unknown that was going on at that particular point in time, I would. I felt that there was a tremendous opportunity. I still feel there's a tremendous opportunity in this industry, right as I sit and you know, I would sit in front of my house. I live on not a main road, but not a back street or anything like that.

Lance Lupi: I have a high school, a couple doors down from me. I have a big neighborhood development across the street from me, and I would see all these cars passing by. Thinking every one of those cars needs four tires. Every one of those cars needs an oil change. Every one of those cars needs a boozy whats, or you know, a tuneup, a, you know, a radiator or whatever.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. They gotta drive forward. They need to, everyone house

Lance Lupi: across the street from me has 2, 3, 4 cars in their driveway.

Jimmy Lea: They all do. Yep. And some are garage queens, but some are the teenagers.

Jimmy Lea: Most

Lance Lupi: are not garage queens. Most car, most garages, including mine, do not contain cars.

Lance Lupi: They can contain the junk that you don't know where else to put it.

Jimmy Lea: Oh gosh yeah. No. And the

Lance Lupi: refrigerator and the freezer or whatever, and the work bench and things like that. But most. Most garages, at least here in New Jersey. Yeah. In my experience, do not contain vehicles.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's hilarious.

Jimmy Lea: That's hilarious. So you're working on cars. You go with the father-in-law and they, you said, Hey, let's not get out of this yet. Let me come down. And so you come down and you look at this and go, oh, you know what? I can see a future here. I think this is something we can take care of.

Jimmy Lea: Are you in the process of buying it off, buying it out, or did you pay it off in one fail swoop?

Lance Lupi: We're, that's still, you know, not worked out yet. Completely. Okay. It's still legally there.

Jimmy Lea: Okay. Very good.

Lance Lupi: I'm just an employee right now.

Jimmy Lea: You're an employee. Wow. That is very cool. And my $17,000 lesson is get it in writing.

Jimmy Lea: Mm-hmm. And there you go.

Lance Lupi: Absolutely.

Jimmy Lea: So what does the shop look

Lance Lupi: like today? What's the footprint? So the footprint is I've got four bays. Two to three are primarily in use. One is kind of just a backup, you know, 'cause it's smaller because of the, you know, one of my lifts is a big drive on lift, so there's a smaller lift in front of it, so that's not really used too much.

Lance Lupi: Okay. But it's there in, it's in reserve. I've got two technicians that are here. One has been with the business here for. Pretty much since it, since my in-laws took over the business. Shortly thereafter, he joined and been here ever since. Had he had a brief departure during COVID.

Jimmy Lea: He's

Lance Lupi: from Europe, and he reasons he decided that he felt that he needed to move back to his home country.

Lance Lupi: That was short lived. Fortunately, in the interim, I did hi, bring on another person to. Take on some of those responsibilities that, that he had there. And then my other, the other tech who's our builder, so we're Lee Miles is a transmission franchise, but we do full repair, but specialty and transmission.

Lance Lupi: And I do have a transmission builder, and that's my second tech. And he's primarily a builder, but he does full repair.

Jimmy Lea: Wow. Yeah. You know, those, and then

Lance Lupi: so when I, so just I had, so when the one person came back from Europe, I kept on the third person for a period of time. I was able to sustain the work, but I.

Lance Lupi: We're back to those two people. The 20 year person and the 10 year plus person. But the 10 year plus person has another 30 plus years behind them in experience, and the 20 year person has another 15 years of experience behind them. Oh, wow. Prior to being here.

Jimmy Lea: That's awesome. So

Lance Lupi: I'm fortunate for the team that's here they're tremendously talented.

Lance Lupi: They're passionate about their work and. They want to solve the problem for the customer.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. That's very cool. Yeah, the, those men and women that work on transmissions, that's a thousand piece puzzle without a picture. You, oh my gosh. That's some skill.

Lance Lupi: Yeah. He's tremendously skilled.

Lance Lupi: He is very particular about how he works. Examines each and every component that comes outta there and goes back in and knows all those little tricks and things that I'm just amazed when I, you know, watch 'em. I don't watch 'em too often 'cause I don't want to disturb him. But

Jimmy Lea: yeah,

Lance Lupi: when he talks about it, when he, when we're writing up narratives for customer invoices and things like that, I'm just, you know, amazed at the level of detail and the knowledge.

Lance Lupi: Steps that he has.

Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. That's just fascinating. The to know the tolerances and the abilities of the different gears and the mechanisms and the the different chemistry of the parts and pieces to know which part is mm-hmm. Working best and which one's gonna wear out first.

Jimmy Lea: These guys that have been working on these transmissions for so long it's second nature for him, and that's so cool.

Lance Lupi: It's. And because of his skill. I actually work, one of my wholesale accounts is a classic car restoration company.

Lance Lupi: Oh, wow.

Lance Lupi: So we'll, do you know, I don't know, eight to 12 units a month outta these older vehicles that he grew up on.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah. Yeah that's the car that he was working on. That's where he, when he was 15 years old, wanting to have a car to be able to drive to high school. That's what he was working on. Oh, that's awesome.

Lance Lupi: Exactly. So, so, it's great and it's, and it, you know, it allows me to have that extra piece of business that I wouldn't otherwise have if he wasn't in, in the building.

Jimmy Lea: Oh my gosh, that's great. And my dad, way back in the day, he was 14, 15, 16. The neighbor had a 57 Chevy and it wasn't running. It needed a new transmission. My dad bought it for 10 or 20 bucks, bought the car, took a taxi to the pick apart, took the transmission out of another 57, took a taxi back to home.

Jimmy Lea: And installed it with the transmission on his lap. On his lap. Yeah. And he installed the transmission in the guy's driveway. Installed it. Started it up. He drove it

Lance Lupi: outta

Lance Lupi: there.

Jimmy Lea: Drove it out.

Lance Lupi: How about that? That's a great story. That is a great, oh my gosh.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. To take it. Taxi. I have a friend who has

Lance Lupi: one of those

Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah.

Jimmy Lea: A 57. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's a beautiful car. It's a beautiful car. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's cool. Well, you, it sounds like you've got a great footprint, a great program, a great company, a great culture. You've got some great guys that are there working with you, bringing this to the forward. Yeah. To the future.

Jimmy Lea: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Do you have a service advisor or are you filling in on that position right now? I

Lance Lupi: am. That's why my hat looks the way it does, Jimmy.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So you've you're doing the day to day. You,

Lance Lupi: you are I'm doing everything. I do everything. I mean there if it's not fixing a car, it falls on my shoulders.

Lance Lupi: Wow. That's awesome. That's awesome. So it's not so awesome. That's kind of where, you know, why I am where I am.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Well, and why I've

Lance Lupi: made some decisions that I've made recently to change that.

Jimmy Lea: Okay. And what are some of those decisions you've made recently that have. Are making a difference for you?

Jimmy Lea: What, what's going on?

Lance Lupi: Well, it's the fact that I decided that, you know, I am on board,

Jimmy Lea: on board with the institute That's correct. Coaching and training. Yeah. You, there's the things that you know, you know, and there's things you know, you don't know. And the most dangerous is the things you don't know that you don't know.

Jimmy Lea: That's correct. Oh, that's awesome. So why get on with coaching and training? Finally after five years?

Lance Lupi: Yeah, so when I first got when I first got into this pro, well, not first got into it about two years in or so, some person just walked in and said, Hey, I'm a mobile diagnostic person, and I program computers and things like that.

Lance Lupi: So. I struck up a little bit of a, you know, relationship with that person in the beginning and he, this was a person that had owned his own shop, owned his own towing business owned, you know, a bunch of businesses. It's been a technician for, you know, 20 or 30 years or whatever. Wow. It was a great resource.

Lance Lupi: He was close by and I don't know, we just kind of connected a little bit and during all those conversations. He mentioned this guy, he said, you know, you should probably watch some videos from this guy. I said, who? Cecil.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, Cecil Bullard. Yeah.

Lance Lupi: So I went, you know, I started, you know, I would sit outside or sit in the house or sometime and I'd pop on YouTube and I pull up this guy Cecil Bullard, and I started listening to him and, you know, tons of other people.

Lance Lupi: On there, you know, Lucas and David would have him on, or, you know, they, they would have conversations, their shop owners I would watch. And so I and I would watch and start learning about all these things and that's how I came to A STA, I wanna make sure I pronounce it correctly. So that's how I came to A STA.

Lance Lupi: They were having a conversation about it, Lucas and David. And I decided that, you know, let me head down. That's where, you know, you and I first connected and I started taking some of those things that, that Cecil was saying and I started applying them.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

Lance Lupi: Parts, margins, right. Labor, right.

Lance Lupi: All these different things that, that I really didn't know. Emotion. My, my favorite phrase from him, emotional.

Jimmy Lea: Discounting. Yeah. Emotional discounting. That's selling outta your front pocket because you think, oh my gosh, this is such a big bill. It's just a bill. Yeah.

Lance Lupi: So, so I started applying a lot of those things and I was having conversations with people I was having.

Lance Lupi: I was having conversations with him and I mean with, you know, my friend. And then most recently I watched a video with a se, a webinar with him and Michael Smith.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Oh yeah. That asked me anything, webinars,

Lance Lupi: that was the aha moment kind of. I'm gonna pause.

Jimmy Lea: Okay?

Lance Lupi: Okay. Is that,

Jimmy Lea: yeah, let's pause you Take care of the customer,

Lance Lupi: okay?

Lance Lupi: Okay. Thanks Jimmy. Hold on. I am back

Jimmy Lea: to me. Okay. Hey, right on. So here's the beauty of what we're doing here and for everybody. Yeah, we can start over. Everybody that's listening, that will be a probably two or three second pause for a 15 minute conversation of Lance taking care of the customers. And that's why we're here is to take care of the customers.

Jimmy Lea: So Lance, I appreciate you doing that, brother.

Lance Lupi: Not a problem. I appreciate you, you being patient with me, Jimmy. So, so a few weeks ago I watched a video with Cecil and Michael Smith, and that was kind of the catalyst. I started thinking about where do I want to be in a couple years, what do I wanna do?

Lance Lupi: And if I decided at some point in the future that. If I wanted to exit, what would that look like? And what, no matter what I did here, what would really be the value of the business? Would it really be that what I needed to be in order to fulfill the goals that I have for myself? And lo and behold, I guess probably because of, you know, that I got a call from someone asking me more about it.

Lance Lupi: And, we started to, I started to really engage in that conversation and I finally just said, if I don't do this now I'm either not gonna do it or I'm not gonna do it when I need to do it, so I might as well just rip the bandaid off and let's go for it.

Jimmy Lea: Oh that's awesome, man. That, yeah.

Jimmy Lea: And that conversation was with Michael Wil Trout. And Michael Wil. Trout asked you some of those hard questions like he did. What's holding you back? Yep. Me. Yeah. What's the biggest challenge? You And I'm aware of that. Yeah. Yeah. What's the biggest challenge in front of you? That you can't overcome yourself and you need a team.

Jimmy Lea: You need a coach, you need a community. Uhhuh

Lance Lupi: Yeah. Every, everything is an obstacle for me right now, because as I said before I'm wearing all the hats in this place and it's. Getting harder and harder to do it, and I'm not able to provide consistently the level of service that I want to provide.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

Lance Lupi: Not bad, but it's just not everything I want it to be, and nor is it everything that it should be.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. No, and that's good. And I think a lot of people have the wrong conception of what a coach is. Like, a lot of people say, well, I don't want to have another boss. And a coach is not your boss.

Jimmy Lea: A coach is like a caddy. A coach is there to help advise you, and guide you and steer you in the right direction and say, Hey, wait a second. I think you might be heading for a bad situation here. You might want to steer around this one. Or you have a roadblock or a mountain that you think is just insurmountable.

Jimmy Lea: You come to the coach and they've solved it for three other companies, three other businesses. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Or you're in a group environment. Yeah. Hey Lance, we've solved this five times. Here's five different solutions from five different markets and five different shop owners. Yeah. Now that mountain becomes a mole hill, you're able to step over it now.

Jimmy Lea: All right, man. Hey, let's just keep going. Yeah.

Lance Lupi: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I've kind of plateaued, right? I, you know, my, my numbers, although they have improved, they haven't improved in total revenue, but the numbers underneath those have improved.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

Lance Lupi: Because of the changes that I, the incremental changes that I have made from watching, you know.

Lance Lupi: Cecil and all the and lots of others. I mean, I can't just, you know, not the only one, but there's there, there's tons of good content out there. Yeah. And little nuggets in a lot of those podcasts that I watch or listen to where, you know, they say something and probably, maybe sometimes I think it's not even intentional.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

Lance Lupi: Especially as you get further and further into to Lucas and David's podcast, they kind of, sometimes they stray a little bit, but sometimes there's just a good nugget. I listen to the end. They always say, no one listen to the end. I listen to the end.

Jimmy Lea: Yes. I listen to the end as well when I can get on their podcast.

Jimmy Lea: I yeah I love the conversations that people have. Their

Lance Lupi: banter back and forth is, I don't know how those two met, but their banter back and forth is pretty, pretty organic and. Fun and funny sometimes

Jimmy Lea: it, it really is, it's almost a situation where Lucas likes to, to poke the bear and then the bear erupts and he just sits back and giggles and watches the fireworks.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, shoot. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's pretty funny. And there's great information out there. We, there's a lot of information and there's a lot of noise. You wanna make sure that you subscribe to someone who has been there, done that to someone who has a proven track record that you want to emulate.

Jimmy Lea: And that's important. That's very important. Yeah. Sure. That you are listening to the right people.

Lance Lupi: And I felt that, you know, not just watching him, watching you, I mean, tons of webinars and things that I've, you know, been a part of that you were on that, you know, helped me polish some skills as well.

Lance Lupi: So, you know, Michael and Cecil and you, and it just felt like it was a good place to be and that I was gonna get the most out of it.

Jimmy Lea: Dude, I love it

Lance Lupi: from the institute.

Jimmy Lea: I love it. Welcome, welcome to the Family, man. We're excited to have you here with us.

Lance Lupi: So what is, I'm excited. I'm just, I'm my biggest you know, I'm nervous that I'm gonna let someone down.

Jimmy Lea: No. The only person you'd let down would be yourself. And that's the high expectations that we have of ourself, so.

Lance Lupi: Mm-hmm. Yeah,

Jimmy Lea: we're gonna set some high bars. And at that same time as you are reaching for these high bars that you think, there's no way, there's no way I can reach it. There's no way I'm gonna hit that.

Jimmy Lea: And then one day you do, and then you grab a hold of that bar, and now you pull yourself up and even higher. Sure. And in the process of the more you jump, the more you leap. The more you stretch yourself, the more you're gonna see, oh my gosh, look how far I've come. From where I was to where I am.

Jimmy Lea: So we're shooting for the moon. We're gonna fall in the stars, but eventually we're gonna hit that moon. We're gonna be there and we're gonna be there together, and that's gonna be awesome. It's gonna be a lot of fun. I'm

Lance Lupi: looking forward to it. Yeah, I've got a lot of things I need to achieve, so I need to get there.

Jimmy Lea: Yes. Good, good. And we will get there together. So speaking of getting there, what is the next year's plan, the three year, the five year, the 10 year plan? What do you, what does that look like? Mm-hmm.

Lance Lupi: For you, brother? Well, that's a great question. I, you know, I don't know the answer to that. I mean, I'd love to grow the business, like I said as I mentioned earlier, there's, I see tremendous opportunity and growth in this space.

Lance Lupi: Whether that means growing this location where I'm at now, or moving a location or adding locations, I don't know, but I just think that with the right help, that there are no limits really.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. It's so true. But,

Lance Lupi: you know, I don't have any kind of concrete plan other than to just make sure that I achieve my goals, which is to grow the business, not have to be here as much as I can because it can run by itself.

Jimmy Lea: Love it

Lance Lupi: and, you know, be able to do some things and spend time with my family and help my daughter get through college and, you know, maybe have a place for her to land when she's done, who knows where, what that's gonna be, where she's gonna end up.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's cool. I

Lance Lupi: don't know. Yeah.

Jimmy Lea: Where's she going to college?

Lance Lupi: Just TCU. Fort Worth, Texas Christian University.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, nice. Okay. Very good. Big 12. We've got some good family down there in the automotive industry. Yeah. You know, John Firm. Buckaroo. Buckaroo, Bob. Okay. Bucking Buckaroo. Bob. That's his Facebook handle. It's John Firm, firm Automotive.

Jimmy Lea: He is 99% fleet work and 1%. Public work. Okay. Yeah. Super awesome guy. I'll have to look

Lance Lupi: him up when I'm down there.

Jimmy Lea: Do, look him up. A little bit outside of town in Allen, Texas. Is Craig Zale.

Lance Lupi: Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Lea: Craig's Car Care. Super awesome dude. Love his shop. Love him. He's doing great things.

Jimmy Lea: Finally got air conditioning for the shop and production has just shot straight through the room. Yeah, I'm especially in

Lance Lupi: Texas. Yeah, I'd love to do it here, especially Texas justify, especially in the summer, but.

Jimmy Lea: Well, it took him a few years to do it right? Because you gotta save up your money.

Jimmy Lea: You gotta save up your money. Money. Sure. There were like two or three times that he was ready to pull the trigger and waited a couple of days to do it. And you know, it's a good thing he did because some catastrophic, something happened and it just had to postpone that air conditioning for another year.

Jimmy Lea: So after you doing it a couple of years in a row, he finally has the air conditioning in. Man, I, I think the techs just absolutely love it.

Lance Lupi: Yeah. I'm giving 'em a I'm giving him an upgrade this weekend.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah. What, oh, Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving weekend. What are you doing? What's the upgrade?

Jimmy Lea: No, I mean,

Lance Lupi: I'm good. No I'm installing a work saver. This weekend I'm having on two of my garage doors, I'm gonna have, openers installed.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, dude. Yeah. Congratulations. That's awesome. Yeah. Oh yeah. They're gonna love that. That's very cool. That'll

Lance Lupi: help. I mean, it's really, so my problem is heat and I got a, you know, 20 foot ceilings in here and, you know, the opening and closing of the doors all the time is a, it's a lot of work.

Lance Lupi: 'cause like, you know, two people have to be there. We try and minimize the amount of. Escaping air.

Jimmy Lea: That's right. So,

Lance Lupi: you know, someone's opening the door, pulling the, someone's pulling the car in, someone's closing the door right behind them. So, this should, you know, minimize all those things. Right. Make it a little easier to get the doors open and close and not require two people and not require them to have to lift them up and open the doors close every night and,

Jimmy Lea: yeah.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's cool, man. That's really cool.

Lance Lupi: They don't know it yet. It's a surprise, but.

Jimmy Lea: Hey, trigger

Lance Lupi: this weekend.

Jimmy Lea: Welcome back on Monday. On Saturday, here's your garage door open. Get on Saturday

Lance Lupi: and Sunday and yep. It'll be hopefully ready on Monday.

Jimmy Lea: Dude, congrats. That's awesome, brother. That's awesome.

Jimmy Lea: Mm-hmm. That's very awesome. So, one more question here for you. Sure. What does leadership mean to you?

Lance Lupi: That's a great question. Jimmy,

Jimmy Lea: yeah. I'm putting you on. Inspire this one. No, there was no Yeah. Inspiring. Right?

Lance Lupi: You know, you're gonna have to inspire the team to want to do their job and be successful at it. Not being afraid to get in and do the work with the team. I mean, I'm out there all the time helping them mount a tire or lift something or taking a delivery or something like that and assist.

Lance Lupi: So, you know, not being afraid to do the work that you're expecting the people around you to do. Right. I mean, I can't put in a radiator or, you know, change a spark plug or whatever. But if there's any help that's needed I'm willing to roll up my sleeves. Get my hands dirty and do it.

Lance Lupi: And be willing to listen to them and their concerns and their problems, and you know, what I'm not doing, be willing to take that in and not be defensive about it. And be willing to have that conversation and negotiate ways to, to solve the problem and value the input of the team.

Lance Lupi: What they have to offer, right? Like, like I said earlier, they've got tons of years of experience. There's tons of things that I learned from them all the time and about, you know, once in a while they have a good idea of how to change the business to, to run it better, you know, as far as in the office part, you know, and then I value their opinions on the repair part.

Jimmy Lea: That's awesome. That's very cool. It is important as a leader to value your. Members to value your team to hear them. Mm-hmm. And validate their input. I love that. I love that you are leading a group of highly skilled technicians and they are specialists. That is super cool, man. Absolutely.

Jimmy Lea: Lance, absolutely.

Lance Lupi: Like I said before I'm so fortunate to have them.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. For true. This

Lance Lupi: business would, I would've not, probably would've closed up shop. A long time ago if I didn't have the group and the team that, that are here.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Team is so important. Man. It is so important. It's so valuable.

Jimmy Lea: Congrats. Congrats for having a good team there for you and with you that they work with you and man it is, it's all family. It all comes together.

Lance Lupi: Yep. We have our ups and downs just like family and. Overall it's mostly ups and you know, once in a while there's a down. Right. Just like with anything else.

Jimmy Lea: Just like with anything else. I totally agree. So, last and final question here, as we come to land this plane yeah. If you had a magic wand Yeah. And this magic wand would grant your wish, you can't wish for more wishes, what would you Oh,

Lance Lupi: I can't.

Jimmy Lea: No, you can't. What would you change in the automotive industry?

Jimmy Lea: What would you wish for?

Lance Lupi: I'd wish for all the people that don't do the right thing to leave it right. The people that give the rest of the industry a bad name.

Jimmy Lea: So it they wish to expel the riff-raff.

Lance Lupi: Yeah. Yeah. And just, you know, keep the people that are truly passionate about what they do here. Right. You know, the horror stories that I, and anyone else I'm sure hears of, you know, I took it to this place and they did these five things and that didn't fix the problem.

Lance Lupi: And I still had to pay them. And now I'm here to have you fix the problem. Right. So the person that I just helped while we were on break here. Yeah. I said that, you know, anything goes wrong. It's on me now. I told you that this was gonna fix your problem, and if it doesn't, if it costs me $5,000 to fix it, I own it.

Jimmy Lea: Wow. There's not a lot of shops out there that would say that, Lance. Well, they should. They should. And that's operating with some high level of integrity as well. Mm-hmm.

Lance Lupi: And I've done it. I've had to do it. I've, we've made mistakes. Right. It's, you know, as I tell my customers. The team I've got, and I've, as I expressed here, they're a great team.

Lance Lupi: Yep.

Lance Lupi: I'll say this. Tom Brady didn't throw a touchdown or win every game. Babe Ruth didn't hit a home run every at bat. Michael Jordan didn't score a hundred points every game. But who do you want on your bench? All those guys, if you had a baseball team, a basketball team, a football team. Who would you want?

Lance Lupi: Who are the, you know, who's your all star team that you would put on there? Yeah. And they're not gonna win every game. They're not gonna hit it out of the park every time, but they're gonna give it their all. And that's the, those are the people that you want on your team. And that's what I have here. And you know, but we're never gonna be perfect.

Jimmy Lea: Right? Right.

Lance Lupi: We're gonna make a bad call. I'm gonna get a bad part. You know, the other, another thing I say is, you know, I can barely control the four walls I've got surrounding me. I can't control the four walls of the parts store or the plant where the part was manufactured or anything like that.

Lance Lupi: You know, those things are outta my control and the things that are in my control are still barely in my control.

Jimmy Lea: Right. Oh yeah. It's true. It's true. But you're doing a great job, man. It's, I dunno about

Lance Lupi: that, Jimmy, but I'm trying.

Jimmy Lea: Well see. And that's the beauty of it. We're trying you're doing, you're not on the couch telling other people how to run the business or how to do things.

Jimmy Lea: You're in the mix of it and you're part of the solution. You're part of the the movement going forward. I wanna be, yeah. And you've got changing the industry, you've changed, we are changing the industry. How many times can we say that I think there's, they should be, have a podcast about that or something.

Jimmy Lea: They should. They should. Maybe. We talk to David and Lucas changing the industry and it's true as much as we can as an industry, lock arms together so that we're not. Leaving anybody behind because it really is a strange and weird and unique and odd and perplexing storm that we're all in.

Lance Lupi: Yeah.

Jimmy Lea: Not all ships are created equal.

Lance Lupi: No.

Jimmy Lea: Some are gonna catch, but I,

Lance Lupi: I

Jimmy Lea: some aren't gonna make Yeah.

Lance Lupi: And I try to help, you know, the shops that I am close with, and there's about six or seven of them. My area. Nice that, you know, they refer work to me, transmission work to me, and I'll refer certain types of work to them with their specialty.

Lance Lupi: And but I try to tell them the things that I've learned from the videos that I've watched, you know what I mean? And the changes that I've made and how impactful they've been to me. Try to get them to do the same thing. And those, they're all people that I respect. And, you know, I, like I said, I send customers there.

Lance Lupi: I wouldn't send my customers there if I didn't feel comfortable doing that. So I want to help them. 'cause again, I want them to be successful as well because it, there can't just be one shop. There's gotta be, you know, a bunch of shops. But they should all be great shops.

Jimmy Lea: Yep. I agree. And as you do this, as you lock arms with these other shops and those ones that operate with integrity and intention, you are gonna, and this is where you're gonna fit so well with the institute, is that we're here to build a better business.

Jimmy Lea: And by us helping you to build a better business, you're gonna build a better life. Better life for you, for your family, for your technicians, for their families. Mm-hmm. And for your clients, for your customers. For those that come and trust you, that become fiercely loyal to you, you're gonna help them have a better life as well.

Jimmy Lea: And here's where the institute comes in, that as together and as you are doing with these six other shops, we are gonna build a better industry as well.

Lance Lupi: Mm-hmm.

Jimmy Lea: So let's keep this bus moving forward and yeah, we're gonna get there and we're gonna get there together. That's gonna be awesome.

Lance Lupi: Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

Jimmy Lea: Awesome. Well, thank you, Lance, man. I really appreciate the conversation. I appreciate where, what you've done, what you're doing, and where you're gonna be going and gonna be doing as well. Mm-hmm. The future is bright. It's exciting, man. Congratulations.

Lance Lupi: Yeah, thank you Jimmy. It was a pleasure.

Jimmy Lea: Thank you brother.