A San Diego shop owner shares how he grew from technician to three-location operator. He explains why scaling requires new leadership skills, written processes, and empowered managers. The episode covers a simple referral program, the importance of knowing your numbers, and lessons from buying additional shops. It also highlights integrity driven customer service decisions that build long term trust. The conversation closes with a call for more industry collaboration and a major Boys & Girls Club fundraiser.

Host(s):

Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development

Guest(s):

John Eppstein, Owner of John's Automotive Care

Show Highlights:

[00:00:00] – A long-time shop friendship sets up a growth conversation.

[00:04:20] – Multi-shop ownership requires a completely different skill set.

[00:10:30]  – Early hands-on learning built confidence and work ethic.

[00:18:40] – Bad leadership lessons shaped a customer-first mindset.

[00:26:10] – More space forced real marketing and operational discipline.

[00:33:40] – Referral cards drive trust and repeatable customer growth.

[00:43:30] – Acquisitions revealed admin gaps and hidden costs.

[00:55:10]  – Processes must live on paper, not in memory.

[01:04:40] – Integrity decisions create lifelong customers and loyal teams.

[01:12:30] – Industry collaboration improves pricing, quality, and reputation.

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Links & Resources: 

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Episode Transcript Disclaimer

Episode Transcript:

Jimmy Lea: Hey guys. Jimmy Lee here with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence, and you are listening to the Leading Edge podcast. My guest today is John Epstein from John's Automotive Care down in San Diego, California. I have had the distinct honor and pleasure of knowing John for a very long time.

Jimmy Lea: Many moons. I've watched John grow his business over the years, which I'm very excited for us to be able to have a conversation about even had the deluxe pleasure of spending the night at his house once upon a time when a good buddy was getting married down there in San Diego. Do you remember that, John?

Jimmy Lea: Absolutely. Oh my gosh. The hotels were $600 a night and lucky for me, John did not charge me nearly that much. Right

John Eppstein: Close, but not quite close,

Jimmy Lea: but not quite. John so thank you for joining me here, this conversation for us today. Thank you. I appreciate you being here, brother.

John Eppstein: Absolutely. I always love chatting with you and if I can help the industry out I'm all for it.

Jimmy Lea: And that's what the institute's all about, is us locking arms together as an industry

Jimmy Lea: To build a better business, a better life, and a better industry. We focus on you and your business because by focusing on you and your business, it provides your business a better life and not just for you, John, for your employees.

Jimmy Lea: Absolutely. And technicians. And not just for your employees and your technicians. Yeah. Also to their families. Their families your significant others, their significant others, their children, your children. Everyone is benefiting from us having a better business and a better life. And because we've locked arms as an industry, we have a better industry as well.

Jimmy Lea: And full disclosure, John Epstein used to be with RLO BLI back in the day. Back in the day. Yep. In fact, I think that's when I first met you, John. I was with Auto Vitals way back then. Yep. And we met down in San Antonio. Yep. At the the big BLI annual meeting, I think that it was.

John Eppstein: Yep. Absolutely.

John Eppstein: Yeah. The Bottom Line Impact Group was a big part of my business for a very long time, and it brought me from the not so bright technician pretending to be a shop owner, to actually becoming a shop owner.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, it's true. You don't know what you don't know. And once you get with a coach, there's so much more.

Jimmy Lea: One, as you learn that there's so much more you don't know. Yeah, absolutely. Such a process. I love it. Yeah, I love that. We can work together on that. And full disclosure, John is not with the institute currently as a coaching and training. He was with RLO and the institute by RLO. What are you doing these days, John?

John Eppstein: We're just working on our business. I've got doing some stuff as a multi shop, we are trying to I mentioned that I was a technician and a good one, and that it wasn't a great. Shop owner. And then I turn into a pretty good shop owner, and now I got three shops and now I'm having to figure out how to become a multi shop owner, which is very different.

John Eppstein: Oh, so different.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So you, you are taking all these years of training that you have accumulated all this wealth of knowledge and information and now you're disseminating it out to all of your other shops, which is just such an awesome experience for you to be able to do that. And a multiple shop operator, this is like, Luke Underwood talks about going from a three bay shop to his now 10 bay shop, right?

Jimmy Lea: It's different business. Oh, absolutely. It's a different skillset. Yes. And for you to go from one shop to multiple shops, it's a different skillset.

John Eppstein: Yes. Yeah. Abs absolutely. And it's fixing cars is one thing. Taking care of your customers is another. It really is. And that's, there's a lot of great technicians out there that can take care of somebody's car, but they're not so good taking care of the customer.

John Eppstein: Yeah. And but

Jimmy Lea: not only are we taking care of our customers, John, we also are taking care of our people. Absolutely. Our people are our biggest asset and we definitely gotta take care of 'em. So I wanna reel this back a little bit here, John. I have the distinct pleasure of visiting your half a shop.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And we call it a half a shop. 'cause it, it is literally what, a hundred yards from your current shop that you have there in San

John Eppstein: It's one block away. Literally.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. One block away. It's a two. Is it two bays or one bay?

John Eppstein: There's really no bays 'cause everything's outside. But we have four lifts outside, 'cause in, in San Diego we have horrific weather.

John Eppstein: Currently it's December, whatever, and it's 80 degrees. So I'm not sure how we've survived this week 'cause it's so hot, but so hot.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. You fluctuate between, what, 72 and 80?

John Eppstein: Yeah. Give or take a little. We're able to work outside and, down here. The building, it's a weird setup but it worked really long.

John Eppstein: It's

Jimmy Lea: a weird setup and if anybody ever gets an opportunity, if you're in San Diego and you get the distinct pleasure of stopping by John's shop, ask him to point and just walk down there to look at the old shop the way where it is down there. How did you find it? How did you get started Here you are a technician.

Jimmy Lea: What's that story look like for you getting started, John?

John Eppstein: Let's see, when I was born, all right, I won't go with that. I won't go with that version.

Jimmy Lea: You were born with a wrench in your hand. Is that where you're

John Eppstein: going? It's funny that you ask so my dad was a professional engineer that worked for General Dynamics and his job, he was a rocket scientist, and I can say that it's just, it is what it is.

John Eppstein: One of, one of the things he worked on was the first man spaceship that went to the moon. He worked on F 14 fighters and cool stuff like that, but he was very mechanical minded and so I naturally became, I was just, I was born with the mechanical sense in me and it interested me. I would help 'em fix cars.

John Eppstein: When I said I'd help 'em fix cars, I would hold the flashlight and we would always get in the argument over. I can't see. I would respond with I can, and of course he was the one working on the car, so it was probably more important that he could see. But so that's how I got started. And I bought a car that was a piece of junk 69 Cougar 3 51 Cleveland.

John Eppstein: It went really fast until it blew up. And my dad had a friend that worked at a gas station and he called up Roy. He said, Hey Roy, can you help John put an engine in his car? So we towed it up it's outside of San Diego, up in the mountains. So we towed it up there and Roy walks me over to his little toolbox and he says, have at it.

John Eppstein: Let me know what you need. I'm like, cool, so I went out and I ripped the engine out and every once in a while I'd have a question and I'd be like, Hey, what I do here? And he'd tell me. And so off I went. And three days later, the new engine's in, it's running. I drive off down the road. Two days later, the owner of the gas station calls and says, Hey, you want a job pump and gas?

John Eppstein: And I'm like. Right on. Sure. But I didn't have a job at the time, so I showed up on the first day and I'm like, all right, what do you want me to do? He says, go put belts on that car over there. He had been watching me work and for the green guy that I was, he was very happy with how he did it. So I managed his gas station and fixed cars for a long time and he was an ama amazing guy.

Jimmy Lea: This is hilarious. This is pre-internet. This is pre YouTube. This is, yes. Take it apart and figure it out. Absolutely. And you did this on a cougar?

John Eppstein: Yeah. 69 Cougar. It was 30, 37 different shades of primer gray.

Jimmy Lea: Beautiful

John Eppstein: People would look at it and laugh and then we'd race and they'd cry at the end because I was always way out in front of them.

John Eppstein: Yeah, I only race it once or twice and we'll just, we'll stick with that story there. The story.

Jimmy Lea: We're sticking with it. Yeah. The only once or twice that can be proven and yes. Everything else is, we just don't talk about fight club. Yes, exactly. That's amazing. And so he offered you, what are you, 15, 16, 17 and I was,

John Eppstein: I was 16 at the time.

John Eppstein: Yeah. I've been full-time in this, in industry since I was 16 actually I take that back. I think I was seven, I think I was 17 at the time.

Jimmy Lea: Probably your senior year. 17, 18, somewhere around there. And you were probably getting half day release time to go down to the shop and work. Are you doing that or is that not a program at your school?

John Eppstein: It was not a program. I actually, I broke my leg when I was 16 and I was out of I missed the first three the last three months of the first semester. Second three months of the second semester. 'cause I broke I was playing soccer and I had a pin and a plate put in. And then they put me on Vicodin, which I had no clue what Vicodin was.

John Eppstein: But turns out it made me really stupid. I couldn't concentrate, I couldn't think. And so I missed six months of school. Because when I went, I still didn't, I was on the Vicodin. I didn't comprehend.

Jimmy Lea: No,

John Eppstein: that I wasn't processing until I stopped taking it one day or I stopped taking it. And then one day I took one and it was like, whoa, I don't understand the book.

John Eppstein: I just read. And so I fell behind and so I started working full-time and going to school, in the evenings after that. Oh, got it. It was it was good. It worked out well for me. Like I said, the guy was a great, he was a great great mentor for me. He, we did things right.

John Eppstein: I learned, I knew the right things to do with people, he instilled, you do the work right and you take care of your customers. And so he ended up got, he got sick. The doctor said, okay, you're gonna have a heart attack if you don't sell. He sold the guy that owned it or that bought it was not a honest man, and I worked for him for one month before I figured that out and moved on.

John Eppstein: Went to work across, literally across the street at a gas station across the street. 'cause the guy knew me. And I would probably still be with him today. I couldn't actually 'cause he's passed on, but if he would've been nice to me, I probably never would've left working there. But it was always a battle with him.

John Eppstein: I, I took ownership of the customers. These are, one of my customers called and he would argue with me. They're not your fucking customers. Oh, I shouldn't have said that, but that's what he would say. They're not your customers. They're mine. Okay. Whatever you say, Don.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. They come

John Eppstein: in and they ask for me because I'm the one that's here and I'm the one that takes care of 'em.

John Eppstein: And it wasn't like I was trained to steal his customers. I just. It's what you, it's what you want your people to do. You want 'em to take ownership of their job and their customers, and he didn't understand that part. So

Jimmy Lea: I love that. And for historical accuracy. John, we'll let you say that's, thank you.

Jimmy Lea: You were quoting that was a quote,

John Eppstein: quote, a hundred percent.

Jimmy Lea: So Don Don had the shop across the street. You probably took a lot of your customers with you because they saw that, oh, hey, wait, John's here across the street and he's not over here anymore. He is over there.

John Eppstein: Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people followed and then like, when I worked for Don and I eventually moved on.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So what does that look like? Are you like, dude, I am done with you. Peace. I'm out, and now you're looking for a shop, or, I'm smarter than that.

John Eppstein: I may not look smarter than that, but I am smarter than that. You were off the Odin? Yes, I was off of Vicodin by then. I always and once I figured out what it did to me, I never, I've never touched, I never touched it again.

John Eppstein: I wanted no part good for you not being able to process things. But good for

Jimmy Lea: you.

John Eppstein: I started looking for a shop and I actually looked for five years for a shop to move into because I wanted to stay in my, in the area that I had al that I was already in. And I looked, my tool guy said, Hey, this guy's got this shop down the road and he wants to retire.

John Eppstein: You should go talk to him. I'm like, all right, cool. So I went down and we had a great conversation. He says, all right, I'm not ready to retire, but I'll rent you half of my shop. And I'm like, awesome. This is a match made in heaven. And then I moved in and a week later I realized he was a. Pc not a nice guy.

John Eppstein: Got it.

Jimmy Lea: Yes. He was a part of the Don family, is that what you're saying?

John Eppstein: No. Yes. In a roundabout way. Although he was actually worse than Don. 'cause

Jimmy Lea: oh

Jimmy Lea: gosh.

John Eppstein: He was a retired military guy. He was a gunner's mate.

John Eppstein: He only did engines. He put engines and things. And I remember standing, him walking out to meet one of his little lady customers in the middle of the parking lot, talking to her for about 30 seconds and then yelling at her.

John Eppstein: What the f are you thinking?

Jimmy Lea: Oh, no.

John Eppstein: Yes. So that's the type of person. Yeah he he's thinking he's still in the military, is how I

Jimmy Lea: Oh, and he thought everybody else was in the military too. Yes. Wait, so I'm not adding up this timeline here. You were 17 at the one gas station. Okay.

Jimmy Lea: Alright. And then

John Eppstein: 17 working for Gary. I worked for Gary for three years. Oh wow. Went across the street to work for Don. I worked for him for almost 10 years,

Jimmy Lea: dude. Oh my gosh. I thought it was one month. Yeah.

John Eppstein: No. The guy I worked for one month was, it was the first place and I just stayed there, figured out he was not a good person.

John Eppstein: And I moved on. So moved across the street 10 years. We actually moved from the town we were in to, from Alpine down to San Diego. And it's in the neighborhood where I'm at now. Okay. And so yes, I worked for him for about 10 years. And then come 1998 is when I opened my shop.

John Eppstein: And it's ironic, it took me about 10 years to figure out that I actually started my business on April Fool's Day. I haven't quite decided who the joke was on, was it on me or was it on somebody else, but

Jimmy Lea: Oh my gosh.

John Eppstein: Yeah. So I went into his place and the sad part is he was really a nice guy.

John Eppstein: He had a good heart.

Jimmy Lea: The gunner?

John Eppstein: Yes. Okay. Until he was fre mad, frustrated, upset. And then he just, he just I, I saw him give the shirt off his back to some people and then, people that he knew, he tended to be a little bit harder on. And so I literally. After two years, I talked to the landlord of the place where I was at, and he owned the property next door, literally next door.

John Eppstein: And I asked him, I said, can I move in? And he says, that would be awesome. So I told Bill and he said a lot of words, I can't repeat, you're ugly. I never wanna see you again. And so he put up a barrier across the fence so he wouldn't have to see me ever again.

Jimmy Lea: No, you were dead to him. Yes.

John Eppstein: I was dead to him.

John Eppstein: So I was there for two years and it was a very long two years by the way. And so then I moved literally next door. And it was not. And that's my half shop now. Ironically enough,

Jimmy Lea: you still have it,

John Eppstein: No, I'll finish the story. Oh, of course. You'll, it'll, you'll crack up about it.

John Eppstein: So I moved next door and it wasn't set up for automotive. I had to tear out concrete, pour new concrete. I built some a covering put racks in and all of that. And it was a weird setup. And so that was, I finally hired, hired some people. I had a technician and a helper. One of the guys that still works for me today came to work for me.

John Eppstein: There. Whoa. 20, 25 years later, he is still working for me. So we had an office space. We had the service advisor area. I wrote service during the day. I would fix cars at night. My guys would fix cars during the day. So I remember we had a zuzu trooper that needed an engine, and the guy wanted to do the engine and the transmission.

John Eppstein: And so everybody went home at the end of the day. And I went out and I pulled the engine out. And they come in the next day and they're like, what happened here?

Jimmy Lea: I'm like,

John Eppstein: oh, I don't know. I didn't see a thing, and so then that night everybody goes home, I pull the tranny out, I, I take the engine apart, and they come back the next day and they're like, it wasn't going on.

John Eppstein: And of course they really knew what was going on. But, so I did this whole job. Nobody ever saw me work on it. It just it, that's how, where I worked 16, 18 hours a day and, it was cool. My, my guys would struggle with something, a car sometimes, and they would go home.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And

John Eppstein: the next day they'd come in and it would be done either done or at least past the part that they couldn't figure out,

Jimmy Lea: oh wow. They'd

John Eppstein: have a broken bolt or they got something they couldn't, they couldn't do this or couldn't do that. And so I would get in and just give 'em that little push.

John Eppstein: And they'd come in, the first time it happened, they were like, almost crying. They were so excited, they're like, oh, I didn't wanna come to work today 'cause of this. And it's done.

Jimmy Lea: Oh my gosh. So you must have got really good at tapping bolts, huh?

John Eppstein: Oh, yeah. Yeah. All that weird stuff.

John Eppstein: I I took care of pretty well, so yes, I was at one point I had 23 ASC certifications my, my knowledge of repairs, that was very high. Like I mentioned, I was a good technician

Jimmy Lea: that's awesome.

John Eppstein: And so when I was at the first place. People just came to me. I remember one of my, one of the guys from the, that used to come to me at the gas station came in and he said, he called me, he says, dude, I need you to look at my vehicle.

John Eppstein: I took it into the old shop and they did brakes. And I got it back and the pedal was gonna the floor. So I called him up, I said, Hey, my pedal's going to the floor. And the guy went off on me, how dare you, my work, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, that's, that's okay. You can bring it here. And he brought it down.

John Eppstein: I looked at it and I don't remember what it was. It's something simple. I fixed it. And, he was a great customer for the next 20 plus years till he retired. But it, it's it's interesting how that piece where you take care of people, whether it's your employees or your customers, is super important.

John Eppstein: 'cause a broken car,

Jimmy Lea: yes,

John Eppstein: it's a problem, but there's all often other problems that are associated with that car being broken. It's, they're not so much mad that. Car's broke down. It's the car's broke down. Now I can't pick up my kids. The car's broke down. I can't take grandma to her doctor's appointment.

John Eppstein: You know what whatever it is. And yeah,

Jimmy Lea: We're in a relationship business, John. We just happen to work on cars.

John Eppstein: Yes, absolutely. And we gotta remember that we have lots of customers. We have the customers who bring the cars in, and then we have the customers who are working back and fix the cars,

Jimmy Lea: Uhhuh, because they're

John Eppstein: technically customers as well.

John Eppstein: Uhhuh and the service advisors has to marry those two together without actually getting them together.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

John Eppstein: And that's such a. A key piece to it in a lot of places, I mentioned Don, that wasn't nice to me. If he would've pieced that together, that Oh, I should probably take care of John because not only does he fix cars, but when I'm not here, he runs the gas station.

John Eppstein: He runs, yeah, he runs the business. Come on, there's a problem. There's a problem out front. He goes and takes care of it. There's too many customers for the one night guy that moves super slow, he goes out and takes care of it.

Jimmy Lea: Yep.

John Eppstein: So those are things, and he didn't even have to say thank you all the time.

John Eppstein: He just needed to not be a dick all the time. And I would've been happy.

Jimmy Lea: So true. So you're in this half location next door to the gunny. Yeah. And how did you find John's Auto Care where you are now? Which I've been in, and it looks like you added on and added on to that location as well.

John Eppstein: That is a great, that is also a great story. So down the alley, we've already established that it's one block away, right? Yeah. Was scenes automotive and it had been there for many years. And in fact the owner of Scenes Automotive was at one time the state president for A-S-C-C-A. Got a good little tie in there.

John Eppstein: So he one day comes walking down and he says, John, I'm ready to retire. I'm moving to North Carolina. I'm, I need to slow down and I'm gonna become a teacher at UTI Tech, which is a NASCAR school.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, nice.

John Eppstein: I'm like, cool, because I'm gonna sell my business to one of two people and you're one of them.

John Eppstein: And I said, don't look any further. I need the space. I will take it. Oh yeah. By the way, how much do you want for it? Okay. Yeah, no problem. No problem. I'll take it. Okay. And I paid them way more than the VA than the business was worth because they had a race car here. It's a big shop. And so the bigger half of the shop was dedicated to the race car.

John Eppstein: Okay. And the other smaller part, they still took care of customers. So at one point they did a fairly decent amount of business, but they lost interest and it petered out. But for me it was worth the money. Okay.

Jimmy Lea: So

John Eppstein: I moved up to the new shop 2003. I had a friend that owned a shop in a little strip mall way in the back, no parking.

John Eppstein: He did foreign cars and weird stuff. And I'm like, hey Charlie, I'm moving. Would you like to move into my facility? He's yes. So he moved in. I moved over. By the way, Napa. Came down on a Saturday, they brought their trucks and their lifts and all that. And we literally moved the entire shop in four hours.

Jimmy Lea: We had

John Eppstein: my people, me, the Napa guys, the Napa trucks, the last thing we moved was my toolbox, and we pushed it down the alley, one block over to the new shop. That was like the last thing that, that, that went over. But it's part of that whole collaboration of, the Napa guys were like,

John Eppstein: And at that point I wasn't a huge customer.

John Eppstein: I was a little guy.

Jimmy Lea: Yep.

Jimmy Lea: You were a little guy down the alley even. And I know that run from your old half shop to the new shop is a slight incline. So pushing that toolbox was quite the feet.

Jimmy Lea: And I know that your driveway in. Yes. We

John Eppstein: had to get a good run on that. See, the good news is I used to play soccer, so I got good leg, I got good leg muscles, and we,

Jimmy Lea: oh, there you go.

Jimmy Lea: I

John Eppstein: think I did, I think there was like five of us that pushed it. It was, if you were like, on the outside looking in, you're probably laughing going, what are these fools doing? Oh,

Jimmy Lea: a hundred percent. You know that somebody has a video somewhere of you. Yes. Foolish man. Pushing. Yeah. Okay. So you're in the new location now, and you've got Charlie there.

Jimmy Lea: What happened to the landlord in the old location?

John Eppstein: The gunny guy or the no, gunnys next door. He put up a fence.

Jimmy Lea: You're dead to him. Yeah,

John Eppstein: It's funny because the landlord earned, owned both of those pieces of property. So he's he owned the first one that I was in. He owned the second one that I was in.

John Eppstein: So Charlie moved in behind me. He was happy as could be. He did it, people came there looking for me. He'd sent 'em right up the alley to me, which I knew he would do. He's, he had his clients. He was an air cooled Volkswagen guy. Oh, nice. And then he did a lot of weird older stuff. So it was a good, it was a good partnership.

John Eppstein: We moved in the first week I realized, holy crud, I do not know how to market and advertise 'cause I've never had to, we can now do twice as much in half the time because we have space. We don't have to move 17 cars to get the one in and work on it. And so that's when I joined the bottom Line Impact Group and figured out just how stupid I was.

John Eppstein: I remember I had, I did a little advertisement in a local newspaper and I brought the advertisement in and I showed it to, to John Effler, my faci, my facilitator. And he looked at it for about 10 seconds and he crumpled it up. He threw it in the middle of the room and went over and jumped on it. And this is the worst piece of marketing I have ever seen.

Jimmy Lea: Oh wow. There's a wake up call

John Eppstein: and I'm like, tell us how you really feel, John. And actually, I didn't know him that well yet, but it was pretty bad. It, it for what I was trying to get customers and it was more of a, a top of mind marketing and advertising. So as we, as as I know now, there's different kinds of marketing for different things you're trying to to do.

John Eppstein: So true. So it was pretty funny. And so then I had to learn how to market and advertise. And, I figured out that, oh, a referral program, that's a pretty great piece of marketing. Everybody that comes in already trusts you because somebody sent them to you. And it's one of the biggest things that a lot of shops miss out on that piece.

John Eppstein: 'cause when I first started it, and I would ask customers for their referral, I got two common answers. You always look so busy. I didn't think you needed more work. And number two, I was my favorite. So if I refer my friends and family, are you still gonna have time to work on my car? Those were the two common responses that I got when I started asking people to send referrals over.

John Eppstein: Oh my gosh. That's a riot. Yeah. But those are things that people, a lot of people don't even have a program and others have 'em, but it's not a formal one. They don't ask. They just, if somebody sends a referral, they'll send 'em a thank you or whatever, you gotta ask your customers. But,

Jimmy Lea: so what are

John Eppstein: you doing today?

John Eppstein: What's your referral program today? What do you do? It's very much it was a long time ago. Yeah. Originally I had little certificates that. We printed, I printed as I needed. Now it's on the back of our business card. And it's, it's just a real simple, we ask people, Hey, you have any friends, family or coworkers you think could benefit from our services?

John Eppstein: If so, please give them one of our referral cards. Just make sure we can read your name on it, and when they come in, they're gonna get $40 off and we're gonna send you a thank you letter and you're gonna get a free service the next time you come in. And we've had people that haven't paid for oil changes in years because they send us so many people and we're good with that.

John Eppstein: It's a just a no brainer,

Jimmy Lea: that's beautiful. John. I love that program. I love your referral program. And I'm also guessing that you did some pretty good analysis here of the program to work the cost of it in, because if any Joe Public were to take your idea right now and say, oh, I'm gonna do that, I'm gonna implement it.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah, it could put them outta business. Potentially. Yeah, potentially. Yeah. They need to analyze their numbers to know, can I sustain this type of a referral program? Yeah. Whatever your program is you've got to know your numbers. How important is it to know your numbers for you, John? Yeah. Oh, it's super important.

John Eppstein: You gotta know your, your KPIs for the business. You gotta know, bookkeeping is important, yeah. And and that's something a lot of people struggle with. I struggle with it. I'm, I, by no means am I an expert on the ba, the backend, but I know enough to, you pay attention to your expenses and there, there's a lot, the only way to improve your outcome is to charge more or pay out less.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

John Eppstein: Pretty straightforward. But you gotta know your

Jimmy Lea: expenses.

John Eppstein: Yeah. Yeah. But you gotta know your numbers. If you don't know your numbers you can't do, you can't do any of that

Jimmy Lea: oh, yeah. Good for you. Congratulations. That's awesome. So I also know that you have purchased a couple of other businesses as well.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. No. Back to your shop that you're at now. It does look like it's been added and added, but that must be the race car side and the maintenance side.

John Eppstein: So the business Okay. Where you walk in the front door to the office, that building has been here for 75 years, I'm guessing.

Jimmy Lea: Whoa.

John Eppstein: It's a metal building, very old. So there's two pieces of property. They're put together as one somewhere before I got it somewhere, be back, probably back when scenes was here.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. They

John Eppstein: decided to add a building to next to the building and so they got some plans and they. Built the second half, so to speak, made outta brick.

John Eppstein: It was supposed to be level ground. It's not exactly. It's, there's like a three foot ramp in the center of the shop that you have to go up. And if you look at the roof on the new side, it doesn't start higher in the middle and then go down, out outside. It's just the opposite. So somebody did something wrong with the plans again, long before I came along.

John Eppstein: So I just was a recipient of, and we make it work. It's not the worst thing, but it would've been nice had they got it right. We'll just say, we'll just say that

Jimmy Lea: oh, clearly. Yeah, for sure. That's hilarious.

John Eppstein: And then we've added lifts outside again, sunny San Diego. We can do that. It. Taking up concrete, pouring concrete, getting it level.

John Eppstein: We added three lifts outside. We have a big four poster that for big trucks, and we have a couple of two posters outside. So we technically have 14 bays at the main chop and the four at the half shop. So we technically have 18, I guess 18 bays. So

Jimmy Lea: yeah, you're in the garage, Mahal arena of shops. You've got a lot of bays, brother.

John Eppstein: We, we do. It's older building, the con, it's not the prettiest, but we keep it clean. People come in and they're like, where's all the dirt?

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

John Eppstein: We try to keep it clean.

Jimmy Lea: Where's the dirt? Where's the dust? Where's the oil? Yeah. It doesn't even smell like a, an automotive repair shop, right?

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. You do a very good job at keeping it pristine and clean, so thank you. Compliments to you.

Jimmy Lea: Yep.

Jimmy Lea: That's cool. Yeah. Okay yeah the, somebody built your building backwards.

John Eppstein: Yes. Yeah.

Jimmy Lea: And you're the recipient of it. You weren't the implementer of it.

John Eppstein: No.

Jimmy Lea: Oh,

John Eppstein: man. And remember where I came from, it was even worse off, it, it was not set up for automotive at all.

John Eppstein: No. I just made it work. And you just, you make, you just make do with what you got. Not everybody can have that perfectly laid out shop. That runs as efficiently as possible.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

Jimmy Lea: You do what you can with what you got, and then it sounds like you've done a phenomenal job.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So when you added La Mesa. It was La Mesa first.

John Eppstein: Yep. La Mesa first. So for 20 years I swore I would never have more than one chop.

Jimmy Lea: You. You know what happens when you swear, don't you?

John Eppstein: Yes, absolutely. I get, gets me in trouble. I swore not gonna do it. Never gonna happen. Not even possible. Don't wanna go down that road.

John Eppstein: And then one day I think I tripped when I got out of bed and I hit my head. Oh. And like the next month I owned a set, I owned my second shop

Jimmy Lea: and somebody slipped you a Vicodin. That's something. I

John Eppstein: think so. You're right. Absolutely. And it was it was a guy that I knew he taught. At Qui Macka College, which by the way, I am on the foundation board for Qui Macka Grossmont College.

John Eppstein: Another one of the fun things that I get to do my other jobs. And they've got an amazing automotive program there. And so the guy that owned the shop taught there, and he just wanted to teach. And the, his shop was going down down. He used to sell parts, which they'd gotten out of. They still had a big inventory.

John Eppstein: Yeah. And he's he, it is May 1st he says, I want to be outta here by the end of the month. And I hadn't even thought about owning a second shop before that. So there was no plan in place. There was nothing. It was just if I'm ever gonna do it, it was the right price. And so we struck a deal and I that was when I started learning how to be a multi shop owner.

John Eppstein: We stuck with the same name. The John's automotive care name. His old, his building was nasty. It was just, it

Jimmy Lea: needed a very good pressure washer.

John Eppstein: If you went to his website, he had pictures of mgs on it. We'll just go with that. Okay. Oh, so they were a very they were in an, a weird import specialty Yeah.

Jimmy Lea: British import.

John Eppstein: Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, so we quickly turned that off, got our, got a web, got our website going, painted it, our colors, brightened it up, livened it up, and good. It, that's been a lot of fun. And that was 2018 and then 2022 fellow shop owner, fellow, A SCC, a shop member.

John Eppstein: Yeah, it's time we had issues with his broker that he literally, I call, I'd been talking to him on and off for a couple years, hey, when are you gonna sell? Are you really wanna say? Yeah, someday. And then I randomly call him in 2020. Was it 2022? I think it's 2022. I'm like, Hey, you ready to sell?

John Eppstein: And he is quiet. Oh yeah. I signed with a broker today. Yeah. Literally today. No. And I'm like, you did, dude, why didn't you call me? No kidding. And we had never really had a serious I didn't offer him anything. It was just No, because it wasn't a

Jimmy Lea: serious conversation. Yeah.

John Eppstein: It wasn't a serious conversation.

John Eppstein: And the broker screwed us. He he tried to screw us. He sent over a document for me to sign a seven page document. Very first paragraph. I was supposed to sign that the broker introduced me. To the shop.

Jimmy Lea: Yes.

John Eppstein: Which

Jimmy Lea: no you didn't.

John Eppstein: No you didn't. And then there was six pages explaining why it's okay for the broker to represent both the seller and the buyer and all the things that the seller needed to do for the broker.

Jimmy Lea: Seller needed to do For the broker.

John Eppstein: Yeah. The requirements that they had to do. And you had to do this, and if you do this, you owe me that and you owe do this, you owe me that. Okay. That's, that leaves one page. So maybe on the last page it would have what the broker needs to do for the seller. Not a chance.

John Eppstein: There was nothing in there about that

Jimmy Lea: For the buyer. You, 'cause you're the buyer

John Eppstein: or No, for the guy. For Steve. The guy selling

Jimmy Lea: the shop. Oh. So was there also a clause in there? 'cause I've seen this every once in a while that says, I represent you for the rest of life

John Eppstein: Close. It was only a period of time, however.

John Eppstein: Anybody that had come to the table during the time that they were, partnered together, if it ever sold to any of those people, they got their payment.

Jimmy Lea: Oh they get another Benny.

John Eppstein: And they claimed me and he ended up having to pay them at the end of the day. He probably could have fought it and won, but he didn't.

John Eppstein: He was tired of the whole process and so he paid them. Oh, sure. Their whatever, 25, $30,000, whatever it was. Oh,

John Eppstein: it was pretty sad. It was it really sucked because they didn't bring 'em a single client in the six months in, in their No. In their contract. But yeah, that was that was very interesting.

John Eppstein: It's yeah. So

Jimmy Lea: Now you're a multiple shop operator. You've got you, you started at two and 18, and now in 22 you've got three. Yep. So you're at the end of COVID. Yep. That you're buying this third shop what have, what did, what have you had to develop as a new skillset to run multiple shops?

John Eppstein: Whew. A lot. There's you need to be a good leader with one shop, and you need to be an amazing leader with multiple shops. Because the farther away that I get from the end results, which is the consumer coming in and checking out, the harder it is to share my message and to share my beliefs and, and that sort of thing.

John Eppstein: Yeah.

Jimmy Lea: So how often are you sharing your vision with your internal employees?

John Eppstein: We do it as often as we can. I have a general manager that, that spends more time going around to the shops. I come to the main shop majority of the time. I've always been good with my people. I get here, I walk through the shop and I say, Hey, how's it going?

John Eppstein: What's going on? Everything good? How's your weekend? And so when I go to the other shops and I spend a little more time, it's Hey, how's it going? Need anything is anything, what's going on in your life? And it it helps instill that, there's a person.

John Eppstein: There's a person that's, yeah, he's your boss, but he he cares somewhat. Unlike my old boss Don, that, wanted to argue with me about, the good things that I was doing. But yeah, you've gotta learn, you lead a very different way, you need to have processes in place and they can't just be here, you can't be in your brain.

John Eppstein: It's okay to start there, but you gotta put 'em on paper 'cause you gotta share it with people. Yeah. You can't just ex, you can't fire somebody. How did you not know that was what you're supposed to do? 'Cause you never told me. At the end of the day.

John Eppstein: So you gotta have those processes in place and for me it's my job is to enable and inspire my people. That's what a good owner does, is he en enables to. It enables your employees to do their job. You inspire them to do it well. You give 'em the tools to do it right. And at the end of the day, if you can do that, there's a good chance for success.

John Eppstein: And it's not a guarantee you're gonna have success, but it's a way better chance if you do that, when you start micromanaging people you know that it takes its toll on the person doing the micromanaging plus the people that are doing it. And I'm not saying you just let people run amuck. 'Cause we've had that where some of our admin ran amuck for a while and we had to, this ain't working.

John Eppstein: Again, that learning curve of what you need to do and what you not need to do. So it's okay to make mistakes. You learn from 'em, you grow and. Making sure that your people have the tools is super important. And I'm not talking the wrenches and the screwdrivers. It's the service advisors need the tools to be able to take care of the customer.

John Eppstein: If your desire is customer service at the at its finest, your service advisors need to make the call. Hey, we're not gonna charge you today because whatever, we're gonna put you in a rental car and we're not gonna charge you. They gotta be able to make that call, if they have to stop and come and ask every time, it just it doesn't make for success.

Jimmy Lea: No, it sucks the life outta your day too. Yes. I love that you are en enabling and equipping your inspire. And enable. Inspire. Yeah. And then you're giving them space to let them perform that this is why you hired them. You didn't hire them to micromanage them. You hired them. For them to make decisions.

Jimmy Lea: They're intelligent humans, they're intelligent people, and they know what is best for the customer and the client. Yeah. They also have to are looking out for John's auto automotive care. 'cause they've gotta protect the business as well.

John Eppstein: Yeah.

Jimmy Lea: So that we have a job to come to tomorrow.

John Eppstein: Yep. Absolutely. And that's what I always, that's what I always tell my people.

John Eppstein: It's, if we're gonna take care of our customer, which is job one, what is the first thing that we have to do? We have to be here tomorrow. Yeah. If we're not here tomorrow, we can't take care of our customers. Yeah. And of course, tomorrow isn't just tomorrow, it's next week, next month, next year.

John Eppstein: 10 years down the road. That's right. I, I. I had a friend that got an engine somewhere and 'cause it was half the price of what mine was. And I was honest with him. I'm like, you're probably gonna regret this. And he says, yeah, I know I probably am. And sure enough, he, it was a little Toyota truck and motor, it started leaking.

John Eppstein: He went back and they did something. And then that was at month three. At month nine, Val head gasket went bad. Goes down there, doors are closed, they're out of business. No one Oh no, no warranty. No. And that's a huge, that's a huge part of it, sure. He got it cheaper and he knew that was gonna happen, and he's a real, he is a real good friend of mine.

John Eppstein: I worked with him actually at the gas station years ago.

John Eppstein: He's my handyman. And he is I knew I shouldn't do that. And I'm like, I should too, but I couldn't make you not do it, and so then you had to, then you had to put another motor in it at that point. So

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. That, so he paid for a motor and a half Uhhuh.

Jimmy Lea: Yes, he did. Shoot, that's too bad. That's hilarious. Yep. Yeah. Speaking of being here tomorrow, and, I if the shop he would've gone to originally, if it was a Napa Auto Care Center, there may have been something you could have done to try and help him, but chances are that's not stuff that would've qualified as a Napa Auto.

John Eppstein: Exactly. Yeah. The, the Napa Auto Care shops are. They're good shops.

Jimmy Lea: You, they are good shops and I do appreciate the Napa warranty, the guarantee. The nationwide guarantee. Nationwide. Nationwide. That's where I take all my trucks, all my cars, they're always going to a Napa auto Care center because of that nationwide warranty guarantee.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. I'm up and down I 15 all the time, and I just, I need to know that I'm taken care of, no matter where I am, where I'm going. I've got that reassuring. Yeah. Looking down the road, you were talking about being around for tomorrow and next week and next month and next year. Speaking of the future, what is the future for John's Automotive Care?

John Eppstein: That's a great question. You never know what tomorrow will bring. Our hope is that we'll be around for a while. Maybe add another shop or two. Again, you never know. The the last acquisition went a little rougher than I had hoped, and you end up costing a lot more money in the long run.

John Eppstein: Just so you know, if you go to get an SBA loan and they think you have too much money, they will not loan you any money, just so you know. Okay. Don't ask me how, don't ask me how I know, but I know. Oh, we know how, I know. Needless to say, I had planned on getting a loan for that acquisition and when it was unable to, and so I ended up having to write a check and of course I was.

John Eppstein: I had brought people in, manager, service advisor to train beforehand in the process instead of taking one month, took six months. So I had, three extra people on payroll for six months, which was a very large piece, investment. So things don't always go as, as you plan and, sometimes, it might have been smarter to walk away from, walk away from it instead of, doing the way I did.

John Eppstein: But I've always been one to, it's good opportunity. I'll make it work, I'll make it happen. It'll be a little struggle here and there for a while. And then, when we added the third shop the burden on the admin side became. Bigger. And that's when we really realized that our admin wasn't set up really well for where we were headed.

John Eppstein: So we're working, we're in the middle of revamping that right now, and once we get that all figured out and running smooth, then we can start looking at, do we add number four, number five, four and a half, five and a half, whatever.

Jimmy Lea: So what does the next acquisition look like? What are you what are what?

Jimmy Lea: Your radars are up, your sensors are out. You got spidey sensors going on. Yes. What does that next location have as the bare bones that you would consider?

John Eppstein: For me, the, my main shop is very large. My other two shops are smaller. They're seven eight bays. We have two service advisors, three technicians, one helper.

John Eppstein: That's a good. A good size shop they can run, it takes a little less to run that, obviously my main shop takes a lot of resources. So anything from that size to bigger, I don't think I'm gonna go for another 1820 bay shop, but you never know. I never say never.

John Eppstein: If something presents itself I've had a lot of opportunities to buy big shops and little shops. Some of 'em are just too little. You, so I have, so what's

Jimmy Lea: too little for you, John?

John Eppstein: Anything less, since six bays is probably 'cause you really, you've gotta have a manager, in place, especially

Jimmy Lea: for you as a multiple shop operator you need to have that autonomy and that structure.

Jimmy Lea: Yes. That allows for a bit bigger business. 'cause there's a lot of shops out there. Today that would love to have six bays, but they're not a six bay shop.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. They would love

Jimmy Lea: to have eight bays, but they're not an eight bay shop.

Jimmy Lea: No.

Jimmy Lea: Those eight bay shops are a little bit fewer and farther between.

John Eppstein: Yeah.

Jimmy Lea: When you draw that line that says, okay, seven or eight bays minimum. Yeah. That's what you gotta look at.

John Eppstein: Yeah. You gotta have a, you, it's good to have a plan in place. Yeah. Okay. I've already told you how the, shop number two, there was zero planning. Yeah. And it's almost eight years later, we're still going.

John Eppstein: We're profitable.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, good.

John Eppstein: It's it, you can make it happen, but as you, the larger you grow, you have to do less of that and more planning and putting things in place to to be successful. 'cause at the end of the day, you get too big and you just start, you start losing, you lose focus on the first shop.

John Eppstein: And it becomes unprofitable. 'cause you're paying attention to two and three and then, now four and five are suffering and, but oh, now I gotta go fix one. So you try to start fixing one and then four, five and six start going the wrong way. And it just, so people. You gotta have good people, it's so true. You can't pull something like this off by yourself.

Jimmy Lea: No, you can't. You've gotta have good managers in place. And these managers have to have bought into the vision.

Jimmy Lea: Yep.

Jimmy Lea: And they have to be able to have the capacity and the ability to disseminate that down the road, to the service advisors, to the technicians.

Jimmy Lea: That this is a daily grind. This is a daily incentive that we're working today so that we can come back tomorrow and our customers need to know that we're gonna be here. For the long haul.

John Eppstein: Yeah. And take care of them when something happens that

John Eppstein: And we're, we have stepped up in taking care of customer's cars that were outta warranty because we put an alternator on.

John Eppstein: We, we have a three or 36,000 mile warranty we put an alternator on. They go 14,000 miles. It's four years. Y fails. It's not supposed to fail in 14,000 miles. It's outta warranty. We don't have to fix it, but we will still step in, in cases like that. We'll, yeah. We'll take care of it. We, one of the first thing, first warranty jobs I ever did.

John Eppstein: I just moved in here. I had a customer from a long time. He brought me his Ford motor home and his radi, it sits most of the time and the radiator rotted out of course. So we put a radiator in it. My technician drives it, comes back, parks it, we call him. He comes and picks it up. He's driving it home.

John Eppstein: He gets just about home and the transmission goes out.

Jimmy Lea: No.

John Eppstein: So he tows it back and we're like, he's yeah, it just sits, it must've gone out. Okay. So we quote him a price on a Ford rebuilt transmission, 4,000, $5,000, whatever it is. So the guy that had put the radiator in, we had let him go.

John Eppstein: You'll know why in a second we let him go. When he installed the radiator, he didn't put the nuts that you're supposed to put in on the cooler lines. He put the cooler line, mashed it into the radiator. And so the co the radiator or so, or the transmission fluid wasn't flowing.

Jimmy Lea: Oh no. That's

John Eppstein: what caused the transmission to fail.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, no.

John Eppstein: And so I, my, I just got a new service advisor at the time. The guy's now my general manager, and he's what do we do? I says, there's only one thing we can do. We put a transmission in and we give it back to him. And he's we're gonna do what? So am I supposed to chart?

John Eppstein: No, we caused the problem.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah,

John Eppstein: but it's got 50,000 miles on it. I don't care. We cause a problem. We're taking care of the customer. So we put a transmission in. We don't, we haven't told the customer this at this point. So he comes in with his checkbook out. His name's John by the way. And he's how much do I owe you?

John Eppstein: And he's here's your keys. He says, okay, how much do I owe you? You don't owe us anything. What do you mean? So we explained to him what happened, and he literally looked at us and said, you realize that if you hadn't have said anything, I would've never known. That it was your fault. And of course my response was yes, but we did.

Jimmy Lea: But we would know Uhhuh.

John Eppstein: Yes. Yeah. And so free transmission, I didn't have the money at the time. It was, but that was the right thing to do. And so those are the things that you do for your customers. He still refers people to us and he tells that story and my manager, or my now general manager says, that was when I realized that I wanted to work for you until I retired.

John Eppstein: Oh, wow. Yeah. So stuff like that is powerful with your customers. It's powerful with your employees. 'cause they see who you are, the type of person that you are, and that you're, you're there. You know You mean business. I'm here to take care of my customers. And when I say we're here to take care of my customers, that proves that.

John Eppstein: I'm here to take care of my customers.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Transmission and all. Even though, we know our, my integrity won't allow me to say, yeah, $4,400. Yeah. Write a check. Your integrity says, Hey John, I'm sorry. Yeah. This was our fault and we took care of it. And here's your keys. Thank you very much. Yep. And here's some referral cards.

Jimmy Lea: Make sure Yeah, exactly. Out exactly.

John Eppstein: Because I just ate a transmission and I need some help Uhhuh. Yeah. And a Google review wouldn't be bad either. Yeah. Just don't tell 'em we I guess you could tell 'em we did it for free. But Yeah. It's it's just one of those things, it's the right thing to do at the end of the day.

John Eppstein: Oh yeah. And so many shops struggle with that, it's, but for me it's real simple. Something comes back in and is it possible that we screwed that up? Let's see. We put a radiator in, so I don't see how we could have, messed up the rear brakes. Okay. We don't need to take care of that.

John Eppstein: Okay. You come in and a hose popped under the hood. What did we do? Oh, we were working on belts and this and that, so it's possible that we broke, we leaned whatever we caused something. So we're gonna take care of it If there's any way possible that it, that we might have screwed something up.

John Eppstein: Even if we can't prove that we did we'll step up and we will take care of it.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. You fault on the side of CYA, covering all the bases. Absolutely. Good for you, brother. That's a, that's awesome. And John, I also know that you are very supportive of the Boys and Girls Club. You've got a phenomenal fundraiser that you do every year. I've been able to participate a few times. Yes. The Boys and Girls Club. Why? '

John Eppstein: Cause I grew up in the club. I was lucky enough to actually go to the clubs that I work with now. I grew up going there. It was very different when I was a kid as at, to how it is now, but it was still, it was a place to go.

John Eppstein: I had fun. I don't remember being safe there, but I don't remember not being safe there, today it's, when we were kids, we always joke about it. What did your parents say? Come back when the lights, the street lights come on. That doesn't happen anymore.

John Eppstein: 'cause there's not a lot of trust out there. But, I went to the club, I learned I had fun, they took care of me. And so when I opened my shop, I was able to connect with my club and I just started working with them. And yes, I did my 23rd annual casino night. If anybody wants to send me some money for it, I'm still trying to collect another thousand dollars because.

John Eppstein: My goal was to hit $40,000 raised, and I was beginning to think we weren't gonna get there, and then all of a sudden we were at 41, 42, 45, 47. I shook some trees. We're now at 48, 5, almost 49. I'm hoping we're gonna get to 50. But it's $50,000 that we raised. Every dime that I collect goes to the club.

John Eppstein: I don't take money out for the events. A lot of fundraisers, they take money out for the event and things like that. Yeah. It costs me about $13,000 this year to put on the event and every dime I raised goes to the club. Yeah. I don't take money back.

Jimmy Lea: Are you still doing the casino nights for your fundraisers?

John Eppstein: Yep. Yep. Then we, this was this year's, it was in October, so I'm, I guess the gal from the club, she's ready to close out Casino. Nope. Nope, not yet. I'm gonna get to 50, so hang in there. So I'm trying to get there, but yeah it's really awesome. We have great staff and great clubs, so

Jimmy Lea: For sure.

Jimmy Lea: John, anybody who's listening to this, how can they go and donate to your cause for the Boys and Girls Club?

John Eppstein: You can go to casino night bgc.com. Casino knight bgc.com.

Jimmy Lea: Okay. And it's Ural Knights Casino,

John Eppstein: C-A-S-I-N-O, casino Knight.

Jimmy Lea: Knight One Knight. Yes. Yes.

John Eppstein: Let me type it in. I always type it in. I never say it.

John Eppstein: Casino Knight. Yeah. It's just casino night. Casino knight.com. Oh, I need to type in Casino Knight. Bgc. There we go. bgc.com.

John Eppstein: Yep. Casino night. bgc.com. There's no s in there anyway.

Jimmy Lea: Perfect.

John Eppstein: Other than in Casino,

Jimmy Lea: other than in Casino. So anybody that's listening go, donate a dollar, donate $5, donate $50 let's help get John over this $50,000 for the Boys and Girls Club. 'cause it, it is a phenomenal activity. It's something that is near and dear to John's heart because that's where he grew up.

Jimmy Lea: And it helps to provide a beautiful location, a beautiful facility for these kids that, that are, that need those services today.

John Eppstein: Yeah. I have friends whose kids have gone there that have thanked me because. They didn't know how they were gonna manage with their kids. And the club is an afterschool care program.

John Eppstein: And they could, the kid could get there by the bus, they could walk there, they could drop 'em off, and they knew that they were gonna be safe. 'cause today safe is what's important. Like I said, when I was a kid, it wasn't so much today safe. Safe is super, super important.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, it's so true.

John Eppstein: And we have amazing clubs, but we have even more amazing staff, which we could have the best club ever.

John Eppstein: If the staff sucked, the whole thing would suck. And so I, it just, yeah, it's just amaz it, it amazes me every time I go. We have a board meeting and we look out at the gymnasium and the balls are flying and we look down and kids are waving and it is just, it's a super cool, super, super cool thing.

Jimmy Lea: That is super cool, John, thank you for doing that.

Jimmy Lea: I appreciate it. There's so much happening for you on the day to day to day to day even. Let's talk A-S-C-C-A. Are you still on the board with A-S-C-C-A?

John Eppstein: Yep. On the state board. I'm the chapter president for my chapter and I'm on the Educational foundation board. I'm actually the chair of the educational foundation.

John Eppstein: Yes, I work very hard for the industry. I work very hard to bring new people into our industry. I'm also on the business acceleration team with A-S-C-C-A, which is a small group of three mighty shop owners that will answer the call when a shop is struggling or has questions. We are not coaches.

John Eppstein: We don't wanna be coaches. We just want to point people in the right direction, help people find a coach, a good coach as we know. Every coach can be great, every coach can be bad. It and it's not that they're bad, it's just different people react differently to different styles and different personalities.

John Eppstein: And so

Jimmy Lea: yeah, it's

John Eppstein: just talk, helping people talk through what they're looking for in a coach. And we don't say, oh, you should try this one or that one, or You should not try this one or that one. It's, what are you looking for? What's important to you? Okay. Make sure what you interview the coach for the company you're talking to, right?

Jimmy Lea: Yes. You need to ask these questions. As your coach, you need to ask these questions about their process, their procedure, their style. How do they hold you accountable?

John Eppstein: Yes. And again, it's, you need to talk. So like if somebody's gonna join one of your groups you have multiple people that run groups, right?

John Eppstein: I always tell 'em, you need to talk to. You need to talk to both of them to pick which one is gonna be better suited to your style and your personality.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And let's not even go with those two if they're looking just for coaching. Yes. One-on-one coaching. So they can come to the institute, we are month to month, they can stay for six months and bounce.

Jimmy Lea: They can stay for a year and they can bounce what do they need At some point? At some point, John, they're gonna get everything that they need from us and they're either gonna need another coach within the institute or they are ready and confident to be able to continue their path by themselves with the A-S-C-C-A or with their BDG group or with

Jimmy Lea: their

Jimmy Lea: chapter group.

Jimmy Lea: And that's the beauty of the institute is we've got 13 different coaches Yep. That you can work with if you wanna work with somebody that needs to help you with marketing. I've got three super good coaches with marketing. If you're looking for process, procedures, shop efficiency. I've got six good, really good process procedures, shop efficiency coaches.

Jimmy Lea: If you're looking for how do I structure my business best as a single entity to, to get it ready to go to multiple shop operations. I've got three really good coaches. Depends on what people need and that's where you need to be able to meet them. Yeah. Is it is not a rubber stamp? No. Kaka chunk Kaka.

Jimmy Lea: You gotta do this before we can go to that. No. We're gonna meet you where you are. And what do you need?

John Eppstein: Yeah. It's funny because some of the people that we've talked to we've, they've sent a request through the website. The asca.com.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

John Eppstein: And so we'll sit down and we'll start talking with 'em and we're like, okay.

John Eppstein: And we get to that point where it's okay, now just remember we're here to help you find a coach. Half of them has said, I already have a coach. Oh no. Okay. And this goes back to why you need to talk to these people before you sign on with them, because they weren't getting out of their coach what they needed.

Jimmy Lea: And does that also mean that they are tied into a long-term contract with said coach?

John Eppstein: Not necessarily. I do, we don't get into those details a whole lot. Okay. I don't, I'm not even gonna tell you who the they were with 'cause I don't remember. It doesn't matter. It's just w why are you here?

John Eppstein: Why aren't you asking your coaches questions? I we don't see eye to eye. I don't get a lot out of them. And it's okay, then first thing you need to do is you need to fire your coach.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

John Eppstein: And when I say fire your coach, that doesn't necessarily mean you kick your coaching company to the curb.

John Eppstein: You need to find a different coach.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

John Eppstein: One that, that meshes with, again, your style, your personality, your beliefs, whatever it is, not. No. Two people can work with everybody. Every, everybody. True. And that's the big thing when you're trying to come up with a coach, is that you pick one that is gonna work for your style.

John Eppstein: When I looked, when I looked for a coach before I joined the Bottom Line Impact Group, there were certain things I wanted. I didn't want somebody to come in and tell me how to do it.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

John Eppstein: I didn't want someone to kick me to the side and run my business. I wanted people that I could, Hey, this is what I'm thinking.

John Eppstein: What do you think? Oh, okay, great. And then hold me accountable. Yeah. And so that's why I chose the Bottom Line Impact Group, which is now your, that, I think that's the format that, that you guys are following is in, is with the bottom line impact groups

Jimmy Lea: thing. Yeah. We now call it the Gear Performance Group.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Or. Yep. And so we've got five different groups looking to add a six one this summer. Awesome. Hopefully I can add a diesel group here pretty soon. Yeah, that would be cool. We, yeah, it would be very cool. We've got a lot of diesel cars, diesel truck shops, and that's a different business model.

Jimmy Lea: Euro shops is a different business model. All makes and all models is its own

Jimmy Lea: business

Jimmy Lea: model. Yeah. So we've got quite a few diesel shops, so if you're a diesel shop listening to this, give us a call. Yeah. We wanna have a conversation. Let's talk. Yeah, absolutely. Ab what did you get, what did you get out of the group process that is different than the coaching process?

John Eppstein: What I would always say is that my group was my board of directors

John Eppstein: At the end of the day.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

John Eppstein: It's I've been on lots of boards. People come in, this is what I'm thinking, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we all look at each other and we go, that sucks. That's great. That's awesome.

Jimmy Lea: Nice.

John Eppstein: And that's what happens. It's, here's my, remember when John Crunch pulled up my paper and said, that sucks. Yeah. Okay. That's what it is. And people, there's 15, 20 people in a group. They've seen it. Whatever it is you're thinking, most likely they've seen it.

John Eppstein: They've lived it, they've done it. If you get 19, yeah, that sucks. Yeah. It probably sucks. It probably does. If you get one or two that say, that sucks and everybody else says that worked great. It's probably pretty good.

Jimmy Lea: And I also love the group environment where you can bring a problem, an issue, a marketing idea.

Jimmy Lea: A marketing concept to the group and say, Hey, this sucks, but I need to make it better. How do we make this better?

Jimmy Lea: Or, I've got this mountain problem, oh my gosh, I, there's no way I'm can get over this mountain. In the group, they say, oh, Sally says I solved that last year. We had the same issues.

Jimmy Lea: Here's what we did. And then Joe says, Hey, this is what we did, and Sam says, this is what we did. Then you've got 3, 4, 5, 6 different solutions of other shops that have already solved it. The mountain becomes a molehill. You step over the mountain, you step over the mole hill, and now you're onto the next thing.

Jimmy Lea: Yep,

Jimmy Lea: absolutely. It's no longer paralyzing you because you worked with the group. They helped you to see your way through it.

John Eppstein: Yeah,

Jimmy Lea: you're onto the next thing

John Eppstein: and things are always changing 'cause. Today my problems are different than they were two weeks ago.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah. It was

John Eppstein: different than

Jimmy Lea: six months

John Eppstein: ago.

Jimmy Lea: Now, marketing is not only is it Google and Google reviews and SEO, you now got artificial intelligence and you've got how do I gear my shop towards that, right?

John Eppstein: Yep.

Jimmy Lea: Oh that's awesome. John. I love what you're doing, brother. Yeah, thanks. Hey, so as we're landing this plane here, if you were to have a magic wand and you could change anything in the industry, anything in the automotive industry you have one wish, John.

Jimmy Lea: And you can't wish for more wishes? Nope. What would you wish to change?

John Eppstein: That everybody would work together.

Jimmy Lea: Amen.

John Eppstein: At the end of the day, the shops down the street are not your competition, I'm in San Diego. We have 500,000 cars that drive by my shop within a two mile radius every day.

John Eppstein: There's not a chance in hell I could fix all 500,000 even if it, even at 50,000. There's not a chance in hell. We have a huge shop. Our customer ra our customer base is four 5,000 people. Okay. Oh wow. Yeah. So if everybody worked together, everybody charged the right price, there wouldn't be this, oh, I can get that done for half price down the street.

John Eppstein: And then they would take people, take it to an inferior shop, get an inferior product, and then bad things happen. If everybody charged what they should, they paid their people what they should. Cus consumer would get a much better product, much more consistent product.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

John Eppstein: Everybody would be profitable, everybody, employees would get paid well, and it would just be a better world.

John Eppstein: We have pretty good group in San Diego between A-S-C-C-A and the Napa, excuse me, the NAPA group.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

John Eppstein: It's great working with those guys, knowing they're taking care of people. They're charging what they should. They're paying what they should. So that's what I would hope for.

Jimmy Lea: I agree with you, John.

Jimmy Lea: Here we are wanting to raise the industry, raise the image of the industry, raise the overall performance of the inner industry. And John, I thank you. Thank you for pointing that out. That's exactly where we wanna be.

John Eppstein: Yeah. And I'm always the first one to tell people if they need anything to call me up and I'll share whatever.

John Eppstein: 'cause chances are I ripped off something that I can share with them. And when I say ripped off, it's, the groups I've been in, we share things and we just call it rip off and duplicate is the way of saying, Hey, I got this somewhere else. And,

Jimmy Lea: yeah, no, that's it. You've gotta share the information.

Jimmy Lea: Yep. There's really not that much original information, original concept here in the automotive aftermarket. We work hard. John, thank you so much, brother. I appreciate the time, effort, and energy. Thanks for carving out an hour to spend some time with me and talk about what the business that we love.

John Eppstein: Yeah, my pleasure. It's it's always great talking with you. You do, you've done great things in our industry. You've definitely helped to bring the industry along. So thank you for that. And just keep being awesome.

Jimmy Lea:Awesome. Thank you, John. Appreciate it, brother. All right.