Built on relationships, accountability, and a deep respect for people, Eric Henley, owner of H Tech Auto Care in Tennessee, shares how his lifelong passion for the automotive industry evolved into a purpose-driven business and culture. From dealership master technician to shop owner, Eric reflects on the decisions that shaped his leadership, his team, and his approach to growth.

This episode of Leading Edge: Standing at the Crossroads dives into people-first leadership, building trust through communication, developing technicians and service advisors, and why culture and performance are inseparable. Eric explains how mentorship, integrity, and active listening have helped him create a workplace where people grow and customers feel genuinely cared for.

If you are thinking about the legacy you are building as a shop owner or leader, this conversation offers practical insight and honest reflection.

Want guidance on building a people-centered culture and long-term leadership legacy? Meet with Michael Smith for a leadership and legacy strategy conversation: https://theinstitute.zohobookings.com/#/Executive-Owner-Strategy-Session

Host(s):

Kent Bullard, COO of The Institute

Michael Smith, Chief Strategy Officer at The Institute

Guest(s):

Eric Henley, owner of H-Tek Auto

Show Highlights:

[00:01:53] - Eric traces his start in the trade back to fixing things with his grandfather and dad.

[00:04:15] - He says better communication makes you more impactful than just being “good at cars.”

[00:05:30] - A dealership owner’s personal leadership style became Eric’s blueprint.

[00:07:34] - After 18 years, Eric still maintains relationships with nearly every former employee.

[00:09:22] - High Performance Group helped him tighten accountability without losing kindness.

[00:15:51] - Eric uses a “three strikes” process to give people a real path to redemption.

[00:18:10] - Weekly Friday lunches create a safe forum to surface issues and improve fast.

[00:21:22] - He sees attitude, not skill, as the biggest separator in technician performance.

[00:35:24] - His delegation test is simple: fewer “Ask Eric” moments means real traction.

[01:29:16] - Eric wants to redeem the industry’s reputation by building trust-driven people.

👉 Unlock the full experience - watch the full webinar on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ggxEcghxTz0

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Episode Transcript Disclaimer

Episode Transcript:

Kent Bullard: Hi everybody. Welcome to the Institute's leading Edge, the Crossroads Podcast, where we examine the crucial decisions professionals make that define careers that shape industries that inspire thought leadership and that build lasting legacies. I'm Kent Bullard and I'm joined by my esteemed colleague Michael Smith.

Kent Bullard: And today we have the privilege of speaking with Eric Henley the owner of H Tech Auto Outta Tennessee. Our guest today is a lifelong automotive enthusiast whose journey began with an early fascination for cars, inspired by his father's project vehicles, after earning an associate's degree in automotive service technology from Northeast State.

Kent Bullard: He honed his skills working in dealerships from 1988 to 2005. In July, 2006, he took a leap of faith, starting his own business with a HELOC and a prayer. Over the past 18 years, he's navigated the challenge of entrepreneurship with determination and passion. A pivotal moment came in 2016 when he joined the Institute's twenties group, a decision he calls the best move he ever made for his business and personal growth.

Kent Bullard: Eric is also an active participant in the Institute's High performance group, and this year he was named Alumni of the Year by Northeast State, a testament to his impact on the industry and his community. We're excited to have him share his incredible journey and insights with us today. Welcome to the Institute's Leading Edge, the Crossroads Podcast.

Kent Bullard: Those of you who are listening I'd like to just let you know that you can ask questions in the comments below. If you enjoy the content that we're gonna cover today, please like and share and you can find more information about us at We are the institute.com. Eric, thank you for joining us today.

Eric Henley: Oh, thank you. Appreciate the invitation. 

Kent Bullard: So I'd love to start. And kind of go back, I know I gave you an introduction, but I'd love to start with what originally drew you into the industry and what inspired you to commit to it? 

Eric Henley: I, well, it, like I said, the background you heard the background, mechanical, I mean, it started off with bicycles and lawnmowers with my grandfather, and then it turned into cars with my dad.

Eric Henley: And then from there, it's just it just fit. I honestly tried one year of college thinking about something else and decided that wasn't it. And so we, so I went into this field just with, you know, an honest, know-how and how things could come apart, go together. And so, enjoyed cars. It was a good time with my dad.

Eric Henley: And so from there I thought, well, I can make a living doing this. And so that's what I chose to do. And so, and I'll have to say I always wanted to know more. I always wanted to learn more about. How I could be a better technician. So I was always looking to improve. If they gave me an opportunity to go train, I would spent 15 years with Honda and they would send me to the training center in Alpharetta.

Eric Henley: And anytime they asked me, I was, yes. Anytime they asked me if there was something else I could take, I was, yes. So, yeah, I just wanna be the best technician I could be. And the end result with that was a lot more build hours, a lot more income. And I was a master tech at my trade for most of that time.

Michael Smith: Eric, you know, we love stories and we talk about stories a lot. What maybe is one thing that you could think of as a legacy that your dad left with you, that you've carried into where you are today? 

Eric Henley: Well, one of the things is just his even though he was a plant worker, he had a knack for a person just being personal with people he could find something in common with anyone and value conversations with people.

Eric Henley: So I think that's really helped me to always think about other people and to find things in common, to build relationships. So, yeah, that, that was probably one of the things that I would say that stands out to me. Mm-hmm. 

Michael Smith: That's a great takeaway. Thank you. 

Kent Bullard: What do you think what do you think drove you to seek more knowledge, to gain more skills to develop yourself?

Kent Bullard: What, where does that come from? 

Eric Henley: Well, I've always, like I mentioned earlier, I've always had that built in. Personally I took classes outside of outside of the trade and read books like all of us have to improve myself. But I think the better you are at communicating with people, the more impactful you can be in their lives.

Eric Henley: And so you could, I mean, you could touch lives, I guess is what I'm trying to say. And it's not always about just making money. It's about people and also learning to listen, actively listen to people, not just being the one, dominating the conversation and make sure they're heard that they know you're hurt, that they were heard, that you're not talking over them.

Eric Henley: So, it it's pushed me. To develop my communication skills more intently. 

Kent Bullard: Why do you think it's important that you invest in these people the way that you're talking about, to build that bridge of communication to understand them? Why do you, why is that so important? 

Eric Henley: Well, it's a, I mean, for me and I learned this in the dealership life as well.

Eric Henley: The owner there was very active in our lives, and he would come and talk. I mean, he wasn't some guy that was disconnected from them, from us. He smoked. This was back when smoking was popular. So he would come back into the bays, talked to us about our families, talked to us about whatever job we were working on.

Eric Henley: He would give us congrats. He actually hand signed every paycheck with a, some sort of encouragement on it. If he had a really great week. So I, you know, he kinda mentored me in that. So when I started my own business, that was the same, that was what I took with me. It was like, okay, this guy, you know, I thought very highly of him and his encouragement helped push me along.

Eric Henley: So I'm gonna do the same thing in the way I treat the people who work for me. And to be sure that, you know, I'm not just all about the hours or the sales. I care about what's going on in your family, what your hobby is, what, you know, how was fishing last week? So I've always tried to make that stroll through the shop.

Eric Henley: Even when I was in the shop as a technician, still working in my business, before I started working on it, I'd spend time talking to the guys who worked with me alongside me, and we did things together. You know, we did life together. And so I just felt like it it made work, not. As much work, if that makes sense.

Michael Smith: Oh, it makes total sense. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna say you, we, we talk about this, you are blessed to have had that platform of leadership at the beginning in a positive way. 'cause a lot of us see leadership that we don't wanna replicate in the world that we live in with our first and second and third bosses.

Michael Smith: And the fact that you had somebody that walked around and felt that positive impact and chose to hold onto that is a great legacy that, that owner left for you. And it makes a big difference. The walk around recognition, the walk around relationship, that actual genuine caring is, that was a great start that you had from that perspective.

Michael Smith: And it's great to hear you carrying it forward. 

Eric Henley: Yes. Mm-hmm. It's been an asset for. For me and my business. Yeah those relationships. I'll just say I don't know if this is an appropriate time you can edit out, if not, but I'll tell you that I only have one former employee. So over 18 years we've turned over.

Eric Henley: I forget now how many we've turned over. It's not a lot. But out of the ones that have left, I only have one that was with me three weeks that I don't have a good relationship with host working for me. So, we've managed to forgive our differences if we had any or whatever the reason was that they left and still maintain friendships and relationships.

Eric Henley: And we actually do some things together. And some of them left under tense, you know, situations one, one in particular last year and he and I still meet and have lunch together. We text often and share in football's successes and. Whatever their interests are. So, I'll say even if they don't stay with me, I want to have a relationship that I made a difference in their life in some way even if they're not working for me.

Eric Henley: Absolutely. 

Michael Smith: So, and we talk quite a bit about whether we're drive for performance, so whether we drive for relationships, and obviously that's great testament to the fact that your drive for genuine relationships results in high performance, but also results in relationships that last, which is a fantastic testimony.

Michael Smith: So thank you for sharing that. That's great. 

Kent Bullard: Is can you go into, you know, what inspired you to focus on high performance and people driven, people development as a core part of your business strategy? I mean, you've talked a little bit about the why for you but what was the inspiration for bringing it in as a core function of your business?

Eric Henley: So I started noticing culture. Culture became a lot more important to me. And I knew that I'd done okay, but I knew I could do much better. And I'm long suffering by nature. So I'll tolerate some things that I don't necessarily like because I wanna see somebody redeemable or get better. So I was struggling with that.

Eric Henley: And we all face, you know, technician shortages, sales staff shortages. There's a lot of things that happen when you turn somebody over. You don't just get someone right away. So that the High Performance group, what it's done for me is to help shape that culture and also I guess temper me a little bit to where I'll hold somebody more accountable for a cultural thing.

Eric Henley: A vi a culture, a core value violation. And I mean, and say it. And the other thing, I know it's given me the ability to say it in a kind way that it's corrective, but it's it's in a positive sense, it's firm, but with feeling. And so, I think that has probably helped me. And one of the reasons I got into high performance groups for that, we had our numbers.

Eric Henley: We had the GPG and you know, we knew our numbers well, but this is next level stuff is the way we talked about it. And from now with all the legwork we've done with the vision, the mission, the core values and operating principles, all those exercises we've gone through, I can just see this kind of coalescing and gelling into it just equals a better relationship at work, a better and more production for those that buy in to it, the ones that don't.

Eric Henley: Well, you can see the difference. The ones that sort of, they agree to it and they'll nod to it, but it even affects how much they make. And it is the hierarchy that, that you talk about a lot, Michael, is the, is it sounds like Woo. And several years ago I would've said, eh, you know, I've worked around guys.

Eric Henley: They can be jerks. They still work. Well, that's not necessarily the case. There's a lot higher level things. Your culture. And so I guess if that's a long answer to why I'm in the high performance group. 

Michael Smith: Well, I kind of wanna unpack one thought a little bit further. You mentioned being long suffering.

Michael Smith: Yes. And then having a sort of an accelerating thought process about dealing with toxicity, dealing with issues that manifest themselves as countercultural. Can you just give us a couple more thoughts on that, go a little bit deeper about how your thinking has been developing along those lines? 

Eric Henley: Yeah. So I guess just to be practical.

Eric Henley: So for instance, maybe a technician who is not bought in. So we pull 'em aside and have a conversation, say, okay, we talk about all the positives the things they're doing great. And then we go into, and here are some things that we see that are holding you back. And the only reason they're holding you back is because of it is the guy in the mirror.

Eric Henley: You have every opportunity, like the others who are bought into culture and you can see the end result. And because they've got a scoreboard, they can see what each other's hours are built for the week. So we use examples like that. We use it in the way we train our service advisors and the way they interact with people.

Eric Henley: That latest thing we've been talking about at HPG with customer experience, it's changed the way our sales staff talks to people when they take the, when they take the information from the customer, from the time they accept it online or in person. There's a deeper thought of each one is important.

Eric Henley: Each person is important. And so it's changed the way we treat people. We're not just trying to get information out of 'em quickly and move on to the next one. We spend a little extra time, but I think our reviews reflect this change the, especially the most recent ones within the last couple of months.

Eric Henley: I don't know if that answers your question. 

Michael Smith: Absolutely. No that's fantastic. Thank you. Thank you for that reflection. 

Kent Bullard: I had another thought that I wanted to get back to. You mentioned redemption. I love, you know, having a path to redeem themselves. Do you think that the practice of redemption is important or plays an important role in running a high performing team?

Eric Henley: Yeah. Yes, because I mean, let's just face it, none of the three of us have it all figured out. We all have our weaknesses and we continue to work on ourselves because, we'll, we're imperfect. So, but we have, you know, if you have a drive to improve. Why would you not have that same desire for the person that you've maybe somebody that's been there for a while and now they're trying to buy into this new concept of how we're gonna operate.

Eric Henley: This these are declared things we live by. This is how we conduct ourselves. This is how we think about ourselves, and this is what we want our everything that we face the public with to be a reflection of that. I mean, that's what that's what our customers. So, I think giving someone a chance, that's the long suffering part.

Eric Henley: Personality is more that I'll work on somebody for a while instead of just I want it done or get out. There's other personalities that, that's the way they think of things. So I've always just, I try to put myself in their shoes and think of it from their perspective. Before I come out and talk to 'em about it.

Eric Henley: So it's just a, it's a self-evaluation of trying to think how that person is looking at their job each day. 

Michael Smith: So when do you, Eric, sort of make that shift in your mind? And it's gonna be different in every scenario I know, but what sort of causes you to eventually turn the corner from redemption as a model to a more remedial approach?

Michael Smith: What generally, what happens in your thought process that takes you to the point of having to deal with the unresolved toxic issue at that point? 

Eric Henley: So mine, mine is usually, I mean, you basically, you could come down and say it, basically it's three strikes. So if we've had a two conversations over the same issue the third time is the ultimatum.

Eric Henley: And from that point, that usually means they'll. They'll either change or they'll move on. 

Michael Smith: Yeah. Or not. 

Eric Henley: And so that's, I mean, I like to give people time to change. And the only things I would say that would be an immediate remedial thing is, you know, something criminal. You know, they're stealing from the customer in some way, or they're stealing from us or something dishonest, you know, a repair that was intentionally, you know, half done and those would be the things.

Eric Henley: Or someone in supervision who went outside of anything that you, I mean, that's what happened last year with with one of my managers. He didn't run something by me before he actually had the meeting. And had he we would've probably said it a little differently. I think he was defending me well with and making some corrections.

Eric Henley: But I think it is just the manner which it was delivered. You can say things a lot of different ways and you can still get your point across without, you know, coming across in a very abrupt, sharp direction. So, but usually three strikes and you're out. That's been my 'cause. Your first one's verbal.

Eric Henley: The second one's verbal with written, and the final one is a verbal with a written, and this is it. And, you know, they either straighten up or they move on. And so that's how I've, that's how I've made my decisions for the file straw, I guess is what you're asking. 

Kent Bullard: So your process for correction is really coming in and.

Kent Bullard: Helping them define a path towards redemption, not necessarily disciplinary to say, you know, here's all the things you've done incorrect. You know, I'm punishing you in these ways, but more so, hey, let's work together to look at a plan to help you achieve your best potential. 

Eric Henley: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So we, another thing we'll do is we'll have an issues stay.

Eric Henley: Like I, we do Friday lunches with all our employees each Friday. Some of them are in-house in the shop, catered in, and other ones are out to eat. Those are usually just for fun, but we'll have each person just around the table come up with an issue maybe they faced this week that we can improve a process or change something on the digital vehicle inspection, or add something or take something away, or maybe a parts issue we need to solve.

Eric Henley: So we're always troubleshooting. We don't think we've got everything. So, so every person and I usually say, listen guys, you've heard me say this a hundred times. I'm not the smartest guy around the table here. Each of you have something to add to what we do, and we value what you have to say.

Eric Henley: That's not to say that we'll always apply everything mentioned here but if we've thought it through and this is a good change for everyone, then let's make it, it makes us all better. And so that's kind of how we deal with issues and would not let things fester. We give 'em a forum to bring it up.

Michael Smith: Well, and the collaborative conversation is one of the big pillars in a high performance culture is that ongoing, genuine collaboration, the fact that they bring it up and you welcome it and then you solve the problem as a group is wonderful. It's great foundational stuff. 

Kent Bullard: There's such, you know, I say it.

Kent Bullard: All the time. But there's such profound value in breaking bread with people, sharing a meal and being able to have that open dialogue over, over good food with one another. It kind of puts you in a setting that's a little more even keeled. We all, we're all human. We all eat. And so this is a, you know, I commend you to do that.

Kent Bullard: And anybody who's listening, I mean, I would highly recommend that you have some kind of regular meal that you share with your team. 

Michael Smith: Especially the ones where you go out to a restaurant, you don't do any business. You guys just hang out together. That's fantastic. For fun. Yeah, just for fun.

Eric Henley: Yeah. It will increase your you usually book that as a training expense. 'cause you're all, you're talking about things to improve the business, but it'll increase your training expense. But for me it's a small price to pay, to not have issues that are really small issues that grow into something that's like a festered wound that you should have dressed a long time ago.

Eric Henley: It's better to head it off early when it's small. And then let it go. And I, that's a lesson I've learned in the past too. I've let things go too long. I guess any shop owner sometimes just sit back and hopes for the best, and that never happens. 

Kent Bullard: Well, it's kind of uncomfortable having, having the thought of, well, I now have to go have a conflict over this issue.

Kent Bullard: And it's like, most often, if you just get it done quickly, it's a lot less of a hill to cross than if you let it continue on. 

Eric Henley: No, you're right. I was wrong in that way. I'll do better still. What, after all these months, now you really bring this up, you know, that kind of thing. So, 

Kent Bullard: yeah. 

Eric Henley: Anyway, 

Kent Bullard: So I, I want to go and talk.

Kent Bullard: I'd love for you to tell us about your experience with getting your team involved, especially with your, you know, your commitment to human centricity. How did the team take that? 

Eric Henley: Y for the most part, except for, I think I have two. Have semi bought in. And those are ones that I'm still not positive. They're, they may be getting close to the three strikes, but all the rest of 'em were like, after they started.

Eric Henley: I mean, and we had to talk about it a lot 'cause it took, you know, they have to understand where you're coming from here. 'cause a lot of shops, a lot of guys are gonna think, oh, this is woo, what are we doing? This is the latest thing. What are you bringing in? That kind of thing. But after we had some good conversations about it and what does this mean?

Eric Henley: How does this affect us? They were like, yeah, this is, I agree. And so, you know, we sent a couple of 'em to, to the leadership intensive. And they came back with my son for one as really turned into a self development fiend. He loves to read things to improve himself. We are actually having to coach him, not to spend all of his time reading, spend time with his wife doing some fun things.

Eric Henley: And then the other, the latest one Alex is coming back with some some changes. And that's still, he's still digesting it but they they want to the ones that are bought in two technicians for instance, they want to train, they want to be masters of their trade. They want to get better.

Eric Henley: They'll come ask me for training instead of just waiting for the latest, you know, Napa training or whatever that comes up. Well, they'll ask me to go to the Charlotte I can't think of the, which name you, you were probably at it, but at any rate, he asked to go. And so we put, we sent him and he learned a lot of great things and brought those back and shared them across the other technicians there.

Eric Henley: So. They just, they see how it affects what they're doing. And the other thing is to see these two technicians who are producing way more hours than the other two. And they all do the same quality DVI, you can look across any of their D vs. There's good pictures, there's good comments. They're all, there's no really shortcuts.

Eric Henley: They're not pencil whipped. And the difference is the attitude 

Kent Bullard: about what they do every day. These two come in with an overcoming attitude. These two come in with like, 

Eric Henley: You know, they're we're gonna, we're technicians and that kind of thing. So it affects it affects them, but I can see a partial buy-in with them.

Eric Henley: That's the reason I still think there might be some room there that the sales staff was like a media, even my newest employee, which is our courtesy maintenance shuttle driver. His desire is to become a technician someday. He's like, I've never worked for a place like this. And he is from, he's from coming from California and came out of the grocery store industry and he's like, this kind of culture is just, I've never seen anything like this.

Eric Henley: So, it's made that kind of impact on what we're doing now. 

Michael Smith: Yeah. And that, and I wanted to throw that in there. We talk in this industry unique, competitive advantage is hard to come by. And you were mentioning earlier, maybe also the two technicians that are slowly buying in, if we can be optimistic about it, are come out of backgrounds where they were abused, used and abused.

Michael Smith: And so the concept that you stand up and say, I actually care about you as a person. They're like, eh maybe not. Let me see what happens here. Maybe they're slow sales. They're slow. They're slow to buy in. Maybe they'll never get there. You know, if they don't ever get there, that's then a truth tape problem.

Michael Smith: Right? What's, what their belief structure looks like, and if this conflicts with that, they don't change their structure, then we all know they won't eventually get with it. But the attitude you were talking about's a symptom. That's a symptom of what they believe, a symptom of their history. So I thank you for the testimonial here.

Michael Smith: It's great discussion too about what happens when you bring something powerful to the group that's different. Some people change quick, some people don't. Right? Some people take a little more thinking, a little more buy-in, and it's just a, it's a great story that you told. Thank you for that. Thanks for unpacking it.

Michael Smith: Mm-hmm. 

Kent Bullard: I think there's something to be said. You know, I've spoken with a lot of shop owners who have an apprehension about introducing this kind of stuff to their team. They're not gonna be interested in this. This is what did you say? Woo kind of stuff. Yeah. And everybody's looking for that buy-in at the same time.

Kent Bullard: So one, they're apprehensive about this, but two, they also want their team to buy in. They want, how do I get my guys to say, I wanna go to training, I wanna develop, I wanna grow myself. What strategies or philosophies have you found to be most effective in developing and nurturing that talent and that drive within your team?

Eric Henley: Well, yeah. We do a weekly sales training on Wednesday at lunch with my service advisors. And so with them, I just use practical application. I think I've kind of paired some of what we've done 

Michael Smith: with 

Eric Henley: the the old book Adele Carnegie, how to Win Friends and Influence People. And so it, it changes their thought process and how they present.

Eric Henley: They, they own stewardship of the customer's vehicle and. They also on intake, this is something Seth really picked up on, is what do people want? You gotta ask them what they want. So you empower them and you guide them in their decision making process about whatever they need. And so with them, they can see directly and I intend to show them with the the thing that inbound offers with the conversation temperature of a, the AI on that is to show the difference and what, when they really are presenting in that manner, what that sounds like and what, how the customer reacts to it.

Eric Henley: You can see a marked difference in the responses. The guard is down, there's more trust, and that's one thing our industry needs is to be trusted. And so with them, I think it's easier on the front. The back the technicians, and I don't like using front and back, we're a team, but that's a common term used in our industry, the front and the back.

Eric Henley: Is that okay guys? Every bit of information you collect and the diligence you go to reveal as much about the vehicle's condition in a clear manner helps our customer make the best decision as well. And then the other thing is to be willing to collaborate with the, with your service advisor on what the best estimate is for this, what the best steps are there gonna be other steps unknown?

Eric Henley: Make sure they're aware of that. And so they're thinking ahead, okay this is the first step. And that's how the verbiage reads. And the say, say it's the initial concern for the day, whatever the customer came in for. This will be the first step in this process. And this could resolve it, but there may be other things.

Eric Henley: And so that, that helps the other, it helps the service advisor when he has to make the second call, 'cause he is already, he's already prepped. And so they think about it in a way that's okay, this is not just about me selling a bunch of hours to bill more hours for me. We're looking out for a customer's best interest, their safety and to communicate very clearly to them what they need and what they can wait on.

Eric Henley: So in the back that's I would say the technicians that have bought into more of that's more of the communication. You can see a little more robust, richer communication between them and service advisors, both in text on the DBI and in conversation when they go up front to expound on what they've.

Eric Henley: Said mm-hmm. 

Michael Smith: And then e Eric, intellectually, emotionally, the concept of stewardship that you mentioned and the fact that done right over time builds loyal brand ambassador customers the best kind. How have you discussed that internally to get that connection? It's a little bit different in our industry.

Michael Smith: How have you gotten that, how have you handled that internally to have your people start to understand it and make the connection and make it a part of real life talk? Tell us a little bit about the process, if you will. 

Eric Henley: So one of the things we do, just to show them what a great experience is if we get the review it's shared across the service advisor and the technician.

Eric Henley: And then we've also thought about sharing it across the whole shop. Maybe at one of the lunch and learns we do with all the staff around the table. Just to show what a great how a great experience, what that does. So that's one of the ways we talk about it. And then there's just a there's that pat on the back, the walk through the shop.

Eric Henley: Matt has our service manager has really started practicing that a lot. If it's been a very challenging repair he'll go back and congratulate the technician for success in that. And if it's been a challenging one, he will grad congratulate them for persevering through it. And that's been something I've tried to leave as an example.

Eric Henley: We have a very challenging repair on a Toyota right now. And this technician is very, you know, he is very technical. He follows the process like, I mean, he's one of the best. Unfortunately, something didn't go right and. The engine's still out of the vehicle. So, but I'm like, listen, you know, you're a great technician and just like, I'm not a perfect person.

Eric Henley: You're not a perfect person either. And things happen. This is not a perfect world, but we'll get through this and we'll succeed and we'll over, we'll adapt and overcome. And so that's, I guess in the from a technician's perspective, that was one of the conversations we had right before I left. This morning I was stopped by to visit for a bit.

Eric Henley: And it's like, you know, you guys, you have that. We're gonna get this we're gonna overcome these challenges. And and with that, we're gonna offer the customer. Something that most shops don't offer is integrity and honesty. That we own our mistakes. We eat our mistakes, and we're very transparent about, we don't try to cover 'em up.

Eric Henley: There's many ways to deceive people in this industry. It's been done. But our commitment is that absolute integrity. So if you make a mistake, do not feel shame that you have to admit it. Even if we lose money on it, we'll gain in the long run. And we know what we've done. We don't have to remember what we told 'cause we know it's honest.

Michael Smith: Yeah. On, well, you've mentioned integrity and that's fabulous. There's humility, right? Involved in admitting that it didn't go right or mistakes were made or whatever. And grace, you ask for grace from the customer, you give grace to each other. You're giving grace to the master technician who is stuck at this point.

Michael Smith: And it's like we all get there at one point. That's a beautiful triad. Tho those three ideas, integrity, humility, and grace. What a great stool culturally. To stand your relationships on. That's fantastic. Eric, 

Kent Bullard: I wanna go back to one thing and Michael, I'm interested to know your perspective on this from the psych psychological aspect.

Kent Bullard: You know, we talk about getting the buy-in and all that. Eric, you had mentioned their decision making capabilities, their ownership, their own personal choices that they're able to make. I think what prevents a lot of growth in teams is that leadership is too restrictive in the sense that if you're gonna develop somebody, you have to have I mean you mentioned stewardship, you have to give them the freedom to own their area of accountability.

Kent Bullard: And Michael, what do you think prevents. That type of, or I mean, what causes that restriction? 

Michael Smith: Sure. I, Eric, we've talked about this in the high performance group together a lot. It's a trust platform that's rocky. And so the an owner will give responsibility away. Maybe they give authority away, maybe not really, sort of, but not really.

Michael Smith: And then accountability is a little fuzzy because the owner's a little nervous to see if it's gonna work or not. And they want to give a person a chance to work it out and something doesn't work out. Right. So that beautiful three-legged stool responsibility, accountability, and authority is not fully established in this relationship with the person who's taking on a new task.

Michael Smith: Right. And this is the issue that Eric, we've talked about the path to mastery and stepping over the comfort zone into the unknown and falling on your face. That's where mastery is developed. You don't become a master by doing the same thing. You know how to do over and over with no risk. So when they step over the wall, they are gonna fall down.

Michael Smith: You kind of want 'em to, 'cause it's part of the experience. You don't want to catch 'em before they hit the ground. You want 'em to hit the ground and learn and get back up again. Then they build a resolve and a resilience to go do it. And if we don't fully transfer. Responsibility and authority and accountability.

Michael Smith: That's, it's a rocky, big, soft ground. And then somebody stumbles and maybe we reach out and catch 'em. Maybe we try to turn away and hope they don't fall down and don't know what to say. And it's that, it's all comes back to trust. Yeah, exactly. Right. And it all comes back to trust. It comes back to trust.

Michael Smith: They trust you, you trust them. It gets stronger in the culture. You say, I want you to try something. They're like, you know what? I fell down twice. Eric picked me back up again. I didn't get judged and penalized for it. I'm gonna try this third bigger thing. And now you've got a culture of mastery. Now you have a high performance culture of individuals developing and it's, it takes a little while to get that trust bill.

Michael Smith: 'cause again, we don't come from an industry that's trust rich, either internally or externally. So yeah, there's a wants, wants traction. I mean, tell us and detraction, right, traction's happening in your place. So can you tell us a little bit about that traction and some of the things you see that is evidence to you that it's building?

Eric Henley: Yeah, so one of the simple gauges I use, this is easy for almost any shop owner who's facing trying to let go. Is that your name? How many times is your name? Ask Eric, what do you think? Eric? Eric, what do you think? So anytime you hear that it, I mean, you might, if you hear it once, that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's a good gauge of how your business will operate without you being present.

Eric Henley: And so I usually, if they ask me a question, I'll ask them what they think should be the next step, and then they'll tell me what they think it is. And if I have nothing to add, I'll think, okay, that sounds fair to me. And why don't you go with that. I trust you on that decision, or, that's a great, that's a great decision.

Eric Henley: I might add one thing that you might. Consider going into this, but I want you to own the decision and whatever the consequences are of it just for instance, taking in an older car, that's gonna be a challenging repair. I used it for a lesson for my son recently. He wanted to help someone who was an older gentleman, had a sick son with cancer, and the car had been setting for a long time.

Eric Henley: And Seth asked me about it and I said, well, what do you think? And he's like, well, I really wanna help the guy. And he said, it could be a challenging repair. I said, yes. And so then I went on to tell him, I said, so this is an older vehicle could be a challenge to find parts. There's lots of things that may not be available anymore.

Eric Henley: But I'm gonna let you make that decision. And and I didn't try to gloat over it. I was ripe, but. I say, okay, you know, going forward, this is a lesson, pick yourself back up and going forward, you'll know what to do. And I'm not opposed to doing the right thing. I'll donate labor to people and if we're, if it's a good cause.

Eric Henley: That's what we do. I mean, 

Michael Smith: see Eric, your model hits on a very important mastery journey component. And that is that the high level journey people and the masters are the first ones that are gonna feel micromanaged. If they say, Eric, what do you think? And you give them the answer, the people in the lower levels of development will be grateful for that answer.

Michael Smith: Mm-hmm. If it's a cultural tenant to ask Eric the question, the minute you start to answer the masters are either gonna be not listening or gonna be angry that you gave him the solution. 'cause masters like to figure it out for themselves. And your very model helps both the apprentice level people like, well, what do you think?

Michael Smith: And instead of relying on you to give them an answer, and you know, having tried to learn another language, if I ask the person who knows the language, the answer to that word, and they just give it to me, I don't remember it. But if they go look it up, or you go figure it out and I have to go figure it out, it sticks in there better.

Michael Smith: And so your model takes it all the way from apprentice out through master to help them to learn to stand on their own. And that's a really powerful thing that you exercise. I wanted to catch that on the way by that's great leadership practice that you have 

Eric Henley: and speak and the traction of that too.

Eric Henley: So not, was this car a bad decision for us to take on? Yeah, probably from a financial perspective, but one of the high culture technicians who was working on it and desired to finally fix it for the guy, he knew the story. Seth had told him he came in on a Saturday and donated nine hours of his time.

Eric Henley: Unbuilt not clocked on anything, researching and doing tests to, to resolve the issue for this customer. So you just. Well, I mean, what flat rate technician does that? That's you don't, most of 'em are not wired like that. I don't know that I would've been at that age mid thirties. I've only been like, yeah, but that's the type of cult, that's the type of people you attract.

Eric Henley: Anyway, I interviewed this guy. This is before I had HPG. I could just tell. I, that is one of the things I guess I, I meant to mention earlier in the conversation is that dad's influence on me made me kind of discern certain people there, and I could just tell I look people in the eyes and I watch body language and I saw a genuine person here.

Eric Henley: So some of that's just, you know, thankfully built in. But there's a lot of this I've learned on to layer on top of that. It just makes it better. The things I'm wearing for y'all through this is. It's I never would've thought I'd been where we're at now with this. It's just, I, it's a blur.

Kent Bullard: Well, Eric I've gotta commend you for giving your people the space, you know, just to recap, asking them what do they think?

Kent Bullard: Either, either recognizing, hey, that is a good decision, you made a good choice. Also if you do need to add something, hey, I've got something to add to that, to your already good choice. I think in society today we've forgot how mentorship works in the sense that information is so easily attained through phones, through the internet.

Kent Bullard: You know, a lot of the youth don't necessarily get look upward. And at this point, it's a lot easier to allow the youth to go just to the internet versus having a relationship of mentorship. And I say that meaning, kind of to summarize, go back. Think about the mentors that you had going, you know, as you were becoming a tech.

Kent Bullard: So the listeners out there, as you were becoming a master you had mentors that probably gave you the space to fail. And I think because a lot of businesses or teams are in a position of desperation where they're just trying to make it work. They don't allow that space to make mistakes, to grow and to develop.

Kent Bullard: And I think you, you absolutely have to have that flexibility to understand that this person is not at my level and I need to meet them where they're at and allow them that opportunity to try and to fail and to learn. 'cause that's ultimately how they develop and grow. And eventually they're gonna be somebody who is either at my level or even beyond that.

Kent Bullard: And so I just want to commend you for allowing that to happen. 

Eric Henley: That reminds, that just brought to back a memory of my early days when I first came to Honda. Before the internet, we had the old manuals on the shelf and you didn't have a phone or a computer to look at. And I had been there about a couple days and I was trying to solve a problem on a car, and I went over to ask another technician beside of me and he said, have you looked in the repair manual yet?

Eric Henley: And I was like, well, no. He's like, all right, you go look in this chapter and they'll, that gets you in the range where you need to be to figure out how to do this job. And if you can't solve that problem, then I'd be happy to come over and help you. So to me, that was a lesson problem solving that you put back on the person that, that needs to learn something because you can tell somebody anything, but if they don't know how to practice it, if you're always the guy bailing them out, well then guess what?

Eric Henley: You got a lot of hay. Erics, 

Michael Smith: It's a beautiful story though, because instead of leaving them. Looking in the universe for an answer. You sort of turn their head toward this and say, okay, now go there and come back if you have more questions. And it's a beautiful way of doing it. You do bring your expertise, but you don't do it in the way of solving the problem for It's a great story.

Michael Smith: You'll find the 

Kent Bullard: answer to your question at the top of the mountain. 

Michael Smith: Yeah, right. This mountain. Just climb the mountain. That 

Kent Bullard: one or that one? 

Michael Smith: Lemme go. 

Kent Bullard: I love that. Love. 

Michael Smith: It's great. 

Kent Bullard: I wanna shift the conversation here because you had leaned in and you said I saw in his eyes. So not only developing the people that you have, but how do you attract the people that are come?

Kent Bullard: Like what are you looking for at the people that are coming in? What are some of the unique how do you approach hiring for a high performance team? How do you approach screening the right people into your team? 

Eric Henley: I usually, the first thing I'll look for is humility. If I have a chest beater I have, I could tell you the technicians I've had in the past that I've hired on their proclamation of their skill and how they configure things out has always come with a poor culture fit.

Eric Henley: Now, I will say that you can't just hire on culture. There has to be some skill and some abilities. There are people that are not built to work on, you know, do the mechanical side. There's people not built to talk to people on the sales side. But generally it is I'll read the personality first, just my discernment of them.

Eric Henley: I don't, I haven't implemented a disc assessment. I just usually meet them. I'll meet 'em usually in the evening or on a weekend when no one's there. Walk them through the shop and just talk to them and kind of get a feeling of a couple hours with that person. If they've made it, you know, to me if they're just online or that kind of thing, I, it's hard to determine, you know, you can only get so much and a lot of 'em wanna text and there's a lack of, you can't really get a genuine feel of someone.

Eric Henley: So I generally like to see someone face to face or hear their voice. The first interview I had that was really outside of the norm was my hire from Washington State. He was he sought us out off career forms on our website and he sent the career form in. One of my staff brought it to me, and I normally would not look at that very long and then file it because it's somebody from across the, you know, and I didn't, at that point, I didn't really need someone, it's part of the funnel. You know, you keep your funnel of people to as you're recruiting. But there was something different about the tone the way he spoke to me. And then I invited him out so I could meet them in person. And they were open to that before they ever decided to move here. And took him around, drove him around, showing him the area took him to the shop.

Eric Henley: His husband, I mean, his wife came with him. And so we we just got to know him personally, what their likes were, what their interests were, and from there I could tell that it was gonna be a fit. So that's generally how I start off. I don't look for the skill or the certifications right off the bat.

Eric Henley: They'll tell me about 'em, you know, 'cause that's part of the career form. But then from there it's just a it's a really, just a personal interaction, a conversation. 

Michael Smith: Well, just to punctuate that point, I love the order that you put it in. If it's not a cultural fit, you're not interested in whether they have the technical skills or not.

Michael Smith: And it's easier to find technical skills online than it is cultural fit online. So I just to validate your model, very smart way to do it. Don't waste your time Having technical validation and then finding it's not a culture fit. Right. The rarer thing is the culture fit. 

Kent Bullard: I think it also kind of points to, I know this person has the right attitude.

Kent Bullard: I know they have the right perspective, and if they're missing or having a few gaps in their technical competency, we can make up with training and we can teach them those skills. If there's somebody that's worth investing in terms of our team dynamic. 

Eric Henley: Mm-hmm. And they'll want to, 

Kent Bullard: and that they want to.

Kent Bullard: Yeah, 

Eric Henley: they'll want to, they'll come ask you to go to Charlotte for a weekend to learn about something. That they're interested in or they'll bring up online courses, or they'll be the one in today's class that is leading the pack. Their daily studies. So,

Michael Smith: well and I'll say this right in technical skills is an intellectual learn and it goes in emotionally, you know, approved as another thing that will help my personal success.

Michael Smith: Cultural stuff comes out of the heart, comes off the truth, tapes comes outta history, comes outta fear, comes outta prior success comes out of security and insecurity and esteem and all that. And so, you know, you can change technical skills at the intellectual level, a hell of a lot easier than you can change deep felt emotion based cultural tenets, right?

Michael Smith: So PE people can change anything they want to change, but culture is a bigger stretch for an individual to go deep, scarier, harder to do. And so I again validates the approach that you take very smart right to to do the technical stuff at the end. So, 

Eric Henley: but it takes a little longer. Because there, there's a whole lot of guys out there that you don't want.

Michael Smith: Yes. 

Eric Henley: And once you get them, it takes a while to get rid of them. 

Michael Smith: Right. 

Eric Henley: And they poison your culture 

Michael Smith: well. So your model is you kiss a lot of toads. Right. And the s and princesses show up at that point, so, yeah. Yeah. Got it. Yep. 

Kent Bullard: So as you're building your team and you're building your culture how do you approach the balance between driving for business results?

Kent Bullard: 'cause obviously you need that to sustain the business to again, sustain the people and maintaining a supportive, human-centric environment. 

Eric Henley: They you're speaking of KPIs, measurables who we created a scoreboard that is digital for the technicians to view each week. And it's updated each Monday from the previous week.

Eric Henley: So they can actually see a lot of the things that we ask 'em to do. You know, you know, hours, perro, a RO, a car count pictures per inspection, all that proficiency, efficiency and productivity. So they can see that the service advisors have the reports and the point of sale we use to view their numbers.

Eric Henley: But one of the things I started to implement more recently is an actual, just a little scorecard of a index card for them. 'cause I felt like there was something, we talked about one of our meetings about ink and pen and paper being more impactful and just having a digital thing that they look at.

Eric Henley: So, so we talk about measurables. They are, they have to be measured. I mean, you don't know where you're at if you have no, you know, no measure. But see those are. Yeah, but the culture side of it is just like, you know, like, for instance, the technicians who are more bought in, look at your numbers.

Eric Henley: Look at what you're doing. This is what's, I mean, this is what's driving this. And I think there's, the two of 'em are starting to get it. The other ones I'm not sure yet. The, again, these are the two that I'm thinking may or may not. So it, it's just a matter of, Hey guys, when we practice these things we've talked about and we live them out in the way we conduct ourselves here, as, as strange as this sounds, it just works out.

Eric Henley: It's, I don't know that you could really give a direct description of how culture causes better production, but when you got it. It just does. 

Michael Smith: It does. And I'll validate that, right? If you're chasing performance culture may or may not happen. But if you're killing the culture, performance happens because the people who are there are into what you believe in.

Michael Smith: The meaning drives them from within. They want the KPIs to prove to themselves and the team around them that they're contributing to the success of the championship team you built. It really is driven. It's both. It's not either or. It's both culture and KPIs. Right? It's beautiful. 

Eric Henley: We, we were just for instance, last week, we were two, two days out from the end of the month and 'cause we were closed Thursday and Friday and they had a ton of sold work and we had one out sick.

Eric Henley: And so we asked the two, well they asked all the techs, but two of them, the two better culture fits that we have, they asked 'em to stay over and knock some work out after hours. So they were gonna sacrifice some of their time. We offered their supper, you know, or their dinner at, to buy 'em something to eat and to support them anyway.

Eric Henley: And the service advisor stayed over to be sure that they, if they ran into a parks problem. So these guys were like, okay, but you're trying to finish your month out and it's important to you because of sales and we, this will be good for both because we'll bill more hours. And so it was reciprocal between the two of 'em.

Eric Henley: It was, this is not the front and the back. This is us trying to hit our numbers and trying to serve our customers by getting the vehicle back to them before Thanksgiving day weekend, you know, where they might be needed to travel or extra car for something. And so there was several reasons that they did it.

Eric Henley: The other one was sick. He couldn't help that. It was, but the other one chose not to. That was just a good indication to me. Like, okay, I can see the difference. This is a culture thing right here. He doesn't really care about anybody but himself and in this particular situation. So, I dunno if that answers your question, but, or if I got sidetracked 

Kent Bullard: to, to kind, no.

Kent Bullard: To kind of summarize this, you know, 'cause I'm thinking there's gonna be shop owners or there's gonna be professionals out there listening to the podcast that go, well, I'm nervous to put a scorecard up or a leaderboard up because I'm afraid that it's gonna breed com competition amongst my team.

Kent Bullard: And it might create some divisiveness. But I think, Michael, you kind of hit the nail on the head by saying the right team is gonna look at that and compare it to their contribution to the team, not their contribution to their ego. 

Michael Smith: Yeah I'll build on this, Eric. And we, and people are free to have different opinions about it.

Michael Smith: I believe if you have a broken culture where people are competing against each other internally, having a scoreboard that's shared is a, that's a problem. If I had that, if I bought a shop and I found that I would pull that board down, I would go to individual conversations about personal performance and personal development on their individual paths to mastery.

Michael Smith: Once I got the culture healed and grown. The fact that they're actually positive people working together. They're starting to act like a team. They're helping each other doing exactly what you talked about. Then I'd put the board back up again because at that point it's not like, oh Eric, you know, you got a better job than I did.

Michael Smith: And they always do that. You know how things can go sideways in a bad culture. Once I believe in you and you believe in me, and you stayed over once to help me and I ran to the parts store when I was supposed to go home and brought it to you so you could finish your job. Once we get to that point, I want this stuff on the board because then I'm pushing you, you're pushing me, I'm encouraging you, you're encouraging me.

Michael Smith: And at that point, the board is nothing but helpful in a toxic environment. The board is toxic. In a healthy environment, the board is healthy. Mm-hmm. And in between the transitions, little pieces of paper and little private conversations until you feel like it turned a corner. So it's a very interesting thing, right?

Kent Bullard: You're 

Michael Smith: kind, the board itself is not the issue. 

Kent Bullard: You're kind of pulling it back 'cause you're like, Hey, you kind of have a skewed perspective on why we're doing this. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna pull back the curtains. I'm gonna try to re. Focus you in a different area so you can actually see the reason why we have these, reset those foundations.

Kent Bullard: I love that. 

Eric Henley: But, and that was one of the, when we rolled out vision, mission, values and principles, we said this is all about us serving our customer at a higher level. This is what all of this is about. And it's not about how many hours you build, it's not about primarily or about how many how much sales you produce that month.

Eric Henley: Those will come if you care more about the customer's interest than how many hours you bill or how many sales you make, or how, what your average RO is. When that, when the primary driver is this, that we've agreed upon and we've collaborated and agreed upon this, then anything less than that is a violation of this.

Eric Henley: And if you can't live by these things, then there's, I don't think you're gonna be satisfied here. And you will find that on the board, 

Michael Smith: which is a great perspective, right? I'm not satisfied here. And the answer is then I would really encourage you to go find a place where you know, your you desire and the fit there is a better fit for you.

Michael Smith: And then when they go, we always talk about putting a more culturally aligned person back in the slot, which is great. Yeah. Yeah. 

Kent Bullard: So I wanna shift here. You know, we've been talking a lot about the culture, the values. How do you feel that your focus on those things has impacted your marketing or your brand identity to your customers and your community?

Eric Henley: Oh, huge. I just, after we we did that exercise and I pretty much had it. We had it nailed down with a few edits. I went and my. My web content on the page is all different. It's gradually getting rolled out. It's not all like I want it yet. 'cause they, it, there's apparently a Google algorithm.

Eric Henley: If you roll too much out, it can if you don't have a website, it's not a big deal. But if you've got a website that's ranking, then it can affect it. So, so we spent some money significant money making sure that our website communicates that in all the stuff that's written. So we had a very personal interview with the lady who wrote my content about, I want this in here.

Eric Henley: I want that in there. The here's what we're, here's what we wanna communicate across every vehicle that they read about on our website or everything that's in on our website. We want these things woven into that. And so that's been. One of the ways that we've that we, that it's affected our marketing and branding and it's still going forward.

Eric Henley: I'm still working on those things. As we learn more about it, of different ways our, the way I speak with people our referral group meetings is different. The way my service advisors, again it's been amazing, the effect it's made on the way they talk with each person. So that that re that that was one of our marketing goals the last two years.

Eric Henley: Is that the best customer experience? That is, that is a marketing tool because those people will go tell other people and asking for the reviews. And when you're acting like you're supposed to, those reviews reflect it too. You'll see it in the. The way the customer replies in it, if they leave comments.

Kent Bullard: Can I, 

Eric Henley: our direct, go ahead. 

Kent Bullard: Oh, I was gonna say, can I ask just for clarity, for the people who are listening to this, you were saying that your communication is different. The way you talk about it is different. The way that you're gonna, this up on your website is gonna be different. Can you give an example of what that would look like for the listener so that they understand why it's different?

Eric Henley: Y yeah, because it's not just stating you know, we work on accuracy and we're the best. It's like, okay, this is your second largest investment. And we value the fact that this is, I'm not sure if I'm saying this correctly, but we want to be sure that this is safe for you and reliable. We want, we know that you're gonna be going to ball games.

Eric Henley: And taking your family places. So the reason we do this thorough digital vehicle inspection is so that you have a clear picture of what's, I mean, just things like that, very personal details. And some of the things that Michael has talked about recently is that feeling you want to have that feel.

Eric Henley: It's a story rather than you're just bragging about what you can do with each vehicle. Just in the content there, the About Us page, it talks about, you know, these things the vision, mission, values, and and I think we're we're even talking about doing the H Tech way thing that a couple from, I think Idaho mentioned and having that on there too.

Eric Henley: It's just a, it's a more conversational way of communicating with people rather than just those canned content that we do this, we offer this, we do 3 36, all that, all the things that we all use. In our industry. It's weaving all that into it. And I guess I have to, there's so much of it. I forget how many pages we had of this, but each one she asked me a specific question, how do you wanna say that?

Eric Henley: How do you want say So it's, and it'll be different for each owner because they'll want it said different ways. But I would encourage them not just to trust someone just to come up with it. You need to talk to that person, whoever it is, or persons who write your content and make that you what you want.

Eric Henley: Said what your team once said and not just something that's universal to everybody else in the industry. 

Michael Smith: Well, we grew up 

Eric Henley: does that 

Michael Smith: Oh yeah. We grew up as a transactional industry and the leading edge thinking. Up to this point has been, well, what if we talked in committed terms with our customers and we talked about our value proposition and our differentiation in the market, as if that takes it up a notch, which it does, we cross that third line into the meaning.

Michael Smith: That's important to the customer. And now you've gone into this long-term covenant relationship building opportunity where the literally where the loyal brand ambassadors wanna live. And in a way, Eric, it's back to that unique competitive advantage. When you write this into your website, your marketing materials, and we've talked about this, it serves a dual purpose, not just to attract the loyal brand ambassadors, but it also det attracts, or dist attracts, or however you wanna think about it.

Michael Smith: Dissuade it's dissuades, it's less attractive to the transactional customer who opens it up. Where's my coupon? Where's my cheap oil change? Where's my free component on my break job? Or whatever. And then all of a sudden they're like, meaning, mm-hmm There's stuff about meaning in here and life and safety.

Michael Smith: And it's like, I just wanna know how much this thing's gonna cost me. And in a way you dissuade them. The other kind of customer from finding you to be the most attractive in their options too. It starts with dual purpose, which I think is really powerful. So 

Eric Henley: for those, just for those that go to the website to look and see what we've done it's still in process so everything's not up.

Eric Henley: So they'll, we'll work better right now. It's not all rolled out yet, so it's a 

Michael Smith: work in progress there. Everybody. Give 

Kent Bullard: Eric some grace here. Yeah. 

Michael Smith: Give that right 

Eric Henley: it. It's a process. Yeah. I thought you had all in there. Not yet. Not So it's still profit, 

Kent Bullard: Eric, you kinda have to balance because you know, on one hand, yeah, you wanna express the value and the culture and those virtue points and all of that.

Kent Bullard: At the same time, Google has laws and rules and in order to sustain your SEO there's some, it's a delicate process to interweave those things. So, I mean, yeah, it should take time instead of just a. 

Michael Smith: Well, and kudos to your provider too, that number one understands the shift potential for disaster from your provider of services.

Michael Smith: But the second thing is being able to listen and willing to listen and trying to come to understand what are you talking about, right? How would you say this here? How would you say that there we come from a standardized industry, right? Here's your transactional website, but I wanna put meaning in here.

Michael Smith: And it's like, what you wanna do? What? And the fact that your provider of service is listening and working with you and asking in your opinion and thinking it through. And, you know, there's hope here that maybe they'll take some of this wisdom to our other industry peer group too and start to, to have this be new industry standards, which I think you guys are leading in this, right?

Michael Smith: So 

Eric Henley: yeah that's, and then, yeah, I think, I mean, not to beat, but I think we are one of the premier shops in the area. But the the other thing I learned from this, and this is just learning about Google Analytics and some of those things, is that it needs to be that way. Affect your local market. Otherwise you'd, you're like anybody else that's doing the same thing around you.

Eric Henley: So if you're communicating these things across there, people are gonna feel it. They like the Subaru car commercial we talked about most recently. When the dad looks back at the crash car and the kids beside of them and they're safe because Subaru built a great vehicle that kept him from being hurt.

Eric Henley: And he looks back and there's that feeling on his face that you can see like, man, I'm grateful. And so you want them as, as weird for our industry as that sounds. You want them to feel something different about you. You know, they remembered my dog was sick the last time I was in, they remembered that I just lost my dad, or, you know, they were.

Eric Henley: They pull the car up for you and make sure it's warmed up. You know, just different things. So when they leave your shop, they don't leave any other shop that does, here's the key to your car somewhere out there. Have a nice day. Appreciate it. They don't get that. We thank you for being a guest with us.

Eric Henley: Is there anything you don't understand about the repair that I can go more in depth with you? Are there any things that we recommended for the future that you don't understand why you need them? If you don't, if you don't have time now that just call me later if you need to discuss 'em further.

Eric Henley: Maybe they didn't get back with you in time to go over the estimate. You know, just different things like that. It's that's the marketing and we don't do direct mail anymore except to retention, you know, to some of our customers at once a quarter. So, we're not using that for a traction.

Eric Henley: We're using SEO and our, and just basically a better website. To draw people in. And so that's really framing a lot of what we that's our marketing, I guess, is try to answer your question in a real roundabout way. 

Kent Bullard: On a psychological standpoint, how does that communication or that authenticity come through in branding, how does that affect the clients that are looking at the shop?

Michael Smith: You know, the words themselves, we talk about this in the leadership intensive, is less than 10% impact on recollection and the way it sticks in the brain, you had a motion to it. It's 35%. More so the concept is you start talking about feelings. You start talking about safety. You get up into the meaning zone where people are drawing their own pictures in their head about this.

Michael Smith: You're approaching 90, a hundred percent retention impact on the brand of the marketing messaging. So, you know, we go to this transactional thing, here's some words, here's a coupon. It has no meaning to it. It has no emotion to it. It's just a simple transaction. It's not very memorable from a branding standpoint either.

Michael Smith: So the emotion really builds into then the relational component, which gets you close to a hundred percent. And this is the thing, right? In our industry, you wanna be top of mind in any moment. Yes, for maintenance, but also for the break. Something breaks in your car, the what you want them to do is instantly think of your brand and how can I get the car to them?

Michael Smith: Oh, I'm a long way away. I don't care. How much does it cost to get the tow over there, a couple hundred bucks, that's my shop. Drive it over there right now. That's a long way. There's closer shops. I don't care. I'm coming to Eric, I'm coming to hd, whatever. And that's what you're building and that's what this meaning, and that's what this emotion adds to our transactional industry.

Michael Smith: And it makes a big difference. 

Eric Henley: Yeah. One of the things that I'm gonna push for too is that we all have our CRM and those a lot of times are stale and just kind of, you know, businessy, i'm gonna ask for some more customization of that and how we talk to when we send that out, how that is said to the customer.

Eric Henley: I want it said in a way that represents us and not just a canned way that everybody does. A warm breathing. Oh, yeah. We were 30 days out from the last recommended services, you know, and just some things about why and what and and things that we can edit. And they're listening to me.

Eric Henley: They're making a few changes here and there. I think we've got an interview with them next week. It's with you all and us and me and know. I'm not sure who else, but but just to make sure the CRM matches what we want too. And then the old fashioned way, I guess the only other thing I can think of we do the old fashioned way, is handwritten.

Eric Henley: Thank you. Cards. We actually pay a lady to do it, but she gets the repair order, writes about the vehicle, and then puts a h Tech buck in there for dollars off. So that's another way that we do a personal touch an old school way. And we do see those come in a lot. They used to have my picture on it.

Eric Henley: They call 'em Merris bucks. Now I finally took that off. It just has our logo on it. But anyway, that it's, that's another way we do it. 

Kent Bullard: So, so it's safe to say over this journey, your the way you communicate has changed over time. Now, you know, what do you, what's different about your communication practices, both externally with your, you know, the vendors or your customers and internally with yourself and your team?

Kent Bullard: What do you think is different now? 

Eric Henley: I think as far as internally, it's just more depth to it. I mean, I've always been big on the relationship, but I think I'm looking more into act. I would've said that I've not been an active listener as we all in our culture generally like to have the next idea.

Eric Henley: And we're trying to talk over each other. And Zoom's made it hard 'cause there's the lag, and sometimes you can't, it's hard to overcome that. Or to pause. Tommy Nicholson, a guy in the industry he taught me a good lesson one time. We read a book, never split the difference. And he was my composite partner.

Eric Henley: And I noticed that when he was talking to somebody, he would, when they replied, there was a long pause, a long, a awkward pause until he spoke. That taught me a lesson about listening and it helped me, and that I'm gradually learning more things. My wife will say that I'm a much better listener after 30 years than I was early in our life.

Eric Henley: Congratulations, by the way. So personally it helps on the personal side and it just helps them alive. So be an active listener that'll develop your culture a lot. When people feel like they're heard they feel valued outward facing, the same way the way we present. Make sure the customer feels like they're heard, that, that you have listened actively to get as much information from them to make sure you address what they, and then be honest if you didn't, if you lo if you lost it somewhere, maybe we got the wrong noise.

Eric Henley: Yeah. That happens, you know? Okay. I'm sorry, Mrs. Jones. We thought for sure that the strut about the fallout from under your vehicle was the noise, but apparently there's a noise that we didn't understand that you meant, you know. So we'd love for you to come back in. This is our second opportunity to get this right and we'd love to ride with you and to be sure we understand exactly what you're talking about.

Eric Henley: And so we can make this right for you and you might make anyway. 

Kent Bullard: So for, sorry. I was gonna say, so for those who as I interrupt you as we're talking about communication, I apologize. It's 

Eric Henley: okay. Okay. 

Kent Bullard: For those out there who have heard the term active listening and still don't quite understand it, what does something, what does active listening look like in, and I'll open this to both of you guys.

Kent Bullard: What does acting look like in practice? 

Eric Henley: Michael? 

Michael Smith: You want me to go first? I really, 

Eric Henley: really appreciate. 

Michael Smith: Yeah. It's yeah it's a style of communication where you're, I think we talk about in the leadership intensive communication that's one way is perceived by everybody involved as being a lower level of affect than communication is perceived as being two-way.

Michael Smith: So from the standpoint that this quiet time, this silence, this moment, number one, people who have a lot to say and haven't finished yet, you give 'em a little extra silence and they'll jam a little more in the gap and then they'll jam a little more in the gap. And you let that go a little bit and you'll learn more than you learned before.

Michael Smith: But it's that being able to pause and actually listen and have real communication. The root we talked about is the of communication is union. The word is union. So you're making a union between two people and coming to an understanding and active listening is just positioning yourself. Not you know, here's us, right?

Michael Smith: We come from a position of sharing lots of industry wisdom with our clients, and we have fun sharing it. It'd be really easy to sit back and just spill wisdom all over everybody that comes from the general field, from outside of this industry, et cetera, and not listen to a thing our clients say and what really matters is what's happening in their life and how it comes home.

Michael Smith: And so having that relationship of a real genuine, it's almost a friendship. Of caring and listening and understanding and under getting into the mind of the person that you're talking to and letting them share what's important to them. And again, they have their needs. They'll walk up and go, I need you to do this.

Michael Smith: And what you talked about very effectively earlier, we then try to get into the wants. It's like, well, let's talk about what you want for this vehicle. Lead you into that stewardship relationship, lead you into that real genuine two-way flow. And when you do that, then the communication, you slow it down.

Michael Smith: You ask a lot of questions. You listen. You don't have automatic answers. You come to conclusions together. When you do both sides buy into it. It's just a different way of, it's a win-win in the end, right? Not a you win and they may lose, but as long as you get your a RO and your credit card, you know, check out of it you're good.

Michael Smith: This model is very much of a two-way flow and a win-win that they walk away and they go, I like that place. They listened to me. They cared about me. They did, we, they helped me figure this out. And that's a big thing in our industry too, and I'll stop talking at this point, but there's a lot of mystery about, you know, lift the hood and look underneath it.

Michael Smith: Most of us, me included, I couldn't begin to tell you what's under there. I wouldn't even lift it. I'd bring it to you. And so that idea that I don't know what I don't know. And so I, if you'll be patient with me and you'll ask me questions and you'll walk me through what you're seeing and explain to me what's happening.

Michael Smith: I don't need to know how to repair an engine, but it really makes me feel good that you would give that grace to me and give me that time. And it makes me trust you and it makes me want to come back and work with you. My second biggest investment that you talked about, which is absolutely right, we all know people walk in and they wanna spend the least amount of money they can to keep that depreciating asset rolling.

Michael Smith: That's what is in the back of people's minds. So they walk in and the older the car gets, the more the repair potential looks like. And it's like that's not a place that most people wanna be in that moment. And so how do we bridge that gap? And what you're talking about is. Being with them, stewarding it with them, thinking through it with them, you sharing openly.

Michael Smith: They trust you. They ask your advice. They're not feeling guarded. They, you know, okay, go ahead and do that. Should I wait? I wouldn't if I were you. But we can, here's my thought. Okay, go ahead and do it right. And even if it's a stretch at that point, it's a win-win, trust based, long-term, loyal brand ambassador building relationship.

Michael Smith: And that you can't get there if you don't have two-way active listening communication. You just can't get there. You'll never get there. 

Eric Henley: One of the things I would say, just a practical application we've learned, and this is through through the never split, the difference is the mirror. So if you don't understand the person, what they've described to you, use the last three words, three to five words of what they said, an upward inflection and then listen.

Eric Henley: 'cause they'll bring out more. And then when you're done, just to make sure you understood, you do the label, you label what they said. Okay, Mrs. Jones sounds like, seems like this is what you're describing. Is that correct? And if she says That's right, then you know you've got it. If not, she, people love to correct and they will correct you and say, no, actually it means this.

Eric Henley: And then the only other thing I would add is the mirror can also be used to diffuse a situation. If you use a more of a downward deflection instead of going up, if they go high. And, you know, say you've got someone who's becoming all right and they don't feel like you're hearing them, just use the mirror in a downward tone very calmly, and then listen and pause.

Eric Henley: Use the pregnant, pause and listen. So there, there's some things we've learned about just very practical ways to communicate with people. 

Kent Bullard: I love that. You know, throughout this morning we've talked about developing, high performing team, how we're hiring the myriad of benefits of all these things.

Kent Bullard: I'd love to take a different approach here and ask, you know, what are some of the challenges that you've faced in creating this culture of continuous improvement and how have you overcome them? 

Eric Henley: So that's, so if you come from a very critical say a critical raring of your parents, maybe had a father or a mother that was always finding something like, okay, so you're never satisfied with it.

Eric Henley: And so some people might have that baggage. I offer, one can say that I came up that way with my dad. He was a very dominant and he would, even though I love my dad, he had his. Little things, 

Kent Bullard: Eric, I think we have a lot in common. 

Eric Henley: Yes. 

Michael Smith: All delivered because they wanted you to grow up quickly and efficiently and help you.

Michael Smith: Right? So I'm gonna criticize you right. To excellence, right? 

Eric Henley: They're very similar things about, and I could appreciate that too, but not, I'm not downing you, Cecil, I promise. But the so the thing you'd have to overcome is that, okay, we can always get better and that has to be okay. We can always improve.

Eric Henley: It's not, I'm cri criticizing you to show you where you're wrong and you didn't do as well. The tone is that I just like, I want to improve myself. I am not where I need to be. I want you to improve as well and become a better person, better, better husband to your wife, better leader in your community and your church, or whatever it is you do outside of here.

Eric Henley: Not just within here. This makes you a whole person better. So I wanna encourage you to grow and always look for ways to improve and don't think of it as a negative. It's not. So I guess just thinking off the top of my head, that's the way I would communicate across continuous improvement.

Kent Bullard: I, I mean, you said that so succinctly and so perfectly.

Kent Bullard: I love that answer. You have to be comfortable. You have to be okay with, we can always be better. And I can see that, you know, e even in my own personal journey of like, man, I'm not done yet. I thought I was done. I want to be done. And it hurts to go through that process of admitting, yeah, I probably have some things to learn and it's painful, but I mean, it's a practice, you know?

Kent Bullard: You said that perfectly. This is a great answer. I love that. 

Eric Henley: Yeah. I probably borrowed it from somebody, but.

Eric Henley: We all don't we all? There's nothing, 

Michael Smith: nothing new under the sun. I heard. 

Eric Henley: Right. There you go. So it's all 

Michael Smith: that's 

Kent Bullard: come around somewhere before. So, so Eric, do you have a, do you have a special person or a specific person whose personal growth journey has been particularly meaningful to you? 

Eric Henley: Oh gosh. Yeah.

Eric Henley: My son I guess some of the motivation for all of this is that I'm gonna tee it off for him to have the best experience growing himself. And he desires to succeed me in this. So he doesn't face some of the things I just kind of cobbled my way through. So I've watched him like I said, he's become a self to the point where I've had to say, listen, son I want you to stop at eight o'clock and talk to your wife and his wife, Alyssa.

Eric Henley: Alyssa. And I've said, and her presence, she says, yes, Seth. Stop reading so much. So, he's got his little study now. I actually helped him carry a desk that Lisa's dad made for him is a handmade desk. Carried it up several flights of stairs to their condominium. And he is got his own little study in their spare bedroom now.

Eric Henley: And he is budgeting. He, his time, he's journaling. And he was my messy son that wouldn't keep his clothes off the floor and his bed made. And he was, when he was at home, he was the mess. But now he's this organized kid. His desk is organized at the shop. His, all of his Ros are organized.

Eric Henley: It's just watching him develop is, has probably been, you know, it is your son. So, I mean, there's always that, you know, you can't not, when you see your son doing something, well, you won't be proud of him. But just I just know this is gonna be something going forward that will make him, he will not have to go through all these struggles.

Eric Henley: And maybe, I mean, he'll probably make a few band of hires. Somebody will slip through the cracks. There may be a desperate moment, but he'll know what to look for and he'll know how to handle it and work his way out of it, or through it or over it. And then watching my I te my one, my newest technician, Cole, I just mentioned him by name.

Eric Henley: Not that my other one, Dakota's not growing in that. But Cole's desire to improve himself. He and Seth are having deep conversations of the Theo Theological things, biblical things. They're having interpersonal relationships. And Cole and I will have those at times too when I make my stroll through the shop.

Eric Henley: Just to talk to the guys. I say What's going on with you, and he'll tell me a struggle he is having and we'll personally and we'll. We talk these things through. So seeing that change in him is rewarding. For me, I think it's more rewarding to see somebody improve themselves than it is to have a good sales month or a good, you know, build hours, whatever.

Eric Henley: If I see a difference in the person that's a celebration to 

Michael Smith: have. Yeah. You know, you know, the science says that we're all wired to grow. To find meaning in life. And that's the most satisfying life. And you're facilitating that. Your son, your technician, you're making a pathway for them and a culture and an encouragement for them to grow and to grow fearlessly and tackle lots of things very, as I always talk about Da Vinci style, right?

Michael Smith: Master something until you're satisfied and pick up something completely different and master that too. And at the end of it, you're a master of mastery, right? Which is a phenomenal gift to give that you're giving legacy wise. So, yep. 

Eric Henley: Sorry. 

Michael Smith: No, go ahead. Yeah, 

Eric Henley: it's the infectious thing too. You see it starting to spread across the front and the relationships he is got with the other two guys.

Eric Henley: And one of 'em is, I mean, I've got the, Matt's my service manager. I didn't wanna put my son in a position of leadership just because he is Aze boy, you know? So he has got somebody over him and they're all infecting each other in positive ways and affecting technicians in the back, in the way they deal with 'em.

Eric Henley: So this type of. Culture is it sort of goes out into the shop and those that don't wanna be involved with it will get uncomfortable with it. And those that do those get even better.

Kent Bullard: I think being a high performer or being in a high performance culture is all about living in the space of mentorship, both being a mentor to someone and also seeking mentorship for whatever your pursuit looks like.

Kent Bullard: So living in both spaces is where you kind of get in the flow of development, of mastery. Your focus on human development how has that changed you as a leader?

Eric Henley: Good question. It's given me confidence in, i'm equipping my people, which has given me freedom to do other things that I wanna do to help others. It's given the opportunity to serve in my church in the capacity I haven't been able to. It's given me opportunities to do work in the community that I would've been, had it have been a ic type of environment at the shop then I wouldn't have had that freedom.

Eric Henley: And so now I can do a lot of things that I otherwise couldn't. It has made it a little uncomfortable adjusting to not being needed. And so, so for those that not are not at that point yet, you almost feel guilty for not being there. But they actually do better and they'll ask you, what are you doing here today?

Eric Henley: You know, you were just here yesterday. We don't need you. Here, 

Kent Bullard: go home. 

Michael Smith: Let us do it ourselves. Really? Oh, can I help somehow? No, we're fine. Really? Is there nothing I can 

Kent Bullard: do? I think, not to interrupt, but I think when you're at a point where your team is telling you, Hey, it's okay, we don't need you.

Kent Bullard: That's them. Admit, that's them almost saying, I want to prove to you that you've done a good job in stewarding me. I wanna show you that your investment in me, I isn't fruitless. 

Eric Henley: Yep. For a technician will something, 'cause I'm a technician, you know, I've been one, been in the trade 30, 80 years. Hard to believe.

Eric Henley: But the technician will come to me sometimes when I'm making a stroll through the shop, and he'll ask me about a particular problem he is having with one. And I'm like, what's going on with it? And then again, I'll do the same thing. Well, what do you think? And he'll tell me and. Most of the time, I'm like, you know, you'll just I can see how something went wrong here, but you're a great technician.

Eric Henley: Something just unfortunate happened has happened to me many times. When you can relate to them in that way that you're in a place I mean, I've been in your shoes and I made it through it, and so will you, 'cause you are a good technician. You'll overcome this. Don't beat yourself down.

Eric Henley: Mistake is a good way to learn something to move on to something better the next time. So, it's just a, it's, it frees them, frees you, and tell you personal relationships too. I mean, like I told you, 30 years married to the same lady. She knows all the little faults I've had through the past and and she can see improvement.

Eric Henley: It's commented on those things that actually listen to her now. And and that value her her opinion about things where normally I would've said, I've got this figured out now I'm gonna do that. And you know, me, I'm not a dominant type, I'm not a real domineering type person. That's not my personality.

Eric Henley: But I still have those things where I like, okay, I've got my opinion about it, and that's it. And nobody else is right. I've learned that there are other people that are right. And I, and I can have a, I can have relationships with somebody. I either, either whatever their church is or whatever their politics are.

Eric Henley: I can have a relationship with people. Now I will say that's another area I've learned that I can actually talk to people I don't necessarily agree with on a particular subject and still have a relationship with 'em. We don't have to agree on everything to lock each other and spend time together.

Eric Henley: So it, it'll help you in that sense too. 

Michael Smith: Society needs more of that nowadays. So it's like 

Kent Bullard: what a novel concept. 

Michael Smith: Yeah. What an idea. Right. You have a different way of thinking. And I can still be your friend, 

Eric Henley: huh? 

Michael Smith: It's okay. It's okay. 

Kent Bullard: So Eric what advice would you give to the leaders out there who are listening to this, that are aiming to create a workplace that prioritizes growth, that, you know, invests in the wellbeing of their people and is pushing for high performance?

Kent Bullard: What would you tell them? 

Eric Henley: Yeah, so you're gonna need accountability and you're gonna need somebody push you along. 'cause we don't want change some comfortable even if you've got, say your numbers are great and you're pushing production to the shop and your sales are great and your culture stinks, it's awful.

Eric Henley: If you don't have other peers around you and frequently around you. Or a phone call away, you won't change. So making the investment into this group, the high performance group, well, for that matter, that you all aspects of what you guys offer will move you in a direction that will make you better.

Eric Henley: And you wouldn't, you would not believe the change. You will look back, like I said, it was a blur. You will look back and think, well, wow, that's a long way from where I was at, and I didn't realize where I was at. That you've got, now you've got a place to measure from, and then you see what changes it's made in you.

Eric Henley: So I would encourage you to get involved in this group. And it'll be well worthwhile, your time and your, and whatever it costs you to be involved in it and your organization and your business will be better for it and your life for that matter. So I'm just that, I guess that. Is that concise enough?

Eric Henley: Does that make sense? 

Kent Bullard: I find it interesting that we are both reluctant to change. Change is painful, but at the same time, humans are wired to change and grow and develop. You know, from a psychological standpoint we're, we seek that, that development, that growth. 

Michael Smith: We're happier when we do, 

Kent Bullard: right.

Michael Smith: When we cut loose and just let ourselves do that. We find more satisfaction in life than when we don't. 

Eric Henley: Mm-hmm. Life is short, 

Michael Smith: but it's risky. It's risky because you might realize you don't know something you thought you did or you might change your mind. It's like uhoh, 

Kent Bullard: it's like, I'm quite comfortable with my world.

Michael Smith: I like now I like being broken and I'm fine. Don't stir me up. Right. Don't disturb me. 

Kent Bullard: I got one final question to ask as we wrap up. This has been such a wonderful morning, Eric. Thank you so much for being here and walking us through your experience and your time. I've got one final question for you.

Kent Bullard: What legacy do you hope your focus on human development will leave within your organization and your community? 

Eric Henley: Yeah, that's, and it's personal too because I have a son who's in it, you know, as I mentioned before. So one of our things in the, I think it's in our vision, it's probably interlacing some of the other ones right now, just trying to think through, but that we want to redeem the negative opinion that people have about our industry.

Eric Henley: We want it to be one that, okay, these people are different and this is why they're different. And we want our guys to and our ladies for that matter to think about that in terms of the way they do their job every day when they come in. You're moving the needle away from what we've been painted as unethical.

Eric Henley: Can't be trusted industry to someone who sets the standard for that, that we wanna be though that shining beacon, I guess, that people look at and like, that's different there. And so I want, as Seth decides to develop and as you know, even if our. Even if the team that we have now moves on to something else, I want them to be to look back at what they've learned with us and and make a difference in the world.

Eric Henley: Whatever way they are occupied with at that time. You know, whether it's in their families, whether they go to a different, say they go to financial investing we want 'em to be the best they can be in that. And they can and they can maybe look back, not for us to beat our chest, but hey, if I haven't worked for them and learned these things culturally of how they interact with people and what's really important in life then I would not be as successful at what I'm doing now.

Eric Henley: So, whether they stay with us or not, we make a, we're making an investment in people's lives. We're gonna change the industry we're in, but we're gonna try to change the world too in the way we live out. Or with people around us, what they see in us. So 

Michael Smith: can I just grab a piece of what you said? A legacy of raising up legacy levers.

Michael Smith: It's a multiplication model, right? It's not just your legacy. You're raising up people who know how to leave legacies to go leave their legacies, which will ultimately raise up legacy levers, which I, it is just, it's a profound thing you're working on. Thank you for sharing that. That's really powerful.

Michael Smith: Really powerful. 

Eric Henley: It's still in process. 

Michael Smith: The website's not quite done yet. Right? So 

Kent Bullard: You mentioned redeeming the image of the industry. I always go back. I've underlined encircled redemption a few times throughout this conversation. I think it's just such a beautiful sentiment.

Kent Bullard: Eric, thank you so much for being here. Listeners, if you have any questions or comments about what we covered today, please comment down in the comment section below. Eric Henley, h Tech Auto Care outta Tennessee. Thank you so much for your time today. This has been such a treat. 

Michael Smith: Yeah, it's a pleasure to know you

Eric Henley: to visit with you guys.

Michael Smith: It's a pleasure to know you too, my friend. 

Eric Henley: Likewise. I'll see you soon. 

Michael Smith: Yes you'll, 

Kent Bullard: those of you who want more information about what we do at the institute, you can find more info at. We are the institute.com. Thank you for listening.