How were you able to instill your beliefs of how you treat people to 11,000 employees at 660 plus locations?

In full transparency, I don't believe we have it through 11,000 employees.

I'm quite sure there's a manager out there that... won't be here at some point in time in the future that isn't treating people well, his team well.

So it starts with the individual shop manager.

And that's what we tell them.

They're really the culture at that location because the team, it might be three years before they get to meet me in person because it's so big and you can only be in so many places at once.

So it's really that local leadership that affects whether it's really a Crash Champions experience the way we want to be as a customer or as a partner, as an employee or team member.

In a good way, sir.

What structural shifts are you seeing in trends or even in insurance that has allowed a national operator like Crash Champions to scale so aggressively?

Yeah.

For, for ...

On the insurance question, what the case is is because of the difficulty in repairing the cars today, larger companies like ours are able to give them confidence in the repairs.

They're able to get a quality product across the country through single points of contact.

So it's much more efficient, um, from an insurer perspective, and there's some cost savings involved with that, too, administratively, e- e- cetera.

So it is, it is an industry that's transforming in that way because also single shop owners, it's difficult to keep up with the investment needed, the training needed.

Do you view that as a net negative or a potential shrinking of your business, or does it just transform what you are repairing?

Like, candid? Genuine?

Yeah, like a ca- like a candid black and white or, like, sepia tone.

Yeah.

A lot of people have said that, though, like, uh, "Oh, that looks like someone I know," or, "That reminds me of someone I know." So there's, that photo is definitely, like, resonating with people.

Have I been there?

Yes.

Exactly right.

And this question was around the way we treat people.

Yeah, you want to be what you want others to become.

Yeah, you can't be phony, not in this world, to call it out.

And one thing's for sure, I don't walk around, I'll openly talk about my flaws.

For you, how have you been able to reconcile your personal needs or wants versus shareholder value?

Why is today's Fortune 500 CEO like yourself, billion-dollar companies, why are they in the podcast game?

Well, big part of what happens in a service business is the trust factor is important.

And so people want to do business with people they know and people they trust.

We're in a business where people don't need us often, every 10 years or so on average.

And so this was a strategy that we pursued to get that trust factor up where people can can attach a face to the business they can get to know me through other communications you know on the podcast through social media etc and that's that's how it started it started with really just social media and then rather than following myself around with cameras all day to get content the podcast seemed like a much smarter way to go about it and you could also then leverage guests audience and start to grow our audience and that's how we went to it and My reviews are positive.

It ends up being more work than you want it to be.

That's for sure.

I

So explain that a little bit m- I think I know what you mean, but you're a consumer-facing business, and you depend on the consumers for your business, but most of your marketing is geared towards the people who work for you.

Yeah, because you're only...

We're only as good as my team.

Like, I can build the most beautiful building and put a bunch of people in there that don't know how to fix cars and treat customers like crap, and it's gonna f- it's gonna fail.

So it's very much a people...

It's a service business.

It's all about the people.

Sure.

Have you met any new relationships or any doors fly open because they saw you on social media?

Oh, oh, many.

And, uh, one would be...

I, I, I can tell you one example.

Um, we're a blue-collar trade, right? Fixing cars, and so, um, Mike Rowe has been talking about...

And, and we're short on people, and Mike Rowe has been, you know, since the Dirty Jobs decades ago, talking about the skills gap and, um, it was somebody that we wanted to meet and somebody that we thought his message is the same as the one that we're, we're trying to do.

We went to SkillsUSA last year and went to the national competition.

What are, what are other important factors of scaling?

Mm-hmm

... and it's because we're helping people in a time of need, so we get to take care of people.

Um, we also get to help people, uh, change some lives, both through some charity stuff and also through career paths as the company has grown.

But, you know, that too has evolved.

If I go back to when I was, um, you know, teenage years when I first, uh, got into the collision space, it was out of necessity.

I had wrecked my car and needed to learn how to fix it.

And, um, what I would say is it, it kinda started from a place of making things better.

Two, let's talk to the viewer and listener about why consistency, processes, and systems are so important when it is time to scale and to expand.

Two, let's talk to the viewer and listener about why consistency, processes, and systems are so important when it is time to scale and to expand.

Yeah, because you, because the results matter, because the perception matters and, and appreciate the compliment, Mick, but we're a work in progress, too.

Like, uh, it's not to the degree that I would love it to be, which is, you know, perhaps what it never will, right? I'll always want things to be better and always want them to get there, but it, you, you need that consistency.

The McDonald's is the perfect example.

If you couldn't count on the same french fries at every drive-through you pulled in, you, you wouldn't, you wouldn't treat it the same.

Um, and so I think that's pretty understandable to everyone that, um, when, when you see that name, you, y- you expect it to be the same.

Um, and from our standpoint, our customers are, we're a once in a decade event probably.

What's a piece of advice you have for that? Because again, you've mastered that as well too.