155 - Lawn Mowers to Leadership: 40 Years of Lessons at R&N Motor Company

155 - Lawn Mowers to Leadership: 40 Years of Lessons at R&N Motor Company October 10, 2025 - 00:46:45   Show Summary: This episode dives into the story of Robert Crawford, owner of R & N Motor Company in Sanford, North Carolina, who’s been turning wrenches and building relationships since 1984. Robert shares how he went from rebuilding lawnmowers as a kid to running a thriving eight-bay shop with his son at the counter and his wife managing the books. He and host Jimmy Lea discuss what it means to grow from technician to owner, how to measure success beyond sales, and the importance of creating a culture where people want to stay. From lessons learned through failed ventures to his philosophy on mentorship, training, and preparing for retirement, Robert’s story is a blueprint for longevity in the automotive business.   Host(s): Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development   Guest(s): Robert Crawford, Shop Manager of R&N Motor Company   Show Highlights: [00:05:12] - Jimmy and Robert laugh about shop locations, customer parking, and the realities of Google Street View. [00:09:18] - Robert’s early start: rebuilding lawnmowers in middle school and landing his first shop job in 1984. [00:10:44] - How Robert bought the business through sweat equity and kept his mentor’s legacy alive. [00:13:16] - The slow, guided transition from tech to owner—and “What would Mr. Peewee do?” leadership. [00:18:13] - Tracking gross profit per hour as the shop’s key performance indicator. [00:21:05] - Why Robert switched to Tekmetric and added Detect Auto to improve maintenance opportunities. [00:28:05] - Future plans: retiring with his wife, passing the business to his son, and avoiding rental pitfalls. [00:34:54] - The costly exhaust franchise mistake that taught him to always research before investing. [00:38:04] - His wish for the industry: faster growth in trades education and more hands-on apprenticeships.   In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry? Share your story with us at [email protected], and you might be featured in an upcoming episode.   Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this!   Links & Resources:  Want to learn more? Click Here Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here See The Institute's events list: Click Here Want access to our online classes? Click Here ________________________________________ Episode Transcript Disclaimer This transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at [email protected].   Episode Transcript: JImmy Lea: Hello friend, this is Jimmy Lee with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence and this you are listening to is the Leading Edge podcast. Joining me today is Robert, and Robert is the owner of R and N Auto out of North Carolina. Is that right? Robert r and n Motor Company? Yes, sir. R and m Motor Company. JImmy Lea: That's awesome. And we were just in North Carolina at the Asta Trade Show. Were you at Asta? Yes, sir. We brought our whole crew. Oh, that's awesome. I can't believe I missed you there. Robert Crawford: Yeah. JImmy Lea: How was that? Oh, the whole crew. The whole crew. That's awesome. What did they think of the conference? The training? Robert Crawford: They always enjoy it. Sometimes the training can get a little bit below you when you're there participating in the class, but, you know, I understand the training has to be a broad range for different people, so it's gonna be that way. Yep. Well, and you know, if. JImmy Lea: If you're a tech and you're sitting in a basic breaks class, but you're a master tech, go find another class. Robert Crawford: Well, I can give an example. Yeah, gimme an example. They did that actually. They were in an ADOS class and we have a brand new ados mobile unit. I think it's the IW 700, and the instructor brings out a plumb bob and a string. We don't use that. We've got the lasers on the machine and all that. So we, they were like, really? Robert Crawford: So, and that was the things that they mentioned to me. But overall, you're always gonna glean something out of a class no matter what it is. JImmy Lea: I agree. Especially if you're looking for that nugget. If you're looking for that one bit of information that makes all the difference. And you know, even though we have the lasers and that sort of thing. JImmy Lea: Understanding the origins of, Hey, look guys, if your lasers get messed up for a minute, you can use this plumb bob to really dial it in. Make sure you're right. Robert Crawford: Right. But you know, all the techs got, they all want the bells and whistles. They don't really want the down to earth back in the day stuff, you know? Robert Crawford: Yeah. Right. JImmy Lea: Yeah. Well, and it's true. I mean, so for those texts that, that are on the cutting edge. They want all the bells and whistles. They want the latest, greatest, the new color scheme. You know that's all great and everything, but if you understand where it's come from, it's gonna help you that much better to be a better technician. Robert Crawford: Right. One of our new, this is his first time going with us and he really liked it. He took a lot of the basic classes and he enjoyed himself. JImmy Lea: Good. Good. So he signed up to go next year? Yes, sir. Good Lord. Willing. Yeah. Good Lord will. Hey. And you know, we're in the same location next year. Yeah. That, what'd you think of that conference center? Robert Crawford: I'm gonna tell you, at first I was a little the drive there was a little stressful, but once I got in the parking deck after the lady up there drove me crazy, I thought the facility was fantastic. We were right across the street in a hotel. We walked, never got in the car until I had to leave. And the facility the Civic center was great. Robert Crawford: I spent about a hundred, yeah. Coffee shop. But yeah, JImmy Lea: it was a good facility. Yeah, that was a good facility. I loved that. I thought the convention center itself was big and it provided us a room for everything we wanted to do. The thing that got me was, yeah, there was a bit of walking involved. JImmy Lea: There was a lot of up and down and escalators and I'm sure we were on three different floor. Three, four. Yeah. We had four floors. Wow, I missed out on that top floor. So the top floor was the ballrooms. That's where all the meals was. Robert Crawford: Right. JImmy Lea: The main floor registration had four or six classrooms around the corner. JImmy Lea: The set, the third floor down had six classrooms down that hallway, and then the basement was where the vendors were, where the trade show was. I call it the basement. It's probably the first floor. Robert Crawford: Yeah, well it was neat 'cause I came down the escalator with my co with my phone, was taking a video going down the escalator overlooking the show. Robert Crawford: It was pretty impressive. JImmy Lea: Yes I did, I thoroughly enjoyed that location and we have the ability of expanding out through two more spaces the exact same size as that, so we can grow this conference quite a bit. I'm super excited for it. I Robert Crawford: don't know. I kind of like having the tattoo people next door. Robert Crawford: 'cause that was very JImmy Lea: interesting. Well, it was, did you notice on the first day we were all intermingled and then by the second day it was like, all right, you guys use these doors and you guys use these doors. I was like wait. Robert Crawford: And JImmy Lea: so mingled, these are our people. Robert Crawford: Yeah. They did a good job of like keeping the two trades apart, so that was good. JImmy Lea: Not bad. A little bit better than the experience I had in Minneapolis, Minnesota when we showed up and it was at the exact same time we had the Ratchet and Wrench conference and it was the furry migration. Robert Crawford: Oh yeah. JImmy Lea: Oh yeah, that's right. Enough said about that. That's different podcast for a different time, and we haven't had enough adult beverages to talk about that one yet. JImmy Lea: So let's talk about Robert. You own a phenomenal shop. You 299, 5 star reviews on Carfax 648 reviews on Google. You've got a 4.9 rating. You're just really killing it. You're doing really well. How in the world does your shop being that close to the freeway, how do people get in that front door? JImmy Lea: And if you don't know what I'm talking about, you need to search it online because this boy's front door, he must have barely a shoulder for people to walk down. At least that's what it looks like. Robert, tell me about it. Robert Crawford: It's actually not as bad as it sounds on from you. It's if you go to 4 21 through downtown Sanford, it is a four lane highway, but it's 35 miles an hour there. Robert Crawford: We're on a turnoff off that, the second building off of that, and it's really a two lane road. It just has wide lanes and it's slow traffic through there. So we're just a rock throw from the main high, which is actually a good thing. JImmy Lea: Yeah, that is a good thing, being so close to the freeway, that's nice. JImmy Lea: That's really nice. Do you have a lot of people that pull in the gates and park and then walk on the inside gates? 'cause I noticed there's a door on the inside of the gate as well as the outside. Robert Crawford: We try to keep, we have yellow signs of, you know, signs for people who wanna obey signs. I don't really want people pulling in the gate because we're backing out of the building parts. Robert Crawford: People are there. And we've had a couple of almost collisions there before. We actually had one customer hit another car while they pulled their car in. So we tell people, please park in front of the building. So between us and our building, between our front door and the street, there's enough room for two rows of cars and there's a sidewalk there. Robert Crawford: So we want them to go there. Park JImmy Lea: in front. Oh dude. Okay. Then I'm totally misled by the pictures I saw. It looks like your front door is. It's right on the shoulder of the freeway. Google Me man. Google me. I did. That's the way I was looking. I was looking at your Facebook page. That's what I was looking at. JImmy Lea: So yeah, I'll have to go on Google Street so I can see. So you two cars, two rows, and then you got a sidewalk and then the freeway. So you, yeah, you got plenty of room. You wanna see somebody who is right on the freeway, go to Performance place in South Jordan, Utah. Tracy Holt owns that shop. He is. JImmy Lea: Quite literally on the freeway. On the freeway I think there's, there is a sidewalk and there's a little strip of grass, but it's only like a two foot wide strip of grass. You're your one sneezed away from getting hit if you're standing on that sidewalk. It used to be that they had a bunch of room, went back when they built it, but then eminent domain, they could just kept taking land. JImmy Lea: Now it's almost to the front door, like it, it wouldn't even pass code today. That's another story. I love your shop. I love what you're doing. I love that you're in North Carolina. I'm glad you were at Asta. That is a heck of a show. Can't wait to see you again there next year. And you're right. JImmy Lea: Having the motel or the hotel Marriott down the street or across the street and the, there were like six different hotels that were super close, made it super easy and convenient for everything. Robert Crawford: And last year when we went, we had to drive. And when you've gone to the party room and you've gone to the go-karts and you're a little bit. Robert Crawford: You've had your extra limit of two beers, you don't really need to be driving around. So that just makes it nice. I don't have to worry about my guys. JImmy Lea: Bingo. Yeah. How far is home to the show in Raleigh? Robert Crawford: If you are in Raleigh and you take number one south, we're about 45, 50 miles, right off number one. Robert Crawford: That freeway you keep talking about intersects with number one, two miles down the road. So we're, it's a, oh, I love it For us and honestly we yeah. For the show and come home at night. It was a late night. Sure. We come home and get up the next morning. JImmy Lea: Right. But thank you for getting the hotel rooms that makes everybody this decisions are cleaner, easier. JImmy Lea: We can all stay right there. That's awesome. So Robert, let's go back in time. How did you get involved in the automotive repair? Robert Crawford: I've always been kind of mechanically inclined. I even in middle school, I would actually rebuild lawnmower engines for my neighbors and I asked mom, did you really to come and finish this engine? Robert Crawford: She says, as long as you get good grades, that'd be fine. So I'd skip school and finish rebuilding the engines on lawnmowers for friends and neighbors and people like that. I've always done that. I had bicycles and riding mowers and when my stepfather had a garage, you know, in school they ask you, what do you wanna be when you grow up? Robert Crawford: I wanted the gas pumps outside in a two bay garage since I was in the eighth grade. You know, that was my dream. So it worked out great. I've been very blessed. But to go back to what you're asking me. The boss of RNA Motors, John p Rosser, his son and me went to school from the fourth grade on. So when he was in high school, he was asking him, do you know anybody who can bring in and train? Robert Crawford: So in 11th and 12th grade, I took automotive tech one and two and he brought me in. So right outta high school June of 1984, that's been a long time ago. We sat on his back porch and he interviewed me next to his pool and he wanted someone that can come in and he could train. So I've been there ever since. Robert Crawford: Now. Me and my wife had been running the business for them up until 2014 where he passed away. Loved him like a daddy, but we all know things are gonna happen, and we literally bought the business with sweat equity. We didn't buy the business. We ran it for a long time While they were there, we paid them a check to stay home and travel around in their motor home. Robert Crawford: Ran it like it was ours. I tell people it was like living with a woman for 10 years and then you get married, you put the marriage certificate in the file cabinet, and you're still the same way. That's what it was to me in 2014 when the paperwork was signed. Me and my wife had been running it for 15 years anyway, so it was just a, an official deal and now we're going there. JImmy Lea: So I've been Robert, congratulations. Thank you. 1984. Brother. That's a long time. 40 plus years you've been running this show. Most people can pay Robert Crawford: for their house with their W twos, but I've only had one. JImmy Lea: Oh, that's hilarious, Robert. Oh, that's so true. That's so true. And what about your friend that you went to high school with whose daddy did own the shop? Where's he at? What's he doing? Robert Crawford: He's actually had some health issues and he's at home now because he really can't work well. And his mother, who was like, I think she's like 96, he kind of helps take care of her. Robert Crawford: Whoa. Yeah, she's still got a great mind. She's still sharp as attack. Of course, Mr. Officer passed away in 2014. Yes, and I love like a mom and I call her mama. JImmy Lea: Oh, that's great. That's great. I've been there for so long. Robert Crawford: She's like, like family to me, JImmy Lea: you know? Oh yeah, of course. Well, there's the family you're born to and there's a family you choose and these family, that becomes part of your choice. JImmy Lea: Isn't that nice? Oh, it really is. It really is. That's what like the shops say, oh, we treat you like family. All right, hold on. Time out. Is that the family you like or the family you tolerate? Robert Crawford: It's like talking to a technician. What would you do if it was your car? We know what the technician would do. Robert Crawford: Bubble gum JImmy Lea: and bailing. Wire. I just get yeah. That's right. Oh, that's funny. So, so did your buddy, did you and your buddy work together in the shop for a while or did he go a different route? Robert Crawford: We did. In 1984, when I started there, me and him worked there for like six, eight years. But then he wanted to do something different, so he became a volunteer fireman and then a truck driver. Robert Crawford: It was never really in his makeup to run the business, and it was pretty evident. And now we're still friends. Matter of fact, he brought his mom by the shop the other day, so everything's cool there. But it's, he, it wasn't, that's great. Not everybody can do this. JImmy Lea: Oh, Robert. No, that's so true. So what was one of the biggest challenges you faced going from turning a wrench to being a manager, going from a manager to being an owner? JImmy Lea: What does that transition look like for you, Robert? Robert Crawford: I would say that it really was beneficial for the man I worked for, because he led me through that process. I was rebuilding transmissions next to him and when customers would come in. There was people that wanted to talk to Peewee, and there was people that would come in and I'd go talk to them. Robert Crawford: So as he phased outta working there and riding around in the motor home, I gently took over the everyday operations. In 20 2002, his wife said, Peewee, I'm going to the house. She was retiring, so that was when my wife came in and started running the office, and then we started doing computers and all that stuff. Robert Crawford: So it was a slow transition, but it was a good transition. I always had my backup plan. You know, some people have that. What would Jesus do? Bracelet I had, what would Mr. Peewee do? What would boss my Rosser do if he was here? And I just kind of went through problems like that. What would Rosser do in this situation? Robert Crawford: Because I'd been with him at that time, 20 years. So I just kind of did what I thought he would do. And eventually I didn't ask that anymore. I just did it. JImmy Lea: And then it became what would Robert do? Robert Crawford: Yeah. And now I'm hoping my son Ryan says, what would dad do? JImmy Lea: Is your boy in the business? Robert Crawford: Yeah. You saw him at the A STA con the con the conference there. JImmy Lea: Oh, that's awesome. Robert Crawford: My son Ryan runs the counter for us. He's the service advisor, so he's the primary and I'm kind of the floating back and forth. Sometimes I get a part, sometimes I'm helping outside. Sometimes I do some shop stuff. Had a 67 Torino gt and honestly, the new technicians don't know the old stuff, so they call me the old guy and I work on some of the old stuff, so I bu that motor, that was kind of fun. JImmy Lea: Oh, I'll bet that was fun. Especially a Grand Torino. Holy smokes. That's a beautiful car. So much fun. Well, I'm glad your son's in the business. Now the legacy lives on right back to Mr. Peewee is r and n. So I thought RNN was Robert and your wife. Robert Crawford: I tease people and say, it's Robert and no other than Cher, but it was r and n and it, and if you look on our website, we've got a little bio there. Robert Crawford: It was John Rosser. And Caldwell Norris, they worked back in the fifties at the Ford dealership, so that when they left the dealership and started their own, Ross also liked working on cars. Norris liked work, liked selling cars, and it was a used car dealer way back in the day. And eventually he bought his partner out and we just got to working on cars only. Robert Crawford: So I don't want sell used cars. God bless everybody who does. JImmy Lea: Oh yeah, my uncle did it in Vegas. I think he turned 19, 20 cars a month. He had a very small lot buy here, pay here type of deal. Robert Crawford: Yeah, JImmy Lea: I think he repossessed 80% of the cars that he sold. Robert Crawford: Yeah. That's a whole nother business in my opinion. Robert Crawford: It's hard to mix those JImmy Lea: two. Oh, it's, it is very hard to mix those two. I totally agree. And the repair business that you've been in is phenomenal. It's awesome. I applaud you for going from a master tech into the management, from management into ownership. How, what do, what is what, how, what do you do to pull yourself out of the mix of working in the business? JImmy Lea: Now you are working on the Grand Torino and so you're the old guy. You're the only one that could work on these cars. Some of 'em. Some of 'em, yeah. What do you do to be able to pull yourself out to work on the business? Not in the business. Robert Crawford: I just wish hats right. We all wear a lot of hats. It's really just an easy transmission for me. Robert Crawford: For me to walk out the service counter and go out there and advise someone on how to fix something, it just, you know, you do what you do. Yeah, just like, it's like my wife being at the shop and working in the office and then coming home and cooking supper. It is just what we do. It's really not right. Robert Crawford: It's not a challenge for me. Matter of fact, it's probably more of a challenge for me to be the owner because I don't like numbers. I didn't like doing school math and I don't like doing it now. It's kinda like in our church group when they have you do a small group and they give you homework. Robert Crawford: I don't wanna do homework anymore, but there is a lot of that, you know? So you have to deal with that. She's great with the books. She does the office and I do the work in the shop and deal with that stuff, and she pays the bills at work and I pay the bills at home. So we split it up that way. But it's just, oh, there you go. Robert Crawford: That's all occurrence. To go from one job to the other. JImmy Lea: I love it. I love it. And you know, Robert when those numbers become dollars and dollars become ability to buy and it gives you those freedom and those choices, the numbers become a little bit more fun than right. One plus one equals two. JImmy Lea: Yeah I completely agree. Algebra, geometry, calculus, trigonomic it's all. Relative once that number now is a dollar and a dollar in your bank and a soldier working for you, it becomes much more fun to work them numbers. Robert Crawford: Right. JImmy Lea: So do you say your wife does all the books, she does the numbers for the shop. JImmy Lea: Do you keep your pulse on that? You know what's happening? Robert Crawford: Yeah. We, me and my son both do a lot of the legwork, like she does QuickBooks, so you know, everything. Nowadays we use tech metric, it all goes through the software. It's all love it, it all gets popped into QuickBooks, so she handles that part of it. Robert Crawford: But there's a lot that we do at the service desk, making sure our GP per hour is right, making sure our gross profits right. You know, all those numbers are important and although I don't like them it's part of it. It's what you've gotta do. JImmy Lea: Yeah. Robert Crawford: We had Rick White as a coach for quite a while, and he gave us a lot of good tools, good Excel spreadsheets. Robert Crawford: Oh, that's a spooky word. Excel spreadsheets. But it's a tool. It helps us do what we gotta do. You can work all day long, but if you don't make a dollar, well good. Is it? So you've gotta have those numbers in place. JImmy Lea: Yeah, so true. So what's one of those key performance indicators for you in your mind that really dials in, that you are profitable, functioning, efficient? JImmy Lea: What is one of those KPIs for you, Robert, that you look at as that indicator? Robert Crawford: To me, gross profit hours is the important one. That's the one that I look at the most because if you look at, you can have your atec doing an oil change. If you're not making any money of that, your gross profit hours is like 60, 60, $70 there. Robert Crawford: If you have your ctech who's doing the sweeping up a little bit, doing some things here, you're teaching him the business you're doing, walking 'em through some brake jobs. He does oil change. You're making some money on your oil changes, and the way we buy our oil in bulk, we have a pro program with Valvoline where we're buying product at a really good price so we can afford to mark it up and actually make some money. Robert Crawford: We're making money off oil changes, but. Again, it's all about the gross profit per hour to me. JImmy Lea: Yeah. Gross profit dollars per hour. That's phenomenal. That's what we keep Robert Crawford: our, that's the pulse we keep our finger on. There's a lot of other numbers out there. Car counts and an average ro, but you know, you take average ro, that means nothing. Robert Crawford: If you do 20 oil changes and then you do five engines, it means nothing. You got tickets that are seven, six grand. You got tickets that are. $90. It's all about the mix of things. At the end of the day, you wanna make sure you're making a net profit, right? That's what, that's everybody's favorite number of the net. JImmy Lea: Yes, that's exactly it. So after your gross do gross dollars per hour, how much do we take home? And I understand why you're looking at the gross profit per hour, on the daily, on the hourly, the net. You gotta control the expenses. You gotta control, and that's not something you need to look at hourly. JImmy Lea: That's something that you look at and say, wait a second, why are we spending so much here? Why are we spending so much here? We can cut back. We can, we don't need this software, we don't need this power tool. We don't need this subscription. Robert Crawford: And that's a good plug for tech metric because we switched over from the other program we had vein program and three other sister programs. Robert Crawford: And although Tetric might not be the most beautiful DBI out there, it's a DBI, it gets the job done. And. To me, when you give customers paperwork, it's kinda like the church bulletin. Nobody reads that thing. They're all asking the preacher, when are we gonna do this? Did you read the church bulletin? Well, you give, it's all the bullet. Robert Crawford: Your customers, you give them all these dvs and all these beautiful colors, they don't even look at the thing. They still come back and say, you know, what do we need to do next? So, yeah, you gotta have something to hand out, something to back up what you're showing them. But it's all about, you know. The Tech Metric program does everything we needed to do. Robert Crawford: Now, we did add another program just this week, it's called Detect Auto. The maintenance work that people let go is astronomical, and that's what I really want to do away with. I want at least give the customer the opportunity to say, your transition hasn't been servicing 150,000 miles. If you want it to live, we really need to do something with that. Robert Crawford: The Detect auto program that we just implemented is taking care of that part. Now we can at least offer it. It's all about, JImmy Lea: yes, Robert Crawford: about you don't wanna do 750 oil units in the week. You want to have car count, but you wanna maximize what's going on with those cars. You have, not just staying busy, but staying productive. Robert Crawford: GP per hour equals net profit. JImmy Lea: Yes. Yes. And in fact, that's one of the. The key award ceremony that we do with the institute is we put out the awards based on the net profit. It's not about how much you sold, it's about how much did you take home, how much did you put in the bank. So we have a hundred thousand dollars club, a $200,000, $300,000 club. JImmy Lea: We even have one person in our $1 million net profit club. God Robert Crawford: bless JImmy Lea: him. Robert Crawford: Right. It this hard to blue. That's hard to do. Yeah. You could have the most efficient work structure in the shop, and then when it goes to QuickBooks, we're paying our employee a hundred percent of the Blue Cross Blue Shield. That's a big wp, not a lot of places to do that. Robert Crawford: Then we're doing 401k and then we're doing vacation times, so we're supplying uniforms. There's a lot of overhead and you really gotta trim that fat to keep those numbers down so you can have something. And then when you do have the net profit, what are you doing with that? Are you taking it home and buying a beach house and everybody hates you for it? Robert Crawford: Or are you investing the back of the business? There are certain things that happen at the shop that are cash things and you know, you try to take care of your employees, so you always wanna share the wealth with them because they're how you got it. You can't do it without them. Yeah. JImmy Lea: Oh, it's so true. JImmy Lea: So, and that goes to the training that you're doing, taking everybody to asta, the hotels, the food, the travel, the. The training that's there and paying for all the expenses that go along with it, it's gotta be worked into your business model. And so ultimately, who's paying for it? The client, the customer and why are they paying for it? JImmy Lea: Why are they happy to pay for it? Because they know that by them bringing their car to you, they're getting the best. They're getting the best service. They're getting the best knowledge. They're getting the best repairs because they know that you are the one that's out there getting trained. You're not just sitting back only fixing The Grand Torino's. Robert Crawford: Right. JImmy Lea: Oh, that's good. Congrats. So you've been at this one location since 84. How many bays, how many techs, what's the footprint look like today? Robert Crawford: We have eight bays that have lifts. One of those is a 16,000 pound scissor lift for the alignment rack. We have another one of those eight bays that has an 18,000 pound bend pack. Robert Crawford: So we get box trucks coming in from our airer guys. We can raise line up to take care of 'em. We have another two bays that we can pull cars in that can be on the ground. There's not a lift there. Technician wise, we have two ATECs. We have a new guy that's bringing on board, I'm gonna call him a c and a half really great guy. Robert Crawford: Has a good attitude, good worth ethic. He just hasn't got the experience. He's actually right out of the Marine Corps, which is great. He's a good guy and he has structure. Yeah. And he really is, he's gonna go somewhere in this business. So that's what it looks like. And of course we've got the waiting area and bathrooms and all that stuff, but we've got enough parking lot to fit 25 cars. Robert Crawford: So. What's really unique about our place is when the wreckers come in, we have them back, the cars up the hill, and then one nick mechanic gets in, it pops in a neutral and rolls it right in the vein. I don't have to push anything, so that's always, that's worked out really well for us. JImmy Lea: Oh, Robert, that's great that's such a great way of doing it. JImmy Lea: That's perfect, man. I'm too old to be pushing cars, man. Oh, amen, brother. Oh, so three techs, eight, nine Bays. Eight bays with lifts. Yes. Eight bays with lifts. Oh man, that's great. And 25 cars. So that's just in the parking lot. 25 cars. That doesn't mean what you can fit inside the building too. Right. Robert Crawford: Well, we can park, we have 25 parking spaces out in the parking lot. Robert Crawford: And I know that, 'cause Elia told me that's what I could do out there. So that's what we did. Inside of course, you know, it's like nowadays you gotta be careful of the neighborhood. You know, people will break into stuff and tear things up. So when we have cars in our building and we're going off of the weekend or like the long train, the training seminar. Robert Crawford: We pull everything in. We have put cars on the rack and pulled another one under it if we have to. So we get the nice cars in. Anything that will run, we bring in every night just to keep everything safe, you know? But yeah, we can pack 'em in there pretty good. JImmy Lea: Oh, that's pretty good, Robert. That's awesome. JImmy Lea: Yeah, because that allows you to have a little bit more flexibility. Where performance place, he's got like three and a half acres, so there's plenty of room to put cars that, that they're surrounded with moth balls. You know, this car's been here for four years. Anyways. Well, you gotta keep, well that, Robert Crawford: you gotta keep the junk outta the way though. Robert Crawford: You know, you don't want stuff sitting there for three years. JImmy Lea: Yeah, no, that's true. He had to come to his dad, so he was 40 years. It took him 40 years to be able to buy the shop from his dad. 'cause you know, they just never could get anything down on paper. Couldn't agree, blah, da. Dad, really, this is your business. JImmy Lea: What do you want to do? And dad would never make a decision. Finally did. So he bought it after 40 plus years. And dad in the back four bays. So they had 16 bays up front. 'cause it just expand. The last four bays, they finally said, Hey dad, take all your cars and take all your dead bodies. The rv, the boat, right? JImmy Lea: We're gonna put it out in the yard. You can come see it anytime you want, but this is now production. Right. So that's what he is doing. Well, and congrats to you for what you've got the 25, the technicians, the lifts. What does the future look like for you? What is the future of RNN Otto, you've got your son there working with you now as well. JImmy Lea: What does the next five years, 10 years look like? If we were to chop that up? Robert Crawford: Well, if I listen to my wife, she wants to retire at 62, so she's got another two years to do the office, and then I'm probably gonna have to find someone to take care of that part of it. I'm 59 and I really don't wanna work till I'm 80 years old. Robert Crawford: I like the work, but I don't like it enough to be there that long. So I'd like to retire at 65. I really don't know what the future holds for retirement. Do I sell it? Do I keep it and let my son run it? Gives my guys my mechanics. A place to stay. It's always spooky when you sell something 'cause you don't know how your workers are gonna be treated and how that's gonna be. Robert Crawford: And honestly, they are my friends. I was at one guy's house this weekend moving some split wood with the tractor for, you know, so we do things with each other. We're friends and workers. I honestly don't know. I'm leaving it to him to decide how all that works out. I'll do what I can. Robert Crawford: Yeah. Business running and keep it profitable. And if Christian brothers wants to come down and buy me out, or if, you know, if my son decides he wants to take it over or like we did with my boss, he rode around in the motor home. We paid him a paycheck. Yeah. Rent check. I'm not sure what the future holds. Robert Crawford: I'm open. JImmy Lea: Yeah. Well, and if your son is open for the opportunity, if he looks at it and says, Hey, you know what? There's a great opportunity here for me to buy dad out and put dad and mom out on a motor home and they can go fishing, they can sit on the beach, they can go to the mountains whatever you want to go, and he pays you the rent. JImmy Lea: Right. That's a great opportunity. So depending on where you're going, what you're doing, yeah, there's lots of opportunities. There's lots of advice out there. Just make sure you're getting the right advice. Right. And maybe the right advice is to sell it to Christian brothers. We'll see. You never know. JImmy Lea: We'll see. That's Robert Crawford: right. JImmy Lea: That I don't ever, Robert Crawford: I try not to make promises and I try not to make big decisions that you really can't control a lot of things. You know, some things are gonna happen and you gotta go with the flow. You wanna be prepared, do what you can do the legwork. But we'll see how it works out. JImmy Lea: Yeah. Yep. I've heard it said that if you if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail. So if you've got a plan and God comes in and says, wait a second, Robert, we're gonna do a little bit this way. We're gonna do a little bit this way. I know that you had a plan, but there's just a little deviation from it. Robert Crawford: Right. JImmy Lea: Better to have a plan than to have no plan whatsoever. So, yeah, if you're, I tell you what Robert Crawford: I JImmy Lea: don't Robert Crawford: wanna do, I don't wanna rent the building up to somebody. Someone comes in and they rent up your equipment, they wear it out, they dump all in the parking lot, then they walk away, and now you're responsible for all that mess, digging up the parking lot, EPA fines. Robert Crawford: So I, I would close it down and sell it for a warehouse before I would do a rental situation like that. I've seen that happen too many times. JImmy Lea: Oh, Robert, you are so right. You're right on the ball. I've seen many shop owners sell their business and three years later, four years later, they're back in the shop running the business again and basically having to fix everything that had been broken over the last three years. JImmy Lea: So, yeah I agree with you. Once you find your spot, once you find your ability. Have an agreement that there's a buyout on the property as well. 'cause you're not gonna retain ownership for rent. Robert Crawford: Yeah. The whole shebang or nothing. JImmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's right. So would you ever expand, Robert, would you ever expand and own a second, a third of fourth location, or just optimize the one. Robert Crawford: I kind of tease my wife a lot when we're driving around. I'll say, Hey, that looks like going to number three. She, and she disagrees with me, like, you know, with a few declaratives. I really think for me personally, running the one is enough. We don't have a grandiose of lifestyle. We're our, everything we have is paid for. Robert Crawford: The business is paid for, the land is paid for, the billing's paid for, and we don't really require a lot to be happy. We don't really go into the MEChA, into the material things. I got a new truck. I got some guns, and you know, things that I play with she's happy to read a book when we go to the beach. Robert Crawford: She wants to sit in the swing and read a book, and I sure don't wanna lay out on the sand and become a lobster. So, you know, to us, you know, running one business is enough, we don't require the additional income. You know what I'm saying? Oh yeah. And then the challenge is with just one business, low along the strain of two you gotta have some really good people in place to run two businesses and you not be there. Robert Crawford: It's, you know, when I can go off for a week and my son run the place and make decisions that I'm not there. I would never complain if he made a decision. He has to have that freedom. But to have somebody running your business 24 7 and you are not there to, to you come back in when it's on fire, you know, you come back to fix the problems, that would be hard for me to deal with. Robert Crawford: I'm good with just running one, doing well with it. You know, it's paying us, it's paying our salaries, it's paying our guys salaries. We're good where we're at. You know, no desires for a second JImmy Lea: building. Oh, amen. Amen. So in the definition of success, you have a very successful shop. It provides for all your wants and all your needs, and everything's paid for. JImmy Lea: You're good to go. You could leave for a week. Your son's in charge. He makes the decisions. You come back, Hey, this was good. Perhaps in the future with this decision, we wanna consider this, and this as well. Maybe we wanna go around a bump instead of straight up and over. JImmy Lea: You never know, but I applaud your reigning in and giving freedom to your son in those situations and letting him make those decisions. That's pretty awesome. A lot of people can't do that. You know? Robert Crawford: It's a hard thing to walk away from. It's a hard thing to step back and let people do. Robert Crawford: But you have to, otherwise you have to be there 24 7. And you gotta, if you wanna freedom, you gotta give a little freedom to them too, to make those decisions. And to make those mistakes and learn from 'em. Because that's how we all are, isn't it? JImmy Lea: Yeah. Oh, it is how we learn. We learn more from our mistakes than we do our successes. JImmy Lea: And you know, with that in mind, Robert, I'm gonna ask you a question. What has been one of your biggest failures that you personally. Witnessed or were involved in, and it turned around to be one of your greatest successes. You learn the most from this lesson. What's one of those things that you've learned the most from a failure that is now a guidepost or a lamp or a lighthouse in your life that really helps to guide you? Robert Crawford: Well. Back. I don't remember when it was or how many years ago it was, but we bought like an exhaust franchise, and I won't mention the name of it. We got some good equipment and we got a lot of inventory, but it never really blossomed into anything custom exhaust nowadays. This has been years, like 15, 20 years ago. Robert Crawford: And we got this exhaust franchise and it never did anything. Now we still have the exhaust pipe bender. Matter of fact, my, one of my technicians is using it when I left today to come home for this podcast, so we still have the equipment, but that was $30,000. And back then, ouch, 30,000 was 50,000 now, you know, and it never was profitable. Robert Crawford: So if I had to glean anything from that mistake, I would be. Check the market, find out what the market will stand, find out what the opportunities are before you go plopping that much cash down. Because the problem with that is, is it's kind of like some of the coaching people that you have out there. Robert Crawford: You give them a chunk of money and you're paying Wells Fargo for the lease on that chunk of money and you can't back off because you've already paid the money at. Now you gotta buy the lease. It was the same thing with this. I couldn't exactly send the muffler machine back. I had to pay what I had to pay. Robert Crawford: It was done, right? So you learn these lessons and you next time you're a little bit more apprehensive for you throw a chunk of money at something. You really just learn how to do the homework, check out the numbers, feel the market. And nowadays things are so much better because you've got so many sources. Robert Crawford: You've got all these groups. Auto owners groups. You've got the Facebook people, you've got business coaches. There's really not a whole lot of reasons to make a lot of stupid mistakes nowadays because there's so many people you can ask and say, what do y'all think about this? I was on a a Thursday night round table meeting with Rick White from 180 Biz, and there was about 20 people there, and there was one guy talking about how he was gonna. Robert Crawford: Make this particular business move and do something else and we're all like, no, that's not what you want to do, man. You're making a mistake doing this. Yeah. And I thought it was great that he had, although he may not have liked what he was hearing, right. At least he was hearing it. He had people in his corner that really didn't know him from Adam's House Cap, but were willing to give you them. Robert Crawford: The benefit of their experience is try to guide somebody they didn't even know to do better. Don't make the mistake that I made. So I thought that was great. JImmy Lea: Man, that is sound advice, especially when you're not necessarily saying, Hey, don't do that. You're saying have you considered this? JImmy Lea: Have you considered this Once upon a time when I did this is the mistakes I made. Robert Crawford: Yeah. JImmy Lea: Yeah. And that's my $17,000 lesson I learned was, get it in writing. Get it in writing. Get it in writing. No matter how many verbal conversations you have, if it's not in writing, they will forget. Yep. Yep. So true. JImmy Lea: Well, so Robert, if you were to have a magic wand and change anything in this industry, the automotive aftermarket, what's one of those things that you would like to change in this market? Robert Crawford: I would probably say that the wand is actually being waived as we speak, because I'll tell you what, I've seen a lot of. It's like Mike Rowe with the blue collar worker move. We're seeing now where a lot of families are realizing you don't have to be a doctor, you don't have to be a lawyer, you don't have to be a dental hygienist. Robert Crawford: Nothing wrong with those, but we need people that will use their hands to do things. We need people to build houses. We need someone to flip a hamburger for now and then, and we definitely need mechanics and I'm seeing a lot of the trades. Coming back to life, for lack of a better term. They're getting more attention. Robert Crawford: A lot of the tr a lot of the high schools are going back to a a hands-on approach. You've got some of the local colleges, wake Tech has got a great program. Hendricks, I think has opened a whole wing out there, and they're training apprentices. I really think instead of sitting in the classroom atmosphere, they've gotta get those kids out there and get 'em in shops so they can, this is just my opinion. Robert Crawford: You can learn more in a shop in a month than you're gonna learn in a classroom in two years. I've seen the trade schools and what comes out of them when they, alls they did was the trade school class and they have a little book sense, but they don't really have a lot of common usable knowledge. So I think it's a mixture of trade school and also being in a shop environment and learning. Robert Crawford: Just be in there, just learning and hearing what's going on. I think that's the magic wand that I'd wave. Let's speed that process up. Get these things moving along a little faster. 'cause everybody knows we need mechanics, we need technicians. Yeah. Things are getting automated. These cars are gonna drive themselves, but they're not gonna fix themselves. JImmy Lea: Oh, they don't. They don't. And we got 70,000 technicians a year leaving the business. Only 30,000 a year coming into the business. And those 30,000 that come in after the first year, half of 'em are gone. Just like you're saying, Mike Rowe with his sweat pledge, you're gonna work, you're gonna work hard, you're gonna sweat, you're gonna do what's right. JImmy Lea: You're gonna do what's right. The first time I love his sweat pledge. I love what he's doing and really shining a light on the trade industry. My daughter, when she went into hair school, within that first week of school, they had them hands on cutting hair. That's what we need in the automotive industry as well, not just the theoretical. JImmy Lea: 'cause there's schools out there. You don't get to touch hair for six months and it's a one year program. They come out, they still are afraid of touching anybody. But my daughter was in a class and they were boom, they were right into it. So we have a granddaughter, it does make difference. Robert Crawford: Afraid, same thing. Robert Crawford: She was too scared to cut hair, but you gotta make the move. And, you know, a lot of shop owners have to get above that fear too. You know, back a couple years ago, I'm gonna say about three years ago, maybe four years ago, we had the apprentice program in North Carolina come alive. It had been there forever, but the IGO at the time brought it to life and we had a technician that was going to a local community college here and had certain days he came and worked with us. Robert Crawford: Now we were paying him that time, 12, $13 an hour to sweep the floor and shadow our mechanics. And unfortunately, after three years, he actually left us and went to a dealership. So you didn't have that risk, but at least there's people going into the field. That we can have. Yeah, you might get somebody that you train up and they may go somewhere else, but they're in the pool and now you can, they might bump someone out of the dealership, and the dealership guy might come to you. Robert Crawford: I don't know how that's gonna work. We'll find out. But you know, it's like when you said you're guys to training, you're scared they might get poached, you know? Well, Rick White has this thing, he calls golden handcuffs. You gotta treat your people good. So they wanna stay. It's all about making the work environment, like I said about our guys. Robert Crawford: We're buddies, we're pals, we're friends. You know, we eat subs together, we bowl together. Sometimes we have a good time at the convention. You know, you gotta make it where they want to be there. 'cause if yeah, if you don't wanna be there and they don't wanna be there, someone's gonna leave. JImmy Lea: Yeah. No, it's so true. JImmy Lea: Yeah. Rick does a great job in coaching and training with the shop owners. Yeah, he's phenomenal. We love working together and the golden handcuffs, you're right. If you're not treating your people well, they're gonna go and listen. You know, dial it back to your marine. He may be one that wants to own a business. JImmy Lea: So some would say, are you gonna train your competition? Sure. Today, he's not your competition. Today. He is your employee and he has a desire to own a business. You enroll him in every business, every free business thing that you possibly can. The community college has business classes, the Chamber of Commerce does. JImmy Lea: YouTube has them. The institute has a library full of different business videos that can really help anybody that wants to start an automotive repair business. You help him to be the best business owner he can be. 'cause there's two outcomes that comes from this. One. He loves it. He embraces it, and he runs with it. JImmy Lea: And in 3, 4, 5 years, whatever the scenario is. He went, goes out and starts his own business, and you've got a friend in the business, somebody that you can lock arms with and really work together. Or two, he comes back to you and says, Hey Robert, thank you so much. I appreciate you investing all this into me for the business side of it. JImmy Lea: But what I really discovered is I like working on cars. I wanna work on cars. I'm gonna be your best employee. I'm gonna work on cars, and you're never gonna have any comebacks for me, and I'm gonna dig in Robert Crawford: win-win. Yep. JImmy Lea: It's a win-win. It's a win-win. You've invested in your employee, you discovered where they really want it to be in helping them to discover their own path, their own trail. JImmy Lea: So Robert, I applaud you for that, brother. Robert Crawford: I, competition to me is a kind of a strange word because, just because as a garage where you talk about where we're at on the freeway, you know? Right. There's a probably, I'm gonna say probably 10 shops within a four mile radius around me. There's a garage door there. Robert Crawford: They're selling used tires. They're doing the monkey business, they're doing alignments and they're doing oil changes. But when you set yourself apart and do the quality work and you do it businesslike, there's gonna be some people that want that bottom dollar price. But there's also gonna be some people that want to deal with the professional business that's gonna have paperwork and warranties have insurance to take care of the stuff. Robert Crawford: So they're really not your competition. They're really not. JImmy Lea: Yeah. No, they're really not. I had a friend in Santa Cruz, California, he would send people down the street to Bob's garage, Dave's Auto that's the same address. Three different businesses were in that same address, and he would send people down to them. JImmy Lea: 'cause they were looking for the deals. They, it was all are driven. And those businesses put themselves out of business because they were catering to that type of business. His was a business that really. Involve the the client. It's a client that wants to know their vehicles fixed right and done right. JImmy Lea: And has a warranty and a guarantee. And you're gonna pay more for that than if you just want Robert Crawford: price only. Yeah. We had a call just today that a customer called and wanted us to break a bolt loose, then they're gonna drive off with the car, but the mold were loose. JImmy Lea: There's those people out there, you know? JImmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. No, that is interesting. Interesting that was the request. Robert Crawford: Yeah. JImmy Lea: Well, Robert, it is been a pleasure talking with you today. Thank you very much. I appreciate your insights into the business, the industry, where it's come from, and yeah, our future is bright. I love that we have an apprentice program. JImmy Lea: Do you have any apprentice at your shop right Robert Crawford: now? At the present time? We don't. The guy that we just started out of the Marines, I would probably consider him an apprentice just because he's really at the bottom of the knowledge base. He has such a good drive and such a good work ethic, he's gonna do great. Robert Crawford: And really, that's what you wanna see in the apprentices. You don't wanna just have a body that's going to school, that's coming there just to milk the clock. If you don't see that spark, that interest, you're just wasting your time in theirs. And there's a lot of people that go to the community colleges just because mommy and dad would make them go to school. Robert Crawford: You know, you're gonna go to college if you're in here, but if they're not doing anything with that and you're not doing anything with that person. You're just spinning your wheels, wasting time, so just find the next one. JImmy Lea: Yep. Amen, brother. Thank you so much, Robert. I really appreciate it, man. Robert Crawford: Yes sir. JImmy Lea: Yep. JImmy Lea: We'll talk to you guys soon. Robert Crawford: Have a good one