May 26, 2025 • 52 mins
Episode Notes:
Host Rick Selover celebrates his 200th episode of The Mind Wrench by welcoming back industry titan Mike Anderson! They dive deep into the evolving collision repair landscape and the powerful forces driving positive change.🎉 🎉
Mike unveils his 2025 mantra: "Stay Humble, Stay Hungry" – a crucial balance for navigating customer empathy and the relentless pursuit of improvement amidst shifting industry tides. Discover the power of sharpening your saw, even when the work piles up. 🪓➡️🧠
Unlock hidden revenue with insights into Mike's game-changing "Who Pays For What" surveys, revealing overlooked billable operations and empowering shops in insurer negotiations. 💰
Witness the evolution of the "Spartan 300" – from a COVID-era initiative to six thriving OEM-focused groups forging multi-store success through rigorous standards and shared knowledge. 💪
Finally, hit the road with Mike's new live podcast, broadcasting best practices nationwide! Learn how Collision Advice's expanding team of coaches is amplifying their impact. 🎙️🛣️
Don't miss this high-octane conversation with a true industry leader! 👑
📲GUEST CONTACT
Mike Anderson - mike@collisionadvice.com
CollisionAdvice – www.collisionadvice.com
🔌TOP OPPORTUNTIES TO PLUG-IN
SEMA- https://www.sema.org/
CIC (Collision Industry Conference) - https://ciclink.com
AASP/ NJ Northeast - https://www.aaspnjnortheast.com/
Southeast Collision Conference - https://carolinascollisionassociation.com/scc-home/
ABAT - https://www.abat.us/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
When I was coming up to my 100th episode.
It was an easy decision to doan interview with Mike Anderson
from Collision Advice.
After all, he was the one thatreally inspired me to start down
that path of giving back tothis industry from my earlier
experiences attending his eventsand presentations, where he
always gave incredible value toeveryone in the room and shared
more wisdom and insight thananyone else in this industry was
(00:23):
doing more wisdom and insightthan anyone else in this
industry was doing.
A few months ago I wascontemplating on what to do for
my 200th and once again, mikefelt like just the perfect
choice to help me celebrate thismilestone in my podcasting
journey.
Since our last interview, mikeAnderson's impact on the
collision industry has justintensified.
His collision advice team hasgrown to over 20 people.
The Spartan 300 group thatstarted very early during COVID
(00:46):
has now grown to six specificgroups and he started an annual
conference event for hisSpartans that educates as well
as celebrates their successes.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Welcome to the MindWrench Podcast with your
host, rick Sellover, where minoradjustments produce major
improvements in mindset,personal growth and success.
This is the place to be everyMonday, where we make small
improvements and take positiveactions in our business and
personal lives that will make amajor impact in our success,
(01:23):
next-level growth and quality oflife.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Hey, what's up everybody.
Welcome to the MindWrenchPodcast.
I'm your host, rick Salora.
Thanks so much for stopping in.
If you're a returning listenerand haven't done so already,
please take a minute and clickthe follow or subscribe button
and then rate and review theshow.
When you rate and review theshow, the algorithms for Apple,
(01:51):
spotify, google Podcasts,iheartradio, amazon Music and
all the other platforms will seethat it's valuable and show it
to more people that have neverseen it before, and hopefully it
can help them too.
I would really really reallyappreciate your help, sharing
this word with your friends andfamily as well, and if you're a
brand new listener, welcome.
I hope you find something ofvalue here that helps you in
your personal or professionallife as well.
Please make sure to click thesubscribe or follow button so
(02:16):
you never miss another episode.
Welcome, welcome, welcome toall my collision industry
friends, body shop buds andpersonal development fans that
have been part of my podcastjourney, whether just for the
past couple months or the lastfour years.
I appreciate every one of youspending some of your precious
time with me.
It's crazy to think that when Istarted this in the early part
of COVID, with zero experience,very little confidence that
(02:38):
someone had actually listened towhat I had to say and no idea
how I could get past the firstcouple episodes.
But here I am in my 200thepisode, now, heard in over 95
countries and 2,100 citiesacross the world and
well-received by the top leaders, movers and shakers in the
collision industry.
I am completely humbled,flattered, extremely grateful
(03:01):
and nowhere near done with thisjourney.
Now I know in the podcast worldthese numbers really aren't
substantial.
There are many shows that haveepisodes that number in the
thousands, with hundreds ofthousands of followers and
millions of downloads, but thatdoesn't much matter to me.
Would I like the same successwith the Mind Wrench?
Sure, absolutely, but thatwasn't my focus for doing this.
(03:25):
I also know that out of the nowthree or four million podcast
shows out there, most don't makeit past seven episodes.
It's a hell of a lot of workand without the instant payoff
expected, most just give up.
My goal wasn't for big numbers.
No, it was for impact.
I felt if I made a positiveimpact in someone's life, helped
(03:49):
one shop improve their business, made one day better for even
just one person or solved onesingle problem, then all the
work was worth it.
That was success enough for meand let me tell you, friends, on
that KPI alone, this show hasbeen very successful.
When I was coming up to my 100thepisode, it was an easy
(04:10):
decision to do an interview withMike Anderson from Collision
Advice.
After all, he was the one thatreally inspired me to start down
that path of giving back tothis industry from my earlier
experiences attending his eventsand presentations, where he
always gave incredible value toeveryone in the room and shared
more wisdom and insight thananyone else in this industry was
(04:30):
doing.
A few months ago, I wascontemplating on what to do for
my 200th and once again, mikefelt like just the perfect
choice to help me celebrate thismilestone in my podcasting
journey.
Since our last interview, mikeAnderson's impact on the
collision industry has justintensified.
His collision advice team hasgrown to over 20 people.
(04:50):
The Spartan 300 group thatstarted very early during COVID
has now grown to six specificgroups, and he started an annual
conference event for hisSpartans that educates as well
as celebrates their successes.
We recorded this interview wellbefore the 2025 Spartan
Symposium that was held inMinneapolis this past April,
(05:11):
where I was fortunate enough tohost the vendor table for Garmat
USA and attended thisoutstanding event.
I'm telling you, the love, therespect, the support Mike showed
to not only his members and histeam, but even the vendors and
suppliers that supported thisconference was really just an
awesome experience.
It is simply simply incredible.
(05:33):
I was so honored to be part ofit.
Anyways, let's get to thatinterview with Mike Anderson.
Recently I had the opportunityto attend the AASP in Illinois
Overdrive in 25 trade show andconference, and my special guest
today not only shared thekeynote opening speech but also
(05:53):
followed up with moderating notone but two separate panels
through the course of the day.
My guest this week is, and nowfellow podcaster, has been
hitting the road really hard sofar in 2025, impacting and
sharing with the collisionindustry from coast to coast.
We first met back, probablyaround 2010, mike, I believe,
(06:14):
when he spoke at WashingtonCommunity College, and at the
time I was a part-time refinishinstructor there, and then later
at several different trainingevents that the company I worked
for had hosted.
We kind of struck up afriendship and I've seen him so
many times over the years.
We've become good friends andwe both share a passion for
doing what we can to help thiscollision industry.
So please join me in welcomingthe industry icon, the guy that
(06:38):
everybody knows and loves, goodfriend of mine, mike Anderson,
from Collision Advice back tothe MindWrench podcast.
Mike, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Hey, thanks, rick.
Thanks for the kind words.
But back at you, brother, it'san honor and a privilege to just
speak with you and all of yourlisteners, so thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
You got it.
Glad to have you back on here.
So I will take the opportunityto say that for those that have
followed the podcast.
Back when I did my 100thepisode, I had it in my mind I
wanted to have Mike Anderson onfor my guest for my 100th, which
we did.
It was a great conversation andI'm coming up on my 200th, so
(07:14):
naturally I thought I've got tohave Mike back for number 200.
Congratulations.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
That's a pretty incredible accomplishment, Rick.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
And it's all part-time, right.
So I've been working my wholecareer, but it's something that
I really love doing.
I've got a passion for it and,yeah, glad to be hitting 200.
And, god willing, I'll be herefor 300, maybe even 400.
We'll see, amen, amen, I'll betapping you for those as well.
So, anyways, mike was last backI think it was 2022 when I hit
(07:44):
my 100th episode.
So we're going to have a goodconversation with Mike today.
We're going to talk about lotsof stuff.
I know, mike, last year you hada really good keynote.
I know, every year you seem topick a theme for the year, right
, correct.
And last year you had successtoday, success tomorrow.
(08:05):
I'd seen that at a coupledifferent places.
We cross our paths in a lot ofindustry events.
By the way, great job at AASP,thank you.
Not only the keynote, which isone I hadn't heard about.
That was Parts Best Practices,which was really good, really
informative, I thought.
And then he had two paneldiscussions with Pipeline which
(08:26):
is, I mean, that's everybody'stalking about Pipeline for
talent and consumer advocacy.
So great subjects.
Great job moderating those twogroups.
It was fantastic and you hadeverybody's attention, right,
thank you.
So let's talk about what's your2025 keynote, what your theme
(08:47):
is for 2025.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Yeah, so my theme for 2025, and again, rick, I just
can't thank you enough, man.
Mad love and respect for you,brother, you do a lot of stuff.
I know this podcast you do is avolunteer effort, so you know,
thanks for giving back to theindustry, man.
God bless you, brother.
So, yeah, every year I pick atheme, and my theme this year is
stay humble, stay hungry.
You know, I think we have tostay humble, right?
(09:11):
You know it's oftentimes I seeand I've got to admit I was
probably guilty of this in myyounger years that you know
people come into our shop andthey're like, hey, I need to
file an insurance claim and Igot to get three estimates,
wherever the case may be, andit's very easy for us as
estimators to get calloused andnot be sensitive to that
consumer Like, you don't needthree estimates, right?
(09:32):
I think we have to stay humbleand not get calloused, right.
And we have to recognize thatwhen people have a car accident
or a vehicle accident, you knowit's a very traumatic event.
You know, one of the things Ioften do in my seminars is I ask
people what emotions do youthink that someone's having
after an accident?
And some of the answers I hearis that people are stressed,
they're anxious, they're afraid,they're concerned, right, these
(09:53):
are all negative emotions.
So I think it's reallyimportant that we stay humble in
our dealings with the consumer,right, don't blow them off.
Be patient with their questionsand just stay humble.
I think also we have to stayhumble when it comes to writing
estimates and you can't justassume that because you fixed,
you know, a Honda Accordyesterday or a Chevy Silverado
or a Toyota Camry, that youdon't need to research the
(10:15):
procedures again today.
Things change and we have tostay humble and continue to stay
hungry and continue to want todelve into the OMR repair
procedures, which is like theholy grail for how to perform
safe and proper repairs and stayhungry in regards to our thirst
for knowledge.
So, stay humble, stay hungry.
I think we're seeing claimscount, decline, not as many
accident claims.
(10:35):
You've got to stay hungry.
You've got to follow up onthose unscheduled estimates.
We have to stay hungry andstart marketing our businesses
more right, so we stay busy.
Stay hungry in the fact thatyou know they say if it ain't
broke, don't fix it.
I'm saying if it's not broke,break it right, try something
new.
Stay hungry and continue tosearch to improve your processes
.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
So stay humble, stay hungry yeah, no, great great
topic and, uh, great points made.
Like I, you know, I will echothose sentiments that you know.
Know, I've been in thisindustry a long time, like you,
I've seen a lot and, yeah, asyou know, we can get comfortable
right, we can get.
I am doing really good.
(11:14):
I don't really need to do thisor I don't need to change that
it's.
Everything seems to be workinggreat right now and that's the
best time to really go.
Okay, what can I improve on?
How can I, how can I move theball forward a couple more yards
?
Right, and you know we had ahuge glut of work which
everybody enjoyed post COVID.
Right, there's, it's like itwas like the wild, wild West man
(11:36):
or just everybody had, you know, two, three month backlogs.
Well, that's all gone away.
Now we're back to reality andyou know people are driving
probably a little bit betterthan they did post-COVID and
collision claims are down.
So, yeah, we need to tighten upon what we're doing.
We also need to adjust toeverything has changed within
the collision industry.
Everything on a vehicle haschanged In two years.
(11:59):
It changes drastically, right,the technology, the processes on
how to do things and along withthat, this industry has been
changing, but not at a rapidenough pace, I think, to keep up
with technology.
So that is a great keynotesubject and I think it's going
to be fantastic this year.
I think everybody needs it thisyear.
(12:20):
I'm looking forward toattending a couple of your
speeches along the way.
I'm sure there'll be enoughevents this year.
I'm looking forward toattending a couple of your
speeches along the way.
I'm sure there will be enoughevents this year.
Something else I wanted to talkabout was something you've been
doing.
It's kind of in the backgroundbecause I don't think everybody
really realizes what you'redoing and how much work it is.
But your who pays for whatsurveys?
(12:42):
You've been doing that for along time and it's not like just
one survey where you ask aboutall this stuff.
You break it down into fourseparate surveys for scanning
and calibration, for paint, forbody, for frame.
And tell me a little bit aboutnumber one.
Why did you start that and howdo you think that's impacted the
(13:02):
industry so far?
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(13:25):
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(14:07):
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Speaker 3 (14:43):
You up with a free consultation.
Call with me to see ifone-on-one coaching is right for
you.
Yes, so when I own my shops,charlie Baker owned a product
called Collision Insight and itwas a published.
You know that was way, that'show old I am right and Charlie
Baker would send this.
You'd get this publicationevery month.
It was three or four pages,called Collision Insights, and
once or twice a year he would doa who pays for what and he
(15:05):
would publish, like you know, 25things and he would survey
shops and you'd fax your answersback to him with a fax machine.
Like how often did insurancecompanies or third party payers
put on their estimate notincluded operations?
And then you know, you knowCharlie, you know quit
publishing his publication.
That survey quick getting done.
So as I got into consulting Ithought back on that.
(15:25):
I was like you know, I reallylike to take that and do that
again, like Charlie did it.
So I want to credit him withthe original idea, but do it a
little bit more inclusive.
And you know I travel on theroad, you know, 300 days a year
and so I was meeting all thesepeople and gathering email
addresses where people wouldsend to me and I was like you
know what, let me start buildinga database, do this
electronically.
But I found there were so manyquestions I wanted to answer
(15:46):
that I was like I got to breakthis down into, like you know,
four different surveys.
So, like you said, we do asurvey every quarter, every
January, april, July and Octoberand each survey is very
intentional and very specific.
Like every January, our surveyis on refinished, not included,
operations, right, and, like yousaid, we do one specific on
mechanical body and then likemiscellaneous operations, like
sublet markup or scanning,calibrations etc.
(16:08):
And you know we currently haveabout twenty nine thousand
people in our database.
I want to let you know, and toanybody listening, we do not
share our database.
So a lot of people might beconcerned about taking our
surveys, worried that you knowour database gets shared.
We never share our database and, quite candidly, I fund this
survey myself.
You know I probably pay about$25,000, $26,000 a year to
(16:31):
partner with, you know, theCrash Network and you know other
sources to help me to compileall the data and review it.
But at the end of the day Idon't accept any funding on this
because you know people have atendency that.
You know, hey, if I sponsor,will you give me your database
list?
No, so I fund this 100% myself.
No-transcript to get quite abit more.
(17:15):
So you know, again, some of thecomments we get back from the
surveys are people say, like itcreates awareness, like people
are.
Like you know, I didn't eventhink I could charge for this.
I didn't even know this wasn'tincluded until I saw it on your
survey.
Some people use it as atraining mechanism.
So we've got over 200 questionswe survey throughout the year.
So some people will just takelike one or two of those survey
(17:35):
items and they'll use it as likea training tip every week in
their shop.
Some people use it as aresource that if an insurance
carrier says you're the only onethat charges me for that, they
can use that to say hey, I'm notthe only one.
And one of the other things thatwe've done to upgrade the
survey over the years is thatafter each question we also give
you a link to a DEG inquirythrough the Database Enhancement
(17:55):
Gateway that is funded by SCRSand other wonderful vendors.
And what we do is we give thema link to where they can see
that it's not included tovalidate our survey responses.
And then, the other thing we'veupgraded this year and a shout
out to SCRS is that we now,anytime SCRS you know how they
do their weekly videos.
If there's a video that has todo with that specific survey
(18:16):
question, we also provide a linkto the SCRS video.
So we're trying to make it.
So it's a resource, but I wouldjust encourage more shops to
take it.
And we also have shops that say, hey, can you add this question
?
And we add that question.
Right.
We also have some shops thatsay, hey, this is why I don't do
this, because, you know, maybefor a valid reason.
So it gives us a lot ofinsights and I just want to say
(18:37):
thank you to all the shops thatdo participate in the survey,
but it's something that I fundmyself.
I appreciate John Yoswick at theCrash Network for helping me to
compile it, him and Chuck, andwe're going to continue to do it
as long as shops see value init.
But we just wish.
The other thing a lot of peoplearen't aware of is that if we
can get over 100 surveyresponses from one state, we
(18:57):
will publish the state resultsfor that state.
So we encourage all the tradeassociations to really help us
to.
You know, get more responsesper state.
You know other things.
We also ask is not just notincluded operations, but we ask
people, for example, like if youcharge for Feather, prime and
Block, you know what's yourformula.
We ask questions like do youmark up tow bills?
If so, how much?
(19:17):
We ask like, if, if you have analuminum certification or
European certification, what'syour average labor rate on those
things?
So it's a real robust surveyand I really enjoy doing it and
I do it just to give back to theindustry.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
And that's incredible , mike, and I for one appreciate
all the work and the effortthat goes into that.
To me it's mind-blowing.
To me it's mind-blowing there'sa free resource like that,
where you provide thatinformation that any shop can go
wow, I've been missing out.
I didn't realize I could dothat.
It shows that there's 25 otherpeople or three other states or
(20:01):
five other areas that all getpaid to do this thing that I'm
doing for free right now.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Yeah, we also publish the results by region and we
also publish the results by DRPversus non-DRP shops.
And even if you don't take oursurvey, let's say that you know
somebody like yourself, rick,that works, you know, for a
paint booth distributor, right?
Or you work for a paint job ora frame equipment distributor.
You know, like Carline orsomething.
You can actually download theresults for free from our
website.
There's no charge to downloadthe results and they're
(20:24):
available free to anyone in theindustry.
Anybody can go on our websiteand they can download them as
well.
So you know if you're adistributor or whatever, and we
also.
Anytime anybody reaches out tous and says, hey, can I
repurpose this?
Can I use this to include in mytraining?
You know we absolutely make itavailable to anybody to use in
whatever way that they need benecessary.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
So with that said, and you said you're getting
about a thousand responses, sofor a quarter, a thousand
responses seems so lame for theamount of shops.
It's just it's it'sunbelievable.
Well, I can't say it'sunbelievable because I've been
dealing in this industry for along.
You know, I was a distributorfor a long time and and I was in
(21:03):
a lot of shops and I understand, because they're just consumed
with what they do every day, orhow fast they can get a car done
and get out of there and closeshop up.
But do you have any idea what'sa better way to get more eyes
on this?
Because it is such a greatresource and people don't
understand that If they haven'theard about it, they don't
(21:25):
understand what they're missing.
How do we get that message tothem?
Speaker 3 (21:28):
yeah, and I apologize for the cough, I'm fighting a
bit, that's okay, you know.
So, you know, we've wondered ifthe surveys were too long.
They take about 15 to 20minutes to take and we've asked
people hey, is the survey toolong, right, and if so, then
we'll shorten it and minimizethe amount of questions.
Um, you know, uh, I reallydon't know.
I mean, you know we every.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Hey, mike, if they're not 15 minutes, you can sit on
a toilet and scroll throughsocial media for 15 minutes,
amen, amen, and then think aboutit.
Right, so it's not that it'stoo long.
I know that can't be it.
So.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Right.
So you know so, no, no, so hey,amen on that comment, brother,
right?
So at the end of the day we'rejust, you know, we just want to
get traction and I'm open to anycriticisms, any suggestions
people have as to how we canimprove it and get traction.
You know we promoted prettyheavily throughout the trade,
(22:23):
all the different tradepublications, you know, you know
, shout out to Autobody News,fender Bender, you know, you
know, autobody Repair News, bodyShop Business.
I mean, they all support us andI'm grateful for all those
publications.
But I just think we, you know,again, maybe it's just educating
shops like here's the value init.
And again, the more results weget, the more valid the survey
results become.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yeah, I would say, if there's a way to and you've
probably tried this before, butyou know, usually the paint and
material distributors and theparts distributors, the shops
see those people the most right,correct and they have the
greatest potential.
And this is something that Itried to do as much as I could
(22:56):
when I was a distributor.
I saw myself as the vessel tohelp shops that are just head
down, working every day to givethem some type of information
that might be helpful to them orsome best practices.
So I think, finding a way tomaybe get some of the
distributors, some of the partsdistributors, some of the tool
guys that are in there everysingle day in these shops, some
way to get those people to hey,make sure you check out the who
(23:19):
pays for what surveys.
You can pay for your tool billwith me with, uh, with all the
extra money you'll make,charging for the things you
should be charging.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Yeah, we also another thing we do is we also show the
trends, like was the amount ofum?
And again, I gotta always tryto be politically correct
because, like some people say,the insurance company doesn't
pay the bill, the consumer does.
But you know, if the insurancecase put it as a line item on
the estimate we also show, didthat increase or decrease
compared to the prior year?
And then I also try to providecommentary and insights as to
(23:48):
why I think things might betrending.
Like one of the things we'reseeing shops start to charge for
now is the removal of static onany type of component, not just
plastic but steel or aluminum,right and removal of static
because we're seeing that that'ssomething that people are doing
much more.
So again, I appreciate yougiving me the platform on your
podcast to even talk about it.
(24:08):
So thank you.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Sure, yeah, there will be at least five people
that listen to this.
So you know I'm kidding.
There should be a whole lotmore than that, brother.
There should be a whole lotmore than that.
But no, and that's part of thereason why I wanted to have you
on.
It's just because I feel thatone particular thing is such a
great resource and if I was ashop owner regardless of where I
(24:36):
was at performance-wise and youknow in my business and all
that I would be looking at thatstuff.
I'd be combing through allthose articles and all those
informational you knowopportunities to go hey, this is
one little way to do better inmy shop.
This is one way my shops aregoing to make more, or my
technicians will make more money.
The shop will be moreproductive.
There's so many advantages tothat and for me it's just it's a
crime that there's shops thatwill know about this and not
(24:57):
participate in the survey.
I'm doing good enough.
I'm too busy.
Everybody's got 15 minutes,like I said.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
So I want to drive.
I feel like I'm that Geicocommercial in 15 minutes or less
we can drive.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Anyways, thanks for sharing that.
I appreciate it.
Like I said, I'll offer it toall the listeners.
Listen, if you have asuggestion on how to get this
out to more people, how toimprove it, how to make it more
accessible, whatever, feel freeto reach out to me, either
(25:30):
through the podcast or throughmy social media sites, through
the Collision MastermindFacebook group, whatever or
directly to Mike at CollisionAdvice.
Please let us know how to makethis better, how to make it more
accessible, because I thinkit's a jewel and I hate to see
Mike get to that point and golisten.
I'm only getting 100 peoplethat are actually doing the
(25:52):
survey.
I'm not going to waste my timeand money anymore.
I don't want to see that everhappen.
So please try to help out.
It helps the whole industry.
Thank you All rightno-transcript.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
And even when I owned my shops at that time, dupont,
which became Exalta, asked me ifI would actually facilitate 20
groups for them and callbusiness councils.
And so I did 20 groups forDuPont, slash, exalta for well
over 25 years, because I didthat even when I had my shops
before I started CollisionAdvice.
And then, as I started workingwith more OEMs because we at
Collision Advice now do trainingon behalf of several OEMs we
(26:54):
recognized that we needed tokind of become paint neutral.
And so, you know, we had agreat run with Exalta and I
thank them for the way theytreated me and the opportunities
they afforded me.
But we decided we just neededto kind of come, come paint
neutral.
So we quit doing 20 groups forExalta and we and I, I just I
kind of like you know, have youever seen the movie Jerry
Maguire with Tom Cruise?
And he kind of has thisepiphany in the middle of the
(27:14):
night and he writes this likedocument he goes in his office
and grabs his goldfish.
Well, I kind of had one of thosenights in the middle of COVID
and what I did is I said youknow, there's a lot of shops,
that number one, you knowthey're competing with MSOs.
They're wondering should I sell?
Do I have a chance?
There's a lot of shops that Ifelt were OEM certified, that
(27:36):
really weren't working withother OEM certified shops, and I
just felt like those shopsneeded a place where they could
network with other people in aproductive manner.
So I kind of had this thing inthe middle of the night and I
said you know, I'm going tostart my own 20 groups and I
want to start it for shops thatare OEM certified and OEM
focused.
Right, and I'm not going to be.
It's not like we're an MSO,we're not an MSO, we're just a
(27:58):
coaching training company.
But I just want a place thatlike-minded individuals could
get together and exchange greatideas.
And so I was watching thismovie, the Spartans, and I was
like, wow, those guys are prettybad to the bone.
And I didn't watch the wholemovie, excuse me.
So I said, man, I'm going tocall this group the Spartan 300s
.
Well, my team then informed methat the Spartans lose the war
(28:20):
in the end.
I'm like, oh crap, I guess Ishould have watched the end of
the movie.
So I was like you know what?
We'll just say we're Spartansand we're going to change the
course of history.
So actually in the middle ofCOVID I called about 30 shops
that I knew and said hey, I knownobody's meeting during COVID,
but would you like to have ameeting in Atlanta, georgia?
We'll all wear masks.
Because everybody wasfrustrated with COVID and some
(28:41):
shops said let's do it.
And that's when the Spartanswere born.
So now we're up to six Spartangroups.
We have about 200 shops that wework with and so what it is is
we have Spartan Alpha, which isshops that are mostly European
shops.
That means they mostly fixhigh-end European vehicles.
We have Spartan BMW, which isshops that are BMW certified.
(29:02):
We have Spartan Bravo, which isshops that are BMW certified.
We have Spartan Bravo, which isshops that mostly do domestic
and Asian vehicles.
Spartan Charlotte does mostlydomestic and Asian vehicles.
Spartan Delta, which is peoplethat want to grow and end up
being like an MSO, and thenSpartan Toyota Lexus, which are
shops that you know have likeToyota Lexus certification.
We're up to six groups and wemeet on a quarterly basis.
(29:23):
Once a year we have a bigsymposium, like a big event for
all of our groups to come intogether, because those groups
meet individually and thatmeeting, our big symposium is
actually every April, so it'scoming up soon, and we have OEMs
there as guest speakers and etcetera.
And then we also do coachingcalls once a week with the
clients and they have anaccountability partner.
So let's say you and I bothwere Porsche certified, we'll do
(29:46):
a joint call and we'llbenchmark our metrics like on
Porsche's.
We do financial reviews twice amonth.
We also have a dashboard webuilt Shout out to Claims Corp
with Brandon and CCI and histeam and they built a really
good dashboard for us where wecan benchmark average severity,
average body labor hours, paidlabor hours by OEM type.
And it's really just grown.
And so you know, at the end ofthe day we don't do contracts,
(30:10):
so it's month to month.
There's no contracts like causeI know other companies do that
and we just wanted a way.
Really it was just something Ihad in the middle of my life,
like my Jerry McGuire, tomCruise movement, and it's grown
from one into six shops andwe've got some amazing men and
women in there.
We got, you know, k&m collision, michael Kyle Bradshaw, which I
would tell you but like talkabout the best shops I've ever
(30:30):
seen in my entire career.
They're on there.
We got Tim Pap, another guy.
That's just standup quality.
We have a Dean and his son,dean Jr, and Dan at auto tech.
I mean, again, I don't want tobe remiss if I miss somebody's
name because there's too manyshots.
And listen, we understand thatnot everybody in our 20 group is
doing a perfect repair, but wewant them to have the intent
(30:52):
that they want to get better.
So to be a Spartan, you have tohave at least one OEM
certification.
If you don't have an OEMcertification, we'll help you to
get one.
You must be I-CAR Gold Class,and number three is you must be
iCar gold class, and numberthree is you must agree that
you're only going to scanvehicles with OEM scan tools or
approved devices.
Like, I'll be candid with you,I found out there was a client
that wasn't using an OEM scantool in an aftermarket and what
(31:15):
we did is we actually removedthem from our group because we
want people to stand forsomething.
They must set up a performdestructive test weld.
So we're really focused onquality and again, I know not
everybody's perfect, but thegoal is do they have the intent
to get better?
So I got to tell you it's beenan amazing journey and I love it
.
And people say well, mike, howdo you do that if it's just you?
(31:37):
Well, the other thing, rick, alot of people don't realize is
Collision Advice is not justMike Anderson.
We actually have 20 people onour team now.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
We're growing 20 people.
Wow, that's growing a lot.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Yeah, so we've got Jeff Odenettle, danny
Grettenberg also from the DGStephen Kripes, and they're like
our estimating gurus.
And then we have Maria Quinteroand Robin Reed, sheryl Driggers
and Noah, who are likefinancial gurus.
They know CCC and QuickBooksand BusinessWorks NXIVS Inside
Out.
Then we have Sheryl Dreggers,who's extraordinary on the
(32:11):
customer experience and customerservice training, you know.
So we've got other coaches aswell, sherelle and Rachel, and
so our team has really grown.
But we have actuallyspecialized coaches and so when
we're doing our coaching calls,you know, on a weekly basis, you
know we coach to whatever theirneed is and where we see their
improvement at.
So I'm not very good atself-promoting, but I hope that
gives some insights on Spartansand we're just trying to give
place of people.
(32:31):
And again, we're not an MSO,because a lot of people think we
are.
We're not.
We're just a coaching traininggroup giving people.
And there's people that belongto our 20 group, that also still
belong to a paint 20 group,right, so you know you can
belong to another one.
But, um, you know, the otherthing is we run really hard.
Our meetings are from seven inthe morning till seven at night.
Two days back to back we'llmeet in person.
So we're not, like you know,golfing and all that other stuff
(32:52):
.
We're there to put the work inand, uh, it's really big about
accountability and just beingdedicated to raise the bar of
the industry and I get to worksome amazing men and women oh,
oh.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
that's incredible, yeah, and in fact I know you
mentioned it's not an MSO, butyou even have some of these
smaller, mid-tier MSOs asthey're also Spartan members as
well.
So these guys are at that level, but they also they're OEM
centric and and they meet thecriteria for being a Spartan.
They see that advantage ofbeing part of a, a bigger mind
(33:25):
right part of that.
So that's awesome yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
So you kind of bring up a comment, um is that you
know, I've had over 280 of myclients sold in the last four
years.
Over 280, right, that's a lot.
And like, when they sold, it'snot because we weren't doing a
good job, it's probably becausewe helped them to be very
successful.
They grew from one store, fourstores and they sold for, you
know, 15, 15, 25 million, right.
So I'm happy for them.
(33:48):
But I got to tell you, whensome of these clients sold it,
actually I was actually hurt,like because you get emotionally
invested in people, right.
And then when they sold, I wasa bit like, oh man, you know.
But then I had to reframe mythinking, rick, and I said, you
know, it's kind of like a sportscoach, right, every year your
seniors graduate and now I gotto go find those new freshmen
and help them to become thestarting quarterback in the
(34:08):
future NFL draft pick of thefuture.
So now I've just embraced mypeople that sell, I'm happy for
them, et cetera.
And so now it's like, who has,you know, who's doing a million
a year that wants to get to 3million, who's doing 3 million
and wants to get to $5 million?
Or who has one store that wantsto get to two, or who has two
that wants to get to four.
And we're just really lookingto help people grow.
You know we've got Doug Martinand his team out in Indiana.
(34:31):
I mean so proud of Doug he'sgrown from one store to four
stores.
You know we've got the BelizeAutomotive Group up in Rhode
Island They've grown.
The Deal Automotive Groupthey've grown.
We got K-Steps in Ohio andPerfection.
Perfection's grown from onestore to three stores, k-steps
gone from one to two.
And so, you know, helping themto also understand how to grow
(34:53):
and what to do in order to grow.
Like, you know, how do you do apro forma, how do you run a UCC
report?
That if you're going to buy abusiness, you make sure there's
no liens.
What's the right equipment toget?
Should I, you know, get aGarmat spray booth, right?
So, at the end of the day,right?
So we're just there trying tohelp people to grow right.
And you know I don't think thisis a doom and gloom industry.
I think it's very exciting andright now my goal is to help
(35:15):
people to grow.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
No and it's awesome the things that you're doing.
You know, I look at it from aperspective of you know, there's
a lot of shops out there thatprobably won't get to that point
where they can join a.
They're just there, isn't?
You know?
It takes a certain level ofshop, a certain level of
ownership, and it's they're notall like that, right, but the
cool thing is is it's, you know,the uh tide raises all ships,
(35:40):
right.
So you're by these peoplegetting that good at what they
do and being that educated andgrowing it.
I think it helps the wholeindustry, right, because now the
bar has been set higher.
You know the value of a repair,the type of repairs that you do
, that keeps raising.
And when other people can lookup to their peers, you know,
(36:01):
maybe it's the three guys thatthey're down this.
You know they're buddies withthree guys that they're down
this.
You know they're buddies withdown the street that own a shop,
but they're part of your groupand they see them growing.
That's going to inspire them togo.
Hey, you know, maybe I could dothings a little better.
What?
What is he doing down there?
You know, and the moreinformation we're sharing with
each other, I think it doesn't.
It's got nothing to do withcompetition.
I think it helps all of us.
(36:21):
So I love the fact of whatyou're doing and I hope that
Spartan goes to 600 or 800 or athousand, right.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Amen, amen.
And you know, and I gotta, Igotta be remiss if I didn't give
a shout out and a credit to myteam.
I've got such an amazing team.
You know my two businesspartners, tracy and Tiffany, you
know I just couldn't do itwithout them.
I mean, the only way I cantravel and do the things I do is
because I have a great team.
That's, you know, back home,you know, just, you know keeping
everything in order.
(36:50):
And, man, I'm so man, my heart,just it just is so overflowing
with gratitude, rick, for allthe people in my life that have
supported me, much like yourself.
So, thank you for yourfriendship and support.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Sure, sure, absolutely.
Your friendship and support,sure, sure, absolutely.
And yeah, I, cheryl andTiffany's are just outstanding
people.
We deal with them a lot, uh,and I've dealt with them a lot
over the years, and just, haveyou ever had have you ever had
Cheryl on any of your podcasts?
Speaker 3 (37:13):
you know she got to co-write a book.
She got to write co-write abook with Chris Voss, the Chris
Voss, the FBI negotiator yeah,the uh never split the
difference.
never split the difference.
Yep, she just co-wrote a bookwith him.
You should have her on yourpodcast.
And also there's a book calledthe Five Languages of
Appreciation and the Five LoveLanguages, and Cheryl just got
certified by Dr Paul White toactually teach that content and
(37:37):
apply it to the collision repairindustry.
So she's like a famous bookauthor and so excited for her as
well.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Tell her.
I'll be calling her soon, mike,amen, amen, that's awesome.
I believe I'll probably see youat the symposium as well.
I think we're going to be therefor that.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Great, we can't wait for you to be there.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Yep.
So speaking of podcasts, youstarted something new this year.
I'm like I've got to be kidding.
Mike's going to do a podcast.
How's he going to find time forthat?
So tell us a little bit aboutthat.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
That's what everybody else said.
How's he going to find time forthat?
Speaker 1 (38:09):
That's why it's on the road right.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
So share with us what's going on.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
So you know, I've been very fortunate to be
invited as a guest on people'spodcasts such as yourself, and
I'm very grateful for that.
And a lot of people just kepttelling me Mike, why don't you
start a podcast, why don't youstart a podcast?
And I was like you, I travelall the time.
So I was like man, I just don'tknow.
So what I did is I decided youknow what, I'm just going to try
it Right and I said but I'monly going to do it and continue
(38:34):
to do it If I get a lot ofpeople that you know attend
because it's done live.
So my podcast is live.
So I decided to call it On theRoad, with Mike Anderson serving
up some collision advice, andmy goal is that as I travel
around the country, I see somereally cool things.
Rick, I see I go into shops.
I'm like, oh my gosh, you know,I wish everybody could see this
(38:54):
.
I'm like, why don't I juststart doing this live from the
different shops and places I go,so people can see what's out
there and expose them to it?
Right?
And so you know, as you know, Iwrite for Auto Body News and
they've been a great supporterof me, and so I went to them and
they said, hey, we're all in,we'll help you to market it and
help you to figure out all thetechnical stuff.
And then my teammate, traceDombrowski, who's just amazing,
(39:16):
she said she'd help me with it.
So we did our very first one, Iguess two weeks ago.
Three weeks ago was my veryfirst one.
I don't, it was done live.
I think we had don't quote meon this I think we had almost
400 people watch it live and Ithink right now it's got about
(39:37):
2.9 thousand views on YouTubeand it's you can watch it live
through Facebook, youtube, allthese different channels and I
don't even know what they'recalled, and so our first one we
did was showing what the averageseverity was by state and the
average body frame paintmechanical labor hours by state,
and Rhode Island had thehighest severity in 2024, $6,900
.
So what we did is we had RandyBatella from Reliable Collision
(39:59):
Rhode Island, who's thepresident of the Rhode Island
Auto Body Association, and hewas on our podcast to share
about the legislation theypassed, for example, all OEM
parts for the first six yearsand it's just amazing law and it
went out really, really well.
So our next podcast is March10th and I'm going to be doing
it live from Wallace Collision,which is owned by John Baker and
(40:21):
his family in Bristol,tennessee, and we're going to be
doing it live from his shoptalking about safety inspections
like you know, the importanceof measuring steering columns
and inspecting seatbelts andsteering gears, and we're going
to do all of this.
It's going to be live and he'sgot this amazing technician
named Jason.
We're actually going to measure, like a steering column and and
inspect the steering rack liveso everybody can see kind of how
(40:42):
it's.
We're going to talk about howthey do it.
So again, yeah, that's whatit's doing and again, I'm only
going to do it, assuming thatit's worthwhile and people see
value in it.
Right, because I want to makesure that I give people value
and there's no cost to these.
They can be viewed after thefact and questions.
(41:05):
So like if people sendquestions in, you know, in
between the podcast you can goonline and you can submit
questions.
I answer those questions duringthe podcast and then you can
also ask live questions duringthe podcast and Cheryl Driggers
is my co-host and then CherylDriggers and I will.
We try to get to as many of thelive questions as we can during
the podcast.
So we want it to be based.
We want to bring the topics topeople that people are asking
for, also to discuss some of theburning issues that's going on
(41:28):
in the industry, some of thefriction points, and again, just
give value to the industry.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Yeah, that's another great idea, Mike, and it's
something nobody else has donein this industry to have it live
like that and to have two-wayconversations, and yeah, I think
it's going to be great.
I did watch the first one, atleast a good portion of it.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
Yeah, we weren't as polished as you, rick.
We had a lot of technicalissues when kicking off.
That's why, if you go to thevideo, you probably want to fast
forward about the two-minutemark.
We just want to polish you,rick, we probably should have
had you helping us to do it.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Dude, you know I've got a team of 50 behind me
putting all this stuff.
That's just me.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
It's a lot of work.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
It takes time.
I've been at this since COVID,right, so it takes a while, but
you guys will do fantastic withthat.
I believe You'll get to numbersthat you won't believe probably
.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
Again, we just wanted to be valuable to the industry.
If it's not, we'll pull theplug on it.
But again, we want to alsocontinue to shout out and
recognize and support peoplelike yourself as well there,
Rick.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
I appreciate that, mike.
I really do Like you.
I've got a great respect anddesire to help this industry
because I've you know, noteverybody has had the experience
I've had is seeing so manyshops.
I mean, I was in a lot of shopsover my career and you know I
could see where the pain pointswere, and that was part of the
reason why I started this in thefirst place was maybe I can
(42:53):
help address some of those painpoints Right.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
Yeah, and I know this is a podcast for Mike Anderson,
but I know you took on a newjob in the last year, right?
Speaker 1 (43:03):
And yeah, it's been just under a year.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
Can you tell me a little bit about what you're
doing now?
Speaker 1 (43:07):
So, um, yeah, I was, uh, I was with, uh, uh, with
finish, master and LKQ up untilabout March of last year and I'd
spent enough time in that partof the industry and I've done
everything I could do and and uh, so we had a parting.
And then, uh, I was looking fornew opportunities.
You know what else can I do?
I'm the same age, you are, mike, and but I, you know, I'm a
(43:27):
good 10-15 years away from beingdone as far as I'm concerned,
right.
So, uh, I looked at a lot ofopportunities, uh, within
coaching, within working withshops or MSOs, or or working
with distributors, you know, inthe equipment side, and I
couldn't find the right fit.
And then you know ColeStrandberg, right.
So I've made friends with himsince I met him a couple years
(43:48):
ago as a podcaster, and hehappened to know somebody at
Garmin.
He says, hey, I think they'relooking for somebody over there,
let me connect you.
And one thing led to another,and I'm now the national account
manager for Garment.
Yeah thank you very much andit's wonderful.
It's great people, greatorganization.
It feels like a small company.
(44:09):
It's got a great CEO that'srunning things and making great
strides in their business andhow they do things and, yeah,
it's just.
It's been a wonderfulexperience and great to be part
of that organization.
So congratulations.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
Thank you, I appreciate it.
They're lucky to have you, mybrother.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
Thanks, mike.
So, listen, I know we'regetting towards the time we need
to start wrapping up here, butso you, your collision advice
team has grown Cause I was goingto ask you about that, but
you've already answered that.
So you're up to 20 people nowand I've got a feeling that's
going to continue to grow alittle bit more as you add more
people in Conferences and tradeshows.
You are the king of conferencesand trade shows.
(44:50):
You're at most all of them, butfor those that don't normally
attend, what are the key ones?
And not to diss any of the onesthat you don't mention, but
what are probably the most keytrade shows or conferences that
someone should attend if they'venever been to one in their
market?
And they go, man, I want toconnect with some of these
(45:10):
people from these companies andthese guys like Mike Anderson
and you know where do I go forthat Right, what are the best
opportunities for that?
Speaker 3 (45:19):
Wow, wow, wow.
There's so many great ones.
I know I know, yeah, you can't.
I mean you have to start offwith talking about SEMA,
obviously, right.
I mean the educational trackthat SCRS Aaron Schulenberg and
his board put on is just secondto none.
I mean, they, just they.
Every year I go there andthere's just so many topics they
(45:40):
talk about that.
I'm like, wow, where did that?
Speaker 1 (45:41):
come from.
Right so obviously SEMA.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
But I understand that everybody can take away from
their work or afford to go toSEMA.
So then you kind of go to thelocal um trade associations,
right, you have, you know, a bat.
Uh did Joel toggle on her teamdown in Texas.
They put on one of the besttrade shows in the country.
You know, you have theNortheast Trade Show, again one
of the best in the country, withTom Greco and his team and
(46:06):
Jerry and all the people at.
You know the New Jersey AutoBody Association.
You know Mariah Sampson out inMontana.
They put on a great.
They put on great meetings,right, not necessarily trade
shows but quarterly meetings fortheir team.
You know, as you said, you andI were both at AASPI.
They had well over 100 peoplethere.
You got the SoutheastConference.
(46:26):
Now, josh Kent, oh my God, theSoutheast Trade Show.
I almost forgot that.
My God, jordan and Josh forgiveme.
Southeast Trade Show is justgrowing Every year.
It just gets bigger and bigger.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
I've heard that one a couple times.
Show is just growing.
Every year it just gets biggerand bigger, and I did that a
couple times actually.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
I'm speaking at this one coming up awesome, yeah, I
mean the board they have.
They are second to none, right.
Kyle bradshaw and all thepeople on the board there, brian
carol, brian davies I mean justan amazing.
The southeast conference isjust amazing.
Um gosh.
I mean you have the midwesttrade show.
I mean I don't care where youlive out in the united states,
there is a local trade show.
But I would be remiss if I alsodidn't just say don't just think
about just trade shows, thinkabout like CIC.
(47:02):
You know, like you just sit atyour shop and you just complain
about things.
Complaining doesn't make thingsget better.
Going on social media andcomplaining doesn't make things
better.
Showing up at events like CICor showing up at your local auto
body association board meetingsright, that's how you really
affect change.
If you look at Rhode Island hasthe highest severity, has the
best laws in the entire UnitedStates.
(47:23):
It's all because of thestrength of their association
and the board they have.
So getting plugged in.
And again, I want to make surethat there's any trade
associations or trade shows thatI I didn't speak of.
I apologize, but I mean I could.
There's.
There's so many right rightthat we can speak about.
(47:44):
But and I didn't mean to pushyou in a spot, I just I just
like my mind's going, I startthinking like I forgot about
this one, I forgot about thatone, right?
I mean, yeah, you know um.
You know you got the kansasauto body association.
You know um.
You know gina cotton.
I mean they, they, I mean gina,um, kenna doccas, what they're
doing out in kansas.
Then you got Gina Cotton withthe Midwest.
I mean there's just so manywonderful events going on.
And then you have local paintdistributors that put on tracers
.
You know classes, like I thinkabout Matthews.
(48:05):
They're a BSF distributor inPennsylvania.
They got Benjamin Stevens.
He's like an in-house estimatorguru, right, amazing guy.
There's just, there's listen.
There's so many ways for shopsto get plugged in today that
didn't exist when I had my shops.
Man, get plugged in, findsomething.
Remember, stay humble, stayhungry.
If you're hungry, you're goingto go eat and the way you go eat
(48:25):
is by attending events.
And yes, there are a lot ofevents virtual.
And there's Kristen Felder.
She does a lot of virtual stuff.
That's pretty amazing, right.
So you know your podcast.
There's ways to get information,but some, you know, it's like
people used to tell me they sayMike, why do I need to go to
church?
Right, why do I need to go tochurch?
I can watch church on TV, butyou know what, that guy on TV
(48:46):
that's preaching can't give youa hug.
When you go to church in person, someone give you a hug.
So there's a lot.
You know, there's something youcan get at an in-person event
that you can't get virtually,and that's just that in-person
fellowship, right.
And I just think people need toget out more, and I know it's
hard to get away from yourbusiness, but you know what's
that old saying?
Even the lumberjack stopsduring the day to sharpen his
(49:06):
saw.
And I think we have to do that,yeah that's a great analogy and
I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
And there is a lot of great trade shows out there and
, like I said, I I didn't askquestion to put you to spot,
just no, no, you're good, you'regood.
I want to see what was top ofmind for you, but I've been to
love rick.
I just want everybody to feelthe love brother right exactly I
know.
But I'm glad you mentioned cic,because that's I was going to
make sure I mentioned thatbecause that is truly uh
(49:35):
meetings of people that aretrying to help this industry.
It's not a trade show, there'sno vendors that are trying to
promote stuff, it's just reallyjust a meeting of shops and it
seems to be growing.
Speaker 3 (49:47):
And I got to tell you I had never been to an SCRS
open board meeting until the onethey just had recently, in
January, yeah, and in PalmSprings, and I went to it and I
got to tell you I won't missanother one.
The SRS board meeting wasphenomenal.
I didn't realize what I was,you know, I always thought it
was kind of closed, like youcouldn't attend, and then I
(50:08):
found out.
You have an open part man.
People need to attend that ahundred percent.
Speaker 1 (50:13):
Awesome.
I'm going to put links to allthese, all these events that I
can, on the show notes and linksto SCRS and CIC and CEMEN and
all those.
There's so many good things toattend.
And I also want to say that I'min an area where there isn't
really any trade associations.
I'm in a big state with a lotof collision shops and no
(50:34):
association.
I looked into startingsomething up myself, but it's
like it's a task I can't take onright now, when do you live at?
Rick, I'm in Michigan, okay, soa lot of there's east and west
Michigan.
At one point there wassomething on the west side, but
I think that's kind of fizzledout.
But the point is, if you livein a state that doesn't have an
(50:55):
association and you're friendswith some of the other shops,
start talking about it Becauseyou could put your own together
and just start this process thatcould take you to you know
where Rhode Island's at now,with having, you know, the power
to change some legislation toget things better for the shop.
So there's great power innumbers, that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (51:19):
I couldn't agree more , sir, well said.
Speaker 1 (51:20):
All right, mike, I've taken up enough of your time
this morning.
It's always great to talk toyou.
I'm thankful you're here forwhat will be my 200th episode,
which is a big deal for me, hugedeal, congratulations.
Thank you very much.
I'll be seeing you soon outthere.
So thanks again for being hereand have a great week.
Speaker 3 (51:42):
I appreciate you.
God bless you brother.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
Well, that's all I had for you today.
Thanks again for tuning in.
I really appreciate yoursupport and hope you have a
great week.
I can always be reached atwwwrixelovercom, where you can
find all my social media linkspodcast episodes, blog posts and
much more.
When I was coming up to my 100th episode.
It was an easy decision to doan interview with Mike Anderson
from Collision Advice.
After all, he was the one thatreally inspired me to start down
that path of giving back tothis industry from my earlier
experiences attending his eventsand presentations, where he
always gave incredible value toeveryone in the room and shared
more wisdom and insight thananyone else in this industry was
(00:23):
doing more wisdom and insightthan anyone else in this
industry was doing.
A few months ago I wascontemplating on what to do for
my 200th and once again, mikefelt like just the perfect
choice to help me celebrate thismilestone in my podcasting
journey.
Since our last interview, mikeAnderson's impact on the
collision industry has justintensified.
His collision advice team hasgrown to over 20 people.
The Spartan 300 group thatstarted very early during COVID
(00:46):
has now grown to six specificgroups and he started an annual
conference event for hisSpartans that educates as well
as celebrates their successes.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Welcome to the MindWrench Podcast with your
host, rick Sellover, where minoradjustments produce major
improvements in mindset,personal growth and success.
This is the place to be everyMonday, where we make small
improvements and take positiveactions in our business and
personal lives that will make amajor impact in our success,
(01:23):
next-level growth and quality oflife.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Hey, what's up everybody.
Welcome to the MindWrenchPodcast.
I'm your host, rick Salora.
Thanks so much for stopping in.
If you're a returning listenerand haven't done so already,
please take a minute and clickthe follow or subscribe button
and then rate and review theshow.
When you rate and review theshow, the algorithms for Apple,
(01:51):
spotify, google Podcasts,iheartradio, amazon Music and
all the other platforms will seethat it's valuable and show it
to more people that have neverseen it before, and hopefully it
can help them too.
I would really really reallyappreciate your help, sharing
this word with your friends andfamily as well, and if you're a
brand new listener, welcome.
I hope you find something ofvalue here that helps you in
your personal or professionallife as well.
Please make sure to click thesubscribe or follow button so
(02:16):
you never miss another episode.
Welcome, welcome, welcome toall my collision industry
friends, body shop buds andpersonal development fans that
have been part of my podcastjourney, whether just for the
past couple months or the lastfour years.
I appreciate every one of youspending some of your precious
time with me.
It's crazy to think that when Istarted this in the early part
of COVID, with zero experience,very little confidence that
(02:38):
someone had actually listened towhat I had to say and no idea
how I could get past the firstcouple episodes.
But here I am in my 200thepisode, now, heard in over 95
countries and 2,100 citiesacross the world and
well-received by the top leaders, movers and shakers in the
collision industry.
I am completely humbled,flattered, extremely grateful
(03:01):
and nowhere near done with thisjourney.
Now I know in the podcast worldthese numbers really aren't
substantial.
There are many shows that haveepisodes that number in the
thousands, with hundreds ofthousands of followers and
millions of downloads, but thatdoesn't much matter to me.
Would I like the same successwith the Mind Wrench?
Sure, absolutely, but thatwasn't my focus for doing this.
(03:25):
I also know that out of the nowthree or four million podcast
shows out there, most don't makeit past seven episodes.
It's a hell of a lot of workand without the instant payoff
expected, most just give up.
My goal wasn't for big numbers.
No, it was for impact.
I felt if I made a positiveimpact in someone's life, helped
(03:49):
one shop improve their business, made one day better for even
just one person or solved onesingle problem, then all the
work was worth it.
That was success enough for meand let me tell you, friends, on
that KPI alone, this show hasbeen very successful.
When I was coming up to my 100thepisode, it was an easy
(04:10):
decision to do an interview withMike Anderson from Collision
Advice.
After all, he was the one thatreally inspired me to start down
that path of giving back tothis industry from my earlier
experiences attending his eventsand presentations, where he
always gave incredible value toeveryone in the room and shared
more wisdom and insight thananyone else in this industry was
(04:30):
doing.
A few months ago, I wascontemplating on what to do for
my 200th and once again, mikefelt like just the perfect
choice to help me celebrate thismilestone in my podcasting
journey.
Since our last interview, mikeAnderson's impact on the
collision industry has justintensified.
His collision advice team hasgrown to over 20 people.
(04:50):
The Spartan 300 group thatstarted very early during COVID
has now grown to six specificgroups, and he started an annual
conference event for hisSpartans that educates as well
as celebrates their successes.
We recorded this interview wellbefore the 2025 Spartan
Symposium that was held inMinneapolis this past April,
(05:11):
where I was fortunate enough tohost the vendor table for Garmat
USA and attended thisoutstanding event.
I'm telling you, the love, therespect, the support Mike showed
to not only his members and histeam, but even the vendors and
suppliers that supported thisconference was really just an
awesome experience.
It is simply simply incredible.
(05:33):
I was so honored to be part ofit.
Anyways, let's get to thatinterview with Mike Anderson.
Recently I had the opportunityto attend the AASP in Illinois
Overdrive in 25 trade show andconference, and my special guest
today not only shared thekeynote opening speech but also
(05:53):
followed up with moderating notone but two separate panels
through the course of the day.
My guest this week is, and nowfellow podcaster, has been
hitting the road really hard sofar in 2025, impacting and
sharing with the collisionindustry from coast to coast.
We first met back, probablyaround 2010, mike, I believe,
(06:14):
when he spoke at WashingtonCommunity College, and at the
time I was a part-time refinishinstructor there, and then later
at several different trainingevents that the company I worked
for had hosted.
We kind of struck up afriendship and I've seen him so
many times over the years.
We've become good friends andwe both share a passion for
doing what we can to help thiscollision industry.
So please join me in welcomingthe industry icon, the guy that
(06:38):
everybody knows and loves, goodfriend of mine, mike Anderson,
from Collision Advice back tothe MindWrench podcast.
Mike, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Hey, thanks, rick.
Thanks for the kind words.
But back at you, brother, it'san honor and a privilege to just
speak with you and all of yourlisteners, so thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
You got it.
Glad to have you back on here.
So I will take the opportunityto say that for those that have
followed the podcast.
Back when I did my 100thepisode, I had it in my mind I
wanted to have Mike Anderson onfor my guest for my 100th, which
we did.
It was a great conversation andI'm coming up on my 200th, so
(07:14):
naturally I thought I've got tohave Mike back for number 200.
Congratulations.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
That's a pretty incredible accomplishment, Rick.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
And it's all part-time, right.
So I've been working my wholecareer, but it's something that
I really love doing.
I've got a passion for it and,yeah, glad to be hitting 200.
And, god willing, I'll be herefor 300, maybe even 400.
We'll see, amen, amen, I'll betapping you for those as well.
So, anyways, mike was last backI think it was 2022 when I hit
(07:44):
my 100th episode.
So we're going to have a goodconversation with Mike today.
We're going to talk about lotsof stuff.
I know, mike, last year you hada really good keynote.
I know, every year you seem topick a theme for the year, right
, correct.
And last year you had successtoday, success tomorrow.
(08:05):
I'd seen that at a coupledifferent places.
We cross our paths in a lot ofindustry events.
By the way, great job at AASP,thank you.
Not only the keynote, which isone I hadn't heard about.
That was Parts Best Practices,which was really good, really
informative, I thought.
And then he had two paneldiscussions with Pipeline which
(08:26):
is, I mean, that's everybody'stalking about Pipeline for
talent and consumer advocacy.
So great subjects.
Great job moderating those twogroups.
It was fantastic and you hadeverybody's attention, right,
thank you.
So let's talk about what's your2025 keynote, what your theme
(08:47):
is for 2025.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Yeah, so my theme for 2025, and again, rick, I just
can't thank you enough, man.
Mad love and respect for you,brother, you do a lot of stuff.
I know this podcast you do is avolunteer effort, so you know,
thanks for giving back to theindustry, man.
God bless you, brother.
So, yeah, every year I pick atheme, and my theme this year is
stay humble, stay hungry.
You know, I think we have tostay humble, right?
(09:11):
You know it's oftentimes I seeand I've got to admit I was
probably guilty of this in myyounger years that you know
people come into our shop andthey're like, hey, I need to
file an insurance claim and Igot to get three estimates,
wherever the case may be, andit's very easy for us as
estimators to get calloused andnot be sensitive to that
consumer Like, you don't needthree estimates, right?
(09:32):
I think we have to stay humbleand not get calloused, right.
And we have to recognize thatwhen people have a car accident
or a vehicle accident, you knowit's a very traumatic event.
You know, one of the things Ioften do in my seminars is I ask
people what emotions do youthink that someone's having
after an accident?
And some of the answers I hearis that people are stressed,
they're anxious, they're afraid,they're concerned, right, these
(09:53):
are all negative emotions.
So I think it's reallyimportant that we stay humble in
our dealings with the consumer,right, don't blow them off.
Be patient with their questionsand just stay humble.
I think also we have to stayhumble when it comes to writing
estimates and you can't justassume that because you fixed,
you know, a Honda Accordyesterday or a Chevy Silverado
or a Toyota Camry, that youdon't need to research the
(10:15):
procedures again today.
Things change and we have tostay humble and continue to stay
hungry and continue to want todelve into the OMR repair
procedures, which is like theholy grail for how to perform
safe and proper repairs and stayhungry in regards to our thirst
for knowledge.
So, stay humble, stay hungry.
I think we're seeing claimscount, decline, not as many
accident claims.
(10:35):
You've got to stay hungry.
You've got to follow up onthose unscheduled estimates.
We have to stay hungry andstart marketing our businesses
more right, so we stay busy.
Stay hungry in the fact thatyou know they say if it ain't
broke, don't fix it.
I'm saying if it's not broke,break it right, try something
new.
Stay hungry and continue tosearch to improve your processes
.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
So stay humble, stay hungry yeah, no, great great
topic and, uh, great points made.
Like I, you know, I will echothose sentiments that you know.
Know, I've been in thisindustry a long time, like you,
I've seen a lot and, yeah, asyou know, we can get comfortable
right, we can get.
I am doing really good.
(11:14):
I don't really need to do thisor I don't need to change that
it's.
Everything seems to be workinggreat right now and that's the
best time to really go.
Okay, what can I improve on?
How can I, how can I move theball forward a couple more yards
?
Right, and you know we had ahuge glut of work which
everybody enjoyed post COVID.
Right, there's, it's like itwas like the wild, wild West man
(11:36):
or just everybody had, you know, two, three month backlogs.
Well, that's all gone away.
Now we're back to reality andyou know people are driving
probably a little bit betterthan they did post-COVID and
collision claims are down.
So, yeah, we need to tighten upon what we're doing.
We also need to adjust toeverything has changed within
the collision industry.
Everything on a vehicle haschanged In two years.
(11:59):
It changes drastically, right,the technology, the processes on
how to do things and along withthat, this industry has been
changing, but not at a rapidenough pace, I think, to keep up
with technology.
So that is a great keynotesubject and I think it's going
to be fantastic this year.
I think everybody needs it thisyear.
(12:20):
I'm looking forward toattending a couple of your
speeches along the way.
I'm sure there'll be enoughevents this year.
I'm looking forward toattending a couple of your
speeches along the way.
I'm sure there will be enoughevents this year.
Something else I wanted to talkabout was something you've been
doing.
It's kind of in the backgroundbecause I don't think everybody
really realizes what you'redoing and how much work it is.
But your who pays for whatsurveys?
(12:42):
You've been doing that for along time and it's not like just
one survey where you ask aboutall this stuff.
You break it down into fourseparate surveys for scanning
and calibration, for paint, forbody, for frame.
And tell me a little bit aboutnumber one.
Why did you start that and howdo you think that's impacted the
(13:02):
industry so far?
If you're looking for acompetitive edge for your
business or a more effectivejumpstart to your personal
development, I'll make yourfirst step super simple.
It is a fact that an incrediblenumber of the most successful
business owners, nearly half ofthe Fortune 500 companies,
top-earning professionalathletes, entertainers and
industry leaders likeMicrosoft's Bill Gates, athletes
(13:25):
, entertainers and industryleaders like Microsoft's Bill
Gates, former President BillClinton, oprah Winfrey, richard
Branson, amazon's Jeff Bezos andSalesforce's Mark Benioff all
have one thing in common theyall have at least one coach and
some have several that they workwith on a consistent basis,
someone that helps guide, mentorand support them, challenge
them, help them set and achievegoals that move them forward and
(13:45):
then hold them accountable tofollow through driving personal
and professional growth.
Working with a coach has manysubstantial benefits.
Just for an example, 80% ofcoaching clients report improved
self-esteem or self-confidencethanks to coaching, 99% of
individuals and companies thathire a coach report being very
satisfied and 96% would do itagain.
(14:07):
If, deep down, you know it'stime to make those improvements
in your business, your personallife, that you've kicked down
the road year after year.
If you're tired of knowingthere's a better version of you
waiting to shine, but unsure ofhow to bring that version to
light.
If you're tired of wanting toenjoy a more successful business
but not sure how to start.
And if you don't want to goanother 12 months without better
(14:27):
results.
But you don't want to go italone, then take the first step.
It's super simple.
Sometimes talking to the rightperson can make all the
difference.
Go to wwwrixelovercom contactand I'll set you up with a free
consultation.
Call with me to see ifone-on-one coaching is right for
you.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
You up with a free consultation.
Call with me to see ifone-on-one coaching is right for
you.
Yes, so when I own my shops,charlie Baker owned a product
called Collision Insight and itwas a published.
You know that was way, that'show old I am right and Charlie
Baker would send this.
You'd get this publicationevery month.
It was three or four pages,called Collision Insights, and
once or twice a year he would doa who pays for what and he
(15:05):
would publish, like you know, 25things and he would survey
shops and you'd fax your answersback to him with a fax machine.
Like how often did insurancecompanies or third party payers
put on their estimate notincluded operations?
And then you know, you knowCharlie, you know quit
publishing his publication.
That survey quick getting done.
So as I got into consulting Ithought back on that.
(15:25):
I was like you know, I reallylike to take that and do that
again, like Charlie did it.
So I want to credit him withthe original idea, but do it a
little bit more inclusive.
And you know I travel on theroad, you know, 300 days a year
and so I was meeting all thesepeople and gathering email
addresses where people wouldsend to me and I was like you
know what, let me start buildinga database, do this
electronically.
But I found there were so manyquestions I wanted to answer
(15:46):
that I was like I got to breakthis down into, like you know,
four different surveys.
So, like you said, we do asurvey every quarter, every
January, april, July and Octoberand each survey is very
intentional and very specific.
Like every January, our surveyis on refinished, not included,
operations, right, and, like yousaid, we do one specific on
mechanical body and then likemiscellaneous operations, like
sublet markup or scanning,calibrations etc.
(16:08):
And you know we currently haveabout twenty nine thousand
people in our database.
I want to let you know, and toanybody listening, we do not
share our database.
So a lot of people might beconcerned about taking our
surveys, worried that you knowour database gets shared.
We never share our database and, quite candidly, I fund this
survey myself.
You know I probably pay about$25,000, $26,000 a year to
(16:31):
partner with, you know, theCrash Network and you know other
sources to help me to compileall the data and review it.
But at the end of the day Idon't accept any funding on this
because you know people have atendency that.
You know, hey, if I sponsor,will you give me your database
list?
No, so I fund this 100% myself.
No-transcript to get quite abit more.
(17:15):
So you know, again, some of thecomments we get back from the
surveys are people say, like itcreates awareness, like people
are.
Like you know, I didn't eventhink I could charge for this.
I didn't even know this wasn'tincluded until I saw it on your
survey.
Some people use it as atraining mechanism.
So we've got over 200 questionswe survey throughout the year.
So some people will just takelike one or two of those survey
(17:35):
items and they'll use it as likea training tip every week in
their shop.
Some people use it as aresource that if an insurance
carrier says you're the only onethat charges me for that, they
can use that to say hey, I'm notthe only one.
And one of the other things thatwe've done to upgrade the
survey over the years is thatafter each question we also give
you a link to a DEG inquirythrough the Database Enhancement
(17:55):
Gateway that is funded by SCRSand other wonderful vendors.
And what we do is we give thema link to where they can see
that it's not included tovalidate our survey responses.
And then, the other thing we'veupgraded this year and a shout
out to SCRS is that we now,anytime SCRS you know how they
do their weekly videos.
If there's a video that has todo with that specific survey
(18:16):
question, we also provide a linkto the SCRS video.
So we're trying to make it.
So it's a resource, but I wouldjust encourage more shops to
take it.
And we also have shops that say, hey, can you add this question
?
And we add that question.
Right.
We also have some shops thatsay, hey, this is why I don't do
this, because, you know, maybefor a valid reason.
So it gives us a lot ofinsights and I just want to say
(18:37):
thank you to all the shops thatdo participate in the survey,
but it's something that I fundmyself.
I appreciate John Yoswick at theCrash Network for helping me to
compile it, him and Chuck, andwe're going to continue to do it
as long as shops see value init.
But we just wish.
The other thing a lot of peoplearen't aware of is that if we
can get over 100 surveyresponses from one state, we
(18:57):
will publish the state resultsfor that state.
So we encourage all the tradeassociations to really help us
to.
You know, get more responsesper state.
You know other things.
We also ask is not just notincluded operations, but we ask
people, for example, like if youcharge for Feather, prime and
Block, you know what's yourformula.
We ask questions like do youmark up tow bills?
If so, how much?
(19:17):
We ask like, if, if you have analuminum certification or
European certification, what'syour average labor rate on those
things?
So it's a real robust surveyand I really enjoy doing it and
I do it just to give back to theindustry.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
And that's incredible , mike, and I for one appreciate
all the work and the effortthat goes into that.
To me it's mind-blowing.
To me it's mind-blowing there'sa free resource like that,
where you provide thatinformation that any shop can go
wow, I've been missing out.
I didn't realize I could dothat.
It shows that there's 25 otherpeople or three other states or
(20:01):
five other areas that all getpaid to do this thing that I'm
doing for free right now.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Yeah, we also publish the results by region and we
also publish the results by DRPversus non-DRP shops.
And even if you don't take oursurvey, let's say that you know
somebody like yourself, rick,that works, you know, for a
paint booth distributor, right?
Or you work for a paint job ora frame equipment distributor.
You know, like Carline orsomething.
You can actually download theresults for free from our
website.
There's no charge to downloadthe results and they're
(20:24):
available free to anyone in theindustry.
Anybody can go on our websiteand they can download them as
well.
So you know if you're adistributor or whatever, and we
also.
Anytime anybody reaches out tous and says, hey, can I
repurpose this?
Can I use this to include in mytraining?
You know we absolutely make itavailable to anybody to use in
whatever way that they need benecessary.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
So with that said, and you said you're getting
about a thousand responses, sofor a quarter, a thousand
responses seems so lame for theamount of shops.
It's just it's it'sunbelievable.
Well, I can't say it'sunbelievable because I've been
dealing in this industry for along.
You know, I was a distributorfor a long time and and I was in
(21:03):
a lot of shops and I understand, because they're just consumed
with what they do every day, orhow fast they can get a car done
and get out of there and closeshop up.
But do you have any idea what'sa better way to get more eyes
on this?
Because it is such a greatresource and people don't
understand that If they haven'theard about it, they don't
(21:25):
understand what they're missing.
How do we get that message tothem?
Speaker 3 (21:28):
yeah, and I apologize for the cough, I'm fighting a
bit, that's okay, you know.
So, you know, we've wondered ifthe surveys were too long.
They take about 15 to 20minutes to take and we've asked
people hey, is the survey toolong, right, and if so, then
we'll shorten it and minimizethe amount of questions.
Um, you know, uh, I reallydon't know.
I mean, you know we every.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Hey, mike, if they're not 15 minutes, you can sit on
a toilet and scroll throughsocial media for 15 minutes,
amen, amen, and then think aboutit.
Right, so it's not that it'stoo long.
I know that can't be it.
So.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Right.
So you know so, no, no, so hey,amen on that comment, brother,
right?
So at the end of the day we'rejust, you know, we just want to
get traction and I'm open to anycriticisms, any suggestions
people have as to how we canimprove it and get traction.
You know we promoted prettyheavily throughout the trade,
(22:23):
all the different tradepublications, you know, you know
, shout out to Autobody News,fender Bender, you know, you
know, autobody Repair News, bodyShop Business.
I mean, they all support us andI'm grateful for all those
publications.
But I just think we, you know,again, maybe it's just educating
shops like here's the value init.
And again, the more results weget, the more valid the survey
results become.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Yeah, I would say, if there's a way to and you've
probably tried this before, butyou know, usually the paint and
material distributors and theparts distributors, the shops
see those people the most right,correct and they have the
greatest potential.
And this is something that Itried to do as much as I could
(22:56):
when I was a distributor.
I saw myself as the vessel tohelp shops that are just head
down, working every day to givethem some type of information
that might be helpful to them orsome best practices.
So I think, finding a way tomaybe get some of the
distributors, some of the partsdistributors, some of the tool
guys that are in there everysingle day in these shops, some
way to get those people to hey,make sure you check out the who
(23:19):
pays for what surveys.
You can pay for your tool billwith me with, uh, with all the
extra money you'll make,charging for the things you
should be charging.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Yeah, we also another thing we do is we also show the
trends, like was the amount ofum?
And again, I gotta always tryto be politically correct
because, like some people say,the insurance company doesn't
pay the bill, the consumer does.
But you know, if the insurancecase put it as a line item on
the estimate we also show, didthat increase or decrease
compared to the prior year?
And then I also try to providecommentary and insights as to
(23:48):
why I think things might betrending.
Like one of the things we'reseeing shops start to charge for
now is the removal of static onany type of component, not just
plastic but steel or aluminum,right and removal of static
because we're seeing that that'ssomething that people are doing
much more.
So again, I appreciate yougiving me the platform on your
podcast to even talk about it.
(24:08):
So thank you.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Sure, yeah, there will be at least five people
that listen to this.
So you know I'm kidding.
There should be a whole lotmore than that, brother.
There should be a whole lotmore than that.
But no, and that's part of thereason why I wanted to have you
on.
It's just because I feel thatone particular thing is such a
great resource and if I was ashop owner regardless of where I
(24:36):
was at performance-wise and youknow in my business and all
that I would be looking at thatstuff.
I'd be combing through allthose articles and all those
informational you knowopportunities to go hey, this is
one little way to do better inmy shop.
This is one way my shops aregoing to make more, or my
technicians will make more money.
The shop will be moreproductive.
There's so many advantages tothat and for me it's just it's a
crime that there's shops thatwill know about this and not
(24:57):
participate in the survey.
I'm doing good enough.
I'm too busy.
Everybody's got 15 minutes,like I said.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
So I want to drive.
I feel like I'm that Geicocommercial in 15 minutes or less
we can drive.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Anyways, thanks for sharing that.
I appreciate it.
Like I said, I'll offer it toall the listeners.
Listen, if you have asuggestion on how to get this
out to more people, how toimprove it, how to make it more
accessible, whatever, feel freeto reach out to me, either
(25:30):
through the podcast or throughmy social media sites, through
the Collision MastermindFacebook group, whatever or
directly to Mike at CollisionAdvice.
Please let us know how to makethis better, how to make it more
accessible, because I thinkit's a jewel and I hate to see
Mike get to that point and golisten.
I'm only getting 100 peoplethat are actually doing the
(25:52):
survey.
I'm not going to waste my timeand money anymore.
I don't want to see that everhappen.
So please try to help out.
It helps the whole industry.
Thank you All rightno-transcript.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
And even when I owned my shops at that time, dupont,
which became Exalta, asked me ifI would actually facilitate 20
groups for them and callbusiness councils.
And so I did 20 groups forDuPont, slash, exalta for well
over 25 years, because I didthat even when I had my shops
before I started CollisionAdvice.
And then, as I started workingwith more OEMs because we at
Collision Advice now do trainingon behalf of several OEMs we
(26:54):
recognized that we needed tokind of become paint neutral.
And so, you know, we had agreat run with Exalta and I
thank them for the way theytreated me and the opportunities
they afforded me.
But we decided we just neededto kind of come, come paint
neutral.
So we quit doing 20 groups forExalta and we and I, I just I
kind of like you know, have youever seen the movie Jerry
Maguire with Tom Cruise?
And he kind of has thisepiphany in the middle of the
(27:14):
night and he writes this likedocument he goes in his office
and grabs his goldfish.
Well, I kind of had one of thosenights in the middle of COVID
and what I did is I said youknow, there's a lot of shops,
that number one, you knowthey're competing with MSOs.
They're wondering should I sell?
Do I have a chance?
There's a lot of shops that Ifelt were OEM certified, that
(27:36):
really weren't working withother OEM certified shops, and I
just felt like those shopsneeded a place where they could
network with other people in aproductive manner.
So I kind of had this thing inthe middle of the night and I
said you know, I'm going tostart my own 20 groups and I
want to start it for shops thatare OEM certified and OEM
focused.
Right, and I'm not going to be.
It's not like we're an MSO,we're not an MSO, we're just a
(27:58):
coaching training company.
But I just want a place thatlike-minded individuals could
get together and exchange greatideas.
And so I was watching thismovie, the Spartans, and I was
like, wow, those guys are prettybad to the bone.
And I didn't watch the wholemovie, excuse me.
So I said, man, I'm going tocall this group the Spartan 300s
.
Well, my team then informed methat the Spartans lose the war
(28:20):
in the end.
I'm like, oh crap, I guess Ishould have watched the end of
the movie.
So I was like you know what?
We'll just say we're Spartansand we're going to change the
course of history.
So actually in the middle ofCOVID I called about 30 shops
that I knew and said hey, I knownobody's meeting during COVID,
but would you like to have ameeting in Atlanta, georgia?
We'll all wear masks.
Because everybody wasfrustrated with COVID and some
(28:41):
shops said let's do it.
And that's when the Spartanswere born.
So now we're up to six Spartangroups.
We have about 200 shops that wework with and so what it is is
we have Spartan Alpha, which isshops that are mostly European
shops.
That means they mostly fixhigh-end European vehicles.
We have Spartan BMW, which isshops that are BMW certified.
(29:02):
We have Spartan Bravo, which isshops that are BMW certified.
We have Spartan Bravo, which isshops that mostly do domestic
and Asian vehicles.
Spartan Charlotte does mostlydomestic and Asian vehicles.
Spartan Delta, which is peoplethat want to grow and end up
being like an MSO, and thenSpartan Toyota Lexus, which are
shops that you know have likeToyota Lexus certification.
We're up to six groups and wemeet on a quarterly basis.
(29:23):
Once a year we have a bigsymposium, like a big event for
all of our groups to come intogether, because those groups
meet individually and thatmeeting, our big symposium is
actually every April, so it'scoming up soon, and we have OEMs
there as guest speakers and etcetera.
And then we also do coachingcalls once a week with the
clients and they have anaccountability partner.
So let's say you and I bothwere Porsche certified, we'll do
(29:46):
a joint call and we'llbenchmark our metrics like on
Porsche's.
We do financial reviews twice amonth.
We also have a dashboard webuilt Shout out to Claims Corp
with Brandon and CCI and histeam and they built a really
good dashboard for us where wecan benchmark average severity,
average body labor hours, paidlabor hours by OEM type.
And it's really just grown.
And so you know, at the end ofthe day we don't do contracts,
(30:10):
so it's month to month.
There's no contracts like causeI know other companies do that
and we just wanted a way.
Really it was just something Ihad in the middle of my life,
like my Jerry McGuire, tomCruise movement, and it's grown
from one into six shops andwe've got some amazing men and
women in there.
We got, you know, k&m collision, michael Kyle Bradshaw, which I
would tell you but like talkabout the best shops I've ever
(30:30):
seen in my entire career.
They're on there.
We got Tim Pap, another guy.
That's just standup quality.
We have a Dean and his son,dean Jr, and Dan at auto tech.
I mean, again, I don't want tobe remiss if I miss somebody's
name because there's too manyshots.
And listen, we understand thatnot everybody in our 20 group is
doing a perfect repair, but wewant them to have the intent
(30:52):
that they want to get better.
So to be a Spartan, you have tohave at least one OEM
certification.
If you don't have an OEMcertification, we'll help you to
get one.
You must be I-CAR Gold Class,and number three is you must be
iCar gold class, and numberthree is you must agree that
you're only going to scanvehicles with OEM scan tools or
approved devices.
Like, I'll be candid with you,I found out there was a client
that wasn't using an OEM scantool in an aftermarket and what
(31:15):
we did is we actually removedthem from our group because we
want people to stand forsomething.
They must set up a performdestructive test weld.
So we're really focused onquality and again, I know not
everybody's perfect, but thegoal is do they have the intent
to get better?
So I got to tell you it's beenan amazing journey and I love it
.
And people say well, mike, howdo you do that if it's just you?
(31:37):
Well, the other thing, rick, alot of people don't realize is
Collision Advice is not justMike Anderson.
We actually have 20 people onour team now.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
We're growing 20 people.
Wow, that's growing a lot.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Yeah, so we've got Jeff Odenettle, danny
Grettenberg also from the DGStephen Kripes, and they're like
our estimating gurus.
And then we have Maria Quinteroand Robin Reed, sheryl Driggers
and Noah, who are likefinancial gurus.
They know CCC and QuickBooksand BusinessWorks NXIVS Inside
Out.
Then we have Sheryl Dreggers,who's extraordinary on the
(32:11):
customer experience and customerservice training, you know.
So we've got other coaches aswell, sherelle and Rachel, and
so our team has really grown.
But we have actuallyspecialized coaches and so when
we're doing our coaching calls,you know, on a weekly basis, you
know we coach to whatever theirneed is and where we see their
improvement at.
So I'm not very good atself-promoting, but I hope that
gives some insights on Spartansand we're just trying to give
place of people.
(32:31):
And again, we're not an MSO,because a lot of people think we
are.
We're not.
We're just a coaching traininggroup giving people.
And there's people that belongto our 20 group, that also still
belong to a paint 20 group,right, so you know you can
belong to another one.
But, um, you know, the otherthing is we run really hard.
Our meetings are from seven inthe morning till seven at night.
Two days back to back we'llmeet in person.
So we're not, like you know,golfing and all that other stuff
(32:52):
.
We're there to put the work inand, uh, it's really big about
accountability and just beingdedicated to raise the bar of
the industry and I get to worksome amazing men and women oh,
oh.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
that's incredible, yeah, and in fact I know you
mentioned it's not an MSO, butyou even have some of these
smaller, mid-tier MSOs asthey're also Spartan members as
well.
So these guys are at that level, but they also they're OEM
centric and and they meet thecriteria for being a Spartan.
They see that advantage ofbeing part of a, a bigger mind
(33:25):
right part of that.
So that's awesome yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
So you kind of bring up a comment, um is that you
know, I've had over 280 of myclients sold in the last four
years.
Over 280, right, that's a lot.
And like, when they sold, it'snot because we weren't doing a
good job, it's probably becausewe helped them to be very
successful.
They grew from one store, fourstores and they sold for, you
know, 15, 15, 25 million, right.
So I'm happy for them.
(33:48):
But I got to tell you, whensome of these clients sold it,
actually I was actually hurt,like because you get emotionally
invested in people, right.
And then when they sold, I wasa bit like, oh man, you know.
But then I had to reframe mythinking, rick, and I said, you
know, it's kind of like a sportscoach, right, every year your
seniors graduate and now I gotto go find those new freshmen
and help them to become thestarting quarterback in the
(34:08):
future NFL draft pick of thefuture.
So now I've just embraced mypeople that sell, I'm happy for
them, et cetera.
And so now it's like, who has,you know, who's doing a million
a year that wants to get to 3million, who's doing 3 million
and wants to get to $5 million?
Or who has one store that wantsto get to two, or who has two
that wants to get to four.
And we're just really lookingto help people grow.
You know we've got Doug Martinand his team out in Indiana.
(34:31):
I mean so proud of Doug he'sgrown from one store to four
stores.
You know we've got the BelizeAutomotive Group up in Rhode
Island They've grown.
The Deal Automotive Groupthey've grown.
We got K-Steps in Ohio andPerfection.
Perfection's grown from onestore to three stores, k-steps
gone from one to two.
And so, you know, helping themto also understand how to grow
(34:53):
and what to do in order to grow.
Like, you know, how do you do apro forma, how do you run a UCC
report?
That if you're going to buy abusiness, you make sure there's
no liens.
What's the right equipment toget?
Should I, you know, get aGarmat spray booth, right?
So, at the end of the day,right?
So we're just there trying tohelp people to grow right.
And you know I don't think thisis a doom and gloom industry.
I think it's very exciting andright now my goal is to help
(35:15):
people to grow.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
No and it's awesome the things that you're doing.
You know, I look at it from aperspective of you know, there's
a lot of shops out there thatprobably won't get to that point
where they can join a.
They're just there, isn't?
You know?
It takes a certain level ofshop, a certain level of
ownership, and it's they're notall like that, right, but the
cool thing is is it's, you know,the uh tide raises all ships,
(35:40):
right.
So you're by these peoplegetting that good at what they
do and being that educated andgrowing it.
I think it helps the wholeindustry, right, because now the
bar has been set higher.
You know the value of a repair,the type of repairs that you do
, that keeps raising.
And when other people can lookup to their peers, you know,
(36:01):
maybe it's the three guys thatthey're down this.
You know they're buddies withthree guys that they're down
this.
You know they're buddies withdown the street that own a shop,
but they're part of your groupand they see them growing.
That's going to inspire them togo.
Hey, you know, maybe I could dothings a little better.
What?
What is he doing down there?
You know, and the moreinformation we're sharing with
each other, I think it doesn't.
It's got nothing to do withcompetition.
I think it helps all of us.
(36:21):
So I love the fact of whatyou're doing and I hope that
Spartan goes to 600 or 800 or athousand, right.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Amen, amen.
And you know, and I gotta, Igotta be remiss if I didn't give
a shout out and a credit to myteam.
I've got such an amazing team.
You know my two businesspartners, tracy and Tiffany, you
know I just couldn't do itwithout them.
I mean, the only way I cantravel and do the things I do is
because I have a great team.
That's, you know, back home,you know, just, you know keeping
everything in order.
(36:50):
And, man, I'm so man, my heart,just it just is so overflowing
with gratitude, rick, for allthe people in my life that have
supported me, much like yourself.
So, thank you for yourfriendship and support.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Sure, sure, absolutely.
Your friendship and support,sure, sure, absolutely.
And yeah, I, cheryl andTiffany's are just outstanding
people.
We deal with them a lot, uh,and I've dealt with them a lot
over the years, and just, haveyou ever had have you ever had
Cheryl on any of your podcasts?
Speaker 3 (37:13):
you know she got to co-write a book.
She got to write co-write abook with Chris Voss, the Chris
Voss, the FBI negotiator yeah,the uh never split the
difference.
never split the difference.
Yep, she just co-wrote a bookwith him.
You should have her on yourpodcast.
And also there's a book calledthe Five Languages of
Appreciation and the Five LoveLanguages, and Cheryl just got
certified by Dr Paul White toactually teach that content and
(37:37):
apply it to the collision repairindustry.
So she's like a famous bookauthor and so excited for her as
well.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Tell her.
I'll be calling her soon, mike,amen, amen, that's awesome.
I believe I'll probably see youat the symposium as well.
I think we're going to be therefor that.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Great, we can't wait for you to be there.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Yep.
So speaking of podcasts, youstarted something new this year.
I'm like I've got to be kidding.
Mike's going to do a podcast.
How's he going to find time forthat?
So tell us a little bit aboutthat.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
That's what everybody else said.
How's he going to find time forthat?
Speaker 1 (38:09):
That's why it's on the road right.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
So share with us what's going on.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
So you know, I've been very fortunate to be
invited as a guest on people'spodcasts such as yourself, and
I'm very grateful for that.
And a lot of people just kepttelling me Mike, why don't you
start a podcast, why don't youstart a podcast?
And I was like you, I travelall the time.
So I was like man, I just don'tknow.
So what I did is I decided youknow what, I'm just going to try
it Right and I said but I'monly going to do it and continue
(38:34):
to do it If I get a lot ofpeople that you know attend
because it's done live.
So my podcast is live.
So I decided to call it On theRoad, with Mike Anderson serving
up some collision advice, andmy goal is that as I travel
around the country, I see somereally cool things.
Rick, I see I go into shops.
I'm like, oh my gosh, you know,I wish everybody could see this
(38:54):
.
I'm like, why don't I juststart doing this live from the
different shops and places I go,so people can see what's out
there and expose them to it?
Right?
And so you know, as you know, Iwrite for Auto Body News and
they've been a great supporterof me, and so I went to them and
they said, hey, we're all in,we'll help you to market it and
help you to figure out all thetechnical stuff.
And then my teammate, traceDombrowski, who's just amazing,
(39:16):
she said she'd help me with it.
So we did our very first one, Iguess two weeks ago.
Three weeks ago was my veryfirst one.
I don't, it was done live.
I think we had don't quote meon this I think we had almost
400 people watch it live and Ithink right now it's got about
(39:37):
2.9 thousand views on YouTubeand it's you can watch it live
through Facebook, youtube, allthese different channels and I
don't even know what they'recalled, and so our first one we
did was showing what the averageseverity was by state and the
average body frame paintmechanical labor hours by state,
and Rhode Island had thehighest severity in 2024, $6,900
.
So what we did is we had RandyBatella from Reliable Collision
(39:59):
Rhode Island, who's thepresident of the Rhode Island
Auto Body Association, and hewas on our podcast to share
about the legislation theypassed, for example, all OEM
parts for the first six yearsand it's just amazing law and it
went out really, really well.
So our next podcast is March10th and I'm going to be doing
it live from Wallace Collision,which is owned by John Baker and
(40:21):
his family in Bristol,tennessee, and we're going to be
doing it live from his shoptalking about safety inspections
like you know, the importanceof measuring steering columns
and inspecting seatbelts andsteering gears, and we're going
to do all of this.
It's going to be live and he'sgot this amazing technician
named Jason.
We're actually going to measure, like a steering column and and
inspect the steering rack liveso everybody can see kind of how
(40:42):
it's.
We're going to talk about howthey do it.
So again, yeah, that's whatit's doing and again, I'm only
going to do it, assuming thatit's worthwhile and people see
value in it.
Right, because I want to makesure that I give people value
and there's no cost to these.
They can be viewed after thefact and questions.
(41:05):
So like if people sendquestions in, you know, in
between the podcast you can goonline and you can submit
questions.
I answer those questions duringthe podcast and then you can
also ask live questions duringthe podcast and Cheryl Driggers
is my co-host and then CherylDriggers and I will.
We try to get to as many of thelive questions as we can during
the podcast.
So we want it to be based.
We want to bring the topics topeople that people are asking
for, also to discuss some of theburning issues that's going on
(41:28):
in the industry, some of thefriction points, and again, just
give value to the industry.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
Yeah, that's another great idea, Mike, and it's
something nobody else has donein this industry to have it live
like that and to have two-wayconversations, and yeah, I think
it's going to be great.
I did watch the first one, atleast a good portion of it.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
Yeah, we weren't as polished as you, rick.
We had a lot of technicalissues when kicking off.
That's why, if you go to thevideo, you probably want to fast
forward about the two-minutemark.
We just want to polish you,rick, we probably should have
had you helping us to do it.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Dude, you know I've got a team of 50 behind me
putting all this stuff.
That's just me.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
It's a lot of work.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
It takes time.
I've been at this since COVID,right, so it takes a while, but
you guys will do fantastic withthat.
I believe You'll get to numbersthat you won't believe probably
.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
Again, we just wanted to be valuable to the industry.
If it's not, we'll pull theplug on it.
But again, we want to alsocontinue to shout out and
recognize and support peoplelike yourself as well there,
Rick.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
I appreciate that, mike.
I really do Like you.
I've got a great respect anddesire to help this industry
because I've you know, noteverybody has had the experience
I've had is seeing so manyshops.
I mean, I was in a lot of shopsover my career and you know I
could see where the pain pointswere, and that was part of the
reason why I started this in thefirst place was maybe I can
(42:53):
help address some of those painpoints Right.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
Yeah, and I know this is a podcast for Mike Anderson,
but I know you took on a newjob in the last year, right?
Speaker 1 (43:03):
And yeah, it's been just under a year.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
Can you tell me a little bit about what you're
doing now?
Speaker 1 (43:07):
So, um, yeah, I was, uh, I was with, uh, uh, with
finish, master and LKQ up untilabout March of last year and I'd
spent enough time in that partof the industry and I've done
everything I could do and and uh, so we had a parting.
And then, uh, I was looking fornew opportunities.
You know what else can I do?
I'm the same age, you are, mike, and but I, you know, I'm a
(43:27):
good 10-15 years away from beingdone as far as I'm concerned,
right.
So, uh, I looked at a lot ofopportunities, uh, within
coaching, within working withshops or MSOs, or or working
with distributors, you know, inthe equipment side, and I
couldn't find the right fit.
And then you know ColeStrandberg, right.
So I've made friends with himsince I met him a couple years
(43:48):
ago as a podcaster, and hehappened to know somebody at
Garmin.
He says, hey, I think they'relooking for somebody over there,
let me connect you.
And one thing led to another,and I'm now the national account
manager for Garment.
Yeah thank you very much andit's wonderful.
It's great people, greatorganization.
It feels like a small company.
(44:09):
It's got a great CEO that'srunning things and making great
strides in their business andhow they do things and, yeah,
it's just.
It's been a wonderfulexperience and great to be part
of that organization.
So congratulations.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
Thank you, I appreciate it.
They're lucky to have you, mybrother.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
Thanks, mike.
So, listen, I know we'regetting towards the time we need
to start wrapping up here, butso you, your collision advice
team has grown Cause I was goingto ask you about that, but
you've already answered that.
So you're up to 20 people nowand I've got a feeling that's
going to continue to grow alittle bit more as you add more
people in Conferences and tradeshows.
You are the king of conferencesand trade shows.
(44:50):
You're at most all of them, butfor those that don't normally
attend, what are the key ones?
And not to diss any of the onesthat you don't mention, but
what are probably the most keytrade shows or conferences that
someone should attend if they'venever been to one in their
market?
And they go, man, I want toconnect with some of these
(45:10):
people from these companies andthese guys like Mike Anderson
and you know where do I go forthat Right, what are the best
opportunities for that?
Speaker 3 (45:19):
Wow, wow, wow.
There's so many great ones.
I know I know, yeah, you can't.
I mean you have to start offwith talking about SEMA,
obviously, right.
I mean the educational trackthat SCRS Aaron Schulenberg and
his board put on is just secondto none.
I mean, they, just they.
Every year I go there andthere's just so many topics they
(45:40):
talk about that.
I'm like, wow, where did that?
Speaker 1 (45:41):
come from.
Right so obviously SEMA.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
But I understand that everybody can take away from
their work or afford to go toSEMA.
So then you kind of go to thelocal um trade associations,
right, you have, you know, a bat.
Uh did Joel toggle on her teamdown in Texas.
They put on one of the besttrade shows in the country.
You know, you have theNortheast Trade Show, again one
of the best in the country, withTom Greco and his team and
(46:06):
Jerry and all the people at.
You know the New Jersey AutoBody Association.
You know Mariah Sampson out inMontana.
They put on a great.
They put on great meetings,right, not necessarily trade
shows but quarterly meetings fortheir team.
You know, as you said, you andI were both at AASPI.
They had well over 100 peoplethere.
You got the SoutheastConference.
(46:26):
Now, josh Kent, oh my God, theSoutheast Trade Show.
I almost forgot that.
My God, jordan and Josh forgiveme.
Southeast Trade Show is justgrowing Every year.
It just gets bigger and bigger.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
I've heard that one a couple times.
Show is just growing.
Every year it just gets biggerand bigger, and I did that a
couple times actually.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
I'm speaking at this one coming up awesome, yeah, I
mean the board they have.
They are second to none, right.
Kyle bradshaw and all thepeople on the board there, brian
carol, brian davies I mean justan amazing.
The southeast conference isjust amazing.
Um gosh.
I mean you have the midwesttrade show.
I mean I don't care where youlive out in the united states,
there is a local trade show.
But I would be remiss if I alsodidn't just say don't just think
about just trade shows, thinkabout like CIC.
(47:02):
You know, like you just sit atyour shop and you just complain
about things.
Complaining doesn't make thingsget better.
Going on social media andcomplaining doesn't make things
better.
Showing up at events like CICor showing up at your local auto
body association board meetingsright, that's how you really
affect change.
If you look at Rhode Island hasthe highest severity, has the
best laws in the entire UnitedStates.
(47:23):
It's all because of thestrength of their association
and the board they have.
So getting plugged in.
And again, I want to make surethat there's any trade
associations or trade shows thatI I didn't speak of.
I apologize, but I mean I could.
There's.
There's so many right rightthat we can speak about.
(47:44):
But and I didn't mean to pushyou in a spot, I just I just
like my mind's going, I startthinking like I forgot about
this one, I forgot about thatone, right?
I mean, yeah, you know um.
You know you got the kansasauto body association.
You know um.
You know gina cotton.
I mean they, they, I mean gina,um, kenna doccas, what they're
doing out in kansas.
Then you got Gina Cotton withthe Midwest.
I mean there's just so manywonderful events going on.
And then you have local paintdistributors that put on tracers
.
You know classes, like I thinkabout Matthews.
(48:05):
They're a BSF distributor inPennsylvania.
They got Benjamin Stevens.
He's like an in-house estimatorguru, right, amazing guy.
There's just, there's listen.
There's so many ways for shopsto get plugged in today that
didn't exist when I had my shops.
Man, get plugged in, findsomething.
Remember, stay humble, stayhungry.
If you're hungry, you're goingto go eat and the way you go eat
(48:25):
is by attending events.
And yes, there are a lot ofevents virtual.
And there's Kristen Felder.
She does a lot of virtual stuff.
That's pretty amazing, right.
So you know your podcast.
There's ways to get information,but some, you know, it's like
people used to tell me they sayMike, why do I need to go to
church?
Right, why do I need to go tochurch?
I can watch church on TV, butyou know what, that guy on TV
(48:46):
that's preaching can't give youa hug.
When you go to church in person, someone give you a hug.
So there's a lot.
You know, there's something youcan get at an in-person event
that you can't get virtually,and that's just that in-person
fellowship, right.
And I just think people need toget out more, and I know it's
hard to get away from yourbusiness, but you know what's
that old saying?
Even the lumberjack stopsduring the day to sharpen his
(49:06):
saw.
And I think we have to do that,yeah that's a great analogy and
I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
And there is a lot of great trade shows out there and
, like I said, I I didn't askquestion to put you to spot,
just no, no, you're good, you'regood.
I want to see what was top ofmind for you, but I've been to
love rick.
I just want everybody to feelthe love brother right exactly I
know.
But I'm glad you mentioned cic,because that's I was going to
make sure I mentioned thatbecause that is truly uh
(49:35):
meetings of people that aretrying to help this industry.
It's not a trade show, there'sno vendors that are trying to
promote stuff, it's just reallyjust a meeting of shops and it
seems to be growing.
Speaker 3 (49:47):
And I got to tell you I had never been to an SCRS
open board meeting until the onethey just had recently, in
January, yeah, and in PalmSprings, and I went to it and I
got to tell you I won't missanother one.
The SRS board meeting wasphenomenal.
I didn't realize what I was,you know, I always thought it
was kind of closed, like youcouldn't attend, and then I
(50:08):
found out.
You have an open part man.
People need to attend that ahundred percent.
Speaker 1 (50:13):
Awesome.
I'm going to put links to allthese, all these events that I
can, on the show notes and linksto SCRS and CIC and CEMEN and
all those.
There's so many good things toattend.
And I also want to say that I'min an area where there isn't
really any trade associations.
I'm in a big state with a lotof collision shops and no
(50:34):
association.
I looked into startingsomething up myself, but it's
like it's a task I can't take onright now, when do you live at?
Rick, I'm in Michigan, okay, soa lot of there's east and west
Michigan.
At one point there wassomething on the west side, but
I think that's kind of fizzledout.
But the point is, if you livein a state that doesn't have an
(50:55):
association and you're friendswith some of the other shops,
start talking about it Becauseyou could put your own together
and just start this process thatcould take you to you know
where Rhode Island's at now,with having, you know, the power
to change some legislation toget things better for the shop.
So there's great power innumbers, that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (51:19):
I couldn't agree more , sir, well said.
Speaker 1 (51:20):
All right, mike, I've taken up enough of your time
this morning.
It's always great to talk toyou.
I'm thankful you're here forwhat will be my 200th episode,
which is a big deal for me, hugedeal, congratulations.
Thank you very much.
I'll be seeing you soon outthere.
So thanks again for being hereand have a great week.
Speaker 3 (51:42):
I appreciate you.
God bless you brother.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
Well, that's all I had for you today.
Thanks again for tuning in.
I really appreciate yoursupport and hope you have a
great week.
I can always be reached atwwwrixelovercom, where you can
find all my social media linkspodcast episodes, blog posts and
much more.
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