August 18, 2025 • 55 mins
**🎙️ Podcast Show Notes:
What happens when a collision repair expert decides to completely rethink how body shops operate?
This week, Jesse Parks, Managing Director of Freeman Collision, shares how his West Coast shop achieved both Toyota and Lexus Certified Collision Center of the Year awards by disrupting traditional business models and creating an extraordinary culture focused on quality repairs and continuous improvement.
The traditional collision repair business model is facing disruption from multiple angles. Jesse explains how OEMs are investing heavily in certification programs to improve both customer retention and parts sales after discovering a startling statistic: 60% of customers who experience a collision switch car brands within a year. By positioning his shop as Northern California's only certified Toyota and Lexus collision center, Jesse captures customers directly through manufacturer channels, bypassing the traditional insurance referral system.
Perhaps most fascinating is Freeman Collision's implementation of AI technology to solve a critical industry challenge: nearly 50% of all accidents happen outside business hours. Their AI systems engage customers instantly, providing estimates and scheduling appointments when traditional shops are closed, dramatically improving capture rates.
Whether you run a collision shop, work in the automotive industry, or simply want to learn how to transform your business, this episode is for YOU… Jesse's insights demonstrate how embracing change, building extraordinary culture, and leveraging cutting-edge technology can transform even the most established businesses.
Even if you've reached the top of the mountain... there's always still room to climb!
Guest Info: Jesse Parks - Freeman Collision
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Earlier this year, while attending the Certified
Collision Group Conference andthen again at Mike Anderson's
Spartan Conference, I had theopportunity to connect and spend
some time talking with thisweek's special guest, Someone I
had great respect for, seen atmany industry events but never
really got a chance to knowuntil recently.
His OEM certified shop'sincredible performance and
(00:23):
record-setting achievements withLexus and Toyota would be the
top of the mountain for most,but not for Jesse.
This is just a starting pointfor his climb.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
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,
next-level growth and quality oflife.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Hey, what's up everybody.
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(01:54):
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It's free and you canunsubscribe at any time.
Earlier this year, whileattending the Certified
Collision Group Conference andthen again at Mike Anderson's
(02:15):
Spartan Conference, I had theopportunity to connect and spend
some time talking with thisweek's special guest, someone I
had great respect for, seen atmany industry events but never
really got a chance to knowuntil recently.
His OEM certified shop'sincredible performance and
record-setting achievements withLexus and Toyota would be the
(02:36):
top of the mountain for most,but not for Jesse.
This is just a starting pointfor his climb.
This week, my special guest'sshop has not only been chosen as
the Lexus Certified CollisionCenter for 2024 for the second
time and the Toyota CertifiedCollision Center for 2024 third
time, but his shop is the onlycertified Toyota and Lexus
(02:59):
Collision Center in all ofNorthern California.
Jesse Parks, a 25-year collisionveteran, all of Northern
California.
Jesse Parks, a 25-yearcollision veteran, has built an
extraordinary culture within hisshop.
He's maximized the power ofproximity with strategic
alliances with not only industrylighthouses like SCRS,
collision Advice and CertifiedCollision Group, but the OEM
(03:20):
manufacturers groups as well.
Here's my in-depth interviewwith industry leader who has
found strength and growth ingetting uncomfortable Jesse
Parks, the managing director ofFreedman Collision, as he joins
me on the MindWrench podcast.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
My biggest focus right now has been disrupting
FNOL.
You know, as the smaller MSO orindependents have been working
to compete in a heavilydominated large box PE
environment.
I think that we have to be alot more innovative than we've
(03:58):
had to be in the past.
So where I've been focusingmainly is getting upstream of
the insurance referral.
I call it the, the, theinsurance coin sorter.
So uh vehicles that areconnected, uh certifications and
uh vehicles that have eitherpartial or some variations of
(04:21):
their certifications that arerestricted partial or some
variations of theircertifications that are
restricted.
So the OEMs right now arespending a lot of money, a lot
of money, and creating a lot ofawareness with their customers
to use their apps, to startusing the locators.
What we're seeing nationally isthat a lot of the dealerships
and OEMs are declining in autosales right now because of
(04:45):
interest rates, the economy,whatever it is right now they're
selling less cars.
So what they've done iseveryone that I've talked to and
I am on a lot of advisoryboards and council groups for a
lot of the OEMs and what I seethem all focusing on right now
is retention and part sales.
(05:07):
So I mean, when you look atsome of the data that I've seen
just just averaged out betweenall the OEMs.
Some are better, some are worse, but they're looking at a 60,
60 plus percent defection rate.
So you know, six out of 10people, six out of 10 people
that get in an auto accidentwithin 12 months are going to
buy another brand, and it'sgenerally because they've lost
(05:29):
faith in the brand after that.
And the OEMs are seeing that.
So, in a market where the salesare declining, it's never been
more important for them toretain the customers that they
have, customers that they haveright um and as well, you know,
there's there's there's so manyuh competitive parts choices
(05:51):
right now that there's a lot oflost revenue.
You know, and with uh some ofthe oems, the the bigger oems
we're seeing a better than 40percent uh penetration in their
total part sales.
So if you're looking around, 43, 44, 45% of every part that's
sold, it has to do withcollision.
(06:11):
So they know they have roomthere.
And because of those two facts,when you look at retention and
when you look at part sales, theOEMs now are working a lot
harder and some of thesecertifications that have been
for lack of a better word just apiece of paper to put on the
wall that didn't have a lot ofteeth, are now working to find
(06:33):
ways to support thecertifications in ways they
haven't in the past.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
So we're focused on OEM repairs, certs and keeping
their customers and theircustomers.
And you know, and it's I'm gladyou're saying this, jesse,
because you know this issomething I've heard off and on
over the past, let's say 10years right, like, uh, you know,
if you do a crappy repair, itaffects the customer's decision
on buying that brand again,right?
(06:57):
So everybody's kind of knowingthat in the collision industry,
but nobody's really focused thatmuch on the the top shops yes,
most of the other shops notreally.
But now it sounds like it'sbecoming even a bigger issue for
the OEMs, right?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Well, yeah, I mean you have you take just an
average brand, a mass-producedcar.
I mean, if you have a customer,that that's either they've
owned these cars forever andthey haven't had a problem, or
it's their first time in and nowthey get in something that, uh,
to them doesn't seem like ahuge collision.
I mean, let's face it, mostcustomers don't really know, uh,
(07:32):
what, what, what a big job ormedium job is you know they,
most of them, think that a lotof this isn't a big deal.
They don't understand thecalibrations, they don't
understand the repair procedures, they don't understand what's
involved.
So when you have somebody thatin their mind didn't have that
big of a bobo on their car andnow they're looking into, you
(07:52):
know, either their vehicles aborderline total loss or they
fix their car and it's fifteenthousand dollars.
When they shut they thought itshould have been fine.
Uh, they got to bring it backto the shop multiple times
because the shop didn't know howto do it right.
And that happens for a lot ofdifferent reasons.
But the retention component inthe certification which is why
(08:16):
all of them are rapidlyexpanding their networks is when
these people are trained andthey know what they're looking
for they know how to calibratethe cars.
These people are trained andthey know what they're looking
for.
They know how to calibrate thecars.
They have, uh, more guidancenow in in their processes and
their quality control.
There is more data reporting.
That's happening, that's goingback to the oems.
That customer is going to havea better experience if the car
(08:39):
is, if the majority of the cars,are fixed right the first time.
You know, being in a dealerenvironment, I work, I see a lot
of the big box stuff that'saround me and you know I don't
seek out post-collision repairsand inspections because I try to
play good in my sandbox in myneighborhood.
You know a lot of these guys aremy friends, but you know I see
(08:59):
so many that the customer willgo to the shop and complain
about a problem and the shopwill argue with them and tell
them why they know more and whatthey're saying and then they
finally get the shop to take itin.
They don't fix it right againby the third or fourth time the
customer's done, they say, hey,I wanna go over here and when we
get these cars I haven't hadone that I can remember in a
(09:22):
very long time that didn'tresult in a buyback.
So when we get into these cars,I mean some of the repairs are
so atrocious and you know it'shappening because you know this
is these shops as they grow orhave you know that have the same
staffing challenges becauseit's in that environment.
It's pretty pretty much six ofone half dozen of another.
Most of them are forced to putpeople in seats that aren't
(09:44):
really ready to be there yet.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
They don't have the experience.
You have estimators that aretoo green to be looking at some
of this stuff.
They don't know how to look atthe repair procedures.
So when you have an OEMcertification, that's that's big
on training, that's uh, thattakes the time to of time to to
monitor that you're using their,their software to look them up.
That actually has you know datapumps like cci.
(10:09):
You know claims course now isreporting back to all the oems
the parts uses and I think it'sgreat.
You know you look at you lookat some of the certifications
like tesla I'm not teslacertified and you know some.
Some of the things, in myopinion, are a little bit
questionable how they managetheir certification.
But they have big box repairsnow that are deathly afraid of
putting an aftermarket part on acar because they're going to
(10:31):
lose their certification, and Ithink that's wonderful.
I really agree with thatcomponent and I want to see more
OEMs do it, and I think theywill, because they're realizing
that they're losing parts, uhsales and now they have
companies like cci that can givethem the data.
So what that does is it createsa level playing field where you
(10:53):
know we have 10 shops around methat are literally training the
insurance company incorrectlyhow to fix a car.
So then when a car comes inhere or a shop like mine, you
know they think I'm eitherovercharging them or I'm not
flexible, but you know what itis is.
I'm just.
I'm just telling them the truthon why the vehicle should be
(11:14):
repaired that way, and I'm notbashful about wanting to be
reimbursed or compensated forthe investment that I put in my
people to do it properly.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Right, as you should be right.
This is something I've been inthis business a long time and.
I know there was a standard, avery loose, very low standard of
repair acceptance through the80s, 90s, 2000s, how we fixed
cars back then and we got somany people, so many shops that
(11:46):
were used to that being okay.
They're struggling with thecomplexity of today's cars.
They're struggling with thedifferent materials used.
You know different ways oftreating those.
You know seeing what thedifference is between a crash
part and an actual OEM part andhow they perform actual OEM part
(12:08):
and how they perform.
And I think it's fantastic thatthe OEMs are really helping
drive the importance of this too, like you said, with their
customers, with the data throughthe apps.
Because, as an industry that Ilove and I've been in my whole
life, I want to see you get tothat level that you're playing
at Jesse and then you know I'vebeen to Mike Anderson's events.
You're playing at Jesse andthen you know I've been to Mike
Anderson's events, I've been toCCG's events.
You know you guys are shopsplaying at the top level, where
(12:30):
I hate to say this, it's a toplevel but it should be an even
playing field.
Everybody should be playing atthat level because you're fixing
someone's car.
That's going to get in there,they're going to put their kids,
their grandmother, whatever inthere.
Now their lives are at riskover a questionable repair or
not doing it the right way.
(12:50):
So, you know, kudos to the OEMsfor pushing that.
And, like I said, I wasinterested in talking with you
because I've seen you, you know,several times over the years at
different conferences and Iknow you're a top player and I
appreciate what you guys do.
I appreciate the level ofcommitment you have to the
(13:11):
industry and to building abetter machine.
You know, consistently youdon't just do it once.
You're consistently like Kaizenright, continual improvement,
which is fantastic.
I just want to take a secondhere.
I just want to make sure I here.
I just want to make sure I hadthis right, because now you've
been Lexus shop of the year acouple times, right.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
A couple times.
Yeah, we got it in 22 and 24.
Last year we got Toyota andLexus.
It was the first time it's everbeen done before, so we've
gotten Toyota a few times too.
Toyota and Lexus was the firsttime it's ever been done before,
so you know we've gotten Toyotaa few times too.
Toyota and Lexus have beenwonderful partners.
They have an amazing trainingprogram.
They're very reactive to whatwe're doing and they're kind of,
(13:57):
in my opinion, paving the wayfor a lot of the OEMs in being
the example of you know how torun a certification and how to
support your shop.
So it's been amazing.
Lance bennett runs an amazingprogram, uh, and he's
knowledgeable, I think, in insome of these programs.
It's getting better now, butfor for a long time you know
people that would come out andlook at it.
(14:17):
They didn't really know whatthey were looking at and you
know now.
Now the you know there's,there's, uh more than a handful
of people that are reallyknowledgeable, and you know
Lance Bennett takes a lot ofpride in his program.
So it's been wonderful to workwith both programs.
You know I've had the honor ofbeing on their collision council
for both and you know I seewhat they're working on behind
(14:40):
the scenes, I see what theyreally care about and you know
they're thinking about what theyreally care about and, uh, you
know they they're thinking abouteverything they're thinking
about.
You know their future.
They're thinking about ourfuture.
You know we're looking at waysto help the shop in which I I
haven't seen from anycertification.
Um, you know some new stuffcoming out that you know it'll
come out when it comes out, butthey're they're doing some
(15:02):
really innovative stuff and Ithink that's how we have to
think too.
So I mean, we mentioned parts,and so did I and I.
Just, you said it.
That's great that they'refocusing on it, but they're
financially motivated to do itnow, everybody, because if they
don't, they're going to, youknow, they're going to continue
to follow the trends with theother OEMs and lose car sales,
(15:22):
but then they're going to losetheir part sales too.
So this behooves everybody, andI've always when I need
something.
You know, a lot of times when Isay, hey, this is my problem,
will you help me?
It doesn't always get me thatfar.
But when I say this is yourproblem, that I see and can I
(15:43):
you?
Um, you know it now.
Now it's, it's identified inanother way and I think they
understand that this is theirproblem.
And, uh, there's, there's a lotof them now that are really
focusing on it and they're goingto put a lot more teeth in the
certifications, which I'm sotired of seeing, certifications
that are just a participationaward.
You put a black on the wall,but, right, who even knows how
(16:04):
to look up a procedure?
So I'm loving where thatdirection is going.
And you mentioned Mike Anderson.
I mean, he's been a wonderfulmentor and you know, I'm very
proud to be a Spartan.
You're right, we do holdourselves to a higher standard.
But should that be the bar?
Or, you know, is there a way tobring you know?
You know, okay, maybe we may beup here and they meet down
(16:26):
there like, is there a way tohelp bring them up?
And you know, I'm the first oneto educate my next door,
neighbor, competitor, becausethe more they know, the less I
have to be the only one trainingthe training the industry and
or the insurance companies onwhat is it?
What is appropriate when, whenwe look at a car?
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Right.
I've always liked the phrase.
You know the tide raises allships.
I know it sounds corny as hell,but I'll tell you what it's a
fact you know.
So if you're out there helpingeducate those around you,
whether they have a collisionshop or they're just part of the
industry the more that thathappens, the sharper everybody
(17:06):
gets and that means the bar getsraised.
The tide get raised gets raisedon the quality of repairs that
we're doing and, quite honestly,it should never slide back the
other way.
It should continue to improve,because they're not going to
slow down on on how they buildthese cars.
To a more specific point, themore technology that gets forced
(17:27):
into these things for the OEM'sreasons.
You know they're trying to,whether it's safety or, you know
, better mileage or lighterframes or whatever it is.
They're driving towards theirgoals.
We need to come along with themon the ride and be supportive
right and help them guide themon some of those decisions.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yeah, and I agree with that.
The problem with that, though,is, unfortunately, the tide does
go both ways.
So, you know, I'd say the worstbehavior we tolerate becomes
the standard, and right now,what I see you know the data
that I've seen is we're not atthe top of the roller coaster,
we're already down the otherside.
So, when you look at severity,it's been shooting up for years
(18:07):
and years and years, and nowwe're seeing severity drop.
We're seeing labor hours drop,we're seeing all this stuff.
Now, that is a negative trend,when we're still getting more
complex repairs, where more andmore cars have ADAS.
We should still be seeing thatclimb, but uh, I believe that
we're.
We're starting to witness thebeginning of a race to the
(18:27):
bottom, and uh, when it when?
Again, this is our businessmodel, which is f and f, any,
any, any partnership.
That's an fnol disruptor, butthe only other alternative is to
partner with every insurancecompany, and when you do that
now, the scorecard has neverbeen so important, um or
influential.
(18:48):
You know, even a year ago,nobody was really even looking
at it.
But when you're, when you'rerunning, uh, you know a majority
, uh, majority, uh, drpdependent um business model.
If you're not at the top,you're not getting any cards.
I've talked to a lot of CEOs ofa lot of these big shops and
they've said the differencebetween first place and second
(19:09):
or third place is I geteverything to.
I only get a few during themonth.
And the scary part about thatis everybody kind of had to
adjust to figure out okay,where's that, how do I get to
1,000 points on the scorecardout?
Okay, where's that, how do Iget to a thousand points on the
scorecard?
But then everybody else istrying to do the same thing too
(19:29):
and has bills to pay and has alltheir staff.
So now they have to figure outyou know how they can come down
a little bit on their, on theirseverity or their cycle time or
whatever it is.
And then now this person getsall the work, okay, but then,
and this guy has none.
So now he comes up and you'reonly as good as your last pitch.
So it's going to keep drivingdown the standard of our
(19:50):
industry and I'm reallyconcerned about it.
So you know I I ran in thatenvironment for a lot of years.
I was really successful and atthe time you know it was, it was
, you know, jumping into thatnow.
One, uh, the partnerships arefewer far between.
(20:13):
They're really hard, reallyhard to get now.
They're taking people off, notadding people, except in very
select markets.
And two, you have to be socompetitive that it's getting
harder and harder to beprofitable.
So if we can get upstream ofthat and we can get that first
notice of loss coming fromsomebody somebody else rather
than the insurance who's goingto refer their DRP program that
(20:35):
just happened to pop up first ontheir list we can get it in.
Take care of the customer,educate them, put the right
parts on the car and we canmaintain a very healthy profit
margin.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
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Well, so you know to your point, the first notice of loss that
is getting driven through theOEMs, through their apps, to all
(22:39):
their connected cars, and ispicking up on that through the
apps.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Is that still getting directed, though, to an
insurance company first?
Well, I mean, how does theinsurance company get it?
I mean, there may be some thirdparty sometime down the road
that could be, you know, appleor Google or whoever but for
right now, how does that evenget there?
Somebody gets in an accident,doesn't know what to do.
They call their insurance andthey say, oh, try ABC Body Shop,
because we have, you know, wewarranty the work for life and
(23:10):
you know it's a, is a, you know,enhanced service in efficiency
and they can get you in rightaway.
So that's when the customercalls.
But, yes, it is picking up withthe OEMs.
It's not there yet, but theyare aware now and they're
spending a ton of dough.
You know, some of some of thesehave sent out literally
(23:31):
millions and millions ofmarketing emails just to talk
and build and spend a lot ofmoney developing their apps so
that, uh, they can get ahead ofthat before the customer calls
the insurance company.
So that's that's how we getupstream of that.
And, uh, they, they know again,they're going to lose a lot of
money if it doesn't um get in,if it doesn't get in the
(23:52):
certified center, they're notgoing to sell the oem parts.
You know that it's the kpis arebased on.
Uh, a lot of them are apu,alternative parts usage.
So you know I can't put 100percent of the parts on card and
expect to continue gettingreferrals.
So, um, it's like which masterdo you want to serve?
Serve Mentor of mine used totell me, just because your
(24:13):
butt's split in the middledoesn't mean it can be in two
seats, and I think it's reallytrue, so you've got to pick one.
So I think that it's going tohave more teeth.
It's not there yet, but there'sa ton of awareness and I've put
just about all my eggs in thatbasket.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Yeah Well, if anybody's going gonna know how
this is going, I'm gonna keep intouch with you on this, because
you're gonna see that directionuh, probably a lot sooner.
Uh, some others, but, um, nowyou guys are specifically, and I
remembered um, I want to backup here a little bit so I had
met your, uh, the owner offreeman uh diane, yeah, I met
(24:51):
her on a bus.
It's funny I sat next to her ona bus for CCG's event, had a
great conversation.
What a nice lady had a greatconversation with her.
You guys are specifically justToyota and Lexus, correct?
Speaker 2 (25:07):
So Freeman Motors owns Freeman Toyota, freeman
Lexus and Freeman CollisionCenter.
I'm not a dealer guy.
It took me a long time to wrapmy head around the warp that I
had to understand, like goingfrom independent to to
dealership.
Um, I, I kind of live on my ownisland over here.
I get along great with diana.
(25:28):
I got all the autonomy in theworld, you know.
Then she's got her lane and Irespect that.
I got mine.
But, yes, we only have thosetwo dealerships.
But now we have 19 OEMcertifications.
I just got a handshake onanother one literally an hour
ago, so that another one that'sgonna be connected and
restricted.
So yeah, and we got you know,three more that we're in process
(25:51):
in.
So, and we got three more thatwe're in process in.
So, yes, only two rooftops ofdealerships, but we have Rivlin,
we just finished Lucid, so alot of these are, I mean, I
would consider that heavilyrestricted, whereas only certain
structural pieces arerestricted.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Excuse me, on some of the cars, no, the only reason I
asked Jesse was that I knowToyota and Lexus, especially
Lexus.
They've been kind of a leaderin the technology of cars and
they've been heavily involved incollision repair aspect of it
from an OEM for quite some time.
And that's really where I wasgoing with that question.
(26:27):
But talking with Diana, shekind of explained how she had
this beautiful body shop, youguys like 45,000 square foot
collision center, right In abeautiful part of California.
But she couldn't, really shecouldn't get her hands around.
How is this thing supposed torun?
You know, she didn't have greatquality management at that time
(26:50):
.
I think they were underutilizedfor such a big center and you
came in, I believe, as aconsultant, right, yeah?
Speaker 2 (27:00):
yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
And ended up in the big seat there eventually,
anyways, right.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yeah, she was really aggressive and yeah, I mean this
store opened in 2000.
I'm the third person to run itand yeah, it was an interesting
story.
I mean some I can't evenremember who reached out to me
and said, hey, this, you knowthis lady's having an issue with
her body shop.
We talked to her and right awayI liked her and but I could
understand that I mean it was amess.
(27:28):
It had, uh, really good people.
I mean this has all.
This shop has always had thebest reputation in town for
quality and you know, I was bornand raised in this town.
Freedman's always back Ithought you know where I work
here about five, six, sevenbrand new cars myself.
So I've always really likedFreeman.
But yeah, there was someprocesses that there was a huge
(27:53):
culture problem processes there.
Yeah, I don't want to say toomuch about what had happened
before but yeah, I walked intosomething that well, that was
severely damaged and it took meabout a year, year and a half,
of really burning at both ends.
But you know, since then Istill have all the people on the
back end I brought in.
(28:15):
I still have the same twopeople, two estimators I brought
into more, switched up theoffice manager and CSR and yeah,
I mean it's been, it's beenamazing.
You know, ever since you knowwe've did the girls in the front
, they did they got number onein the country for first initial
contact.
You know we get I said we can'teven name them.
(28:37):
I mean, we're always getting youknow word of this stuff and,
like you said, it's about Kaizenand continuous improvement and
I'm the first one to tell you Igot a ton more to improve.
So I'm not trying to say thatyou know anybody, everybody that
would see this, I'm sure isdoing some operation or
something better than me.
Um, but I'm always trying toinnovate and I'm and you know
(29:01):
also the dealer world.
When I came in it was it reallysurprised me?
It was very regimented.
Um, you know, in in theindependents you're kind of
looking at every spoke on thewheel.
Uh, in the dealership world, Ithink they don't always
understand that this can be aprofit center.
It's almost like some of thesedealers open it up because it's
neat to have a body shop, greatplace to funnel all your
expenses into.
(29:22):
Yeah, and some of them willbring in people from service or
this or that.
Don't get me wrong.
There's a lot of good dealershops out there that are better
than me or really good, butthere's still a lot of them that
almost run it like a servicedepartment and what we do is so
different, and they don'tunderstand that this is our
number one profit center.
(29:43):
For the back end we have 250people.
So with great power comes greatresponsibility, and that's
where also these others have tostep up and that's where the
industry or the insurancecompanies have to understand
that we've made a considerableinvestment to train these people
and you know um, it's, it'scritical that that we're making
sure that these cars are safewhen they leave right and you do
(30:06):
it right cost money and, uh,until we're the ones that
collect the insurance premiumevery month.
We're not an insurance company,somebody has to reimburse us to
do that and we try to work good.
We're not doing rtas, but youknow we do have a lot of
conversations that you know.
We're told that.
You know you guys are the onlyones doing that and we use the
mike anderson approach like doyou believe it's required?
(30:27):
Do you believe it's included?
Is there a time study before?
If not, what's it worth?
So we try to avoid that wholedebate like here look, we're
just following the repairprocedure says it has to be done
.
Okay, yeah, our both of ourestimating systems say that it's
.
It's not included.
Okay, ccc says that it's 2.3hours or there's no time for it
(30:48):
and we had to do this.
It's in this.
What do you think's fair hourand a half two hours, you know.
So those are conversations thatwe're having literally every
day.
But I mean these estimatorsalmost have to be like many
paralegals these days to getpaid because it's it's the
insurance.
The insurance adjusters havemore pressure on them.
The insurance companies youknow the, the investors that you
(31:10):
know everybody is is wantingtheir cut and it's, you know the
the, you know what rollsdownhill and it's, it's somebody
.
Somebody's got to shrink theirmargin and they don't want it to
be them, but we don't get toraise our prices every year.
You know our paint goes havegone up three times this year,
substantially.
Uh, labor I gotta keep.
I mean all these people.
(31:30):
They're like the bionic sixmillion dollar men.
Now that I have working for mebecause they have so much
training, I lose one of thoseguys.
I'm at hundreds and hundreds ofthousands of dollars, so we
have to pay them right to stay.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
It doesn't get cheaper, it gets more expensive
right and and that's going tocontinue to climb to it, just
just the way everything else is.
But the technology on cars,like we talked about, is it
keeps changing.
It's going to be more expensive.
Parts are going to be moreexpensive, but technicians,
which are at a premium right nowbecause there's so few of them
and there's still not tons ofguys getting into this industry
(32:03):
or gals getting into thisindustry, so retention is at an
all-time high.
So part of retention is cultureand I know you're so strong on
culture and we're going to talkabout that in a second.
But I know the other part of itis culture and I know you're so
strong on culture and we'regoing to talk about that in a
second.
But I know the other part of itis pay.
I mean these guys, I was atechnician.
I loved a couple places Iworked and I worked really hard,
but I know I wanted to get paidtoo for that work, you know.
(32:25):
You know charity is great, butmost technicians aren't big fans
of charity.
They want to get paid for whatthey're doing.
And you know, in this industryfor decades, as technicians, we
never got paid for all thethings we did.
We did a lot of shit for free.
We did what we had to do to getthe car done and fixed
correctly and a lot of times theinsurance company wasn't paying
(32:46):
for.
You know, a third of the stuffthat we did it's a little bit.
You know it's a lot better now,but it's a little bit.
It's a lot better now.
But you know to the point,technicians want to make money,
they want to stay busy.
But that culture piece, is thatsomething that you've just been
doing like building blocksalong the way?
Or is this something that waspart of you before you even got
(33:07):
into Freeman, when you werestill doing?
You did some work at some otherbig box places.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Yeah, I mean I've been asked that a lot and it's
always been a passion of mine.
I mean, positive morale is yourbest efficiency tool.
If you've got 90% of the people90% happy 90% of the time,
you're going to get a lot moredone.
I have done a lot of continuingeducation on it.
We've gotten a lot of exposurethrough all the groups that I'm
(33:33):
in you know Discover, leadershipand a lot of similar programs.
But it's kind of been for melike I ran a real big shop for a
long time and I was prettystrict and it worked for that
era.
But you know, I kind of rodethat bus all the way to the end.
(33:55):
And you know then I went into areally luxury environment and I
realized that there was somepeople that I really didn't like
working with, that I didn'tthink had very good attitudes
sometimes or, you know, wouldn'ttake things that were important
to me seriously.
But I realized, like, when theydie, like they'll never come
back in again.
(34:16):
I mean, these are people thatcould literally like not have to
look up procedures to take aLamborghini Aventador completely
apart and put it back together.
I mean, so that really taughtme that, hey, it's not about me.
And then you know, do I want tobe right or do I want to get a
result?
It's not about me.
And then you know, do I want tobe right or do I want to get a
result?
And then you know, really,coming in here and seeing how
(34:38):
damaged it was, and say, youknow, I just identified what was
missing.
Uh, people didn't have a voice.
Uh, when they did talk, theyfelt like, um, it was, uh, you
know, something that was almost,almost frowned upon.
They didn't, uh get a chance tohelp build the clubhouse that
we're all hanging out in.
So buy-in from my team is superimportant and the flexibility.
(35:03):
So I think that's where and I'vesaid this before on some other
stuff, but I think you know theindependents and you know even
smaller MSOs that really havetheir finger on the pulse.
I think we have a much greateropportunity to pivot because,
you know, I see so many of these, these big ones that are kind
of this Midwest cookie cutterdeal, where it's a
one-size-fits-all and and I andit takes so long for a problem
(35:25):
to resonate up to the top andthere's so many blockers along
the way that actually prevent itfrom getting there and they
don't know until they look at amarket and go how come
everybody's quitting over here?
So I think that beingflexibility on dumb stuff like
hey, you know, can I take oneFriday off a month because of my
church wants to do something,or my kids got this game, or you
(35:46):
know it's like hey, I knownobody else does, but can I come
in at six and leave it toobecause my wife got a new job,
or whatever it is like I workreally hard to say yes and it's,
it's something that reallycosts no money.
Uh, it takes brain damagesometimes to figure out how to
do it, but at the end of the daywe're not less efficient and
most of the times we're more uh,because they're engaged and
(36:08):
they and you know, I'll tellthem hey, as long as we're
getting it done and we don't seean effect of this, we can make
it happen, and then they havesome skin in the game and in the
process and and making surethat it's effective.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Yeah, and I love that , jesse, because lack of ego or
lack of having an ego at work,whatever position you're in can
allow that free flowing of youknow being able to work together
.
And position you're in canallow that free-flowing of you
know being able to work togetherand you know creating the right
kind of atmosphere and theright kind of culture in a shop.
I've been in a lot of shopswhere the owner or the manager
(36:43):
was hey, this is about me, thisis what I say, this is how we're
doing it and that's it.
You know, I don't want to hearany shit, just you know.
And those type of cultures endup getting more and more toxic
and they drive away good qualityhelp and all it takes is hey,
dude, I'm here to work with youwhat works best for you.
And I know a lot of old schoolguys are like, no, that
(37:04):
shouldn't be how it is.
But, quite honestly, they'vegot the power, to a certain
point, of being a good qualitytech.
You've got to cater to them alittle bit.
But it's not so much catering,it's making them comfortable and
happy where they're working,because you're going to spend
what?
60% of your time at work, right, so might as well be happy
there, might as well becomfortable, might as well enjoy
it.
And then you know when the bigwins come.
(37:26):
You know you're part ofsomething exciting and that only
comes from a shop that's gotgood culture to me, from what I
see.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
so yeah, I mean you.
You said, hey, it's my way, orthe highway, get it done.
You know, whatever I, I ranthat for a while and it worked.
It worked every everybody'smaking a ton of money.
But really what I learned is Iwas just the lesser of two evils
at that time and you know therewas still more that they were
getting that they wouldn't geton the other side of the fence,
(37:53):
but it didn't make them feelgood.
Emotions are expensive at work.
That's why I always got to askmyself do I want to be right or
do I want to get a result?
I want to get a result.
Back in the day, somebody wouldhave said something like are
you effing kidding me?
Are we really talking aboutthis right now?
Or they'd get mad and saysomething and I'd fire back
(38:20):
because of ego.
And now I say things like okay,well, uh, I hear the words and
we can get into that, uh.
But I'm more concerned about thefeeling, because there's an
emotion behind that.
What's bothering you wherebefore I'd say where's your big
boy?
P-a-n-t-i-e-s.
You know what I mean.
It's like so and it's one ofthe things.
I'm not a very patient person,but it's one of the things where
I use the most energy unitsbecause, you know, a lot of
(38:43):
these people are conflict averse, they don't like someone in
their face.
You know, the technician skillset is not a socially out there
skill set, so it's even moredamaging to that type of skill
set.
So, you know, I, just for me, Ihave to slow down and be really
patient and I have to.
You know, whether I want to ornot.
It's not like white knuckle,fake it till you make it Like I
(39:05):
really have to find a way tocare about what they care about.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
You know the younger generations.
They're a little bit differentemotionally and how they process
stuff and how they want to betreated.
In my day it didn't matter.
You just showed up, you didyour work and that was it.
You didn't get your feelingshurt too easy.
But it's a lot different so youhave to be able to adapt to
(39:29):
that as an employer.
There's not a bunch of boomersthat are going to come back now
and want to work in the shops.
They're done, they're retiring,their knees are shot, their
backs are shot.
You know they're not comingback.
So kudos to you for utilizing,you know, the knowledge and the
education that you've got andmade those changes in culture.
And I know you went throughDiscover Leadership and learned
(39:53):
a little bit more about pushingpast comfort zones, and it takes
getting out of comfort zone tobe successful in whatever
business you're running.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
And that's part of it .
That's part of it.
But you know, anybody that'sgoing well, I don't know if I
can do that, or it'sintimidating, or they think
someone's like oh, this, youknow, this is too rosy and
perfect.
Like, just so we're clear.
Like, oh, this is too rosy andperfect, just so we're clear.
I screw up.
Every day I go out of my way toown it.
When I'm wrong, I say I'm wrong.
Yes, discomfort is about gettingout of your comfort zone, but
(40:32):
it's also about understandinghow to take your own score.
When we go to, when we go tobed at night, it's, you know,
it's something that I learned todo after after doing, after
getting my pilot's license, likerunning through the flight and
then redoing it.
But at the end of every day Ikind of run through all the
important conversations I had oranything that happened.
And if I'm really honest withmyself, most days I don't get a
10.
Some days I really what to bet?
(40:53):
So um, but but understandingthat if I take my score and I'm
honest with myself, and if I gota two today, if I really blew
it, you know I only gotta carrythat for that day.
If I, I, I, it's my choice towake up the next day and have a
zero.
Okay, I, I I haven't doneanything right, I haven't done
anything wrong, but I got achance to earn a 10.
(41:14):
And same thing too.
If I have a great day and I dideverything right, I can't just
walk in here tomorrow stillliving off that I'm only as good
as my last pitch.
Right, I got to go tomorrow andearn another one, or if I don't
, then I got to look at it andgo, man, I should handle,
(41:35):
handled it that way.
Honestly, I've got to do thatall the time.
I'm not perfect.
I don't think that anybody is.
I probably screw up more thanmost people, but what I try to
be really good about is seeingit when I do, and I don't always
see it.
If I can't see it, then hearingit when they bring it to my
attention.
If somebody says I don't likethe way they went yesterday I
(42:00):
got to be open to hear that.
Right, and that's where youcan't have an ego.
That's where you got to go.
It's not.
You know, some people go likeyou can't talk to your boss like
that.
I don't look at it like that.
Like I look at it like I don't,I don't want to be the boss.
I think if you have to, whenyou go into an environment and
sometimes you can't tell who theboss is, I think that's the
best culture and I think thatthey have to be receptive when
I'm asking for something andthat sort of has to swing
(42:24):
exactly the same amount theother way, and I don't like to
think of myself as their boss.
I like to look at myself astheir career partner.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
That's a better choice.
I like that career partner, andyou're not there all the time
either.
You travel a lot.
You've got a lot of things thatyou have to attend, a lot of
meetings.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
I'm out of my box twice a month and I'm really
involved in the industry and youknow that's how I learn.
You know from, like I told youbefore, there's so many people
that do do things better than me, and that's you know.
I get it out and you know itdoesn't matter whether it's a
$100,000 a month box or a $2million a month box.
Everybody has a process thatany of us can go in and look and
(43:04):
go wow, that's cool, whothought of that?
Even in the shops where youwouldn't fix your car there,
where you walk in and you'relike I don't know, you could
look at something and be like,well, that's actually pretty
neat.
We can learn from everybody and, like Mike Jones, we talked
about Discover Again, you know,if we're listening with the
intent to be influenced ratherthan the intent to defend, we
will see something if we chooseto be open-minded.
(43:27):
Sure yeah you can learn fromjust about anybody and I know.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Part of that too is one of the things I was going to
talk about briefly is proximityright.
So you're attending meetingsand things like Mike Anderson's
Collision Advice, his Spartangroup, those meetings.
You attend CCG, which isanother powerful group and you
know, being part of what Lexishas got going on or Trio has got
(43:53):
going on with their trainingand development stuff.
To me that's proximity right.
So you're around other, youknow higher level thinking
people that are trying toobviously improve their part of
the game and that stuff.
Just, man, it's so powerful tobe around that you can't help
but learn and then try to bebetter at what you're doing.
(44:14):
So I applaud those shops.
Like yourself, I'm part of that.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
I had a mentor that used to say mud hands fly with
mud hands and mallards fly withmallards.
So, like you said, it is really.
It is really powerful.
I mean you get around like I.
I don't want to be the mostconfident person in the room,
like most of the time.
I'm not like you walk in,sometimes it's intimidating
because you see their shop oryou know you watch their success
along the way too.
(44:40):
So I mean that that's where wewant to be.
We want to be around peoplethat are always challenging us
and bringing and being a mallardnot a mudhead and bringing us
down.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
You know what I mean, that's right, love, that I want
to switch gears here real quick.
We're going to get short ontime really fast.
It flies by man.
But I was at a conference notthat long ago.
Ryan Taylor was doing apresentation Our buddy, ryan
Taylor.
Love that guy?
He was getting into AI and BodyShop Boost.
I'm sorry, what did you say?
Speaker 2 (45:08):
I said our brother from another for sure.
Yeah, he was a dude.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
He was getting into the Body Shop booster and and,
uh, some of his ai stuff and andhe used your shop as an example
live.
So I know he told you aboutthat, but I'll tell you what man
I was.
I was so impressed with what iscapable.
Now, um, so I you know.
I just for the people thathaven't seen that and don't know
what I'm talking about how areyou guys leveraging AI in your
business?
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Yeah, so Ryan's been a godsend.
I mean he picks on me a lot.
We'll do some speaking eventstogether or one more, something
he knows I can handle it.
He knows I can reduce adminworkload and, even more than
(46:01):
that, meet a need of our todaycustomer.
That isn't really reasonable,the expectation that our
customer has today.
It's very, very hard to meetthat with human beings.
They want everything right now.
Their attention span issomething I don't know.
Ryan knows the math, but it'ssomething like eight seconds.
If you're on one of those chatwidgets and you're literally not
(46:25):
just waiting at your screen forsomebody to start texting you,
you'll miss it and in eightseconds their attention span is
gone and they're moving on tothe next.
So getting AI that's reallyclever to help communicate with
them and after our support, Imean we're almost up to like 50%
of our little less than 50.
It's like 46 or 47 now, butalmost half the accidents are
(46:49):
happening outside of businesshours and there's a reason for
that.
So one out of every two cars ishappening when our shops close.
So you know there's there'ssome people that are, uh, doing
this different ways, but we'vegot to find ways to get the
customer.
So I've used my, after I was aiphone support.
That's what you heard, um,that's that, as you, as you, as
(47:13):
you saw, it's super intuitive,uh, and it's mind-blowing.
It can set up toes, it can, uh,you know, it'll send somebody a
link for the estimate now thatwhere another ai is going to
give an estimate 90 seconds,it'll help them book
appointments, it'll doeverything and it gives them, um
, control over their experience,which has been something that,
(47:33):
uh, you know that theirexperience, which has been
something that you know thatI've seen in some data, is that
they think people want more of apersonalized experience.
My can't really good at gettinga lot of this data, and that's
that's where a lot of that isthat has come from, and it, then
, you know, that's that's thebenefit of getting out and
getting in these groups andseeing this stuff is
understanding was driving itrather than I think or I feel.
(47:56):
So I always say liars, figure,figures don't lie.
You know, data, data is is acritical tool when you're, when
you're looking at what a I use,or what process do you need, or
or where, where are my holes, uh, within my market, and uh, and
measuring them.
I mean, you know the big onethat I talked about somewhere
else was capture rate.
(48:17):
So shops are now measuringtheir capture rate Not all of
them, but more than a lot morethan in 2023, when nobody needed
one more job and everybody'sdrinking through the fire hose.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
Right.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
But they're still doing it wrong.
One, when they're measuringcapture rate, they're not
measuring everything.
So if people walk in a lot oftimes, they don't record that.
Or if somebody would be aquote-unquote waste of time or a
tire kicker, whatever, that'sstill something you need to
monitor because it may or maynot be a waste of time.
It could be that somebodydidn't have enough training to
understand it.
You know what information, uh,they needed to know.
(48:51):
But also measuring was what'sthat wasn't with something.
What everybody's not doing rightis measuring initial first
contact.
So when you have about half ofthe people that call your shop
will never come in for anestimate and that's data that
I've seen, that I trust.
(49:12):
So when you look at all themarketing we're doing now, we're
looking at maybe DRPs that youbring on you got to give
discounts or we look atcertifications we got to buy
tools and buy training and thenwe finally get somebody that
calls or texts it or howeverthey try to communicate, and if
one out of two is going to callour shop and not like the
(49:33):
personalities, not feelconfident, not understand our
certification, not get back tothem soon enough, then I mean
you can put as much water as youwant in a colander, but it's
still all going to come out.
And I think that's where shopsreally have an opportunity is
getting that data, and we use AIfor that as well.
So we can go back and say whatis our real capture rate.
(49:55):
Getting that data and we use AIfor that as well.
So we can go back and say whatis our real capture rate.
So, if you're at 80% and youthink you're getting eight out
of 10 jobs, you may be at thecounter, but you're probably
getting more like four out of 10of what you should be getting,
because you lost half of them toget there.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
No, I would agree with that, jesse.
I don't think people capturereally all their points of
contact that are missed or blownor whatever, where AI is going
to do a much better job oftracking that stuff.
So have you had comments fromany of your customers going hey,
I, you know, I know that was AI, but man, it was so nice, it
was so quick, it was so easy.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
Yeah, I mean it's uh.
We started kind of serving thecustomers when they came and
asked him about that process.
Good, and a lot of more peoplehave been here before and
they're like, wow, that's new,that was really cool.
And yeah, there's times toowhere, you know, in the
beginning there was a few thingsthat needed to be trained, but
that's going to happen withanything.
So that's what I really likeabout Ryan is I can literally
(50:51):
call him and go hey, I wanted tosay this now, or I wanted to, I
wanted to train it to do thisor this or this.
So it's, uh, really flexibleand it's not a cookie cutter
business model, because eachshop is different.
We have differentcertifications, we have
different uh hours, we havedifferent ways we process stuff
and you know that that software,specifically uh is is very
(51:13):
customizable and there may beothers that are out there.
I haven't spent a ton of timelooking at other stuff.
I have seen a lot of the bigones and they are not as
flexible with what I want toneed.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
Yeah, I think Ryan's part alien.
Yeah, so that's.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
I think that's got some.
He's Canadian so I think it'sthe same thing.
Speaker 1 (51:31):
Hey, Jesse, I appreciate the conversation.
I could talk for another hourand probably next time I see you
we'll talk for another hour,but, as I wrap up, anything else
that you wanted to cover that Ihaven't asked about yet I know
I had a lot of stuff I wanted toask and I think we're focusing
on everything really criticalright now, which is figure out
where your work's coming from.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
If you're a DRP model I really work hard on scorecard
.
I mean that's your choice, yourbusiness model if you're not
drp, you're not certified.
There's some of those shops outthere understand that you're
going to have, you're going tohave oems pulling out here
having a ladle in your bucketand you're going to have drps
having a ladle in your buckettoo.
So you know it.
(52:12):
For whatever, whatever wedecide, we got to pick something
and uh, in my mind there's onlytwo.
And then, yeah, look and beopen to look at other processes.
Uh, be flexible with your staffand, and don't be afraid of ai.
Um, you know you still have achance to be, uh, somewhat of a
early adopter and still be ableto have a voice in what we're
(52:36):
doing.
Join the club.
It's not a bad thing, it'snothing to be afraid of.
It is out of my comfort zonetoo.
I mean, it's not what I do.
I much prefer the old way, butyou know there's so many
benefits and you know the peoplethat we hire want it and the
customers that are coming in nowlike the boomers there's fewer
(52:58):
of those and a lot more.
uh, gen x and gen z's I mean we,we, um, are millennials and and
gen z's.
So you know, as they come in,they're more techie, they want
to talk less, they're moresocially reserved, um, and we
just we got to adapt or we don't.
We don't, and you know, we justwill be one of those people
that's like I look at it, likethe guy Joe Dirt that only sells
(53:19):
snakes.
Right, okay, I know you likesnakes and you want to sell them
.
That's great, but people don'tlike snakes anymore.
So we got to start sellingother stuff.
Speaker 1 (53:27):
Yeah, no.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
I would agree.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
I so, for everybody tuned in, I've been talking with
jesse parks, the managingdirector of freeman collision,
out in santa rosa, california,from my view, one of the shops
on the top, but still growing,still climbing, which is what I
love to see.
So we're never done, we neverreally hit the top.
We're always finding anotherplateau, another new part of the
mountain to hit.
So, jesse, thank you so muchfor your time today.
I appreciate it.
(53:56):
I'll leave some show notes.
It's got some contactinformation for Jesse If you
want to reach out to him.
He's a wealth of informationand he's never afraid or never
too shy to share it with anybodythat asks.
Yeah, just great guy, and I'mglad I got a chance to talk with
you and get you on the showtoday.
Thank you so much 100%.
Speaker 2 (54:16):
Yeah, we've been trying to put this together for
a while now and, yeah, it's beengreat to talk to you and I
appreciate you thinking of meand it's an honor to be here,
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
Rick, you got it.
You're welcome and I lookforward to seeing you again,
probably at one of the nextconferences.
Yeah, and it's SEMA for sure.
Nothing else.
Sema for sure.
Absolutely, you got it.
Well, hopefully you enjoyed myin-depth conversation with Jesse
Parks at Freeman Collision,maybe learned a little bit about
what it takes to build awinning culture, how growth can
(54:45):
come from getting uncomfortableand leveraging AI to get a leg
up in your business.
You can always reach out toJesse if you want to ask him a
question.
He's always willing to helpothers.
I'll leave all of his contactinformation in the show notes.
Well, that's all I had for youtoday.
Thanks again for tuning in.
I really appreciate yoursupport and I hope you have a
(55:05):
great week.
I can always be reached atwwwrickselovercom, where you can
find all my social media linkspodcast episodes, blog posts and
much more.
Earlier this year, while attending the Certified
Collision Group Conference andthen again at Mike Anderson's
Spartan Conference, I had theopportunity to connect and spend
some time talking with thisweek's special guest, Someone I
had great respect for, seen atmany industry events but never
really got a chance to knowuntil recently.
His OEM certified shop'sincredible performance and
(00:23):
record-setting achievements withLexus and Toyota would be the
top of the mountain for most,but not for Jesse.
This is just a starting pointfor his climb.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
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,
next-level growth and quality oflife.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Hey, what's up everybody.
Welcome to the MindWrenchPodcast.
I'm your host, rick Salo.
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,
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(01:31):
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Please make sure to click thesubscribe or follow button so
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(01:54):
receiving end of my daily Quoteof the Day emails, or maybe
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If you'd like to startreceiving my Quote of the Day
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It's free and you canunsubscribe at any time.
Earlier this year, whileattending the Certified
Collision Group Conference andthen again at Mike Anderson's
(02:15):
Spartan Conference, I had theopportunity to connect and spend
some time talking with thisweek's special guest, someone I
had great respect for, seen atmany industry events but never
really got a chance to knowuntil recently.
His OEM certified shop'sincredible performance and
record-setting achievements withLexus and Toyota would be the
(02:36):
top of the mountain for most,but not for Jesse.
This is just a starting pointfor his climb.
This week, my special guest'sshop has not only been chosen as
the Lexus Certified CollisionCenter for 2024 for the second
time and the Toyota CertifiedCollision Center for 2024 third
time, but his shop is the onlycertified Toyota and Lexus
(02:59):
Collision Center in all ofNorthern California.
Jesse Parks, a 25-year collisionveteran, all of Northern
California.
Jesse Parks, a 25-yearcollision veteran, has built an
extraordinary culture within hisshop.
He's maximized the power ofproximity with strategic
alliances with not only industrylighthouses like SCRS,
collision Advice and CertifiedCollision Group, but the OEM
(03:20):
manufacturers groups as well.
Here's my in-depth interviewwith industry leader who has
found strength and growth ingetting uncomfortable Jesse
Parks, the managing director ofFreedman Collision, as he joins
me on the MindWrench podcast.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
My biggest focus right now has been disrupting
FNOL.
You know, as the smaller MSO orindependents have been working
to compete in a heavilydominated large box PE
environment.
I think that we have to be alot more innovative than we've
(03:58):
had to be in the past.
So where I've been focusingmainly is getting upstream of
the insurance referral.
I call it the, the, theinsurance coin sorter.
So uh vehicles that areconnected, uh certifications and
uh vehicles that have eitherpartial or some variations of
(04:21):
their certifications that arerestricted partial or some
variations of theircertifications that are
restricted.
So the OEMs right now arespending a lot of money, a lot
of money, and creating a lot ofawareness with their customers
to use their apps, to startusing the locators.
What we're seeing nationally isthat a lot of the dealerships
and OEMs are declining in autosales right now because of
(04:45):
interest rates, the economy,whatever it is right now they're
selling less cars.
So what they've done iseveryone that I've talked to and
I am on a lot of advisoryboards and council groups for a
lot of the OEMs and what I seethem all focusing on right now
is retention and part sales.
(05:07):
So I mean, when you look atsome of the data that I've seen
just just averaged out betweenall the OEMs.
Some are better, some are worse, but they're looking at a 60,
60 plus percent defection rate.
So you know, six out of 10people, six out of 10 people
that get in an auto accidentwithin 12 months are going to
buy another brand, and it'sgenerally because they've lost
(05:29):
faith in the brand after that.
And the OEMs are seeing that.
So, in a market where the salesare declining, it's never been
more important for them toretain the customers that they
have, customers that they haveright um and as well, you know,
there's there's there's so manyuh competitive parts choices
(05:51):
right now that there's a lot oflost revenue.
You know, and with uh some ofthe oems, the the bigger oems
we're seeing a better than 40percent uh penetration in their
total part sales.
So if you're looking around, 43, 44, 45% of every part that's
sold, it has to do withcollision.
(06:11):
So they know they have roomthere.
And because of those two facts,when you look at retention and
when you look at part sales, theOEMs now are working a lot
harder and some of thesecertifications that have been
for lack of a better word just apiece of paper to put on the
wall that didn't have a lot ofteeth, are now working to find
(06:33):
ways to support thecertifications in ways they
haven't in the past.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
So we're focused on OEM repairs, certs and keeping
their customers and theircustomers.
And you know, and it's I'm gladyou're saying this, jesse,
because you know this issomething I've heard off and on
over the past, let's say 10years right, like, uh, you know,
if you do a crappy repair, itaffects the customer's decision
on buying that brand again,right?
(06:57):
So everybody's kind of knowingthat in the collision industry,
but nobody's really focused thatmuch on the the top shops yes,
most of the other shops notreally.
But now it sounds like it'sbecoming even a bigger issue for
the OEMs, right?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Well, yeah, I mean you have you take just an
average brand, a mass-producedcar.
I mean, if you have a customer,that that's either they've
owned these cars forever andthey haven't had a problem, or
it's their first time in and nowthey get in something that, uh,
to them doesn't seem like ahuge collision.
I mean, let's face it, mostcustomers don't really know, uh,
(07:32):
what, what, what a big job ormedium job is you know they,
most of them, think that a lotof this isn't a big deal.
They don't understand thecalibrations, they don't
understand the repair procedures, they don't understand what's
involved.
So when you have somebody thatin their mind didn't have that
big of a bobo on their car andnow they're looking into, you
(07:52):
know, either their vehicles aborderline total loss or they
fix their car and it's fifteenthousand dollars.
When they shut they thought itshould have been fine.
Uh, they got to bring it backto the shop multiple times
because the shop didn't know howto do it right.
And that happens for a lot ofdifferent reasons.
But the retention component inthe certification which is why
(08:16):
all of them are rapidlyexpanding their networks is when
these people are trained andthey know what they're looking
for they know how to calibratethe cars.
These people are trained andthey know what they're looking
for.
They know how to calibrate thecars.
They have, uh, more guidancenow in in their processes and
their quality control.
There is more data reporting.
That's happening, that's goingback to the oems.
That customer is going to havea better experience if the car
(08:39):
is, if the majority of the cars,are fixed right the first time.
You know, being in a dealerenvironment, I work, I see a lot
of the big box stuff that'saround me and you know I don't
seek out post-collision repairsand inspections because I try to
play good in my sandbox in myneighborhood.
You know a lot of these guys aremy friends, but you know I see
(08:59):
so many that the customer willgo to the shop and complain
about a problem and the shopwill argue with them and tell
them why they know more and whatthey're saying and then they
finally get the shop to take itin.
They don't fix it right againby the third or fourth time the
customer's done, they say, hey,I wanna go over here and when we
get these cars I haven't hadone that I can remember in a
(09:22):
very long time that didn'tresult in a buyback.
So when we get into these cars,I mean some of the repairs are
so atrocious and you know it'shappening because you know this
is these shops as they grow orhave you know that have the same
staffing challenges becauseit's in that environment.
It's pretty pretty much six ofone half dozen of another.
Most of them are forced to putpeople in seats that aren't
(09:44):
really ready to be there yet.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
They don't have the experience.
You have estimators that aretoo green to be looking at some
of this stuff.
They don't know how to look atthe repair procedures.
So when you have an OEMcertification, that's that's big
on training, that's uh, thattakes the time to of time to to
monitor that you're using their,their software to look them up.
That actually has you know datapumps like cci.
(10:09):
You know claims course now isreporting back to all the oems
the parts uses and I think it'sgreat.
You know you look at you lookat some of the certifications
like tesla I'm not teslacertified and you know some.
Some of the things, in myopinion, are a little bit
questionable how they managetheir certification.
But they have big box repairsnow that are deathly afraid of
putting an aftermarket part on acar because they're going to
(10:31):
lose their certification, and Ithink that's wonderful.
I really agree with thatcomponent and I want to see more
OEMs do it, and I think theywill, because they're realizing
that they're losing parts, uhsales and now they have
companies like cci that can givethem the data.
So what that does is it createsa level playing field where you
(10:53):
know we have 10 shops around methat are literally training the
insurance company incorrectlyhow to fix a car.
So then when a car comes inhere or a shop like mine, you
know they think I'm eitherovercharging them or I'm not
flexible, but you know what itis is.
I'm just.
I'm just telling them the truthon why the vehicle should be
(11:14):
repaired that way, and I'm notbashful about wanting to be
reimbursed or compensated forthe investment that I put in my
people to do it properly.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Right, as you should be right.
This is something I've been inthis business a long time and.
I know there was a standard, avery loose, very low standard of
repair acceptance through the80s, 90s, 2000s, how we fixed
cars back then and we got somany people, so many shops that
(11:46):
were used to that being okay.
They're struggling with thecomplexity of today's cars.
They're struggling with thedifferent materials used.
You know different ways oftreating those.
You know seeing what thedifference is between a crash
part and an actual OEM part andhow they perform actual OEM part
(12:08):
and how they perform.
And I think it's fantastic thatthe OEMs are really helping
drive the importance of this too, like you said, with their
customers, with the data throughthe apps.
Because, as an industry that Ilove and I've been in my whole
life, I want to see you get tothat level that you're playing
at Jesse and then you know I'vebeen to Mike Anderson's events.
You're playing at Jesse andthen you know I've been to Mike
Anderson's events, I've been toCCG's events.
You know you guys are shopsplaying at the top level, where
(12:30):
I hate to say this, it's a toplevel but it should be an even
playing field.
Everybody should be playing atthat level because you're fixing
someone's car.
That's going to get in there,they're going to put their kids,
their grandmother, whatever inthere.
Now their lives are at riskover a questionable repair or
not doing it the right way.
(12:50):
So, you know, kudos to the OEMsfor pushing that.
And, like I said, I wasinterested in talking with you
because I've seen you, you know,several times over the years at
different conferences and Iknow you're a top player and I
appreciate what you guys do.
I appreciate the level ofcommitment you have to the
(13:11):
industry and to building abetter machine.
You know, consistently youdon't just do it once.
You're consistently like Kaizenright, continual improvement,
which is fantastic.
I just want to take a secondhere.
I just want to make sure I here.
I just want to make sure I hadthis right, because now you've
been Lexus shop of the year acouple times, right.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
A couple times.
Yeah, we got it in 22 and 24.
Last year we got Toyota andLexus.
It was the first time it's everbeen done before, so we've
gotten Toyota a few times too.
Toyota and Lexus was the firsttime it's ever been done before,
so you know we've gotten Toyotaa few times too.
Toyota and Lexus have beenwonderful partners.
They have an amazing trainingprogram.
They're very reactive to whatwe're doing and they're kind of,
(13:57):
in my opinion, paving the wayfor a lot of the OEMs in being
the example of you know how torun a certification and how to
support your shop.
So it's been amazing.
Lance bennett runs an amazingprogram, uh, and he's
knowledgeable, I think, in insome of these programs.
It's getting better now, butfor for a long time you know
people that would come out andlook at it.
(14:17):
They didn't really know whatthey were looking at and you
know now.
Now the you know there's,there's, uh more than a handful
of people that are reallyknowledgeable, and you know
Lance Bennett takes a lot ofpride in his program.
So it's been wonderful to workwith both programs.
You know I've had the honor ofbeing on their collision council
for both and you know I seewhat they're working on behind
(14:40):
the scenes, I see what theyreally care about and you know
they're thinking about what theyreally care about and, uh, you
know they they're thinking abouteverything they're thinking
about.
You know their future.
They're thinking about ourfuture.
You know we're looking at waysto help the shop in which I I
haven't seen from anycertification.
Um, you know some new stuffcoming out that you know it'll
come out when it comes out, butthey're they're doing some
(15:02):
really innovative stuff and Ithink that's how we have to
think too.
So I mean, we mentioned parts,and so did I and I.
Just, you said it.
That's great that they'refocusing on it, but they're
financially motivated to do itnow, everybody, because if they
don't, they're going to, youknow, they're going to continue
to follow the trends with theother OEMs and lose car sales,
(15:22):
but then they're going to losetheir part sales too.
So this behooves everybody, andI've always when I need
something.
You know, a lot of times when Isay, hey, this is my problem,
will you help me?
It doesn't always get me thatfar.
But when I say this is yourproblem, that I see and can I
(15:43):
you?
Um, you know it now.
Now it's, it's identified inanother way and I think they
understand that this is theirproblem.
And, uh, there's, there's a lotof them now that are really
focusing on it and they're goingto put a lot more teeth in the
certifications, which I'm sotired of seeing, certifications
that are just a participationaward.
You put a black on the wall,but, right, who even knows how
(16:04):
to look up a procedure?
So I'm loving where thatdirection is going.
And you mentioned Mike Anderson.
I mean, he's been a wonderfulmentor and you know, I'm very
proud to be a Spartan.
You're right, we do holdourselves to a higher standard.
But should that be the bar?
Or, you know, is there a way tobring you know?
You know, okay, maybe we may beup here and they meet down
(16:26):
there like, is there a way tohelp bring them up?
And you know, I'm the first oneto educate my next door,
neighbor, competitor, becausethe more they know, the less I
have to be the only one trainingthe training the industry and
or the insurance companies onwhat is it?
What is appropriate when, whenwe look at a car?
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Right.
I've always liked the phrase.
You know the tide raises allships.
I know it sounds corny as hell,but I'll tell you what it's a
fact you know.
So if you're out there helpingeducate those around you,
whether they have a collisionshop or they're just part of the
industry the more that thathappens, the sharper everybody
(17:06):
gets and that means the bar getsraised.
The tide get raised gets raisedon the quality of repairs that
we're doing and, quite honestly,it should never slide back the
other way.
It should continue to improve,because they're not going to
slow down on on how they buildthese cars.
To a more specific point, themore technology that gets forced
(17:27):
into these things for the OEM'sreasons.
You know they're trying to,whether it's safety or, you know
, better mileage or lighterframes or whatever it is.
They're driving towards theirgoals.
We need to come along with themon the ride and be supportive
right and help them guide themon some of those decisions.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yeah, and I agree with that.
The problem with that, though,is, unfortunately, the tide does
go both ways.
So, you know, I'd say the worstbehavior we tolerate becomes
the standard, and right now,what I see you know the data
that I've seen is we're not atthe top of the roller coaster,
we're already down the otherside.
So, when you look at severity,it's been shooting up for years
(18:07):
and years and years, and nowwe're seeing severity drop.
We're seeing labor hours drop,we're seeing all this stuff.
Now, that is a negative trend,when we're still getting more
complex repairs, where more andmore cars have ADAS.
We should still be seeing thatclimb, but uh, I believe that
we're.
We're starting to witness thebeginning of a race to the
(18:27):
bottom, and uh, when it when?
Again, this is our businessmodel, which is f and f, any,
any, any partnership.
That's an fnol disruptor, butthe only other alternative is to
partner with every insurancecompany, and when you do that
now, the scorecard has neverbeen so important, um or
influential.
(18:48):
You know, even a year ago,nobody was really even looking
at it.
But when you're, when you'rerunning, uh, you know a majority
, uh, majority, uh, drpdependent um business model.
If you're not at the top,you're not getting any cards.
I've talked to a lot of CEOs ofa lot of these big shops and
they've said the differencebetween first place and second
(19:09):
or third place is I geteverything to.
I only get a few during themonth.
And the scary part about thatis everybody kind of had to
adjust to figure out okay,where's that, how do I get to
1,000 points on the scorecardout?
Okay, where's that, how do Iget to a thousand points on the
scorecard?
But then everybody else istrying to do the same thing too
(19:29):
and has bills to pay and has alltheir staff.
So now they have to figure outyou know how they can come down
a little bit on their, on theirseverity or their cycle time or
whatever it is.
And then now this person getsall the work, okay, but then,
and this guy has none.
So now he comes up and you'reonly as good as your last pitch.
So it's going to keep drivingdown the standard of our
(19:50):
industry and I'm reallyconcerned about it.
So you know I I ran in thatenvironment for a lot of years.
I was really successful and atthe time you know it was, it was
, you know, jumping into thatnow.
One, uh, the partnerships arefewer far between.
(20:13):
They're really hard, reallyhard to get now.
They're taking people off, notadding people, except in very
select markets.
And two, you have to be socompetitive that it's getting
harder and harder to beprofitable.
So if we can get upstream ofthat and we can get that first
notice of loss coming fromsomebody somebody else rather
than the insurance who's goingto refer their DRP program that
(20:35):
just happened to pop up first ontheir list we can get it in.
Take care of the customer,educate them, put the right
parts on the car and we canmaintain a very healthy profit
margin.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
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Well, so you know to your point, the first notice of loss that
is getting driven through theOEMs, through their apps, to all
(22:39):
their connected cars, and ispicking up on that through the
apps.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Is that still getting directed, though, to an
insurance company first?
Well, I mean, how does theinsurance company get it?
I mean, there may be some thirdparty sometime down the road
that could be, you know, appleor Google or whoever but for
right now, how does that evenget there?
Somebody gets in an accident,doesn't know what to do.
They call their insurance andthey say, oh, try ABC Body Shop,
because we have, you know, wewarranty the work for life and
(23:10):
you know it's a, is a, you know,enhanced service in efficiency
and they can get you in rightaway.
So that's when the customercalls.
But, yes, it is picking up withthe OEMs.
It's not there yet, but theyare aware now and they're
spending a ton of dough.
You know, some of some of thesehave sent out literally
(23:31):
millions and millions ofmarketing emails just to talk
and build and spend a lot ofmoney developing their apps so
that, uh, they can get ahead ofthat before the customer calls
the insurance company.
So that's that's how we getupstream of that.
And, uh, they, they know again,they're going to lose a lot of
money if it doesn't um get in,if it doesn't get in the
(23:52):
certified center, they're notgoing to sell the oem parts.
You know that it's the kpis arebased on.
Uh, a lot of them are apu,alternative parts usage.
So you know I can't put 100percent of the parts on card and
expect to continue gettingreferrals.
So, um, it's like which masterdo you want to serve?
Serve Mentor of mine used totell me, just because your
(24:13):
butt's split in the middledoesn't mean it can be in two
seats, and I think it's reallytrue, so you've got to pick one.
So I think that it's going tohave more teeth.
It's not there yet, but there'sa ton of awareness and I've put
just about all my eggs in thatbasket.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Yeah Well, if anybody's going gonna know how
this is going, I'm gonna keep intouch with you on this, because
you're gonna see that directionuh, probably a lot sooner.
Uh, some others, but, um, nowyou guys are specifically, and I
remembered um, I want to backup here a little bit so I had
met your, uh, the owner offreeman uh diane, yeah, I met
(24:51):
her on a bus.
It's funny I sat next to her ona bus for CCG's event, had a
great conversation.
What a nice lady had a greatconversation with her.
You guys are specifically justToyota and Lexus, correct?
Speaker 2 (25:07):
So Freeman Motors owns Freeman Toyota, freeman
Lexus and Freeman CollisionCenter.
I'm not a dealer guy.
It took me a long time to wrapmy head around the warp that I
had to understand, like goingfrom independent to to
dealership.
Um, I, I kind of live on my ownisland over here.
I get along great with diana.
(25:28):
I got all the autonomy in theworld, you know.
Then she's got her lane and Irespect that.
I got mine.
But, yes, we only have thosetwo dealerships.
But now we have 19 OEMcertifications.
I just got a handshake onanother one literally an hour
ago, so that another one that'sgonna be connected and
restricted.
So yeah, and we got you know,three more that we're in process
(25:51):
in.
So, and we got three more thatwe're in process in.
So, yes, only two rooftops ofdealerships, but we have Rivlin,
we just finished Lucid, so alot of these are, I mean, I
would consider that heavilyrestricted, whereas only certain
structural pieces arerestricted.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Excuse me, on some of the cars, no, the only reason I
asked Jesse was that I knowToyota and Lexus, especially
Lexus.
They've been kind of a leaderin the technology of cars and
they've been heavily involved incollision repair aspect of it
from an OEM for quite some time.
And that's really where I wasgoing with that question.
(26:27):
But talking with Diana, shekind of explained how she had
this beautiful body shop, youguys like 45,000 square foot
collision center, right In abeautiful part of California.
But she couldn't, really shecouldn't get her hands around.
How is this thing supposed torun?
You know, she didn't have greatquality management at that time
(26:50):
.
I think they were underutilizedfor such a big center and you
came in, I believe, as aconsultant, right, yeah?
Speaker 2 (27:00):
yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
And ended up in the big seat there eventually,
anyways, right.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yeah, she was really aggressive and yeah, I mean this
store opened in 2000.
I'm the third person to run itand yeah, it was an interesting
story.
I mean some I can't evenremember who reached out to me
and said, hey, this, you knowthis lady's having an issue with
her body shop.
We talked to her and right awayI liked her and but I could
understand that I mean it was amess.
(27:28):
It had, uh, really good people.
I mean this has all.
This shop has always had thebest reputation in town for
quality and you know, I was bornand raised in this town.
Freedman's always back Ithought you know where I work
here about five, six, sevenbrand new cars myself.
So I've always really likedFreeman.
But yeah, there was someprocesses that there was a huge
(27:53):
culture problem processes there.
Yeah, I don't want to say toomuch about what had happened
before but yeah, I walked intosomething that well, that was
severely damaged and it took meabout a year, year and a half,
of really burning at both ends.
But you know, since then Istill have all the people on the
back end I brought in.
(28:15):
I still have the same twopeople, two estimators I brought
into more, switched up theoffice manager and CSR and yeah,
I mean it's been, it's beenamazing.
You know, ever since you knowwe've did the girls in the front
, they did they got number onein the country for first initial
contact.
You know we get I said we can'teven name them.
(28:37):
I mean, we're always getting youknow word of this stuff and,
like you said, it's about Kaizenand continuous improvement and
I'm the first one to tell you Igot a ton more to improve.
So I'm not trying to say thatyou know anybody, everybody that
would see this, I'm sure isdoing some operation or
something better than me.
Um, but I'm always trying toinnovate and I'm and you know
(29:01):
also the dealer world.
When I came in it was it reallysurprised me?
It was very regimented.
Um, you know, in in theindependents you're kind of
looking at every spoke on thewheel.
Uh, in the dealership world, Ithink they don't always
understand that this can be aprofit center.
It's almost like some of thesedealers open it up because it's
neat to have a body shop, greatplace to funnel all your
expenses into.
(29:22):
Yeah, and some of them willbring in people from service or
this or that.
Don't get me wrong.
There's a lot of good dealershops out there that are better
than me or really good, butthere's still a lot of them that
almost run it like a servicedepartment and what we do is so
different, and they don'tunderstand that this is our
number one profit center.
(29:43):
For the back end we have 250people.
So with great power comes greatresponsibility, and that's
where also these others have tostep up and that's where the
industry or the insurancecompanies have to understand
that we've made a considerableinvestment to train these people
and you know um, it's, it'scritical that that we're making
sure that these cars are safewhen they leave right and you do
(30:06):
it right cost money and, uh,until we're the ones that
collect the insurance premiumevery month.
We're not an insurance company,somebody has to reimburse us to
do that and we try to work good.
We're not doing rtas, but youknow we do have a lot of
conversations that you know.
We're told that.
You know you guys are the onlyones doing that and we use the
mike anderson approach like doyou believe it's required?
(30:27):
Do you believe it's included?
Is there a time study before?
If not, what's it worth?
So we try to avoid that wholedebate like here look, we're
just following the repairprocedure says it has to be done
.
Okay, yeah, our both of ourestimating systems say that it's
.
It's not included.
Okay, ccc says that it's 2.3hours or there's no time for it
(30:48):
and we had to do this.
It's in this.
What do you think's fair hourand a half two hours, you know.
So those are conversations thatwe're having literally every
day.
But I mean these estimatorsalmost have to be like many
paralegals these days to getpaid because it's it's the
insurance.
The insurance adjusters havemore pressure on them.
The insurance companies youknow the, the investors that you
(31:10):
know everybody is is wantingtheir cut and it's, you know the
the, you know what rollsdownhill and it's, it's somebody
.
Somebody's got to shrink theirmargin and they don't want it to
be them, but we don't get toraise our prices every year.
You know our paint goes havegone up three times this year,
substantially.
Uh, labor I gotta keep.
I mean all these people.
(31:30):
They're like the bionic sixmillion dollar men.
Now that I have working for mebecause they have so much
training, I lose one of thoseguys.
I'm at hundreds and hundreds ofthousands of dollars, so we
have to pay them right to stay.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
It doesn't get cheaper, it gets more expensive
right and and that's going tocontinue to climb to it, just
just the way everything else is.
But the technology on cars,like we talked about, is it
keeps changing.
It's going to be more expensive.
Parts are going to be moreexpensive, but technicians,
which are at a premium right nowbecause there's so few of them
and there's still not tons ofguys getting into this industry
(32:03):
or gals getting into thisindustry, so retention is at an
all-time high.
So part of retention is cultureand I know you're so strong on
culture and we're going to talkabout that in a second.
But I know the other part of itis culture and I know you're so
strong on culture and we'regoing to talk about that in a
second.
But I know the other part of itis pay.
I mean these guys, I was atechnician.
I loved a couple places Iworked and I worked really hard,
but I know I wanted to get paidtoo for that work, you know.
(32:25):
You know charity is great, butmost technicians aren't big fans
of charity.
They want to get paid for whatthey're doing.
And you know, in this industryfor decades, as technicians, we
never got paid for all thethings we did.
We did a lot of shit for free.
We did what we had to do to getthe car done and fixed
correctly and a lot of times theinsurance company wasn't paying
(32:46):
for.
You know, a third of the stuffthat we did it's a little bit.
You know it's a lot better now,but it's a little bit.
It's a lot better now.
But you know to the point,technicians want to make money,
they want to stay busy.
But that culture piece, is thatsomething that you've just been
doing like building blocksalong the way?
Or is this something that waspart of you before you even got
(33:07):
into Freeman, when you werestill doing?
You did some work at some otherbig box places.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Yeah, I mean I've been asked that a lot and it's
always been a passion of mine.
I mean, positive morale is yourbest efficiency tool.
If you've got 90% of the people90% happy 90% of the time,
you're going to get a lot moredone.
I have done a lot of continuingeducation on it.
We've gotten a lot of exposurethrough all the groups that I'm
(33:33):
in you know Discover, leadershipand a lot of similar programs.
But it's kind of been for melike I ran a real big shop for a
long time and I was prettystrict and it worked for that
era.
But you know, I kind of rodethat bus all the way to the end.
(33:55):
And you know then I went into areally luxury environment and I
realized that there was somepeople that I really didn't like
working with, that I didn'tthink had very good attitudes
sometimes or, you know, wouldn'ttake things that were important
to me seriously.
But I realized, like, when theydie, like they'll never come
back in again.
(34:16):
I mean, these are people thatcould literally like not have to
look up procedures to take aLamborghini Aventador completely
apart and put it back together.
I mean, so that really taughtme that, hey, it's not about me.
And then you know, do I want tobe right or do I want to get a
result?
It's not about me.
And then you know, do I want tobe right or do I want to get a
result?
And then you know, really,coming in here and seeing how
(34:38):
damaged it was, and say, youknow, I just identified what was
missing.
Uh, people didn't have a voice.
Uh, when they did talk, theyfelt like, um, it was, uh, you
know, something that was almost,almost frowned upon.
They didn't, uh get a chance tohelp build the clubhouse that
we're all hanging out in.
So buy-in from my team is superimportant and the flexibility.
(35:03):
So I think that's where and I'vesaid this before on some other
stuff, but I think you know theindependents and you know even
smaller MSOs that really havetheir finger on the pulse.
I think we have a much greateropportunity to pivot because,
you know, I see so many of these, these big ones that are kind
of this Midwest cookie cutterdeal, where it's a
one-size-fits-all and and I andit takes so long for a problem
(35:25):
to resonate up to the top andthere's so many blockers along
the way that actually prevent itfrom getting there and they
don't know until they look at amarket and go how come
everybody's quitting over here?
So I think that beingflexibility on dumb stuff like
hey, you know, can I take oneFriday off a month because of my
church wants to do something,or my kids got this game, or you
(35:46):
know it's like hey, I knownobody else does, but can I come
in at six and leave it toobecause my wife got a new job,
or whatever it is like I workreally hard to say yes and it's,
it's something that reallycosts no money.
Uh, it takes brain damagesometimes to figure out how to
do it, but at the end of the daywe're not less efficient and
most of the times we're more uh,because they're engaged and
(36:08):
they and you know, I'll tellthem hey, as long as we're
getting it done and we don't seean effect of this, we can make
it happen, and then they havesome skin in the game and in the
process and and making surethat it's effective.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Yeah, and I love that , jesse, because lack of ego or
lack of having an ego at work,whatever position you're in can
allow that free flowing of youknow being able to work together
.
And position you're in canallow that free-flowing of you
know being able to work togetherand you know creating the right
kind of atmosphere and theright kind of culture in a shop.
I've been in a lot of shopswhere the owner or the manager
(36:43):
was hey, this is about me, thisis what I say, this is how we're
doing it and that's it.
You know, I don't want to hearany shit, just you know.
And those type of cultures endup getting more and more toxic
and they drive away good qualityhelp and all it takes is hey,
dude, I'm here to work with youwhat works best for you.
And I know a lot of old schoolguys are like, no, that
(37:04):
shouldn't be how it is.
But, quite honestly, they'vegot the power, to a certain
point, of being a good qualitytech.
You've got to cater to them alittle bit.
But it's not so much catering,it's making them comfortable and
happy where they're working,because you're going to spend
what?
60% of your time at work, right, so might as well be happy
there, might as well becomfortable, might as well enjoy
it.
And then you know when the bigwins come.
(37:26):
You know you're part ofsomething exciting and that only
comes from a shop that's gotgood culture to me, from what I
see.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
so yeah, I mean you.
You said, hey, it's my way, orthe highway, get it done.
You know, whatever I, I ranthat for a while and it worked.
It worked every everybody'smaking a ton of money.
But really what I learned is Iwas just the lesser of two evils
at that time and you know therewas still more that they were
getting that they wouldn't geton the other side of the fence,
(37:53):
but it didn't make them feelgood.
Emotions are expensive at work.
That's why I always got to askmyself do I want to be right or
do I want to get a result?
I want to get a result.
Back in the day, somebody wouldhave said something like are
you effing kidding me?
Are we really talking aboutthis right now?
Or they'd get mad and saysomething and I'd fire back
(38:20):
because of ego.
And now I say things like okay,well, uh, I hear the words and
we can get into that, uh.
But I'm more concerned about thefeeling, because there's an
emotion behind that.
What's bothering you wherebefore I'd say where's your big
boy?
P-a-n-t-i-e-s.
You know what I mean.
It's like so and it's one ofthe things.
I'm not a very patient person,but it's one of the things where
I use the most energy unitsbecause, you know, a lot of
(38:43):
these people are conflict averse, they don't like someone in
their face.
You know, the technician skillset is not a socially out there
skill set, so it's even moredamaging to that type of skill
set.
So, you know, I, just for me, Ihave to slow down and be really
patient and I have to.
You know, whether I want to ornot.
It's not like white knuckle,fake it till you make it Like I
(39:05):
really have to find a way tocare about what they care about.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
You know the younger generations.
They're a little bit differentemotionally and how they process
stuff and how they want to betreated.
In my day it didn't matter.
You just showed up, you didyour work and that was it.
You didn't get your feelingshurt too easy.
But it's a lot different so youhave to be able to adapt to
(39:29):
that as an employer.
There's not a bunch of boomersthat are going to come back now
and want to work in the shops.
They're done, they're retiring,their knees are shot, their
backs are shot.
You know they're not comingback.
So kudos to you for utilizing,you know, the knowledge and the
education that you've got andmade those changes in culture.
And I know you went throughDiscover Leadership and learned
(39:53):
a little bit more about pushingpast comfort zones, and it takes
getting out of comfort zone tobe successful in whatever
business you're running.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
And that's part of it .
That's part of it.
But you know, anybody that'sgoing well, I don't know if I
can do that, or it'sintimidating, or they think
someone's like oh, this, youknow, this is too rosy and
perfect.
Like, just so we're clear.
Like, oh, this is too rosy andperfect, just so we're clear.
I screw up.
Every day I go out of my way toown it.
When I'm wrong, I say I'm wrong.
Yes, discomfort is about gettingout of your comfort zone, but
(40:32):
it's also about understandinghow to take your own score.
When we go to, when we go tobed at night, it's, you know,
it's something that I learned todo after after doing, after
getting my pilot's license, likerunning through the flight and
then redoing it.
But at the end of every day Ikind of run through all the
important conversations I had oranything that happened.
And if I'm really honest withmyself, most days I don't get a
10.
Some days I really what to bet?
(40:53):
So um, but but understandingthat if I take my score and I'm
honest with myself, and if I gota two today, if I really blew
it, you know I only gotta carrythat for that day.
If I, I, I, it's my choice towake up the next day and have a
zero.
Okay, I, I I haven't doneanything right, I haven't done
anything wrong, but I got achance to earn a 10.
(41:14):
And same thing too.
If I have a great day and I dideverything right, I can't just
walk in here tomorrow stillliving off that I'm only as good
as my last pitch.
Right, I got to go tomorrow andearn another one, or if I don't
, then I got to look at it andgo, man, I should handle,
(41:35):
handled it that way.
Honestly, I've got to do thatall the time.
I'm not perfect.
I don't think that anybody is.
I probably screw up more thanmost people, but what I try to
be really good about is seeingit when I do, and I don't always
see it.
If I can't see it, then hearingit when they bring it to my
attention.
If somebody says I don't likethe way they went yesterday I
(42:00):
got to be open to hear that.
Right, and that's where youcan't have an ego.
That's where you got to go.
It's not.
You know, some people go likeyou can't talk to your boss like
that.
I don't look at it like that.
Like I look at it like I don't,I don't want to be the boss.
I think if you have to, whenyou go into an environment and
sometimes you can't tell who theboss is, I think that's the
best culture and I think thatthey have to be receptive when
I'm asking for something andthat sort of has to swing
(42:24):
exactly the same amount theother way, and I don't like to
think of myself as their boss.
I like to look at myself astheir career partner.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
That's a better choice.
I like that career partner, andyou're not there all the time
either.
You travel a lot.
You've got a lot of things thatyou have to attend, a lot of
meetings.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
I'm out of my box twice a month and I'm really
involved in the industry and youknow that's how I learn.
You know from, like I told youbefore, there's so many people
that do do things better than me, and that's you know.
I get it out and you know itdoesn't matter whether it's a
$100,000 a month box or a $2million a month box.
Everybody has a process thatany of us can go in and look and
(43:04):
go wow, that's cool, whothought of that?
Even in the shops where youwouldn't fix your car there,
where you walk in and you'relike I don't know, you could
look at something and be like,well, that's actually pretty
neat.
We can learn from everybody and, like Mike Jones, we talked
about Discover Again, you know,if we're listening with the
intent to be influenced ratherthan the intent to defend, we
will see something if we chooseto be open-minded.
(43:27):
Sure yeah you can learn fromjust about anybody and I know.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Part of that too is one of the things I was going to
talk about briefly is proximityright.
So you're attending meetingsand things like Mike Anderson's
Collision Advice, his Spartangroup, those meetings.
You attend CCG, which isanother powerful group and you
know, being part of what Lexishas got going on or Trio has got
(43:53):
going on with their trainingand development stuff.
To me that's proximity right.
So you're around other, youknow higher level thinking
people that are trying toobviously improve their part of
the game and that stuff.
Just, man, it's so powerful tobe around that you can't help
but learn and then try to bebetter at what you're doing.
(44:14):
So I applaud those shops.
Like yourself, I'm part of that.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
I had a mentor that used to say mud hands fly with
mud hands and mallards fly withmallards.
So, like you said, it is really.
It is really powerful.
I mean you get around like I.
I don't want to be the mostconfident person in the room,
like most of the time.
I'm not like you walk in,sometimes it's intimidating
because you see their shop oryou know you watch their success
along the way too.
(44:40):
So I mean that that's where wewant to be.
We want to be around peoplethat are always challenging us
and bringing and being a mallardnot a mudhead and bringing us
down.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
You know what I mean, that's right, love, that I want
to switch gears here real quick.
We're going to get short ontime really fast.
It flies by man.
But I was at a conference notthat long ago.
Ryan Taylor was doing apresentation Our buddy, ryan
Taylor.
Love that guy?
He was getting into AI and BodyShop Boost.
I'm sorry, what did you say?
Speaker 2 (45:08):
I said our brother from another for sure.
Yeah, he was a dude.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
He was getting into the Body Shop booster and and,
uh, some of his ai stuff and andhe used your shop as an example
live.
So I know he told you aboutthat, but I'll tell you what man
I was.
I was so impressed with what iscapable.
Now, um, so I you know.
I just for the people thathaven't seen that and don't know
what I'm talking about how areyou guys leveraging AI in your
business?
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Yeah, so Ryan's been a godsend.
I mean he picks on me a lot.
We'll do some speaking eventstogether or one more, something
he knows I can handle it.
He knows I can reduce adminworkload and, even more than
(46:01):
that, meet a need of our todaycustomer.
That isn't really reasonable,the expectation that our
customer has today.
It's very, very hard to meetthat with human beings.
They want everything right now.
Their attention span issomething I don't know.
Ryan knows the math, but it'ssomething like eight seconds.
If you're on one of those chatwidgets and you're literally not
(46:25):
just waiting at your screen forsomebody to start texting you,
you'll miss it and in eightseconds their attention span is
gone and they're moving on tothe next.
So getting AI that's reallyclever to help communicate with
them and after our support, Imean we're almost up to like 50%
of our little less than 50.
It's like 46 or 47 now, butalmost half the accidents are
(46:49):
happening outside of businesshours and there's a reason for
that.
So one out of every two cars ishappening when our shops close.
So you know there's there'ssome people that are, uh, doing
this different ways, but we'vegot to find ways to get the
customer.
So I've used my, after I was aiphone support.
That's what you heard, um,that's that, as you, as you, as
(47:13):
you saw, it's super intuitive,uh, and it's mind-blowing.
It can set up toes, it can, uh,you know, it'll send somebody a
link for the estimate now thatwhere another ai is going to
give an estimate 90 seconds,it'll help them book
appointments, it'll doeverything and it gives them, um
, control over their experience,which has been something that,
(47:33):
uh, you know that theirexperience, which has been
something that you know thatI've seen in some data, is that
they think people want more of apersonalized experience.
My can't really good at gettinga lot of this data, and that's
that's where a lot of that isthat has come from, and it, then
, you know, that's that's thebenefit of getting out and
getting in these groups andseeing this stuff is
understanding was driving itrather than I think or I feel.
(47:56):
So I always say liars, figure,figures don't lie.
You know, data, data is is acritical tool when you're, when
you're looking at what a I use,or what process do you need, or
or where, where are my holes, uh, within my market, and uh, and
measuring them.
I mean, you know the big onethat I talked about somewhere
else was capture rate.
(48:17):
So shops are now measuringtheir capture rate Not all of
them, but more than a lot morethan in 2023, when nobody needed
one more job and everybody'sdrinking through the fire hose.
Speaker 1 (48:29):
Right.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
But they're still doing it wrong.
One, when they're measuringcapture rate, they're not
measuring everything.
So if people walk in a lot oftimes, they don't record that.
Or if somebody would be aquote-unquote waste of time or a
tire kicker, whatever, that'sstill something you need to
monitor because it may or maynot be a waste of time.
It could be that somebodydidn't have enough training to
understand it.
You know what information, uh,they needed to know.
(48:51):
But also measuring was what'sthat wasn't with something.
What everybody's not doing rightis measuring initial first
contact.
So when you have about half ofthe people that call your shop
will never come in for anestimate and that's data that
I've seen, that I trust.
(49:12):
So when you look at all themarketing we're doing now, we're
looking at maybe DRPs that youbring on you got to give
discounts or we look atcertifications we got to buy
tools and buy training and thenwe finally get somebody that
calls or texts it or howeverthey try to communicate, and if
one out of two is going to callour shop and not like the
(49:33):
personalities, not feelconfident, not understand our
certification, not get back tothem soon enough, then I mean
you can put as much water as youwant in a colander, but it's
still all going to come out.
And I think that's where shopsreally have an opportunity is
getting that data, and we use AIfor that as well.
So we can go back and say whatis our real capture rate.
(49:55):
Getting that data and we use AIfor that as well.
So we can go back and say whatis our real capture rate.
So, if you're at 80% and youthink you're getting eight out
of 10 jobs, you may be at thecounter, but you're probably
getting more like four out of 10of what you should be getting,
because you lost half of them toget there.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
No, I would agree with that, jesse.
I don't think people capturereally all their points of
contact that are missed or blownor whatever, where AI is going
to do a much better job oftracking that stuff.
So have you had comments fromany of your customers going hey,
I, you know, I know that was AI, but man, it was so nice, it
was so quick, it was so easy.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
Yeah, I mean it's uh.
We started kind of serving thecustomers when they came and
asked him about that process.
Good, and a lot of more peoplehave been here before and
they're like, wow, that's new,that was really cool.
And yeah, there's times toowhere, you know, in the
beginning there was a few thingsthat needed to be trained, but
that's going to happen withanything.
So that's what I really likeabout Ryan is I can literally
(50:51):
call him and go hey, I wanted tosay this now, or I wanted to, I
wanted to train it to do thisor this or this.
So it's, uh, really flexibleand it's not a cookie cutter
business model, because eachshop is different.
We have differentcertifications, we have
different uh hours, we havedifferent ways we process stuff
and you know that that software,specifically uh is is very
(51:13):
customizable and there may beothers that are out there.
I haven't spent a ton of timelooking at other stuff.
I have seen a lot of the bigones and they are not as
flexible with what I want toneed.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
Yeah, I think Ryan's part alien.
Yeah, so that's.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
I think that's got some.
He's Canadian so I think it'sthe same thing.
Speaker 1 (51:31):
Hey, Jesse, I appreciate the conversation.
I could talk for another hourand probably next time I see you
we'll talk for another hour,but, as I wrap up, anything else
that you wanted to cover that Ihaven't asked about yet I know
I had a lot of stuff I wanted toask and I think we're focusing
on everything really criticalright now, which is figure out
where your work's coming from.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
If you're a DRP model I really work hard on scorecard
.
I mean that's your choice, yourbusiness model if you're not
drp, you're not certified.
There's some of those shops outthere understand that you're
going to have, you're going tohave oems pulling out here
having a ladle in your bucketand you're going to have drps
having a ladle in your buckettoo.
So you know it.
(52:12):
For whatever, whatever wedecide, we got to pick something
and uh, in my mind there's onlytwo.
And then, yeah, look and beopen to look at other processes.
Uh, be flexible with your staffand, and don't be afraid of ai.
Um, you know you still have achance to be, uh, somewhat of a
early adopter and still be ableto have a voice in what we're
(52:36):
doing.
Join the club.
It's not a bad thing, it'snothing to be afraid of.
It is out of my comfort zonetoo.
I mean, it's not what I do.
I much prefer the old way, butyou know there's so many
benefits and you know the peoplethat we hire want it and the
customers that are coming in nowlike the boomers there's fewer
(52:58):
of those and a lot more.
uh, gen x and gen z's I mean we,we, um, are millennials and and
gen z's.
So you know, as they come in,they're more techie, they want
to talk less, they're moresocially reserved, um, and we
just we got to adapt or we don't.
We don't, and you know, we justwill be one of those people
that's like I look at it, likethe guy Joe Dirt that only sells
(53:19):
snakes.
Right, okay, I know you likesnakes and you want to sell them
.
That's great, but people don'tlike snakes anymore.
So we got to start sellingother stuff.
Speaker 1 (53:27):
Yeah, no.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
I would agree.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
I so, for everybody tuned in, I've been talking with
jesse parks, the managingdirector of freeman collision,
out in santa rosa, california,from my view, one of the shops
on the top, but still growing,still climbing, which is what I
love to see.
So we're never done, we neverreally hit the top.
We're always finding anotherplateau, another new part of the
mountain to hit.
So, jesse, thank you so muchfor your time today.
I appreciate it.
(53:56):
I'll leave some show notes.
It's got some contactinformation for Jesse If you
want to reach out to him.
He's a wealth of informationand he's never afraid or never
too shy to share it with anybodythat asks.
Yeah, just great guy, and I'mglad I got a chance to talk with
you and get you on the showtoday.
Thank you so much 100%.
Speaker 2 (54:16):
Yeah, we've been trying to put this together for
a while now and, yeah, it's beengreat to talk to you and I
appreciate you thinking of meand it's an honor to be here,
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
Rick, you got it.
You're welcome and I lookforward to seeing you again,
probably at one of the nextconferences.
Yeah, and it's SEMA for sure.
Nothing else.
Sema for sure.
Absolutely, you got it.
Well, hopefully you enjoyed myin-depth conversation with Jesse
Parks at Freeman Collision,maybe learned a little bit about
what it takes to build awinning culture, how growth can
(54:45):
come from getting uncomfortableand leveraging AI to get a leg
up in your business.
You can always reach out toJesse if you want to ask him a
question.
He's always willing to helpothers.
I'll leave all of his contactinformation in the show notes.
Well, that's all I had for youtoday.
Thanks again for tuning in.
I really appreciate yoursupport and I hope you have a
(55:05):
great week.
I can always be reached atwwwrickselovercom, where you can
find all my social media linkspodcast episodes, blog posts and
much more.
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