00;00;00;00 - 00;00;10;04
Speaker 1
I texted my wife and I said, hey, I have to start a business. She texted back and she said, okay, what are we going to do? The first step I took was.

00;00;10;06 - 00;00;13;06
Speaker 2
Peter Bailey didn't come from a business school. He didn't.

00;00;13;06 - 00;00;16;00
Speaker 1
Have investors. What he had was a barn.

00;00;16;02 - 00;00;21;28
Speaker 2
A broken tiller, and a decision, one that would change everything.

00;00;22;00 - 00;00;40;12
Speaker 1
I didn't feel confident when it came down to, especially leading people or managing a business within two months. The county stopped out and said, hey, you can't have a business on a residential property. So with that same mentality, when I started my business, it was this mentality of I'm not planning to fail.

00;00;40;14 - 00;00;44;17
Speaker 2
Call limitless crazy. Consider shop. Yeah. What does that really mean to you?

00;00;44;20 - 00;00;51;03
Speaker 1
When I think of last year, I think of an experience that you're not going to get anywhere else.

00;00;51;05 - 00;00;56;25
Speaker 2
What's the hidden hustle behind Limitless Garage that most people don't see?

00;00;56;28 - 00;01;05;25
Speaker 1
I think it's the.

00;01;05;28 - 00;01;25;09
Speaker 2
All right. Welcome back to the Hidden Hustle. Today's guest, we have Peter Bailey. Peter is the founder of Limitless Garage out in Des Moines over by bomb cars. Before that was the operational director of many different local shops in the metro and has since started his own shop. So, Peter, how are you today?

00;01;25;11 - 00;01;26;16
Speaker 1
I'm doing well. Thanks for having me on.

00;01;26;17 - 00;01;33;04
Speaker 2
Awesome. Yeah, absolutely. So where did your passion for cars come from?

00;01;33;07 - 00;01;54;08
Speaker 1
Passion for cars. It was interesting. I don't know that it really started with as much just vehicles as it was small engine repair. I grew up on a hobby farm. I enjoyed that a whole lot. It was born out of necessity, I like to say, because one day there's a funny story. One day, we we're out on our hobby farm, and my mom had a fairly large garden, and I was out there with my brothers.

00;01;54;08 - 00;02;11;04
Speaker 1
I had two brothers and one sister, and my brothers were out there with my dad. It's springtime and it's time to, till it all up and get ready for planting it. And, my dad tries to start the tiller and it won't start. And then he looks at us, three boys and we're young. And he goes, hey, you guys, there's shovels over there.

00;02;11;04 - 00;02;32;11
Speaker 1
Just start digging and turning it up. And I'm like, there's not a chance. I'm not. I'm not going to dig this whole garden up. So I looked in the shop and I found a mower, engine that I had torn apart and put it in a five gallon pail, and I was, 10 or 11 years old, and, I reassembled it, and I swapped it with the mower that was on the tiller and got it running the same day, and dad could tell.

00;02;32;14 - 00;02;50;14
Speaker 1
And so I like to say the love was probably born out of necessity to a certain extent, but I still carried it for the rest of my life, pretty much. And I still enjoy it. I love turning wrenches. But I'll be interested to. Yeah, continue talking through this because some of it changes as we go, as my focus has changed over the years.

00;02;50;17 - 00;02;54;11
Speaker 2
Awesome. So what was your very first vehicle.

00;02;54;14 - 00;02;55;22
Speaker 1
That I worked on?

00;02;55;24 - 00;02;56;03
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;02;56;08 - 00;03;20;20
Speaker 1
Or that I owned both. Both. First vehicle that I owned was, is is like, 96 F-150 that I owned. First vehicle I worked on, it was either that or my parents vehicles. But, I mean, I worked on that truck quite a bit, again, just as a daily driver, and things went wrong and you're a teenager and don't have much money, so it's fix your own vehicle if you want to drive it.

00;03;20;28 - 00;03;28;19
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. So parents gave you a vehicle. It broke down. They said fix it or walk.

00;03;28;21 - 00;03;51;15
Speaker 1
Not exactly. To a certain extent. There were bits and pieces to that. My dad helped us start, small lawn mowing business, and the business bought the truck initially, was a used truck that it purchased. And then I drove that, while we owned the business. And then when I turned 18, then, I think I at that point, I don't know if the truck was still around at that point, to be honest.

00;03;51;15 - 00;03;55;13
Speaker 1
But anyways, it was it was born from when the business was opened.

00;03;55;17 - 00;03;57;16
Speaker 2
Yeah. So where did you grew up?

00;03;57;18 - 00;03;58;23
Speaker 1
I grew up right outside of Pella.

00;03;58;23 - 00;04;01;01
Speaker 2
Pella? Yeah. Okay. Like red rock?

00;04;01;04 - 00;04;05;29
Speaker 1
Yep. Around the red Rock area. It was, right outside of Otley. Small town.

00;04;06;02 - 00;04;07;14
Speaker 2
You were doing any cliff jumping there?

00;04;07;16 - 00;04;08;22
Speaker 1
No, I did not know.

00;04;08;22 - 00;04;16;07
Speaker 2
I was just I was just there this last week. And they've got some good, some good bouldering spots. Really? Rock climbing. It's all sandstone.

00;04;16;07 - 00;04;17;08
Speaker 1
So yeah.

00;04;17;11 - 00;04;20;26
Speaker 2
It kind of gets deformed over the years, but.

00;04;20;29 - 00;04;35;19
Speaker 1
It's not that clean of a lake. Like, I'll be honest, I don't know if there's any Iowa lakes that are super clean, but at the same time, I enjoy being out on the lake, but I enjoy it more if I go north or if I if I go out of state, like Minnesota has some decent lakes and stuff like that.

00;04;35;19 - 00;04;37;13
Speaker 1
But yeah, that'd be preferable.

00;04;37;18 - 00;04;43;08
Speaker 2
Yeah. So I grew up in Pella and where did you did you go to college?

00;04;43;10 - 00;04;46;17
Speaker 1
I initially came out of high school thinking I was gonna go into the military.

00;04;46;20 - 00;04;47;00
Speaker 2
Okay.

00;04;47;07 - 00;05;06;01
Speaker 1
I was, I didn't end up getting to go. I made it all the way through, some of the testing that was involved, my Asvab and everything, and then found out that I have a small heart murmur, which wouldn't allow me into the section of military that I was wanting to go into. And so that deviated me off of that course altogether.

00;05;06;01 - 00;05;23;26
Speaker 1
And I went down the course of, auto mechanics at that point. So then I did go to college. I went to the as a program, for General Motors, as GM, ASAP program. And I went through that. That was a two year program. You do it through the summertime. Well, you go through it's basically all all year round for two years.

00;05;23;28 - 00;05;45;23
Speaker 1
But every couple of months you go on to internship with whatever shop is, sponsoring you. So I went on to internships. Every couple months, you spend like four weeks in the shop. Learning and putting into practice the things that you initially learned in that course that you were already in for IndyMac. That makes sense. So I had a sponsor shop, and I worked at that shop for nine years.

00;05;45;28 - 00;05;54;00
Speaker 1
I worked all the way through college with them for those two years, and then I worked after that for like another 5 or 6 years, before I moved on from there.

00;05;54;02 - 00;06;01;11
Speaker 2
Gotcha, gotcha. So, how did you rise through the ranks to that operational director role?

00;06;01;13 - 00;06;20;04
Speaker 1
So the first shop I was at, I spent the majority of the time as an auto tech, and I learned, like, heavy diag, heavy repair. I got really familiar with it. I got pretty good at it, and I. I did enjoy it, but I got sick and burned out of, turning wrenches. I did not enjoy working on cars every single day, to be honest.

00;06;20;08 - 00;06;43;22
Speaker 1
And after about nine years of doing that, in that, I should add, I spent time as a tech. And then I also spent time learning with the owner and his son. I ended up spending some time learning service, advising customer relations, some other really fundamental things that were very helpful. After that stint of nine years, I ended up looking really outside of automotive altogether.

00;06;43;22 - 00;07;04;00
Speaker 1
I was looking for, I was looking for leadership roles, really. Like, I looked into even, like law enforcement. I looked into other things, kind of on that military aspect. It was like, hey, I want something that's more structured. Yeah. And, but hey, I spent probably two years looking for a job and it doors kept closing every single time and for no apparent reason.

00;07;04;00 - 00;07;20;22
Speaker 1
Like, I couldn't figure out why I could not make it into these areas. But then the next position I held, I was offered a position, actually, as a general manager for just one location, from this company. And, I took it and I was like, hey, I just want to learn to lead people, and I want to know what that takes.

00;07;20;22 - 00;07;40;24
Speaker 1
And so I took it, and in short order, I found out, due to my mechanical background, it was I was very valuable when it came down to learning people, leadership, but also leading potentially multiple stores. And that's how I continue to grow. So I was given the opportunity to work with the owner and the CEO, and I was I was thrilled to be able to do that.

00;07;40;26 - 00;07;55;17
Speaker 1
Yeah. Both of them have a lot of background and a lot of experience that taught me a lot of stuff. And in short order, it was like, hey, can you run a crew of 25 guys? Can you run two stores which include up to 50 or 60 people, and then you have managers that are managing those people.

00;07;55;20 - 00;08;18;23
Speaker 1
And then it was, hey, can you run three stores? Same kind of idea. And that's up to 60 or 70 people then. Plus your GM's. And you're not directly running the people, right? You're working with the leaders. And then it got to be, hey, we want to pull in operations managers, and I will help the operations managers and the general managers for each store and help with their.

00;08;18;23 - 00;08;37;06
Speaker 1
It could be profitability. It could be, process and development. It was, Oh, some HR stuff which you always get pulled into, leadership development. But yeah, I got I was blessed to be able to do that for just like four years, four and a half years or so.

00;08;37;12 - 00;08;45;28
Speaker 2
Yeah. So then how did the transition from that, wanting to start your own shop come to be?

00;08;46;00 - 00;09;05;14
Speaker 1
It was initially when I took the job, for even as a general manager, I had in the back of my mind, there was a chance I would want to do something on my own someday. And I actually had quite a few mentors that I worked with that told me that multiple times, like, hey, you should run your own shop, you should open it up, you should do your own thing.

00;09;05;18 - 00;09;21;22
Speaker 1
But I did not have confidence to do that, and I didn't have what I felt like I needed. I didn't feel confident when it came down to especially leading people or managing a business of any sort. I didn't, I didn't have confidence. So with that being said, as I move to those next four years, I got a lot more confident.

00;09;21;24 - 00;09;40;15
Speaker 1
I like working day in and day out with these people. It grew in confidence. And then ultimately, for the last like probably a year or so. Then it started to be like an internal battle for me was like, hey, like, I see where we can grow in these areas, but I got to hold my line because I'm, I'm still an employee.

00;09;40;15 - 00;10;00;24
Speaker 1
Like, I'm not making these calls. I'll make recommendations and suggestions and sometimes I'll have a lot of passion behind it. But at the same time, at the end of the day, I'm going to do whatever is asked of me because I'm working here and I've got a boss. And so I held that line for a long time, until I got to the point where I was like, hey, like, I'm ready to do my own thing because I feel like I'm confident I can do this.

00;10;00;26 - 00;10;26;23
Speaker 1
And, I remember there was a night or there was, there was an evening. I can't remember what exactly. I came home and I think at that point, for the last like six months of my stint at, this the last place I worked I hired out of my own pocket. I hired a, professional coach, just to walk me through, like, leadership styles, as well as how to professionally develop, whether it's in a career or opening up my own business.

00;10;26;25 - 00;10;44;09
Speaker 1
And I had hired this coach and I was working through with him multiple of these different issues I was running into. And I remember vividly one night, I can't remember I got off a call with him or what, but I texted my wife because she was out with the kids and doing an activity, and I texted my wife and I said, hey, I have to start a business, like I have to do something.

00;10;44;16 - 00;10;56;17
Speaker 1
And it's funny. She texted back and she says, she says, okay, what are we going to do? I was like, man, okay, this is boring from here. So I was it was really cool. But at the same time, that was kind of the trajectory of it. And the fun part of it.

00;10;56;17 - 00;11;02;03
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Were there ever any doubts or what gave you the guts to to go and start.

00;11;02;03 - 00;11;20;11
Speaker 1
To do it? Yeah, the, the guts part was the hard part. Probably the confidence again, I'd say was was there and I was gung ho ready to go knowing that at any point I you I could fail. Any business can fail. But I have something I, I continued to tell the guys at my last company and it was interesting.

00;11;20;11 - 00;11;38;27
Speaker 1
It was born out of when we would create schedules and labor in these scenarios was very valuable. So like the amount of people on a floor and how much you're going to spend on labor, so you don't want to you don't want to overcomplicate the schedule and create it too heavy on labor, but not have the cars to support it because you're off balance then.

00;11;38;27 - 00;11;58;25
Speaker 1
And so my managers or the people I would lead would constantly get concerned about do we have the cars to support the labor? And I would always pull historical data from past years and say, hey, this over the past few years, this is what we've seen. We're not going to plan to fail here. We're going to plan to succeed.

00;11;58;27 - 00;12;13;21
Speaker 1
And if we can't succeed and we can't find any way to succeed, then we're going to figure out what's next. So with that same mentality, when I started my business, it was this mentality of I'm not planning to fail, I'm planning to go into this and succeed. And if for some reason God has something else in store, I'll find out.

00;12;13;24 - 00;12;32;15
Speaker 1
And it won't be due to a lack of attempting or trying. Like I will try anything. So yeah, when I made that switch, that's kind of the mentality I had going in it. And I was I think it really helped being mentally prepared for whatever comes. Like you're not going to know what's going to come up, but at least, you know, I'll be honest.

00;12;32;15 - 00;12;42;22
Speaker 1
Something's going to go wrong. And if you're mentally prepared that something's going to go wrong, you're you're mostly ready for it. It's like, okay, I was expecting this to pop up at some point or something to pop up, and now we get to deal with it.

00;12;42;22 - 00;12;48;23
Speaker 2
Let's do it. Yeah. Okay. You've decided, you know, you want to start your own business. What was that first step.

00;12;48;25 - 00;13;11;03
Speaker 1
I like, the first step I took was, starting an LLC, and, fortunately, I had my dad, help significantly in this area area. He, he spent some time even teaching entrepreneurship, but he was really involved in entrepreneurship, both himself and with other people. And so he was able to very easily help me start an LLC and, start my company.

00;13;11;05 - 00;13;31;26
Speaker 1
Then it started after that. It was just networking and finding the people I needed. So, banker, insurance agents, whether you need a lawyer. What what what else do you need at the same time? And so I started networking, finding the people that I knew, calling them, emailing them, and just starting to put together my, the people that are going to be helping me for the rest of the time.

00;13;31;28 - 00;13;38;03
Speaker 2
Yeah. What was your initial vision for what you wanted? Limitless garage to stand for?

00;13;38;06 - 00;13;57;26
Speaker 1
In my mind, I wanted to, I think, well, in my mind, I wanted to be able to offer an experience that was completely different, and I didn't know how to define it by any means when I started the business. But I was really interested in, changing the experience for people. I mean, even in small shops, a lot of them, they want to build a trustworthy name.

00;13;57;26 - 00;14;23;09
Speaker 1
I, of course, want to build a trustworthy name and be very and have high integrity throughout it as well as well. But ultimately, in my mind, it was missing an experience that I thought that everybody would enjoy and want for their vehicles. And so Limitless Garage was born to focus on an experience for people that they won't forget, but that will always bring them back to us.

00;14;23;09 - 00;14;30;00
Speaker 1
And that caters towards, what feels like a high end experience for all my customers. Yeah.

00;14;30;02 - 00;14;36;11
Speaker 2
Tell me more about that high end experience. What are you providing that most people wouldn't get at any local quickly?

00;14;36;13 - 00;14;54;16
Speaker 1
Sure. We provide a lot of components that I think a lot of shops offer, but at the same time don't always market a whole lot. So a lot of shops and even dealerships, they offer free pickup and delivery, we offer free pickup and delivery. And I honestly market it a whole lot for customers to try to get them brought in for that.

00;14;54;18 - 00;15;10;28
Speaker 1
But also give them the ease because as a shop, it can be very easy to think, hey, I'm just bringing this vehicle in or I'm going to pick up this vehicle so that I can just get the car in. And, the customer wouldn't have time or something like that. In my in my mind, it's much different.

00;15;10;28 - 00;15;27;06
Speaker 1
It's, hey, I'm offering this, and I'm really pushing for it because I want the people to understand or my customers to understand how easy it is for your car to be repaired. Right. We're coming to their we're coming to their office. We're coming to their home, wherever they are. We'll pick up the car. A lot of times we'll drop a loaner car off for them.

00;15;27;09 - 00;15;47;14
Speaker 1
Give them the keys for that. And then they have a car to drive while they're out. So that would be a big one. Some of the other stuff is, there's multiple components to this, but it's, the process that we bring them or take them through is very important to me. So when they we pick up the car and we bring it back, speed of service is huge.

00;15;47;14 - 00;16;15;05
Speaker 1
So getting answers for them very quickly because especially if we're diagnosing a vehicle, it can be concerning not knowing what's wrong with your car and whether you're going to be spending tens of thousands of dollars or what are you spending a hundred bucks on your car, right? So getting them answers quickly and bringing them through that process, during that, offering them an experience where they are very involved and it's a visual experience because a lot of times, people, it's hard to build trust just over a phone when you're talking to them.

00;16;15;05 - 00;16;36;19
Speaker 1
You can, but it's more difficult. In my mind. It's much easier when it's visual. So sending them digital vehicle inspections, where it comes with the photos of everything on their car, they can see, they can see their car there, and then they can see the photos from it, circling the individual pieces. That may be having issues. And then they can see those as well.

00;16;36;22 - 00;16;56;28
Speaker 1
Next thing is, providing a video recording of myself, right, going through the digital inspection, so that I can briefly explain it to them. So it's like a 32nd to a minute long video going through it so that they can see it. And then I send the video plus the report to them. That builds a lot of trust with people, and then they can see what's going on.

00;16;57;00 - 00;17;14;15
Speaker 1
So I'd say that effort in that time span is, is huge to me. And then the last pieces are going to be, I think people really like the experience when they come to the shop because it's a clean shop. A bit of a neat freak when it comes down to it. I enjoy everything to be organized, very clean.

00;17;14;22 - 00;17;28;20
Speaker 1
So I like and I hope that people are impressed when they come to the shop to see how your vehicle is being taken care of, along with it, depending on what people are having repaired, a lot of times will wash cars. So you get done with the service. And we'll wash and detail the car very quickly.

00;17;28;20 - 00;17;45;27
Speaker 1
We'll vacuum the inside, wipe out the inside, and get it back to them. It's hard to it's hard to see. Or for a customer to tell if a car's been worked on when it. Let's say it's a cabin filter or an air filter was replaced, is nothing, performance wise that you're going to notice in a car, a lot of times, right.

00;17;45;29 - 00;18;02;10
Speaker 1
You will notice if you get into a clean car, and even if you spent 80 bucks, even if you spent $3,000 on your vehicle, getting into a car that you feel like you have had something done to and that you can tangibly notice, right, is huge for customers. And they really like that part. Yeah.

00;18;02;10 - 00;18;07;17
Speaker 2
How many different things are aspects do you cover in your inspection?

00;18;07;20 - 00;18;13;21
Speaker 1
Oh man, we can do this the other day. I'm trying to remember, I think it was like 40 to 40 2 or 43 different pieces.

00;18;13;25 - 00;18;15;02
Speaker 2
42 point inspection.

00;18;15;02 - 00;18;30;08
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, that we cover. So there's a lot of it and sometimes it changes. Right? I mean, if you have a four wheel drive vehicle, you got more diffs and you got a transfer case. So you're going to be checking you got a two wheel drive vehicle, you're going to have 2 or 3 less components. So it varies a little bit depending on the setup.

00;18;30;08 - 00;18;30;21
Speaker 1
But yeah.

00;18;30;24 - 00;18;41;04
Speaker 2
Yeah definitely. So when you're first launching the business what were some of the hardest parts that, you had to overcome?

00;18;41;06 - 00;19;00;18
Speaker 1
I had a couple hurdles right out of the gate, which I wasn't expecting. Cost of setup is. I mean, it seems like you always underestimate how much is going to cost for tools and everything like that. Right? And I did it all. Or I installed everything myself, and I put it all together myself as well, which I wouldn't have changed anything going back.

00;19;00;18 - 00;19;19;10
Speaker 1
But at the same time, cost of setup was larger than I initially intended. But again, I was aware that might happen and we were ready to cross that when it came building set up. I set up the shop initially on my property. We live on a in a rural place and I have a nice pull barn that I redid.

00;19;19;10 - 00;19;38;21
Speaker 1
I repainted the outside. I wasn't about to reshoot the whole thing with metal, and I wanted it to be a different color. So I did a lot of research and talked to a lot or several guys that paint, and I ended up painting the the exterior of that. That's a lot of time. I mean, power washing and replacing stuff as you go and taping it all off and painting it, that took a long time.

00;19;38;21 - 00;20;02;16
Speaker 1
So initial setup time took a lot longer. So that was an initial one. Probably the second biggest or the probably the biggest piece was within in short order when starting my business, within two months or a month maybe, of having the doors open, I would say, the county stopped out and said, hey, you can't have a business on a residential property.

00;20;02;19 - 00;20;16;08
Speaker 1
I was like, well, I'm really rural, so I'm surprised anything happened. But yeah, I knew that was a potential. And within like six weeks of opening, I had that hit me. I'm like, oh, okay, now I gotta go find a commercial location and let's do it.

00;20;16;12 - 00;20;22;19
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. So how did you get your initial customers?

00;20;22;21 - 00;20;43;03
Speaker 1
A lot of it was word, but word of mouth. I had customers from the past because I'd worked on a lot of cars by that point. So I had customers that had followed me to a certain extent, and still had me working on their cars, even, like, I'll be honest, even on like weekends, they'd have something go wrong and they're like, hey, I couldn't have, I have they'd have mechanics that looked at them and they didn't know exactly what was going on.

00;20;43;03 - 00;20;57;08
Speaker 1
So they'd call me like, nobody can figure this out. Can you figure it out? It's like, all right, bring it by. I still doing it out of my shop and working full time at that point. So I bring it by, I'll look at it and I'll see what's wrong. So a lot of it was word of mouth and customers that had followed me from other shops and stuff like that.

00;20;57;10 - 00;21;11;29
Speaker 2
Right? Yeah, I know we've already covered this. But I wanted to touch on it again. You called Limitless Garage a concierge shop? Yeah. What does that really mean to you?

00;21;12;01 - 00;21;37;10
Speaker 1
Can I see your shop in my mind? It offers an experience a that you're not going to get anywhere else, but then be that guides you through it. When I think of year, I think of recommendations. I think of, again, I think of higher end or luxury feeling. I think of, the feeling that you don't need to put much thought into what you're going to be doing.

00;21;37;10 - 00;21;55;04
Speaker 1
Like, for instance, if you go to if you go to stay at a nice hotel, Ritz-Carlton anywhere like that. Right. If you have a concierge, they may tell you where to go, what activities to do for the day, what restaurants to try for the evening, how to dress for that evening. They, they come up with all these different avenues.

00;21;55;04 - 00;22;17;15
Speaker 1
And then also on top of that, for a Ritz-Carlton, they're offering all these different pieces to that experience, whether it be the smell of the hotel when you walk in, whether it be the personalized gifts that are left for you in your hotel room, right. When I think of concierge, that's what I think of. So for Limitless Garage, as I started putting those pieces together, it it started forming as, recommendations for cars.

00;22;17;18 - 00;22;41;06
Speaker 1
That were not just repair based, but also it could be after getting to know the customer that fits them like, the type of vehicle you're driving in the truck you're driving. It could be leaving a personalized gift inside the vehicle for them. But ultimately getting to know the customer and knowing how to cater the experience to meet their expectations and also to outdo their expectations every time.

00;22;41;08 - 00;22;58;16
Speaker 2
In the beginning, starting your business, you know you're on your own property. Okay, now you've got to find this commercial space where there ever any, any doubts or, voices in your head that were telling you, you know, maybe you can't do this.

00;22;58;19 - 00;23;04;29
Speaker 1
Oh, sure.

00;23;05;01 - 00;23;26;09
Speaker 1
There likely were. And I say likely were, because every time I felt that or or something like that, I knew I hadn't given it my best effort. And so anytime I felt it, it's just like. Have you tried everything, Peter? And by everything, if we got into, like, how I found the property that I'm at right now, I felt like I put everything into that.

00;23;26;11 - 00;23;47;25
Speaker 1
And it's not because it's the best property by any means, but it's more along the lines of, there's not like to be on a budget to a certain extent and to be able to rent a location, or lease a location, even getting the right landlord, like, it gets kind of involved. So, I mean, I looked at 12, 15, 20 properties, probably, I had our real estate agent at that point in time.

00;23;47;25 - 00;24;04;21
Speaker 1
Like, tell me, Peter, you can't be so picky. Like, I wanted something that looked halfway decent. Or I could put effort and make it look like. Okay, look good. I needed floor drains, but in order to have a floor drain and meat code, I had to have certain requirements for that floor drain. I had to be in the right area.

00;24;04;21 - 00;24;30;02
Speaker 1
So I met the commercial zoning regulations and everything like that. So there were pieces to that that you have to make sure it works. But then on top of it, as I went through landlords, there's certain landlords that don't want to rent to automotive repair, and that's understandable. I mean, automotive repair in general can be a very dirty job, and people may not take care of their location or their parking lot or anything like that.

00;24;30;04 - 00;24;53;05
Speaker 1
And so as I got into the weeds farther and farther, I had a time crunch of January that I had to be in a place, and by December I'd still not found a place. And so I got into first second weeks of January or first second weeks of December. And I remember going to see properties with my realtor and, they would they would always be the face for me, right?

00;24;53;05 - 00;25;07;09
Speaker 1
To the business owner or whomever they're working with or the other realtor. And, I remember getting to a point with them that I was like, hey, just let me talk to the owner. Like, I want to talk to them. I want to show them where I've worked in the past and what I'm capable of doing. They're like, no, this won't work.

00;25;07;09 - 00;25;25;00
Speaker 1
So I remember hunting down who owns the buildings and texting them and calling them and saying, hey, my name is Peter. I want to rent from you. I know that you're, concerned about renting to automotive repair. Can you call me? And I had one owner that called me back, and he's like, well, he's he's like, hi, Peter.

00;25;25;00 - 00;25;42;03
Speaker 1
I don't know you, but talk to me a little bit about what you got. And so I talked to him about it and I laid it all out for him. And, he was brought in by the end. He said, I've got another. They had another person that was looking at it, that one. It ended up falling through, but that was the closest I got to to it, or talking to an owner.

00;25;42;03 - 00;25;53;02
Speaker 1
And eventually we had the current property pop up and the owner, was okay with automotive repair. And so we moved in the first week of January and barely everything worked out. Yeah.

00;25;53;05 - 00;26;21;00
Speaker 2
Yeah. That's awesome in your soul, you know, like, if you've put your all towards something. Oh, yeah. So it's it's hard to trick yourself that, Like the question, like what were the voices in your head that, saying what the what were the voices in your head saying when things got tough? It's like, you know, it doesn't matter what they're saying, but, like, can you ask yourself, did you give it your all?

00;26;21;00 - 00;26;23;02
Speaker 2
I love that mentality.

00;26;23;04 - 00;26;48;11
Speaker 1
I think the same mentality comes, I think in my opinion, same mentality goes for really good leaders. Extreme ownership is huge in my opinion. And I know a lot of people take it a lot of different ways. And there's a lot of different leaders, very successful ones out there. The leader that I want to be and that I choose to try to be every day, is a leader that has extreme ownership in every, in every spot of the business.

00;26;48;11 - 00;27;10;15
Speaker 1
So with that mentality, he comes like, it doesn't it doesn't matter whether it's your fault, it doesn't matter whether you made the mistake to begin with, if it falls in your hands at the end of it, or if it's part of the business to begin with. I'm taking ownership of that. It's like I'm not going to have it happen again, but at the same time, I'm going to learn from it and I'll get better from it.

00;27;10;17 - 00;27;34;08
Speaker 1
And then ultimately, it makes you try what you feel like. It's every single thing to make sure that you provide what you say you're going to do every single time. So yes, I agree it would be, it's huge, in my opinion, to have the mentality that if you can sit down and you say, I tried every single thing and you're able to go to people and ask them if they can think of anything else, I did that a whole lot.

00;27;34;08 - 00;27;49;29
Speaker 1
And this is like, hey, what am I missing? Like, is there something else I can try here? I still have that and I still do ask those questions, but I got to the point with, like, that building search where it's like, is there something else? And people would say, well, maybe you could try this, or they'd say, no, you've tried everything else, Peter.

00;27;50;03 - 00;28;04;02
Speaker 1
And then something else would dawn on me during the night or something like that. Like reaching out to owners is like, that's crazy, you know? Why would you do that? Well, I'm desperate to a certain extent, but like, I want to say, I've done everything. It's. I'm going to do everything.

00;28;04;07 - 00;28;13;06
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. Where do you think you're. Passion for leadership came from?

00;28;13;09 - 00;28;30;22
Speaker 1
It was it grew over time. It's interesting because I didn't initially have that by any means. It may have been in me, but I didn't really spend any time thinking about it. And to be honest, even owning a business, I didn't want to own a business. If you ask me. Ten years ago, I didn't want anything to do with it.

00;28;30;25 - 00;28;46;20
Speaker 1
And most of it came from, most of it came from some, like early on when I was like, in lawn mowing, landscaping. There was pieces of that that I really didn't enjoy that much. But then ultimately I was like, hey, if I could just work for somebody else and I can make money, I'm going to be happy doing that.

00;28;46;23 - 00;29;16;16
Speaker 1
But then as I continue my career, like something kept nagging inside of me where I was like, I, I can figure this out and I can do it. Whether it be car repair, something inside of a business or anything like that. And if I'm taught I constantly wanted to be able to do that. So, ultimately, the leadership, in my experience, was born when I started to, I started really enjoy talking to people, understanding how they work.

00;29;16;16 - 00;29;32;15
Speaker 1
And then also even through sports like, being a team captain and stuff like that, it's like, man, there's there's things that make people click that you can get like even out on a sports field, get people riled up and ready to go when things are down. And that's what I wanted.

00;29;32;18 - 00;29;48;04
Speaker 2
Was there ever anything that you had to learn the hard way? As a business owner, that maybe a job couldn't have taught you?

00;29;48;06 - 00;30;17;01
Speaker 1
I think you can learn most stuff through a job, or let's say through it. Yeah, through W2 job. You'll learn it faster when you have to make the calls and you have to do it yourself. So for me, I learned a lot of this stuff at my previous employers, but when I had to make the calls and I had to spend the money and I had to make the decisions, I got a lot better at it and a lot faster at it as well.

00;30;17;03 - 00;30;47;24
Speaker 1
So foresight was huge. Like, what areas of my business are going to be impacted by the decisions that I'm making today or what I'm doing got a lot better at that very quickly. There's bits and pieces, like setting up a business that I knew not I knew very little about, and that's been helpful. I've gotten really good at researching and talking to people about different things, whether it be, whether it be zoning regulations for where you have to be, requirements for your building.

00;30;47;24 - 00;30;53;02
Speaker 1
I, I got good at making contacts and networking in those areas, and that was helpful.

00;30;53;05 - 00;31;01;28
Speaker 2
Yeah. What's the challenge right now that you're actively trying to figure out right now?

00;31;02;01 - 00;31;21;29
Speaker 1
We're blessed to have two guys that recently started. So now we have or I have three, employees, and it's not it's a challenge because it's it's time consuming. But training is huge, in my opinion. As well as retaining the people that I'm going to spend a lot of time with, if that makes sense. Right.

00;31;21;29 - 00;31;41;25
Speaker 1
So I want a good culture, and I want a work environment that people want to be a part of. But training the guys and getting them to to the level that A is beneficial to the business, but also beneficial to them is is huge right now. So I'm spending a lot of time directly 1 to 1 with them in the bays with them.

00;31;41;28 - 00;31;50;09
Speaker 1
Troubleshooting with them, showing them how I troubleshoot. Right. But building the culture and the mentality that I'm after in the businesses is where I'm at right now.

00;31;50;17 - 00;31;57;24
Speaker 2
Yeah. What's really important to you with with the culture you're trying to build right now?

00;31;57;26 - 00;32;21;16
Speaker 1
The a good culture in my mind is, it's high performance. But it's also back to extreme ownership. I have it, in my opinion. And I want whoever works to me for me to have it as well. And I want, I want, I want our employees. I want our guys to have humbleness and be able to ask for help when needed.

00;32;21;16 - 00;32;42;19
Speaker 1
But at the same time, confidence and all of those pieces together are difficult in my mind to foster correctly and to build correctly. But at the same time, if done, I've seen cultures like it, but it's done, un rapport with people that can be very self-motivated and motivating, but also hold each other accountable at the same time.

00;32;42;19 - 00;33;05;10
Speaker 1
Not because I'm not happy or not willing to hold people accountable, but more along the lines of, in my opinion, like the best cultures have or will self-select people that don't fit them. And in order to do that, or build a culture like that, you have to have strong and empathetic leadership, humbleness to always be learning.

00;33;05;10 - 00;33;29;28
Speaker 1
But then at the same time, I, you need be able to have hard conversations very quickly with people in a gracious manner and in a kind way. But at the same time, no, no, what needs to be said and done when it comes down to it, I had, in 2022, I was working still had this last company as a director of operations.

00;33;29;28 - 00;33;51;13
Speaker 1
And I remember sitting down with my CEO beginning of the year, and talking to him, and I said, hey, one of my New Year's resolutions is I'm going to have the hard conversations first, hands down, every single time when I walk into a store or I talk to a manager, if there's something that's there that makes me not want to have the conversation, that's the first thing I'm going to do every single time.

00;33;51;16 - 00;34;15;13
Speaker 1
And it was a real benefit because you walk in and somebody's late or, somebody didn't follow procedures correctly, being able to sit down and have a hard conversation with them very quickly, set them up for success every single time. And yourself. But at the same time, it's when you don't talk about it. It really is a it sucks for people because they're always walking on eggshells.

00;34;15;15 - 00;34;32;08
Speaker 1
They know maybe they did something wrong, but nobody's talked to them about it. But if you just upfront and you say and you and you kindly tell them what's going on, and then also what needs to change moving forward, echo so much better and you find out the people that want to work or want to stay in the career that they're in get better.

00;34;32;13 - 00;34;33;23
Speaker 1
Yeah. Every time.

00;34;33;25 - 00;34;39;13
Speaker 2
Gary Vaynerchuk calls it kind candor. Yeah, I like that kind.

00;34;39;15 - 00;34;42;12
Speaker 1
I mean, I've kind that nice. I've heard that right.

00;34;42;18 - 00;34;44;18
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;34;44;20 - 00;34;48;06
Speaker 1
Yeah, there's a lot of different phrases for it, but I agree 100%.

00;34;48;08 - 00;34;55;20
Speaker 2
Yeah. You ever had any customer experiences that are memorable and all the years you've been in this career.

00;34;55;23 - 00;34;59;04
Speaker 1
Oh gosh I like bad ones.

00;34;59;06 - 00;35;02;16
Speaker 2
I don't know what's an exciting one.

00;35;02;19 - 00;35;41;08
Speaker 1
Yeah I've, I've had I've had a lot I feel like I've had I mean cars are people's second biggest investment a lot of times. Right. They're important to people. And I 100% understand that and agree with it. I had people in my last employer, though, I had people that were kind of nuts sometimes. And, I remember one vividly while to several to, I guess one that, was talking to a general manager and got outraged at an oil change issue, and, the general manager was doing their best to try to help with it, but this customer asked to talk to their boss, right.

00;35;41;08 - 00;36;10;00
Speaker 1
And so it's calling me and the ops managers, and they wanted to fight somebody. So we show up in the parking lot and and 100% in your face, ready to punch you and want to fight you. And it's like, I'm not fighting you right now, and we're on private property. So it's, that was an interesting one. I had a customer outraged again, at a different location, and they call the cops on me, and they show up and is very kindly and, levelheaded.

00;36;10;00 - 00;36;28;26
Speaker 1
Lee talking to the officers and saying, hey, like, this is what's going on. It's a business trying to operate. And they were very kind. The officers understood immediately what was going on. But to a certain extent, some of it had to be very firm because the customer's saying, hey, we're going to leave our car, we're here and you have to fix it.

00;36;28;26 - 00;36;45;13
Speaker 1
And you're saying, no, it's private property. You got to take it in. Otherwise I'm gonna have a towed. So, wow. Customers are crazy, though. Like, there's some that are just. You can't make everybody happy every single time, and that's okay. But at the same time, it's frustrating when you can't.

00;36;45;16 - 00;36;52;21
Speaker 2
Really see Limitless Garage in the next 3 or 5 years.

00;36;52;23 - 00;37;08;23
Speaker 1
I think those are possibly two different mile markers for us. In three years. I would like to see, our current garage, or our current shop at, at capacity. So that would be.

00;37;08;25 - 00;37;10;13
Speaker 2
You've got three bays right now.

00;37;10;16 - 00;37;40;03
Speaker 1
Yeah. Three hoists. So, yeah. Three bays. Options for a fourth hoist to go in there and a fifth if we wanted. But, I'd like to have three technicians, a service advisor, a driver, and then, myself. So I'd like to have five guys in three years, and be running at max capacity for that one spot, which would be four hoists and three techs.

00;37;40;06 - 00;37;51;03
Speaker 2
What does getting to that mile marker look like building that team? What's your, I guess, what's your strategy behind building a team?

00;37;51;06 - 00;38;12;15
Speaker 1
The right people are huge. I want to be able to take advantage of the, opportunity if people are there. So it takes time to find good people, obviously. But sometimes the right people enter your life at what you feel like are not the right times. And I want to be open and ready for those times, when or if God provides them.

00;38;12;22 - 00;38;51;23
Speaker 1
Yeah. So if somebody walked through the doors today, let's just say it was a fantastic tech and has worked for 15 years and just wants a good place to work, and it seems like a good fit. I want to be able to have the opportunity for him unless I'm at the capacity that I'm looking at. So as I build our team, the strategy is not only I'm finding the balance between the time spent with the guys and customer satisfaction, because I play a lot of roles right now, and then also building the building blocks of the business that I feel are necessary for those, so when I was in operations, procedures and

00;38;51;23 - 00;39;12;25
Speaker 1
policies are huge procedures in my mind are really big for me. And so building the right procedures as we go. So that guys it's a so it can be repeatable for the guys and easy for them to find what's next. And it makes it learning easier for them so that, that they don't feel like they're always questioning or feeling like their day is different every single day.

00;39;12;27 - 00;39;17;22
Speaker 2
So what does scaling your business look like?

00;39;17;25 - 00;39;44;01
Speaker 1
I think in order to scale, I've got to have a repeatable process. And what we just talked about, I think is the beginning stepping stones of building that repeatable process, so that we can scale in my mind, scaling then would be effectively going to different locations and being able to open more locations. And having the same experience every time, the same look, same feel, same kind of customers and clientele.

00;39;44;03 - 00;40;00;28
Speaker 2
If you could give advice to someone in a 9 to 5 job right now with the dream of starting something similar to how you did, what would you say to.

00;40;01;00 - 00;40;22;19
Speaker 1
A lot of people that I talked to initially when I was thinking about opening my own business, I got varied results from, and by varied results, I got people, of course, set up or start up businesses, and they had so much work ahead of them that they're like, or that they come away with, like, it's just a lot of hard work, long days, grueling hours.

00;40;22;21 - 00;40;46;22
Speaker 1
Some days you don't make as much money as you're wanting and stuff like that. And it almost seemed to be a deterrent to a certain extent. And I didn't enjoy those conversations very much, and it didn't make me want to start a business very much. However, when I've talked to other people that are potentially wanting to start their own business and I haven't spoken to a whole lot, and I've only been doing this for a year now.

00;40;46;25 - 00;41;11;13
Speaker 1
I always get excited for them and with them and encourage them down the road, to see what kind of individual they are. Generally speaking, if I can talk to them and get them excited about the fact, I'll be honest. If you can get excited about the fact that you may have days that you can work 14, 16, 18, 20 hours in that day, 100% all in, do it, if you can be excited about it.

00;41;11;18 - 00;41;32;23
Speaker 1
But if you're constantly to turn like, well, no, I just I want to be home at 5:00 every night and I want to be able to, go on vacation for two weeks or three weeks or four weeks. That's not normally the way it's going to work right off the bat. For an entrepreneur, it may, but at the same time, it's probably farther down the road.

00;41;32;25 - 00;41;44;01
Speaker 1
It's not like it's never going to happen, but, the fun for me is the challenge, the excitement, the constant up and downs is blast.

00;41;44;03 - 00;41;45;11
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;41;45;14 - 00;41;59;17
Speaker 1
I like that question though. Because I've had so many people that have, I've talked to about business ownership in the past and it, it seems like there is, there's people that fall on both, both sides of that.

00;41;59;20 - 00;42;01;26
Speaker 2
People that want the lifestyle but not the work.

00;42;01;26 - 00;42;26;28
Speaker 1
Correct. Yep. But also it seems like people don't understand. It's not that you have to have one to have the other necessarily, but I do think it's valuable to understand that what is motivating to you and not just what's motivating in automotive for me, or what's motivating for an individual that may be, I don't know, in health care or you name it, real estate or anything like that.

00;42;27;00 - 00;42;50;21
Speaker 1
Yes, the passion could be there. But in my mind, I'm not I'm not married to vehicles by any means. Like, cars are fun, but they don't always excite me. What excites me genuinely is like, I can build it and I can figure it. I get to have the reins to figure it out every single time. And, if I fail, I fail.

00;42;50;21 - 00;43;16;16
Speaker 1
But it's my own fault. But if I succeed, I know what to change each time. And I can grow from that each time. And it's constant learning, which is a blast. My wife would tell you all the ups and downs and she's been the best supporter along the way. But, it's that same mentality of like, when we started the business, being able to think into the future and say, hey, there's going to be challenges that come our way.

00;43;16;16 - 00;43;34;02
Speaker 1
We got to be prepared. This can be challenges, because not every day is sunshine and rainbows, but at the same time, when that challenge comes, being grateful for it, changes your mentality. So with my life that our communication style has changed a whole lot along the way also, and it's been interesting to note,

00;43;34;04 - 00;43;53;02
Speaker 1
If she and I prepare each other for what may happen or what we think or project may happen in a day, in a week or anything like that, it is so much easier to deal with it along the time or along or along the path. So with starting the business, it was preparing ourselves for stuff's going to happen.

00;43;53;04 - 00;44;06;24
Speaker 1
Crap's going to hit the fan and we're going to be ready for it when it happens. And in my mind, every time I get in the middle of something, I'm like, why? Why would I? Why should I have to deal with this? Why would it happened to me?

00;44;06;26 - 00;44;19;13
Speaker 1
Normally I normally, well, normally. Thank God for it. Every single time. It's just like, thank you for the challenge. Thank you for the opportunity. I'm going to go and I'm going to do my best.

00;44;19;16 - 00;44;22;12
Speaker 2
Yeah. It's the only way you get better.

00;44;22;15 - 00;44;36;03
Speaker 1
Oh yeah 100%. You're never ever going to being stagnant sucks being stuck. And not in my opinion not everybody's. But not being able to continue to challenge yourself is no fun in my mind.

00;44;36;06 - 00;44;47;27
Speaker 2
Last question what's what's the hidden hustle behind limitless Garage that most people don't see?

00;44;48;00 - 00;45;00;17
Speaker 1
I might I might need your help. With pinpointing the question. Better. To be honest, I could take it a whole lot of different ways. I feel like.

00;45;00;19 - 00;45;27;19
Speaker 2
People see business owners and think that, you know, well, they must be rich or. Wow, you know, look at their shop. Look at how beautiful and clean it is. Like they must they're doing it right. But what's something that people don't see? What's that hidden hustle that, isn't visible to the public?

00;45;27;21 - 00;45;38;23
Speaker 1
I think it's the, Well, it's it's the mentality and the purpose and drive of not only myself, but also my crew and my guys.

00;45;41;15 - 00;46;07;21
Speaker 1
Whether it be extreme ownership or whether it be the cleanliness that's in the shop. But all of those are driven by a passion. And I want not only myself, but for my employees to feel the passion as well and their own way. And so when people come in and experience it and they we whether it be the we've gotten a lot of comments like even on our restroom or bathroom, people walk in like.

00;46;07;24 - 00;46;26;09
Speaker 1
Why does your bathroom have like posters of like areas of corvettes? And we painted and epoxy the floors and everything so clean and bright it's like, well, this is part of the experience, part of the passion. Like, if I walked in somewhere, I don't I don't want to walk in somewhere and, and have a bad experience or walk into a dirty bathroom.

00;46;26;11 - 00;46;38;20
Speaker 1
I don't I wouldn't trust anybody. Right. So the hidden hustle behind it, I think, are the people, the passion, and the execution that we deliver on every single day and are committed to.

00;46;38;22 - 00;46;44;04
Speaker 2
It's awesome. Well, thanks for coming on the show. Where can people reach you?

00;46;44;06 - 00;47;06;14
Speaker 1
Obviously, you can always call the shop. You can email the shop. But if you're local. But at the same time, you can follow us on Facebook. Limitless garage. Just look us up on Facebook, Instagram. Limitless garage as well. Phone number. You can reach us at, (641) 230-1274. Call the shop, make an appointment. You can book online.

00;47;06;16 - 00;47;09;06
Speaker 1
Look us up on our website. Limitless garage eco.

00;47;09;08 - 00;47;23;18
Speaker 2
Yeah. All right. Awesome. Well, thank you guys for tuning in. We'll have all of Peter's information down in the show notes below and keep us on.