Episode #208 -Financial Fitness -w/Bill Park-Crunchit Financial

 Podcast Show Notes:

What happens when a collision repair veteran who started as a tech at 15, built a 4-location MSO with nearly 100 employees, and owned 13 shops with four successful exits, decides to fix the financial challenges body shop owners face? The result is transformational.

In this weeks’ episode, Bill Park shares his remarkable journey through the collision repair industry and how his biggest discoveries weren’t about paint or production—but about money. Along the way, Bill identified a critical gap in financial management that most shop owners face: relying on CPAs who focus on tax filing, not strategic financial management.

Bill introduces his solution: Crunchit Financial Services, a “white glove” approach designed specifically for collision repair businesses. Using a financial blueprint process—similar to blueprinting a repair—he shows how to align management systems with accounting systems, ensure daily reconciliation of transactions, and build an accrual-based accounting structure that delivers accurate, timely insights.

Bill also pulls back the curtain on tax optimization strategies that most shops miss—structuring finances in ways that can save tens or even hundreds of thousands annually. This isn’t about complicated spreadsheets—it’s about creating financial freedom by putting the right systems in place.

5 Key Takeaways:

1. Financial strength starts with systems: management and accounting must be aligned.
2. Most CPAs miss opportunities because they only focus on filing taxes.
3. Daily reconciliation creates accuracy and confidence in your numbers.
4. Accrual-based accounting gives shop owners better insights than cash-based methods.
5. Tax optimization can unlock huge savings and directly fuel profitability.

If you’re ready to run your shop with confidence, clarity, and the freedom that comes from perfect financials… join us this episode and let this be your roadmap to financial freedom!

GUEST CONTACT

Bill Park - billpark8@me.com

Crunchit Financial Services – https://www.crunchitfs.com/

LinkedIn – https://tinyurl.com/499zeeph

Chapters

• 0:00 Bill Park's Journey from Technician to Expert
• 11:35 Financial Challenges in Body Shop Ownership
• 18:58 The Birth of CrunchFit Financial Services
• 28:05 Why Body Shops Struggle Financially
• 36:20 Financial Blueprint Process for Shops
• 45:11 Tax Optimization Strategies for Shop Owners
• 53:00 Key Takeaways for Financial Success

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

At what point did you decide I don't want to do this anymore. I need to do something different? You feel something that was just brewing inside you that says, hey, I'm not using my potential, or I just don't like this business, or what was it for you?

Speaker 2: 0:13

Yeah, that's a great question. I still I love the business. I still love the business, and what I didn't like about for years and I was, you know, terrible at at this too was the financial side of it in terms of all the extra work you got extra. And I say that and that's how it felt. All this extra work I had to do along with actually running the shop, so it was late nights on weekends staying up closing files. Tax season comes around.

Speaker 3: 0:42

It was always trying to find stuff and welcome to the mind wrench podcast with your host, rick sellover, where minor adjustments produce major improvements and mindset, personal growth and success. This is the place to be every Monday, where we make small improvements and take positive actions in our business and personal lives that will make a major impact in our success, next-level growth and quality of life. Hey, what's up everybody?

Speaker 1: 1:21

Welcome to the MindWrench Podcast. I'm your host, rick Salo. Thanks so much for stopping in. If you're a returning listener and haven't done so already, please take a minute and click the follow or subscribe button and then rate and review the show. When you rate and review the show, the algorithms for Apple, spotify, google Podcasts, iheartradio, amazon Music and all the other platforms will see that it's valuable and show it to more people that have never seen it before, and hopefully it can help them too. I would really, really really appreciate your help sharing this word with your friends and family as well, and if you're a brand new listener, welcome. I hope you find something of value here that helps you in your personal or professional life as well. Please make sure to click the subscribe or follow button so you never miss another episode. If you've been listening to the show for a while or been on the receiving end of my daily quote of the day emails, or maybe just catch my posts on Facebook or LinkedIn, you know I'm all about the quotes, right? If you'd like to start receiving my quote of the day emails, there's a link in the show notes to sign up. It's free and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Speaker 1: 2:23

Recently, while attending the Axel Nobel CIEE conference and trade show in Orange, california, I was fortunate enough to meet this week's special guest and, after learning of the highly valuable and unique business that he's launched, I really wanted to share this with all of you. Now, sometimes you just meet somebody and within five minutes you go. This person gets it. Bill's one of those guys right this week. My special guest has gone from humble beginnings as a technician, starting his own shop, to MSO growth and even international shop ownership, and is now providing financial fitness for the collision industry. Bill Park, a 30-year collision veteran, has always had a deep passion for our industry and now focuses his time and energy on providing what he calls a runway for perfect financials for other shops. So please join me in welcoming an industry veteran with a gold mind of financial wisdom Bill Park, founder of CrunchFit Financial Services, the Mind Merge podcast. Bill, welcome to the show.

Speaker 2: 3:17

Thank you, rick. Appreciate the kind introduction. Yeah, and it's certainly been a long journey for sure to get here, but it's definitely been enjoyable. I've really enjoyed being in the industry, in the body shop business, you know, from fixing cars myself, you know, to growing a company and then and now sort of bringing all that together into really a business where body shop owners can have a trusted ear, like they can actually have a conversation with myself and our team, and all we do is live, breathe and service body shops. I think it was. I didn't realize the gap that was missing in the industry, to be honest, and it's very significant. And everybody I speak with regarding financials, everybody has a CPA, everybody does books to some extent. However, the majority of people have problems and I just don't think they've really had a resource to help solve those problems. So we hope we can be that resource for them.

Speaker 1: 4:27

Absolutely so before we dive into the meat of this, maybe give a 30,000-foot overview of your background, just so people know who they're talking with and kind of where you came from.

Speaker 2: 4:39

Sure, yeah, I painted my first car when I was 15 and it just came about because my my dad said hey, you want to drive a nice car, I guess you need to make it nice because he couldn't afford to buy one for me. So it was, it was that sort of pursuit to not drive a junker around to. I bought my 1972 Vega for 500 bucks and, you know, made it pretty. So that's sort of where it started and I did that all the way. You know, through high school I painted cars for people and they got paid to do it.

Speaker 2: 5:15

And I went to college and I was going to. I wasn't going to be an orthopedic surgeon, that was sort of my goal in college. And then I realized that I was probably not equipped well enough for the bureaucracy within medicine for me to practice, kind of how I like to do things and kind of my nature. So I chose obviously to go a different route and I had an interesting experience when I graduated the University of Arizona with my degree. I couldn't get a job. It was, it was, you know, it was kind of disappointing.

Speaker 2: 5:51

And then this opening came about with a dealer body shop there in Tucson Arizona. I went and applied. I'm thinking, man, this is going to be an easy shoe in for me. And I didn't even get a phone call. So I literally told my wife that you know, obviously you know, I'm just going to do what I do best. I'm sorry, you know you're going to have an educated body man as a husband and I'm just going to go take the business away from these people. And that was my start of shop ownership. So that was in the early 90s and I rented a little space and grew my business up and to four locations, just under 100 people, and sold that company in the end of 2009. Since then, at the end of the day, I've owned 100% or a partner in 13 shops, with four different exits along the way.

Speaker 1: 6:49

Wow, oh, that's a lot for a guy that didn't want to be a shop owner. He wanted to be orthopedics. That's quite a jump man. It's funny because most people that we're going to talk about today, that you can help, started very similar paths. Right, they just became a technician, started doing some work for somebody and decided to pop a sign on a roof and go I'm a body shop now, right.

Speaker 2: 7:19

Absolutely yeah, I think that's the by and large the majority of the industry right there. You know they worked in a shop and I got frustrated with the owners and said I can do something better. They see something more in themselves and which I really, you know, encourage. You know any technicians out there, why not?

Speaker 1: 7:46

You know. So yeah, that's the majority of our clients. Yeah, so you had, you had an upbringing in um in collision ownership, including msos and even international. Uh, you want to shop over in the uk. Um, at what point did you decide I don't want to do this anymore, I want, I need to do something different? You feel something that was just brewing inside you that says, hey, I'm not using my potential, or I just I don't like this business, or what was it for you?

Speaker 2: 8:09

Yeah, that's a that's a great question. I still I love the business. I still love the business. And what I didn't like about for years and I was, you know, terrible at this too is the financial side of it in terms of all the extra work you got extra, and I say that and that's how it felt. All this extra work I had to do along with actually running the shop. So it was late nights on weekends staying up, closing files.

Speaker 2: 8:39

Tax season comes around. It was always trying to find stuff and um, until I finally kind of put my foot down and I said, you know, I really need to kind of build some competency in that. And we did that fairly well early on. When we sold our that first small little MSO in 2009,. We, you know, we were pretty prepared for that. And then later, as I acquired other locations and other businesses, I had this bigger problem that not only was I in the collision business, I was doing technology, software, real estate, some angel investing stuff. So I really had to have more of a robust accounting system for my own set of businesses. So we kind of built a team around that and in 2022, we felt very comfortable with our accounting system for our own businesses, businesses.

Speaker 2: 9:47

And then, when coming out of covid, uh, which was extremely painful for us, we, um, we had four, we had five locations in colorado, four body shops and one pdr center and when covid hit, we, we, really we went from 11 and a half million in revenue to five and a half million. It was really painful and the great, the saving grace. Grace was that we had an accounting team that kept us in track. We knew where we sat, we didn't have much debt, so we were able to weather that storm. We ended up closing a couple locations, negotiating exits out of leases. I could spend my time and energy solving those problems and not having to worry about where the dollars and tracking money and and understanding the consequences of those things, because I had this team that could help me do that.

Speaker 2: 10:35

So I had a friend of mine that had a couple of three centers in Texas and he wanted me to help him sell, went through that process with him and his business, reorganizing things, getting him ready to be packaged well, and he was just super awesome to work with and open-minded. And then he kind of opened my mind and said you should be doing this for others. And so they're kind of like, oh, that's interesting. And so we decided officially in October of 23 to do that. And then I said you know what I'm really enjoying this. You know, I don't think I didn't enjoy the shops.

Speaker 2: 11:14

I had had a manager that was running the business for us and he was doing an excellent job, but I really felt that in order for me to dedicate my time and energy to the, to my, our customers, I really needed to be, not have any other. I need that to be my main focus, right. So we had an offer to sell and we sold our shops and then now we're, you know, obviously transitioned into crunch of financial services. So really happy about that move, financial services. So really happy about that move.

Speaker 2: 11:49

And I really enjoy helping shop owners do what they love doing and not have to worry about their numbers, because I know how important that was for me when I went through those stages. And if I can help another shop owner get there and be that resource to them where they can pick up the phone and call me about any question, resource to them where they can pick up the phone and call me about any question. I may not have all. I'm sure I won't have all the answers, but I can definitely be a solid resource for them. Problem solving, resource brainstorming.

Speaker 1: 12:20

And if I don't know the answer, I probably know somebody that does.

Speaker 1: 12:21

Well, that's awesome and it's funny how the universe can pull you in the direction you really need to go sometimes, right? So you've found now you're doing something actually you enjoy and you're good at and you're getting better at, and it is a huge hole in this industry the whole financial fitness piece of this fitness piece of this. Why and this might be a softball question, I don't know, but it's just something I thought about is and I've thought about this a lot is you know, why do you think so many independent body shops and there's even some small groups, right, that are still? Why are they financially dysfunctional? And I don't mean to mean I don't mean to use the word dysfunctional, you know, callously, it's just I've worked with a couple of shops as a coach and it's like, wow, some of these people don't even know what a P&L is. They ask their CPA, right. So I mean, what do you think are the main contributors to why a shop will end up financially dysfunctional and how can they prevent that?

Speaker 2: 13:31

That is the million dollar question, rick, but I'll give you Glad I asked that early yeah, I'll give you what I believe is contributing to that to some extent. I think it's a couple of things. I think one it is we, uh, as human beings, business owners, entrepreneurs um, we hire a certified public accountants, right, and that certified public accountant comes with credentials, that comes with sort of an innate. I trust this person's going to do things for me well and they feel that that's the best choice, right, that is what you do, and if they already have that, they're in their best situation. And I think that's a part of it. But I think you know where I'm going with this, that that that's. That's a very small part of it. And the fact that the cpas actually do a crappy job, right, sorry for any cpas listening out there. If you do a great job, great for you, but all your other 95 don't. They're lazy, I shouldn't say they're lazy.

Speaker 2: 14:45

The system of being a CPA and a tax filer turns into being a puppy mill, and this is the question that I challenge most people with. Or shop owners I say just ask your CPA how many tax returns they file a year. They're going to give you an answer. Whatever that answer is, it's likely going to be in the hundreds and maybe the thousands. Then you can ask them well, where do I fit in? How do you fit my personal profile and the detail of my business into a true tax optimization strategy? And that's when the rubber will hit the road and the light bulb may kick on. Okay, so I think there's a combination of they believe that they're being properly represented. They believe that they're being properly represented and because they believe they're properly represented, they default to what's easy for them every day, which is to look at their bank balance, right. And if their bank balance is okay and they're still buying the stuff they want to buy, right, then what's the problem?

Speaker 1: 16:03

Right, right then what's the problem? Right? Is it safe to say that cpas, for the most part, really don't know how different collision business is? I mean, there's, there's so many, so many uh, different um, profit centers within a collision industry or within a collision shop and I don't know. I just, I've got a, you, I've got a, you know, I've got a tax guy, cpa, and I've talked about collision before and they're like, yeah, I don't know how those guys run those shops. There's just there's, you know, income coming from different areas and different ways of paying people, and I think it's confusing to them and I don't think that's a solid, you know yes or no business where, yes, I can do your CPA work or no, I can't. It's like somewhere in the gray area, right?

Speaker 2: 16:50

Well, think about the CPA's job. Primarily, it's to prepare taxes and file tax returns. That's what they do. So what does that mean? That means that their world they're going to file a cash basis tax return. That's what they're looking for. That means that their world they're going to file a cash basis tax return. That's what they're looking for. That means that everything they do is going to be in the spirit of filing a cash basis tax return, which is actually what happens.

Speaker 2: 17:17

But what they should be saying is no, you have to run your business on an accrual-based accounting system and then we'll do a cash basis conversion for filing tax purposes. And now, with an accrual-based accounting system, shop owners now have actionable financials where they can understand cash flow. They can understand debt, assets, liabilities. Their balance sheet is way more important in terms of the financial health of their business. It tells a story and when you do accrual work and process adjustments, customer deposit adjustments, you do all those things like the proper accrual system does. Then now you have monthly financials that make sense relative to your productivity and your cash. So they just don't they don't have the expertise in the industry to even advise somebody how to do that and, more importantly, even how to manage it every day.

Speaker 1: 18:22

Okay. So From your aspect, and what would make sense to me is most shops don't really need a CPA to help them with their day-to-day financial activities. They need them at the year end to help them with their tax returns, right. Somebody needs probably more of a financial advisor during the course of a year, right? To help them make the right strategies, make the right moves, not screw something up in the middle of the year that they can't recover from Some of the things that you fulfill for them, right.

Speaker 2: 18:59

Yeah, I mean we're a design specific company. I mean we've designed our system for the body shop industry. We don't serve any other clients. We've designed our system for the body shop industry. We don't serve any other clients. That's all we do. So we certainly can fulfill that. But if I'm just giving you know, if I'm just talking in general terms about what a shop needs, you need a CPA or a tax filer. It doesn't have to be a CPA, it could be an EA and oftentimes an EA is a better solution than a CPA, because EAs that's all they do is file taxes and if you're in a CPA firm, they're likely to have an EA do it anyways and they're deciding the return. So they need a tax filing for sure. But really in any business what you need is really robust bookkeeping behaviors. You need daily, weekly, monthly bookkeeping process and then when you organize your income and your expenses and your capital expenditures in that way, actually tax planning and tax filing becomes pretty easy.

Speaker 1: 20:11

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Speaker 1: 21:37

It's super simple. Sometimes talking to the right person can make all the difference. Go to wwwrixelovercom contact and I'll set you up with a free consultation. Call with me to see if one-on-one coaching is right for you. So let's just say we've. You know, I've got a customer that has been using a CPA for years and yet they've got no financial fitness to them and they decide they want to do something different. Maybe they got some upcoming moves they want to make. Maybe they want to buy another shop, or maybe they want to expand or just, you know, do an addition, something as simple as an addition. How would Crunchit come in and fill the gap for the lack of knowledge and where they need to be, and how does that work for you? I mean, what's their first step?

Speaker 2: 22:24

The first step. You know I can use a house analogy or I can. I'll just stick with actually the fixing a car, because that's kind of how we design our system anyways, okay.

Speaker 1: 22:42

So what is the typical first step when?

Speaker 2: 22:45

you're doing a car repair, pull it in and tear it down and do a blueprint, right, exactly, you need to fully understand the exact condition of every damaged part, every undamaged part, anything, every. And then you need to understand repair procedures, oem specifics, procedures, repair methods, all that. You have to compile a repair plan to actually complete the repairs on that vehicle. Detail, right, oftentimes 130 line items, right, maybe. So very detailed. So in order for anybody not just us in order for anybody to look at somebody's business and offer advice, financial advice or planning advice, they need to have a 100% accurate set of financials. So we offer a comprehensive assessment which is essentially a financial blueprint. So we go in to CCC, we look at how it's configured, we look at the roles of the staff, we look at how estimates are written, we look at parts code tables for the repair facility, we look at any insurer parts code tables, we look at part types, we look at receipt types, we look at everything. And then we compile a gap analysis from OK, how you should have it configured to optimize your financial P&L and balance sheet. And then we look at the chart of accounts in QuickBooks and we say, ok, what do we want to measure what's important to you, say, okay, what do we want to measure? What's important to you Now? Do those things all? Are they all synced? Does your chart of accounts reflect what you want to measure? Is your CCC synced in a way that it's going to connect to your chart of accounts? And what are the financial procedures within your daily operations of your business? Like paper flow, we want to understand how you handle every piece of paper in your business. So when somebody pays a deductible or pays your bill, how does that work? When an invoice comes in from a parts vendor, how does that work? When an invoice comes in from a sublet vendor, how does that work? When you return a part, how does that work? So we go through a detailed analysis of that paper flow and then we want to make sure that their training is in place for your people to then process those pieces of paper in a way that supports the sinking and proper allocation within the chart, within the chart of accounts, within the chart of accounts. Once that's done, it's just a daily. You know what we do on a daily basis is go in and export the data. We do validation and verification of every transaction to make sure it was done right. And then we create a daily acceptance report for our clients and so essentially every single day they've got an audit of all their transactions and it's up to the repair center, obviously, where the work's being done, to fix those things Right.

Speaker 2: 26:00

And once you've got that in place, now to your question in the beginning is well, okay, I want to expand, or I want to buy a piece of equipment. Or then you can look in and say, okay, let's talk expand, or I want to buy a piece of equipment. Or then you can look in and say, okay, let's talk about that. What does that look like? And we can say how does financing, how's financing going to impact cash flow? Okay, how is financing going to impact your capital expense? And what does that look like from a tax perspective? Is it favorable? And what do you expect to get in return for that? I mean, everybody loves nice, shiny equipment. I've bought I've been guilty of this I bought stuff I thought would be super helpful for my business and it sits in the freaking corner, you know so like Seen that before I'm like.

Speaker 2: 26:49

you know that I wish somebody would have had that conversation with me. You know how do you not ensure that when you buy that that it's not going to sit in the corner Right? Solve that problem first, right.

Speaker 1: 27:02

Yep, no, that's good, but you know, I like that. That's, you know, a financial blueprint. I like that. It's a financial blueprint because you think through as a shop person, you think through correctly. Blueprinting a car is going through all the things that you need to record All those, all the measurements, all with the customer and explain all the things that are damaged on their car, how you're going to fix them, why you need to fix them, the safety of it and all that. That's a perfect analysis for what you guys are doing. I think that's fantastic and I think most shops are missing the boat on that as well.

Speaker 1: 27:51

Quite honestly, I've had great conversations with excellent owners and operators that they got things dialed in. They work with professional companies or they're part of a little bit bigger MSO that may have a little bit of a team that does that kind of stuff, but a large percentage of independent body shops do not and I think I think they they go with the. You know I still got money at the end of the month. I think we're okay. Right, which is a horrible analysis of of your business is yeah, we can still write another check yet on the 30th. That's perfect. So what you're saying, bill is yeah, we can still write another check yet on the 30th, that's perfect. So what you're saying, bill, is crunch it.

Speaker 1: 28:37

Once they go in, they do ignite a blueprint diagnosis and come up with solutions. Obviously, you have those conversations with the owners going hey, what did you want to do? What did you want to accomplish? Do you have a list of goals? And if they don't, they just want to keep rolling but be more profitable. Do you guys continue to keep them as a customer that's on a monthly program, or is it something that's quarterly? Or do you have custom fits for whatever the situation is?

Speaker 2: 29:02

Yeah, I mean, we have an all-a-cart system and we're happy to do whatever a customer needs at whatever level they want. If they just want their books cleaned up and they want to, they just want to cleaned up and then they're going to take it and do the daily bookkeeping. Fine, we can. We can certainly do that. If they want us to be a part of doing day to day books for them, we absolutely can do full service bookkeeping as well. Doing day-to-day books for them, we absolutely can do full service bookkeeping as well. Now, we don't offer any sort of deeper profit and loss discussions, operational discussions, unless they're a full service bookkeeping client, because we have to know the numbers are real in order to actually talk about them. And when we know that we've audited all those transactions and we know that everything's in the right bucket, it's pretty easy then to actually have an operational discussion. And so, yeah, we do offer that as well and we offer that to all of our clients. They look, we're happy to.

Speaker 2: 30:05

It's interesting, most of our clients don't do monthly calls with us. No, no, no, they don't. You know and you know we offer it and we say look, you want to go over the numbers? No, cause we send them a complete report pack every month. So we send them gross profit analysis. It's pretty detailed and most of them are pretty savvy People are, so they get it. And then I'll get a couple of calls once in a while about ideas. But most of our clients because the numbers are clean, it's kind of right in front of them and so we don't really get into deeper discussions, at least at this point. We certainly offer that and we tell them up front, but most of our clients don't actually spend the time to do that with us okay, and you guys are really you.

Speaker 1: 30:56

You've been in business for just over a year, right? Is that correct? Uh? October october will be two years. Oh, october, okay, I was thinking 24. So and how do you feel about the growth? How's that been? Are you being well-received by the collision industry for your background, knowledge and what you're providing for the shops Are they like? Oh my God, I didn't know I could hire somebody that has that much background in this business and can help me.

Speaker 2: 31:29

Yeah, I do. I do every single discovery call. So that's my role in the business is. I talk to every one of our potential prospect clients. So, yes, they are often surprised about the experience and they're relieved actually surprised about the experience and they're relieved actually. You know that they can actually not have to go through lengths to explain their business and and so that's super helpful around that and we have.

Speaker 2: 32:02

We haven't really done any real marketing so under and we're growing quite, quite well. We've got a little bit of a backlog right now. I feel like we've got work in progress. Our pipeline now is pushing into probably mid-September to onboard clients. It's a process. We're in no rush. We tell clients, look, it starts with a we're in. We're in no rush when we tell. We tell clients, look, it starts with the discovery call. Let's, let's have a chat, let's figure out where you want to go. Maybe we're a good fit, maybe we're not, and I'm going to be completely transparent with them about that and I'm telling them it's a tough road. You have to change your behavior because if you, if you, had perfect financials, we wouldn't't be talking.

Speaker 1: 32:48

Yeah, so, and this didn't happen overnight. So you've had you've had imperfect financials for I'm going to say years, right.

Speaker 2: 32:57

Yes. So that means you have to do things different, you know. And then what does that look like? And and here's how we can support you to do that but it there's some pain associated with it. Right there, there just is. And then there's the assessment process, and we charge for that because we spend a significant amount of time. It's $950 to go through that process and that usually takes two weeks between actually doing the assessment, scheduling, a follow-up call and then from there we provide a statement of work. So great, you want us to do X, y, z. Here's a statement of work and here's an onboarding path. And so we take that seriously because we want it to be successful for our clients. So we want to. Onboard is a huge part for us, and we do training before we even start. Okay, here's the path we need to implement one, two, three. Here's the training that we need. We need to get your team on this training and then let's get all that done, configuration done, and then our start date's going to be on, whatever that date is.

Speaker 1: 33:56

So it's a process, yeah, and I tell you what, bill, that's an extremely fair price. I mean, one little tip your 950 is already back and you've probably doubled your investment on one little flaw that may be in your system that is already back, and you've probably doubled your investment on one little flaw that may be in your system that is discovered because of a little bit of digging in, right? So, yeah, I can see why you have a bit of a backlog already, but, quite honestly, if you've got financial issues and, like I said, if you've had them for years, if you had to wait a month, two months or whatever to talk with somebody that can help you, you've already waited a long time. Another month or two is not going to make or break you, right? I just want everybody to understand this is a conversation I'm having with Bill from Crunch it and this is not intended to be a sales conversation. This is an education, not a sales pitch. Okay, so I've got no alliance to Bill or anybody else in financial services, but I've met a character that seems to really know this business, that just started a business that's actually helping shop owners, which, if you guys know me, that's what I'm about is helping shops get better, right. So sharing education, sharing concepts, sharing different ways of doing things to me is what I feel I should be doing. So you know I had to have Bill on the show. This. Just it makes way too much sense.

Speaker 1: 35:28

I've seen so many shops suffer on the financial side because, quite honestly, you know, a lot of us in this business didn't go to college. A lot of us just got out of high school, went to someplace to work, started our own little shop and, by God, it grew and got to be a pretty good size shop. We made money for, you know, 10, 20, got to be a pretty good size shop. We made money for, you know, 10, 20, 30, 40 years. But we never learned the financial or really the business side of this business.

Speaker 1: 35:59

And now that's becoming more and more of an issue because this business has become a more professional business. It needs to be run like a professional business. We could be losing tens of thousands of dollars or more every single week just by things we are not doing because we didn't know we're not supposed to do that, right. So, bill, can you share a couple of those, because you went through all this stuff right? This is how you learn. Can you share some of those mistakes that you made, that now you've seen how to avoid those? You thought, oh God, I wish I would have known that 20 years ago. All right, is there a couple of ones you can share?

Speaker 2: 36:34

Yeah, I think I forgot. You know a hundred of them at least. But I just want to say something about what you mentioned earlier about sales. This isn't a pitchy crunchy thing and I totally agree with that. We never, really we never as a company, want to sell our customers anything.

Speaker 2: 36:54

It's all really about and I'm happy and we give our. We give anybody goes through the assessment with us or even just a discovery call with me. I'll tell you exactly how to do it. I mean I have no problem just sharing it. I've done a ton of white papers and articles. I share on our LinkedIn all the strategies to do these things. If a shop owner is committed to do it themselves, great, I'm happy to be a resource for them. And it's really about just getting people on. That journey is my passion right now, because I know how helpful it was for me and it is for me today. I mean, I have a great team that supports me and the things I want to do, so I can be on this call with you, rick, and I don't have to worry about the dollars and cents coming in and or if I want to go travel or do a presentation with the Axo Group or any of those things, right, right, oh, it is a way to create freedom in your business life when you have your financial system in place. So get back to your question about mistakes.

Speaker 2: 38:03

Probably one of the fortunate things that I learned early on was I had mentors that were very direct with me, so I was able, at an early age, to have people care about me in the business I was doing, tell me some really important things, and I listened and I did, and I still didn't listen well enough. Like I talked earlier about closing the month end at the last day of the month, literally a stack of folders on my desk. And then another shop owner I met early on came over to my shop and he was looking around and we started talking about numbers. He said, hey, you know what's your, your profit margin look like what's this? And then I told him I could answer those reasonably well. And he says, hey, what's your profit margin? Look like what's this? And then I told him I could answer those reasonably well. And he says you still suck. That was his comment to me and I'm like, really Well, how do I suck? Well, you're not paying attention to this, this and this. Oh, okay, jim Stengel, that's great. So I've had those early interactions that helped me along the way, but still it's like you always kind of put it off at the end and that was probably the things that I.

Speaker 2: 39:15

It took me a long time to realize that even if I know it and even though if I can fix it at the month end, I'm still not doing my company and myself justice, still not doing my company and my self-justice. So it was really learning how to bring in those daily, weekly, monthly behaviors into my business. So that was probably my biggest learning curve was developing that and understanding the value of that. And then financial mistakes too. Like I never really asked enough people early on when I was growing how much risk I could take on without worrying if I'm going to go out of business. Explain what you mean by that, bill.

Speaker 2: 40:00

I went from a super profitable 5,000 square foot shop doing $280, 000 a month. Now you can run the numbers. Now this was back in in the early 2000s. Okay, to buy in four acres and building a 27 000 square foot shop and yeah, and which was good, it worked out. But man, it was. It was tough, a little tight, was it? It was a. It was a little tight and the the money that I was making, um, I wasn't making anymore. Yeah, uh, so it was. It was a really quick education and I really wish I would have had. I wish I would have had the foresight to pull some more mature business people in my life at that time and challenge my assumptions and my drive.

Speaker 1: 40:58

Yeah, it helps to get input from other people when you're making those kinds of decisions. I know it's um, I think a lot of shops it's more gut driven or maybe ego driven. It's like, hey, you know, we're doing pretty good, I think we can build another shop and that's as far as the research goes right. It's like, uh, you know, I'm going to get somebody to come in and do a drawing for me. We'll start on it in a couple of months and and I've seen it happen I've seen shops fail because of doing that. I've seen shops pull it out of their ass at the last minute and managed to make it fly. That's, that's great. I mean, you know this world was built on some of that stuff, right? But collision shop, obviously it's um, I think it's.

Speaker 1: 41:42

It's great that at least you can draw in other resources. I think it's easier now than it ever has been due to, you know, just things like the Internet, like Facebook and LinkedIn and things like that. I see some of the stuff that you put out there. So there's a lot of information out there available and there's more coaches and consultants and things like that in this business than there was 20, 30 years ago too. So there is more resources, but you have to actively look for those people. You have to contact them, you have to ask for their help. You can't just hope to God that they stop by your place one day and knock on your door and go hey, you know, can I interest you in what I do here? Can I help you out it? Just, it doesn't work that way. So I'm glad you're doing what you're doing, bill.

Speaker 2: 42:24

I really am. Thank you. And kind of tagging back to your earlier question about why do I think shops struggle with having perfect financials? And I think another piece of that is they view it as an expense and professional support outsourcing. Let's just call it outsourcing. Whether you're outsourcing tax fulfillment, whether you're outsourcing ADAS services or mechanical work, whatever Outsourcing is outsourcing right. So I think business mindset when you look at successful companies, they outsource their outsourcing plan is robust. In other words, they're focused on the things they do best. They outsource the things they don't do best and they're willing to pay for that, and I think that's another part of being a small business owner.

Speaker 1: 43:24

It's tough for people to swallow right, but you have to be willing to pay for that support and I think that's the struggle for shop owners yeah, there's something I learned, um, probably about four or five years ago, and I was listening to something from tony robbins, you know, and, uh, one of the other people that he, you know he teaches some some things with it, and he had a great saying. He says you don't eat, you don't always have to know the how when you're trying to figure something out. It's more important that you find the who and that's the person that you can hire to fix that one thing that you're not sure about or you don't know how to do that. I mean, we all like to think that we're great at whatever we try to do, right.

Speaker 2: 44:11

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 44:12

Just, you know, try doing a home improvement once and you'll find out how many things that you're not really great at. But you know, this business is not that different. Sometimes it makes a lot more sense to find someone like yourself, someone that's really good with ADAS, that may have systems out there that they built for other people and they've already got success. So you just want to hire them in and rather than try to do it yourself financial or just coaching. You know there's a lot of shops out there that could use coaching and there's several of us out there now that do that and it's extremely beneficial. You know, you put your ego aside for a minute and you go hey, if this person knows how to get me from point A to point B better than I do, faster than I do, cheaper than I do, I think I should probably listen to that person and if I got to pay him, I'll pay him. You know, pay for speed man, pay for speed.

Speaker 2: 45:05

Yeah, no, absolutely, I mean we. I man pay for speed. Yeah, no, absolutely, I mean we, I do it. I mean if I do it.

Speaker 2: 45:14

I shifted that mindset, you know, quite a few years ago, where, literally, if I can't think about the solution like, like, if it doesn't come off the top of my head and and I don't have a clear path to it, I'm finding somebody that does, because I know what it takes for me to solve the problem. If I don't know, it's going to be a lot of work and I'm going to make mistakes. I don't want to make mistakes anymore. I mean, so I have a tax, you know, a tax advisor, you know, and we have a tax mitigation meeting often, you know, and so I paid for that service. It doesn't sound free, and yet he also does my taxes.

Speaker 2: 45:54

So it's like you have to get into where, okay, if I spend $15,000 a year on tax advisory, it seems like a lot of money, but oh crap, you know what I saved $187,000 last year. Oh, that's a no-brainer, right, you know? And and you ask and I think this is another component of that it's like not all cpas tax advisors, you know are cut from the same cloth, right, just like there's this idea of a fiduciary, and I think you're aware of what that means. Yep, there's only like 2.5% of financial advisors are actual true fiduciaries, right? So if you really want a person that knows their stuff, you then hire a fiduciary, and those are the other things. I think Tony Robbins actually talks about that pretty greatly in one of his books.

Speaker 1: 46:52

Yeah, I read his book, his money book, huge, thick book. It took me forever, but yeah, that was one of the key things, was not every financial investor or financial advisor is a fiduciary Right? Massive difference in what that's for you right.

Speaker 2: 47:09

So that's the difference. Yeah, and there's just a lot of crap online too. That's just not accurate. I just did a recent article it'll come out this week on linkedin about the salt rule. Are you familiar with the saltT rule?

Speaker 1: 47:24

No.

Speaker 2: 47:25

So essentially it's if you pay income tax, if you're in a state that pays income tax, well, you take whatever you paid in income tax and then you can get a credit against your federal tax. So we'll use, let's's say, $200,000 income. So if you pay $10,000 in state tax but your income's 200,000, well you can deduct the 10,000 and lower your taxable income on the federal level to 190, because you never got the money. It went to the state taxes, and that also includes property taxes, vehicle registration taxes, any of those state-related taxes. You can actually use those to offset and lower your federal tax return dollars. Really, oh, yeah, all right, there's 36 states and then there's a PTET rule and forget, I don't know all the acronyms, I just know what they do. So this PTET rule and this is a beautiful thing for body shop owners If you're a body shop owner and you can do the same thing and you can pay your state tax through your business and you can take a business deduction for that that then goes down into your credit for your federal offset. So you do two things you lower your income from your business because you pay taxes, which is a legitimate deduction, and secondly, lower your adjusted gross on the credit side for your personal return, for your federal taxes. So there's huge benefits out there. But how many CPAs are digging deep into that level of service for those individual tax filers?

Speaker 2: 49:26

When you, uh, have a personal vehicle loan, you can write off up to ten thousand dollars of interest expense on the top line. So everybody's got a standard deduction. Um, let's say in I think I don't know what single filing married's like 30 000 or something like that. Yes, or you go itemized and most people don't have enough itemized. They'll just take the standard deduction. Yeah, but with this interest you can actually take it as top of line. So you're actually getting $40,000. No kidding, yes, now, but here's conditions, right? You're going to hear a bunch of crap out there. They're going to say things like this, but they don't tell you the full details, right? So you have to have that loan has to originate in past 12-31-2024. The vehicle has to be assembled in the United States.

Speaker 1: 50:16

There's yeah little, yeah, little things. You have to little boxes you have to check, right, that's yeah, might be difficult.

Speaker 2: 50:25

Yes. So you know, the reason I bring those things up is that's what we do for our clients, is we and I want to do for the industry is bring a deeper level of awareness for tax optimization and financial health in the industry.

Speaker 1: 50:46

That's excellent, because once again I see another need. After we had our conversation in California, I started thinking about that. It's like I think there's a lot of shop owners that just they don't know how to protect themselves tax-wise. They really don't. Personally, myself, I don't know how to protect myself from paying too much tax. Everybody thinks that they pay too much tax and want to pay less but they don't know how to protect myself from paying too much tax. Everybody thinks that they pay too much tax and want to pay less, but they don't know how to really go about protecting themselves. So that's something you kind of specialize in too right.

Speaker 2: 51:20

Yeah, and that's the other thing is our business is we want to deliver white glove service. That's it. I'm fully that's what we're about. We're we're not interested in in having a thousand customers, we're not interested in even having probably a hundred, maybe not even that, maybe it just depends if we can keep our white glove service, maybe. But it's really about white glove service for me and maintaining that and getting to a size to where we can continue to do that at somewhat of scale, because you know, I am a businessman and I, like you know growing a company and delivering service to a lot of people.

Speaker 1: 52:08

Right. So quality over quantity, but if you do it right and you get your systems in place, then it's scalable, Just like a good MSO, right? Yes, correct, Excellent. Listen before we go here, because I know we're running down the clock here. I just spent a great conversation. I really appreciate you sharing everything you're sharing today. If you had to give a couple of key takeaways for those listening today or that might hear this a month or two months or six months from now because podcasts live forever in the internet right? What would be your top two to three takeaways? If you don't do anything else, do these couple things and you'll get some relief from doing the same old thing and getting the same old results.

Speaker 2: 53:03

Yeah, I think. Thanks for one for giving me the time to be here today. Sure, I really appreciate the things that we've been chatting about, and if I had to sort of hit this with a simple stick and give somebody straight up, this is going to be the biggest bang for your buck. Get your CCC configured to match your chart of accounts and then every single day, reconcile every one of your transactions. If you can do that and ensure that things are moving into your financial system and then you've got a system to validate every day you're going to have yourself perfect financials. It'll just happen if you have that daily discipline to do that. And then the other thing I would suggest is you find a fiduciary and come up, look at your life wealth strategy. Make sure your corporate entities are structured right, make sure that you don't have waste.

Speaker 2: 54:08

I see a lot of people say, well, I need an LLC for this, I need an LLC for that, and so on, and it's like no, you don't. And then tax optimization it should be. I mean, it's the second largest expense in our life. It's actually the first to be honest If you really look at all the taxes. It's actually the first to be honest if you really look at all the taxes, it's actually the first. So those are the, those are the things I'd say that you absolutely spend time doing, and then you'll notice a significant difference in your financial health excellent.

Speaker 1: 54:40

Those are great tips. So, uh, thank you so much for uh, for joining me the MindRange podcast. I'm going to leave. I've got all your contact information, bill, for you If there's anything else you want to share. I know you said that there's a comprehensive diagnosis or analysis. It's about $950. You're always good for a phone call, for a discovery call. So if you're a shop out there and you're resonating with any of this going God, I could probably use a little help. And you know, or I just have this one thing I can't figure out my financial side. I would reach out to Bill, have a conversation with him. It could be a good move and you never know what it might lead to. So any final thoughts, any parting thoughts from you, bill?

Speaker 2: 55:27

Thank you. Thank you, Rick, and I hope you know we shed some light on some folks out there and maybe we inspired somebody to take some action. And if you go to our website at wwwcrunchitfscom. Wwwcrunchitfscom. And schedule a discovery call, that goes directly to my calendar, so that's probably the easiest way to get ahold of me. Book it on my calendar and I'm open to chat about anything. Excellent. Will you be at SEVA this year, Bill? Yeah, I'm actually doing an RDE presentation on what I call the Body Shop Business Trifecta. Okay.

Speaker 1: 56:09

Is that with SCRS?

Speaker 2: 56:11

Yeah, oh, fantastic. I think it's on the 5th at 12 o'clock, I think it is.

Speaker 1: 56:17

Okay, excellent, all right. For anybody going to SEMA, make sure you put that on your to-do list, that way you can see Bill. And then, in between all the other million things there is to do at SEMA, it's good. I'll tell you what. Scrs has had fantastic education series the last several years and to me that's always an exciting part of going.

Speaker 2: 56:40

I agree, totally agree. Thank you for your time. I appreciate you and I look forward to hearing the podcast.

Speaker 1: 56:47

Well, that's all I had for you today. Thanks again for tuning in. I really appreciate your support and I hope you have a great week. I can always be reached at wwwrickselovercom, where you can find all my social media links podcast episodes, blog posts and much more Outro Music.