Latest / Downshift With Tonnika / Same Revenue. 170 Fewer Cars. | Tatsu Tsuchida - Ep 46

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Same Revenue. 170 Fewer Cars. | Tatsu Tsuchida - Ep 46 · Downshift With Tonnika

• [Tonnika Haynes] (0:00 - 0:18) I love dogs. I'm not afraid of dogs. But if it's a child, you were attacked by a dog or bit by a dog, you will have a fear of a dog. And I can't get mad at someone for having that fear. So we have to be careful when people have fears or concerns that you just don't understand, doesn't make it invalid. That's, that's their, that's what they went through. [Zeb Beard] (0:19 - 0:33) Welcome to Downshift with Tanika Haynes, the automotive auntie. The thing about Tanika, she gets to know you. She'll laugh and cut up with you, but then she'll hit you with some knowledge that you may not want, but that you need. Let's Downshift. [Tonnika Haynes] (0:39 - 1:01) So what's up? Like, honestly, other than Facebook, I don't know you. The most I've learned about you is when the class we took at STX, when you had to give your presentation. That class was cool. So just hearing you talk about how you got started and your dad started a business. I never knew any of that. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:01 - 1:12) Yeah. So dad started a shop in 78. It was a little place called Boyle Park, if you're familiar with Knott's Berry Farm. [Zeb Beard] (1:13 - 1:13) Not at all. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:14 - 1:56) Knott's Berry Farm is the insignificant amusement park compared to Disneyland down the street from them. But if you're a SoCal native, you know that to be similar to like Magic Mountain or Six Flags or something like that. Actually the same group of the corporate kind of thing that well, they all own Knott's Berry Farm as well. So Knott's Berry Farm is right down the street from our original location. We don't need to deep dive into that too much because we're not talking about Knott's Berry Farm. You guys can come visit it. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:56 - 1:57) No, we're talking about you. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:58 - 1:59) Yeah, we are talking about me. [Tonnika Haynes] (2:00 - 2:01) So your dad started in 78? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (2:02 - 3:04) It's all me, me, me. Yeah. So dad started a shop in 78. I was two years old. I sent you a bunch of pictures of me in like kind of overalls and yeah, I mean, sleeping on a creeper. I was like the proverbial, if you've ever been to like an Asian restaurant or immigrant experience for sure, the parents don't know what else to do, but they own a restaurant and you have the kids in the back doing their homework. That's kind of the experience that you often get when you go to like a Chinese restaurant or Japanese restaurant or any immigrant community for that matter, right? Mom and dad are too busy running the show of whatever shop that they decided to do. So therein lies kind of my upbringing is I was brought to the shop every day after going to school. [Tonnika Haynes] (3:04 - 3:45) So that was my summers. It wasn't a creeper for me. It was this blue leather couch that was tucked away that I would fall asleep on. And it was just summers for me because I spent summers with my dad at the shop. It was fun. I mean, I guess it's a difference. It's summertime. It's only three months. It's not the whole year of doing that. But getting to play with Bondo and five gallon buckets of water with sandpaper in it and shop dogs and technicians and neighborhood stores. So for me, it was fun. It was hot, fun and sweating. I think I sent you a picture of me. The only one that I can find, I'm sure my dad has like a lot more. Me standing behind the gate, my flip flops. I was running shit, man. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (3:45 - 3:47) I wasn't. [Tonnika Haynes] (3:48 - 4:35) But the funniest thing, one of my good memories, I know you got good memories about it, was our shop was located, just very small town, Carrboro. And I would walk to the other shops around it. So there was another body shop in the same building and a maintenance facility in the same building. So I just walk around to see all the other shops. Then I would pass the what is now an advance. It was called Motor Barons at the time. And I think it was a couple years ago that I was talking to one of the ladies on the counter who's since retired. And I'm talking to and I was like, hey, are you the same lady that used to give me sodas when I come over there? Because I would just go sit at the counter, hang out at the parts counter. And it was. It was Emgar. And I was like, this is the same lady. She was like, yeah. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (4:36 - 5:27) So, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I remember as a child having the my dad would get this influx of customers on Saturday morning and and sometimes he would and sometimes he wouldn't. And when he was too busy to take me to Japanese school on Saturday, the neighboring Korean dude that had the machine shop would throw me in the truck and they would drive me to Japanese school. So, yeah, my upbringing was Japanese school. Kendo, which is the fencing, Japanese fencing. What else? There was youth sports for Japanese kids back then. So like baseball, basketball, that kind of stuff. Because, you know, us Asian kids are much, much smaller than than the other Americans out there in the world. [Tonnika Haynes] (5:27 - 5:30) So we can't put you on a regular football field for flag football. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (5:30 - 5:33) No, no, no, no. [Tonnika Haynes] (5:34 - 5:41) But so your dad came over as your dad was a technician when he arrived. Did I read that? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (5:42 - 7:49) Yeah. So we're going to back hit the rewind button until about 1970. He shows up. He has like five hundred dollars to his name and he gets swindled out of it somehow. And now he has to go find a job. He goes to this place called Japan Auto in Gardena, California. And it's kind of he quickly finds out it's like a slave driver situation, like 7 a.m. till like 12 and then repeat every single day. And this is the 70s in South Bay, L.A. area. And so you have this community of Japanese people back then. Toyota USA wasn't that big. Any any of the manufacturers back then weren't that big. So they. A friend, some friends of his basically say this is screwed up. You really need to find a job at a dealership or something like that. They they bring him to the head of Toyota USA, the big CEO, his office. And they say, hey, this guy can really use a job at a dealership. And the boss says, OK, well, we'll put him at South Bay Toyota. So. He starts working on various dealerships and he bounces around from Toyota to Carson to then later Long Beach, Dotson, where he meets his future partner. And then they in 78, they they decided, OK, we're going to start our own Tokyo Automotive, which before that it was actually my dad's backyard. So, yeah, Gardena, if you know the homes that are out this way in California, that style of house back then used to have a garage in the back detached from the home itself. So a lot of little shops were started out of a backyard that way. So. [Tonnika Haynes] (7:50 - 7:58) Well, let's morph into you, because let's talk about, you know, we know dad started it, but you're the boss now. How did it come about? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (8:01 - 8:02) Um, let's see. [Tonnika Haynes] (8:03 - 8:05) I know you didn't want to do it. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (8:06 - 9:07) I kind of did. I kind of knew I was going to do it. But there was a part of me that was like spoiled brat son of of a shop owner kind of thing going on. Like I'm the only child. So that kind of sets me up for mom and dad are telling me, hey, well, one day if you want, you can run the shop. Right. And so I get no ego about it. And I'm acting like in my teens and early 20s, like I own the place. So, again, going back to the analogy of the Chinese restaurant or Asian restaurant, we're now fast forward, you know, 15 years and you got this high school kid or early adult acting like they own the place like you ever been to that restaurant where you walk in and the parents obviously don't know English very well. And so this cocky ass kid comes to the front and serves you all rude and he thinks he's doing you a favor, right? Right. Oh, yeah. [Tonnika Haynes] (9:07 - 9:25) So that happened to me at my, um, the nail shop I used to go to. Yeah. And I knew the owners before they own the shop. So they bought it from the owners. The girl that eventually ended up owning the shop, we were pregnant at the same time. So our kids are the same age and we had this relationship, this bond or whatever. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (9:25 - 9:29) And fast forward, I want to say it's like old nail shop is Vietnamese. [Tonnika Haynes] (9:30 - 10:20) So fast forward to about four years ago, the daughter is there and she's 17 or 18. And it's the same girl, same age as my oldest son. And I come in and I've been coming there for 20 years, 20 plus years. And she was so arrogant and so cocky that I pretty much told her, mom, I was like, you know what, if she stays at this front desk, you're going to lose a lot of customers. And I told her, and I said, I've known you before you were here. Like, calm down, kid, like calm down. So I can, I can relate. And my kids, I don't think Jordan Santana tried that crap. No, they had to start sweeping floors. So that was you. No, that's not you. You would never. So how did employees take you as the boss's son thinking he ran crap in there? How did employees do? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (10:20 - 10:34) Oh, they didn't like it at all. I mean, yeah. And they especially didn't like it when, um, you know, like I grew up in the era of prior to the Fast and the Furious movies. [Tonnika Haynes] (10:34 - 10:34) Okay. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (10:35 - 13:54) I wanted to talk to talk about that for a minute, right? So Southern California in the late 80s, throughout the 90s, and a good kind of the beginning portion of 2000, right before that, that movie came out. We had these Asian kids, a lot like me, we have these high top fades and these long ass bangs. And I even showed you a picture of that in our Facebook, right? And that was a lot of us kids kind of rebelling against mainstream culture. A lot of us grew up going to schools where we were the only Asian kid, or even if it was a predominantly Asian school, you had this kind of this feeling that that this people were out to get you, right? Or, or you didn't fit into the mold, you felt a little bit other, you know what I mean? So there's this generation of kids that are like a little bit pissed off about mainstream culture. And we're now rebelling against that predominantly white community of Orange County back then. So it just ends up becoming like, oh, you know, so and so has this click, Chinese people have this click, the Korean kids have this click, and we all end up in fighting with each other, up to no good on the streets, that kind of stuff, right? It doesn't matter how wealthy or unwealthy you were, it was just, just just pent up anger, right? But as we more that morphs into automotive, we're getting to about driving age. And, you know, whereas previously, we're up to no good. Now we're starting to soup up our rides, make them make fun and fast. And it's starting to go to the positive direction as we get a little bit older, right? It's sort of like with, with Hispanic and black kids with the lowrider community, right? On the West Coast. So we kind of have our car that is kind of our culture. And we're, we're driving Civics, Integras, 240SXs, and stuff like that, and making them kind of near, near to what Japan is making it like. So I'm deeply into this culture now, I'm, I'm souping up my Honda Accord, I put a Prelude motor in it, I put go fast parts on it, you go out to the canyons and go up to no good, I mean, which is way better than, you know, the wannabe gangbanger that I was previous to that, right? So I was hanging out with all the wrong crowd at that point. And I felt like kind of I had this little downward spiral. And, and what kind of ignited the passion, and a lot of these kids will would pull themselves out of that, that bad crowd by by spending time on to on these cars, right? So that that became kind of the Asian American cultural identity thing with the cars and whatnot. Again, similar to Hispanic kids, like kids with the lowriders, right? So yeah, yeah. [Tonnika Haynes] (13:55 - 13:57) Okay, so then you got bit by the car bug. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (13:57 - 16:18) I got bit by the car bug. That Honda Accord was actually really nice and not a nice enough to get like featured in these magazines. Yeah. But I was at a coffee shop one day. This is post Fast and the Furious movies, I believe. And we that was a mixed bag, right? Fast and the Furious made it a little bit more mainstream. And up until that point, it was more Asian kids. But the point is, I'm at a coffee shop. A guy I looked up to didn't know the guy he calls, he calls me from across the room, he's, he looks like he's studying for something, his finals or whatever. And this was a coffee shop that was kind of popular with younger crowd. I was doing some homework or whatever. And he calls me from across, hey, nice, nice Honda Accord. And we strike up a conversation. And, you know, little bits and pieces. He starts like, coming at me with questions here and there every, I don't know, 20 minutes or so, because we're sitting there chilling and doing the homework. And I thought he was doing his homework. Turns out he's writing for a car magazine. And so I'm inside my mind. He says to me, yeah, I'm writing for a car magazine. And I'm thinking to myself, who the hell is this guy, right? I play it cool. He says, I'm from sport compact car magazine. I'm Jared Holstein. He's years late, you know, he ends up becoming one of my best friends. But I play it cool for about three to four months. He calls me up, ask me various questions. Hey, what does this say in Japanese? Or what is this? You know, what is this magazine is saying about this car in Japanese? And, and then about four months later, he calls me up and say, Tane Suspensions is having us journalists over in Japan to do a press trip. And I just, oh, okay, what does that have to do with me? Oh, well, you know, Japanese, you know, you know, cars. You want to you want to come with me? I couldn't. [Tonnika Haynes] (16:18 - 16:19) Wait a minute, how old are you? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (16:20 - 16:24) This is, I think I was like 21 or something like that. [Tonnika Haynes] (16:25 - 16:25) Dude. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (16:25 - 19:28) Okay. So I get off the phone, and I'm jumping up and down. Oh, my God, this is awesome. Right? So that kind of kicked off a long stint of 2000. There's a little bit of in between, because I was kind of the punk kid that was hanging out with amazing guys for a while. And then I got my shit together, graduated college, went to Japan, moved to Japan briefly, because I wanted to experience my parents culture and learn about Japan and stuff like that. So I was teaching English. The the previous press trip that I went to, I met made a lot of friends, one of those people offers me a job. And I'm not a serious offer. But I, I always wanted to come back to that and say, Hey, well, I was, I was in Japan, and I wanted to go to my buddy's place and go work for him. It was it turned out to be a similar arc to my dad in the sense that it was a slave driver situation again. So I'm in Osaka, I, I've worked at this place for six months, it's a slave driver situation. You know what, I'm not quite done with Japan yet. So what am I going to do, I'm going to go back to teaching English, go back to teaching English. But that contract in Osaka, it's a large metropolis with a lot of foreigners, right? So they're paying me half of what I was getting paid, you know, when I first arrived in Japan. Because there's just so much competition in a large metropolis. I call up my friends back in the States, and that we're working for the magazine. And I said, Hey, remember me, I used to hang out with y'all when I was in SoCal. And Tatsu, where are you? Japan? Oh my god, you're in Japan. Why don't you call sooner? Yeah, yeah, you have a camera. I'm like, I don't have a camera, I can find a photographer. And so that kind of started kicked off my writing career, which I did for about 10 years. I probably wrote anywhere from like 60 to 100 articles about Japanese car culture in various magazines like sport compact car, import tuner, modified magazine, super street, all these car magazines back then, that kind of centered around Japanese car culture. And there's a lot of articles that I wrote about, you know, as as 13 to 40 sxes, drift cars, drag racing and stuff like that. So I would find myself on the weekends or law, you know, anytime that I had off, I would I would travel to some some garage and photograph a car and write about it. So that was, that was kind of like 2005 through 2014 ish. [Tonnika Haynes] (19:28 - 19:40) So what did your dad I know we're not going to make this about your dad. But what do your parents say about this when they're at home running a family business and they're thinking you're going to take it over? But instead, you're in Japan, teaching English and taking pictures are cool cars. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (19:41 - 20:49) I mean, they they encouraged it, right? I knew somehow that I had to so my wild oats. In a way, I knew I wanted to come back to my dad's shop. And I did in 2008. I said, you know what, I got three years in Japan, my Japanese got pretty good. And I've always been fluent, but I've never been really good at it until like, I met my wife and spent time in Japan. And all this stuff happened where where I was immersing myself in Japanese culture. So I came back to the States in 2008. And I still continue to do press trips for the magazine while I work under my dad. So it was easy back then because dad was boss, right? I was a technician. So I would have the free time to do it and the energy. I mean, it's I'm still in my late 20s, early 30s. So I can multitask like no other back then. [Tonnika Haynes] (20:50 - 20:50) Now. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (20:50 - 22:02) Dude, I'm tired all the time now. I'm almost 50. Yeah, but but the point the point is like, like I had I had the bandwidth to do it back then. So um, I think it was about maybe 2013 2014 ish that the magazines I mean, this is the writing was on the wall and magazines weren't weren't making any money. A lot of the magazines started to shut down. I mean, I still have great friends from that era. And if I really wanted to continue a career as a journalist, I could have from an online magazine standpoint. I mean, the cost of living in Japan is pretty cheap. I could have probably done it if I stayed over there. But I had this long standing thing in my head that I was going to come back to dad shop. So I'm working at dad shop. 2014 we were used my dad was doing handwritten work orders. And a lady that that was the wife of one of our technicians would do the record keeping in a in a DOS program. So yeah, hold on, let me close the door because it's getting noisy over here. [Tonnika Haynes] (22:03 - 22:03) Oh, good. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (22:04 - 22:04) Yeah. [Tonnika Haynes] (22:06 - 22:11) So 2014 you guys are still doing? Yeah, we're still reading estimates. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (22:12 - 22:25) Yep, yep. My dad was doing handwritten stuff. Yeah, so that DOS program takes a crap. And I'm like, Hey, we're not doing this anymore. We're going to modern system. [Tonnika Haynes] (22:26 - 22:27) What's your daddy saying? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (22:27 - 22:29) That was fine with it. [Tonnika Haynes] (22:29 - 22:30) Oh, so you didn't get a lot of pushback. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (22:31 - 22:52) Yeah, he wants me to take over. Okay. So, um, and I, I was completely naive to the whole process, right? I didn't know that putting a software into the shop, and then somehow magically making mom who doesn't know English very well, the service writer wasn't a good idea. [Tonnika Haynes] (22:54 - 22:56) How did that last? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (22:56 - 23:57) They didn't last I basically forced me to the front of the front of the shop. So and I did a pretty good job of it. I it was I switched to wind works. If you guys know what that is. It's like it sounds familiar, but yeah, it is an archaic system by today's standards for sure. But that's when I start to learn business stuff, right? In the meantime, my parts were up from Worldpacks. Steve Leto, he's a I call him Uncle Steve, because I've known he's known me since I was a little kid. And so he says, Worldpack STX is happening and it's happening in Disneyland. That was the first STX. I think it was like 2012 ish. So this is prior to the records crash, right? He's he's finding the seeds in me. And basically saying, saying, you're gonna run the shop eventually. That's that was his inkling, right? [Tonnika Haynes] (23:58 - 23:58) Right? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (23:58 - 24:12) Yeah. And so I, he gets me into the show, I didn't pay anything for it. Because it's right around the corner. And that's the whole deal. And I've been going to STX since. [Tonnika Haynes] (24:12 - 24:17) Well, before then, did you have any training? Or did your dad participate in any like training or coaching or anything? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (24:18 - 24:40) No, no, no. And mind you, again, I'm still somewhat of that punk ass kid that thinks he knows everything. So I have a little bit of that still in me. My, my, my front of house lingo is not there. Dad doesn't know enough. Dad and mom doesn't know English enough to know that I'm being an ass in the front. Right? [Tonnika Haynes] (24:41 - 24:47) So we should be best friends. Like, tell me, tell me an asshole story. And I'll tell you one of mine that got me in trouble. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (24:48 - 25:01) I mean, I got one that you remember, like, you swear words up front. I was like, yeah, that's I don't want to get into specific examples. [Tonnika Haynes] (25:01 - 25:46) Well, I had one that it was a nationwide insurance company because we were a collision center first. Right. And I think, I don't know, I'm between 16 and 18. I'm not sure exactly the age, but this guy was being an asshole. He was being an asshole. And, you know, I get off the phone and I hang up the phone, but I didn't realize I did not completely hang up the phone. And I said, what an asshole. I said, asshole, I did. And he calls my dad to let my dad know that I said that. And I can't deny it because I said it. And I didn't realize I hadn't hung up the phone. I didn't I wasn't going to say it directly to him, but that was just my thoughts. Yeah. That humbled me real quick because I mean, that's 30 some years ago. And I remember because my dad made me apologize and write a letter and. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (25:47 - 25:56) But OK, so like this is this is a shop where I grew up in the back of the shop and I thought everybody talked like this. [Tonnika Haynes] (25:56 - 26:00) Yeah. Yeah. I could cuss like the best of them because there's language back there. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (26:00 - 26:11) Like a sailor. But I didn't realize that, you know, the the polished person that you see in front of you that I that when I'm talking to customers that took a while to develop. [Tonnika Haynes] (26:11 - 26:12) Right. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (26:12 - 26:12) Yeah. [Tonnika Haynes] (26:13 - 26:24) So I'm really good at it now. I think it didn't take a while for me to develop it. My dad is really good with clients. I think that one little instance, it was turned into that. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (26:24 - 26:38) I had a teenage years that went well into my 20s. I had my 20s that went well into my 30s. So like the Polish, the Polish version of me that is in front of me right now, it finally developed and blossomed maybe in my mid 30s. [Tonnika Haynes] (26:39 - 26:53) So, yeah, the difference is you didn't go to the training. You went to STX late, but that had me around training events in a collision center early. So I kind of kind of understood that. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (26:53 - 27:02) But it was I didn't even have an inkling to do that until like we I put I took a Cecil class and it completely changed my life. Right. [Tonnika Haynes] (27:03 - 27:08) So, yeah, tell me, tell me more about that. Tell me about your first STX. I didn't want to get off subject. I do that a lot. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (27:08 - 27:10) I mean, we go off on tangents all day long if you want, girl. [Tonnika Haynes] (27:11 - 27:13) All day. I know where to go. Nowhere. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (27:14 - 28:35) I mean, like Cecil's in front of the class and he's talking about these concepts as to like how to properly charge for everything. And and this is all foreign to me. I'm still a technician under dad and it and fast forward three or four years and the records crash happens and I put in a modern system. I start taking classes like I remember. I think it was actually Kelly Bennett, Cecil's predecessor at that moment in time. But the point is now that the records crash happened and now I put a modern system in, nobody in the shop knows how to use that system. I had to learn it. Now I got to learn how to service right. And now I have this idea in my head about how what service writing should look like because I look like nothing like that at that moment in time. And and so I start going to smart groups and smart groups was initially again, Kelly Bennett. And then and then Kelly Bennett, I think he had an illness or got, got struck by a bus. I don't remember what it was. But the point is Kelly, Kelly Bennett was was Cecil's predecessor. And then Cecil came in to the smart groups and then had a huge influence on on how I do business. [Tonnika Haynes] (28:35 - 28:40) Dude, so you've been getting coached by Cecil for almost 20 years? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (28:42 - 28:50) Um, I mean, that's crazy. I mean, the brunt of it was like 2013 through 2021-ish. [Tonnika Haynes] (28:51 - 28:52) That's, that's wild. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (28:52 - 28:55) I call him Uncle Cecil. I text him occasionally. [Tonnika Haynes] (28:56 - 29:11) That's wild. Like between him and Bill Haas. Like when they walk into a room and like we're at a conference and they're walking together. I'm just like, like, oh, those are the matriarchs of the industry. That's how I see them when I see them. Cecil with the hat and Bill with the one hand in the pocket. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (29:12 - 29:21) We've taken road trips together. I've hung out with him in Utah. I mean, he's come down here. We take go out to dinner. I mean, we're on that level. [Tonnika Haynes] (29:21 - 29:24) So that's so cool to have that kind of influence. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (29:25 - 29:25) Yeah. [Tonnika Haynes] (29:25 - 29:33) In your life. So you start coaching, you put different things in place and you realize I can't go back to the back. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (29:34 - 29:38) No, I couldn't. I was locked in the front. [Tonnika Haynes] (29:40 - 29:47) What changes did you see in the business when you start making those small changes? Like now, you know how to charge people. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (29:47 - 30:32) Now you have process that you're trying. My labor rate when I went before I met Cecil was $70 an hour. What should have been like, that's great. We jumped up to $90. We got no kickback. We jumped up to $150. We jumped up to $125. I mean, it took multiple leaps to get us to that point, but we're currently at like $220 here. That's modern times. But the leap from $70 to maybe $180 was kind of the hard times in the sense that you get an idea of who I was catering to. We weren't being aware of the type of customer that we're dealing with. Right. [Tonnika Haynes] (30:33 - 30:39) I was going to say, you said it wasn't a lot of pushback. So you not being able to charge what you needed to charge. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (30:39 - 32:16) In those little increments, right? But all this while we're morphing into this, we do it better shop, right? Frick, I didn't even know that labor laws were labor laws. Here in California, you have to pay double minimum wage. If a technician even has one screwdriver, one wrench, a toolbox, you know what I mean? So I didn't even know that. We had the full-time tech in the back, master tech. He was a kid that grew up in my neighborhood. He was one of the kids I skateboarded with. But he was a technician in the back. We were giving him flat rate at the time. Because again, dad didn't know any better. In California, it's better to do a tier bonus program with a base salary or else your overtime is just BS. You got to have a base rate, right? And then we also had the college kid that just walked in. His mom was a long-time customer of ours and we hired him as a part-time kid and he ended up becoming a great technician. But I wasn't paying him correctly. I didn't know until Cecil says, hey, this is the labor law. This is how much you should be paying. I'm like, oh, we're not paying him nowhere near that. [Tonnika Haynes] (32:16 - 32:21) So you're going to have to increase your labor rates and afford to pay correctly. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (32:22 - 32:23) Yeah. [Tonnika Haynes] (32:23 - 32:36) Yeah. When you had to make the big jump, not the $20 jump, the big jump, your stomach like someone would have caught on fire. How did you lose? Did you lose any clients with that? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (32:36 - 33:44) Hell yeah, I did. It was a major cultural shift, right? Now that I remember it, there was a point in time we did like 240 cars in $80,000 in revenue in that small shop. I did a comparison in Windworks and then from like six years ago, it was kind of a similar time frame. I believe it was in August. It was like $80,000 and I've never made $80,000 before. We had 240 cars. You can imagine what that looks like. It's just oil change, kick it out, oil change, kick it out, maybe sell one thing. Same, same. Yeah, we weren't doing inspections properly. Then fast forward five years from that, because we did that study and we did $80,000 on 70 cars. Same. You could tell a kind of a difference in the quality of the customer. [Tonnika Haynes] (33:45 - 36:13) I didn't start tracking my numbers until like, so when dad retired 10 years ago, but about two years, I was just that yes person for everybody, doing every damn thing, track the tires, anything, any and everything to make everybody else happy, right? As long much money recycling we were doing, because yes, I'm in a service department now, I have service realm now, but before we were in collision. So collision, you hit, hit, you got a dent in the door, you fix the dent in the door. There's no DVI for the dent in the door. Fix the dent, blend the rear door, blend the front door, blah, blah, blah. It is what it is. We only had a service department to get more money out of the insurance companies, because at that time they would only pay us like 36, $38 an hour to put a radiator in. But if I took it up the street, they would give them a hundred and I believe like at the time, it's like 120. So our service department, we didn't even market that. We just used it as a ploy to get more money from the insurance companies. So I come into this game completely, but naked, not knowing what's happening. So I did, I did that like two years. And then that's I found Lucas online, Asong and all of those things. I'm like, wait a minute. Y'all jokers making, Oh, y'all making money, money. Like your labor rates, what? I didn't even know what I didn't know, but I wish I knew those numbers when I first started versus now. But I think I started with Techmetric about eight years ago. Well, no, it couldn't be any, like maybe six. So when I start tracking my numbers, my ARO was 283. Last month it was 1100. And my car count is down. My car count is down about 30%. So I wish I knew the numbers, but yeah, it was, it was crazy. And when it was Rick White, that was my first official coach. I did a drive program out there in California. That was weird. But Rick White was the first one that was like, listen, you're doing way too much and you're not making any money. And I'm like, okay, so what I need to do, we'll just raise our rates. He's like, no, you need to stop doing all these cars. Like you're going to die. Like, what are you doing? I was, I don't know how many cars I was doing a week, but it was ridiculous. And so like the first couple of times when I had to like, you know, slow it down, that's scary. Cause you're like, okay, well what am I going to do? And then you start doing the DVI and you start slowing it down and you get that, get that ARO up and you learn these things. It makes life so much easier. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (36:14 - 36:30) Yeah. No, the same, same level of oblivious, right? Like you don't know what you don't know. Shoot. I, like I said, it just, we were turning a blind eye to half this shit. We weren't doing any, any inspections, right? [Tonnika Haynes] (36:31 - 36:33) You just did the oil change all the brakes cause that's what they wanted. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (36:34 - 36:37) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're just turning your wheels. So. [Tonnika Haynes] (36:38 - 37:21) But it's crazy to think how many people still do that. And I know I'm going to get in trouble because I get into, I don't get in trouble. I just get like these comments. It is the, like your dad, your father was a technician. That's his trade. That's what he wanted to do. But he decided to open a business, but he really didn't have the business side down pat and neither did you by default. But as soon as you step into the right situation, STX got over with Cecil found the right community. Your eyes were, can you imagine how much further your business would have been if your dad had those opportunities 20 years ago before you did, did he even know to, right? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (37:21 - 37:29) Cause like, at least your parents were fluent in English. [Tonnika Haynes] (37:30 - 37:31) Okay. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (37:31 - 37:41) Right. I mean, there is an argument to be made about being a minority and being ignorant about stuff and not knowing what you don't know. But if you don't understand, right. [Tonnika Haynes] (37:41 - 37:41) Yeah. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (37:42 - 37:49) Yeah. Yeah. So there were, there was conferences that did go to conferences. Yeah. [Tonnika Haynes] (37:50 - 38:41) Like sickens, the pain company would put on things and stuff like that, but not to the extent that we have it. But also I don't know, it was less than a month ago that we were sitting out talking dance. Like, I wish I had all the training that you have now. He's like, I can't imagine where I would be. There's so many people that are, it might be some intimidation that I can't imagine my dad being intimidated by nothing. But you know, and I know that when we walk in these conferences, there's very little people of color. Like there's not. And I feel like there's a lot of opportunity there for other shop owners to say, Hey, bro, I know it might be a little intimidating because you don't see anybody that looks like you. You don't see a lot of people that look like you. And now down at soapbox, but please just come get the training. It is life changing, life changing. It's not cookie cutter. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (38:41 - 39:24) You know what's weird is like, I don't want to say I have a chip on my shoulder, but you know, being brought up the way that we were brought up. And I'm sure you have similar experiences to talk about that because obviously being black in America is difficult at times. I have a, I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder for, for these kids that, that 30 some odd, 40 some odd years ago that were likely kind of the stereotype of people that were picking on me. Right. Like this is why the kind of the, the, the wannabe gangster, the being with the wrong crowd kind of came about with a lot of us Asian kids. Right. [Tonnika Haynes] (39:25 - 39:28) So not sure where you fit in. Yeah. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (39:29 - 40:02) So you step into these rooms and you see these people waving their American flags and whatnot. And, and being patriotic is important. I, I'm not discounting that, but there's this feeling that sometimes when you're in these rooms that you're, you're, you don't fit in. Right. And, and that shouldn't, it took a lot for me to overcome and, and realize that these people are actually on your side, despite maybe political or social upbringings that are different than yours. Right. So yeah. [Tonnika Haynes] (40:02 - 41:30) That is true. And you know what, no one, I wouldn't say that I've ever had a chip on my shoulder because I, I'm pretty understanding, but I do know what you're saying, but here's the thing. There was a young man and it's not, it's not the same. I don't, I don't, it's not the same. I want to be careful with the way I say this. So please forgive me. And don't take this wrong. Anybody out here that's listening, but this young man, we were going to a training and he's a gay young man in the industry. And he said something. And I said, you know, I was like, well, you know, who says something you tell auntie, I'm being myself. Like, did somebody say something to you? He said, no. And I said, let's make sure. And I had to tell myself these things two years ago, let's make sure that it's just not a story that we're telling ourselves. And I got that like from, that's another thing that I got from Rick White is there's sometimes there's stories that we tell ourselves and that's based on experience. But like you said, the, the beautiful part of that, I've never experienced anything that I've been afraid of. And I'm not saying that it's never going to happen, but personally, as a black woman in this industry, going into conferences and this, that, whatever, I have not experienced the things that I imagined what might happen. So maybe I'm just lucky with that. And I thank God for that. But you just have to be careful of the things that we paint. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (41:32 - 41:52) Yeah. So some of it's up in here because of the, because of the stuff that you might've gone through when you were younger. Yeah. And we're all grownups now. We don't, we don't make fun of each other at least, at least in a joking way, maybe, but you know, but the point is that we don't necessarily do that to each other anymore because we're all grownups now. [Tonnika Haynes] (41:53 - 42:26) So we're all grownups. But then, like you said, it's the experiences that you've had experience that you've had that, that shaped that it's like somebody, I love dogs. I'm not afraid of dogs, but if it's a child, you were attacked by a dog or bit by a dog, you will have a fear of a dog. And I can't get mad at someone for having that fear. So we have to be careful when people have fears or concerns that you just don't understand. It doesn't make it invalid. That's, that's their, it's what they went through. So I don't know how we got off on that tangent, but I like all kinds of tangents. I'm here for them. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (42:26 - 42:29) That's a good parallel. I mean, so. [Tonnika Haynes] (42:29 - 42:40) So you start this coaching thing, you go to STX, you drink the Cecil juice, you in there making things change. You can't go back and hide in the back. You have to become a professional man. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (42:41 - 42:42) Yeah. [Tonnika Haynes] (42:42 - 42:45) You start raising the rates, start seeing growth. Now what? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (42:47 - 42:51) I mean, I did four and a half years ago, just opened up this shop. [Tonnika Haynes] (42:52 - 42:53) Cause it's two locations. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (42:54 - 42:59) We are two locations now. I mean, it hurt to do it too. [Tonnika Haynes] (42:59 - 43:01) I mean, why, what hurt? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (43:05 - 43:46) About two years in, I had an employee quit on me, had no idea that he was going to open up shop six doors down landlord, let it happen. And I spent the majority of 2023, part of 2024, just struggling, not making any money. The predecessor of the shop when I bought it was doing mechanical work for body shop. So his labor rates were like at 125 or something like that. And, and guess, guess who opens up shop six doors down? He knows that all the body shops. They know his name. [Tonnika Haynes] (43:46 - 43:48) They're going to get it cheaper for him. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (43:48 - 43:57) And yep. Yep. Yep. So he's still there. I'm still a little pissed at him. I still talk to him in a friendly manner to a certain extent. [Tonnika Haynes] (43:57 - 43:58) Yeah. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (43:58 - 44:49) But my, my financial advisor and my accountant come up to me and they, this is screwed up. You need to, you need to talk to this person. Then they introduced me to the lawyer that I currently use. And so they, she drafts me a ghost letter to send to the landlord and created a better rent schedule based on the kind of the hurt that he, he gave, hurting you put on the shop. So yeah, but I mean, we're, we're in a better spot now. I finally got to a point where I don't have to be at the front counter anymore. I have a girl that I'm training up to be a service advisor. So I've got three technicians in back finally. It got so slow to the point where I had to like skeleton through the place, like two technicians and me service writing. So that was tough. [Tonnika Haynes] (44:51 - 44:58) But you know what? Had you had a tough time before then at the other shop that your dad started? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (44:59 - 45:02) I mean, there's, there's plenty of tough times. [Tonnika Haynes] (45:02 - 45:06) I mean, you have ups and downs, but this sounds like that was a rough time, not a tough time. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (45:07 - 45:21) Not as hard as that, but certainly the, the, the littler, smaller, hard, harder times that we had at the other shop kind of prepared me for the bigger ones. I'm deeply committed to what I'm doing. So yeah. [Tonnika Haynes] (45:22 - 45:34) Cool. So what did your dad, I know that your dad has gone back home to Japan before then, when did he pass you the baton and say, I'm out of here? I'm out. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (45:36 - 47:32) I mean, dad's been hanging out in the shop for probably the last 10 years without really having an official role. He's my favorite Aaron boy. He went to go get parts. He wants to go take customers home. He's coming back in late September to take care of some paperwork because we need to sell a house and, and kind of get the power of attorney, that kind of stuff going on soon. But mom started showing signs of dementia and we, we weren't prepared for this. I mean, we were doing so well enough to where we can sustain ourselves and make a healthy living, but not to the point where we can American elder care is so freaking expensive. And so for that reason, mom's still a Japanese citizen. We're like, you know what? Japan's the best option. So we, we sent mom and dad home about four months ago. And so, and it's arguably better care for less, a lot less money in Japan. I just remember dad coming home and being sold shit. If you know what I mean? Like she'd go to the AAA office around the corner to renew, renew his license or whatever that, whatever DMV paperwork he was doing. And he would just show up. I just got a life insurance program. Like dad, you got sold something. You know what I mean? Like, and, and that part of American culture is what kind of ultimately made me make that decision to mom and dad are more familiar with Japan and being spoken to in Japanese. No one's going to swindle them over there or try to sell stuff they don't need. And so that kind of became part of the calculus of sending mom and dad back. [Tonnika Haynes] (47:33 - 47:41) And you're the only child. So that means you'd have to do all the caregiving, but I'm assuming at home you've got cousins and uncles and aunts and all those things, a whole. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (47:42 - 48:05) Yeah, I do have cousins. My aunts and uncles were all older. So many of them have passed away, but mom and dad are currently in line to be at an elder care facility where, um, again, it's like one 10th, the cost of American healthcare, elder care in that sense. So, wow. [Tonnika Haynes] (48:06 - 48:20) Yeah, it sucks. So tell me what you've got two shops and you are open four days a week as well. What are you Tuesday through Friday? Tuesday through Friday. Yeah. How's it feel? When did you do that? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (48:21 - 48:23) Well, I still work six days a week. [Tonnika Haynes] (48:23 - 48:29) Oh yeah, me too. But when did you open four days a week? When did you make that decision? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (48:30 - 48:52) I initially did it about probably five years ago at my placentia location, which is my original shop. And then about two years into ownership of this shop in custom Mesa is when we did it over here. Um, I mean, it's great to come here on a Saturday and not have anybody bug you to do anything. [Tonnika Haynes] (48:52 - 48:55) Bro, you don't understand. Yes. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (48:55 - 49:05) Yeah. Yeah. It's great to come here on a Monday and just plow through a bunch of paperwork and not have an employee bug you about a car that's having some issues out there. [Tonnika Haynes] (49:05 - 49:25) I love it. I love going to work on Friday and Saturday because I'm Monday through Thursday, but going in on a Friday, just in some stretchy clothes and turn on dateline and order some food in and just get work done. And like, if it's a Sunday night, I'll do it on Sunday too. It's a Sunday night and customers are dropping off for the night before. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (49:25 - 49:28) They're like, why are you here? Yeah. [Tonnika Haynes] (49:30 - 49:38) It's time. You can just do what you want to and get stuff that you get so much more done. So when people say, yes, I'm open four days a week, but I work all the time. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (49:39 - 49:47) All the time. Yeah. So I love it. I'll join them in that schedule one of these days, but not right now. [Tonnika Haynes] (49:47 - 50:32) I'm still like, no, you know, you better learn to take off. I do take off time. Like, I know that when I'm going to the ASL conference next week in Texas, I don't have to worry about anything because, you know, we've got everything in place. But as far as my work, the work that I continue to do that I prefer to do instead of outsourcing it, it's just like going there when nobody's there. It's easier. And I think everybody in the shop knows that like, what did you do this weekend? Oh yeah, I was in here and I was bored. And so I just mopped all the floors and I cleaned everything up. So it's time to pay attention to the shop. I think it's time for me to look at things from a different angle. Like I'll go into the shop and sit down and look around. It's like, okay, what's broken? Like, oh my God, look at this spider web. You can pay attention to your business more in my opinion, when it's quiet. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (50:34 - 50:59) Yeah. I do need to become more polished on like the ownership side. Like, like I don't, I don't have policies and procedures down pat. I think I'm actually, you know, Tim Shakarian, right? Yeah. Yeah. He mentioned you. I mean, he's, he's a much more outgoing and wildly like charismatic person. [Tonnika Haynes] (50:59 - 51:00) No, he's just wild. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (51:01 - 51:42) But what I'm saying is I'm kind of a subdued version of him in a certain way. Um, cause I, I, I'm a little bit more quiet and reserved, but, um, he has ADHD for sure. And I'm like thinking to myself as I'm getting closer to 50 and I, I'm going to have my 50th birthday on the, in December here. Um, I'm realizing that all the, the masking or the, the sides of my personality that have allowed me to come this far, it's starting to like shit, get shipped away. Uh, I don't have the bandwidth. [Tonnika Haynes] (51:42 - 51:49) I used to, I do my, I don't give a damn is so turned up right now. So I'll be 50 in January. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (51:50 - 51:54) I I'm pretty sure I have some level of ADHD that I need to go get. [Tonnika Haynes] (51:54 - 53:09) I've got the TISMs. I don't care, but I, my, I don't give a crap is on a hundred. And that's why I'm so glad that I have people at the front desk. Cause they know it. Like my, my team knows that like, Mr. Nick was tripping. They know at three o'clock, I am no good. I'm either silly or sleepy or both. And I can't be at the front desk cause my face shows every thing that I'm thinking. I had a customer up there and he was, he failed his inspection for tires. And he knew he was going to fail for tires. And an inspection in North Carolina is $13 dude. But this guy was just talking. And all I heard him say was like the little shrimp guy on what is it? Is it Shrek or my sister had a baby. That's all I heard. And so I started laughing. I had to leave. I was like, this dude has so many excuses, bro. You need some tires. Like I got it. I don't have the customer service skills to be like, yes, sir. I understand those probably lasts about three to four hours, a good Tanika a day. But after that, I would just be like, sir, you need some tires. What do you want me to do? And my sister had a baby and I was, so the older you get, right. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (53:09 - 53:46) Okay. But as outgoing as you think I am in my public persona, like my social battery, I would put myself at like a 55% extrovert, 45% introvert. So my social battery, like at three o'clock in the afternoon, we'll just die. And my wife will tell you that I seem almost bipolar. Like the personality that I have when I'm outgoing and personality that I have when I'm like, I can not take in any more conversation from anybody. That person is a very different person. [Tonnika Haynes] (53:47 - 54:38) Three o'clock is three o'clock for me. And my technicians know AJ knows that he's like, he'll look at the clock. But what I do is I get really silly because I'm tired. And so I'll get really silly, but for, I am 65% introvert. I really am STX. I'm coming up the escalator and my face, I don't know what my face was doing, but Jimmy Lee was like, are you okay? I was like, dude, there's way too many people. There's a lot of people. The party, the eighties party, I stayed for like 30 minutes. I just couldn't, I could not, I found Chrissy and I was like, okay, I'm sticking to you. And like people, where are you at? I am in my room. That's why I was so mad that they didn't have room service. That was good. I was in the room like, okay, I'm going to bed and I want to have fun. I just know that I'm not the same person because I just can't, I'm unable to can. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (54:39 - 54:55) Now 20 years ago, I could be a lot more outgoing, but yeah, there was like probably four or five people I wanted to go say hi to, but it was already past that three o'clock mark. And I was like, man, I don't have a gumption to do this. [Tonnika Haynes] (54:55 - 55:11) Even with the podcast, I got to figure this out. Like with the podcast and STX is huge. Like I've never been to a conference that big automotive, right? Yeah. People are coming up and they know my name. Okay. I'm easy to pick out in a crowd. I'm easy to pick out. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (55:12 - 55:17) So the black girl with the braids or the girl with the orange hair. In that crowd you and I very much stand out. Yes. [Tonnika Haynes] (55:17 - 55:37) Yeah. We stand out in the crowd. And so I thank God for the blessings of the podcast and, and it reaching so many people, but these people, they come and talk to you and I don't know what to say. And I really have to come up with something to say. I need a script. Cause like, Oh, Mr. Nick, I've been wanting to meet you. And I'm just sitting there thinking like, who the hell is that? Why are you talking to me? Yeah. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (55:38 - 55:47) There was a few people that walked up to me and, and, and, and I'm horrible in names and faces. I was like, I don't know who the hell you are. I'm thinking of my back of my mind. [Tonnika Haynes] (55:47 - 56:58) I'm going to send you what Jimmy Lee just sent me because we're getting ready to go to ASL. Right. I'm going to send you. It was a whole, it was so funny. Somebody made a song and it was like, I'm just going to call everybody, dude. What's up, dude. What's up sister. Cause I'm so sorry. I want to know your name and I do love people, but sometimes I'm just like, okay, I can't. And I just feel like Homer Simpson when he walks in the back in the trees, when he backs up and say, Oh my God, they're coming. They're talking to me. They're talking to me. But if I found my circle, like my regular circle, like my ASTA circle, I'm saying group opinions. I'm good. I'm good. But the new people, I'm like, Oh my God, they're not going to understand when I stopped talking. I'm not trying to be rude. I just don't have any more words. All my words are gone. Yeah. And then like working in the front at the front desk, I know like that age, you get to the point that's like, I can't even fake it. Cause usually I can just fake it and say, Hey, you know, I can smile and talk to you. But now I'm just like, dude, I don't want to talk to you. Hey, I want my car. I don't care about your car right now. Cause that's what my face will be saying. I was like, dude, it's 445. I don't care about my car right now. Like I'm just done. [Zeb Beard] (56:59 - 56:59) Yeah. [Tonnika Haynes] (56:59 - 57:10) It's old people brain. I don't feel 50 though. I don't know what 50 feels like. I don't feel 50 until like when I have to get up in the morning and stuff hurts, but yeah, the mental. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (57:11 - 57:17) Okay. So, so, uh, tell me how, and you don't have to answer if you don't want to. [Tonnika Haynes] (57:19 - 57:24) I'm 49.8 years old. I'll be 50 January 3rd. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (57:25 - 57:32) Yeah. Like black people and Asian people. We don't, we don't, we don't age like most people. [Tonnika Haynes] (57:33 - 57:39) No, I am a 50 January 3rd. And then, um, what are you going to do for your 50th? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (57:40 - 58:01) I feel like, ah, man, I, I'm probably going to do the Japan trip. I, I, you know how long it's been just grinding at this, this, uh, this challenge that has been put in front of me because of the various things that happened at the shop. Um, I, yeah. So like I am burnt out the clock out. [Tonnika Haynes] (58:01 - 58:53) So I'm planning to do not work until February 1st. So I plan not to go to work for the whole month of January. I think I'm gonna spend two weeks. At least Jamaica is my favorite place. I'm gonna spend two weeks there. At least if not the whole 31 days. Uh, I did tell my kids, I'll be here for my birthday, but then mom is getting on flight and I'm out. And, um, so I'll either be in Jamaica for the whole month, or I'm thinking of maybe come back and go to a spa for like two weeks. I'm not sure, but I am, um, I feel you. There's a lot, it's a lot to business ownership and growth and leadership and all the ships. And I, I just don't want to my, I'm telling you, I'm really unable to can at this point. You just smile and wave, but I need some me time. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (58:53 - 59:07) I'm still very passionate and moving stuff forward, but there's a, there's a general lack of bandwidth, maybe 20, 30% less than I was 20 years ago. So I don't know. [Tonnika Haynes] (59:07 - 59:10) But isn't it fun that you can train people to take over that? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (59:11 - 59:16) Yeah. Yeah. I'm in that process obviously right now because I got my new service rider gal. [Tonnika Haynes] (59:17 - 59:27) So, so what my team, when I told them that's what I wanted to do, they were like, okay, we got it. And so that feels so good. I know I couldn't have said that five, six, seven years ago. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (59:28 - 59:39) You know, there's a, there's a level of pride I have, um, because I have not stepped in my other shop in eight months in any official capacity. [Tonnika Haynes] (59:39 - 59:39) Wow. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (59:40 - 1:00:03) Um, I mean, obviously I want to go back there and steer the ship, uh, and make some changes myself. Um, that's going to be perhaps my next challenge is I really haven't steered the ship well enough. So new policies, new prices, that kind of stuff. I haven't done that in a while. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:00:04 - 1:00:07) So it takes a lot of trust to be able to do that too. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:00:08 - 1:00:22) I mean, Kevin's Kevin's done me well. I mean, he's done, he's ran the shop for, for a while now without me there. So super proud of the guy. Um, he's stubborn. He's a D type. He runs. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:00:23 - 1:00:31) Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey. It's okay. Being a high D on the disc is fine. I'm a D and a Capricorn. So yeah. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:00:32 - 1:00:53) Oh man. I am anything but a D on that disc profile. Where I will run you over. Like people, people run mental gymnastics around me. When I, whenever I, I come up to them with, with words of how I want things to change. And then they, then they do just mental gymnastics around me. And I'm like, dude, I, I didn't come prepared for this conversation to turn. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:00:54 - 1:01:03) I'm a high D, but I mean, we get stuff done. I'm like, okay, we'll talk about it after it's done. We need a plan. We don't need a plan. Just do it, do it, do it, do it, do it now. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:01:05 - 1:01:09) Yeah. You're like, I'm not, I'm too, I'm too calculated. I think too much. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:01:10 - 1:01:11) So what is, what letter are you? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:01:12 - 1:01:19) Um, I'm a, depending upon when I, when I'm, what mood I am and taking that thing, I'm an I or an S or a C. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:01:20 - 1:01:30) Okay. Anything but I'm a D I. Yeah. So, but we need each other. I think people should, I think everybody should take those. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:01:32 - 1:01:39) Yeah. I know there was one on the S and sometimes on the I, but the C I'm a little bit less of. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:01:42 - 1:02:36) Yeah. I think everybody should take those and make your employees take them so you can figure out who the heck you're working with. Because it does make a lot of sense. Like, you know, how to approach people and approach projects together. Like I, me knowing that I run over people and I'm just that person that makes me aware of it. And then I don't do so much of it all the time. I still do, but I'm aware of it. You know what I'm saying? And then like, if there's somebody in your shop that's working and they are just the type of person that you clash with, you just have to figure out a way to communicate with them. It doesn't make them bad. They just have a different personality. So I like that. I like that training. I think I got the first training again, like Rick White made such a big difference in my life. Coaching really has made such a big difference in my business. When did you, so you got out of STX and you just joined the Institute or whatever it was called at that time? You just drank the Kool-Aid right away? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:02:37 - 1:02:54) It took a while to get me back there. I mean, I was still being technician and then like not doing a really good job running the front of the shop. I tried to multitask for a while. And again, back then I could, because I had the bandwidth to do it. A lot of yelling at mom. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:02:56 - 1:03:12) Why can't you do it the way that I told you to do it? You do it. Okay. I'm going to do it anyway. So that's me. I'll just do it by myself. That's the bad part of having the high D. Learning the delicate is hard. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:03:12 - 1:03:46) Anybody can do it. And again, I'm dealing with now getting older parents and they came from Japan and they don't, why can't you just learn it? Like I just learned it. You know what I mean? You hold your parents in such high regard, especially when they're a little bit younger than they are right now. And they think you think that they can do it, but you know what? I gave him too much credit for that in that sense. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:03:47 - 1:03:51) So we think they're superheroes. Like you said, like how old are your kids? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:03:52 - 1:03:56) My kids are 17 and 12. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:03:56 - 1:04:54) Okay. So with a 17 year old, I think it was 20, 19 or 20. When my oldest son, I don't know what he came to me with, but he came to me with like some stuff and she was him and his brother within the, within days, they had like really, really big boy, almost a man problems. And they are coming to mom for the answers. Right. I had no idea what to tell them. And I had to tell him, I was like, dude, this is the first time that I've been a mama to a, to you. I don't know what to say. And I remember looking at me like, Hey, you should know everything. And I was just like, I don't know what to do. Like, I wish I was super mom and there was a book to go with it. But this is the first time I've been a mom to a damn near man. So I don't know what to tell you, but we'll figure it out together. It's like, I'm not super woman. I'm not know it all because we want our parents to believe that to our parents. All right. Even like being the leader of the shop. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:04:56 - 1:05:50) So, so, okay. So we're going back and we're going to hit the rewind button yet again. You were calm. We're going back to when my, I was coming up mom and dad are busy running the shop and the Japanese mentality is that the village raises the kids here in America. That's a complete opposite, right? You have these parents that are like picking up their kids from school and helping them with their homework. And I'm getting like bad grades. Cause my parents don't know how to help me with their school. That was part of my outbreak. So now I'm in a situation, fast forward to I'm with them at the shop and don't you know how to do this shit? Oh man, what a different mentality in parenting it is to be here in the States compared to Japan. There's a huge cultural difference there. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:05:51 - 1:07:02) So, but even like, for me, my parents are young and my dad, I know that I know with all of my heart that he did the best he could from what he knew how. And we always have to forgive our parents because you know, and I know that they just didn't know. And you're like, why don't you know, vote it in, do it. You should know this. You should, you're, you're the mom and you're the daddy. Yeah. They're just having to be your mom and daddy, but they didn't take a mom and daddy class. And, um, so sometimes I, Ooh, I want to kind of throw this in. It might sound weird. And, but it's kind of like that with leadership and ownership, you come into an ownership position or a leadership position, or you're a tech that opened a shop and you, you don't know what you don't know. You don't have the training, but when you get it, your eyes are just like, but you just didn't know it. And if you don't get the coaching or the training or anything like that, no matter what you do, no matter what position you're in or industry you're in, the people that are under you, the people that you're leading, they think, you know, everything already. I go, you're the boss. You should know what you should be able to figure it out. It's like, I'm trying to figure it out. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:07:04 - 1:07:44) We had to figure it out the hard way. Right. Cause like, because of our parents and their, I don't want to say ignorance is bliss, but they were, they were just naive to the whole thing. They just open up a shop and, Oh, well, let's just see where it goes kind of thing. And our, our, our, our employees, yours and mine are in a better spot because even though I don't have written processes in place, I, I'm at least sitting with my technicians and my service advisor and really teaching them how to do my job. So I'll get there. So I got to do SOPs. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:07:44 - 1:08:38) You got to do SOPs. You know, the easiest way to do them is he, I don't know if you love or hate chat, but when you're doing something, literally go ahead and open a folder in your favorite chat and tell it exactly what you're doing. Like, I don't know if you guys did this in California in college or whatever, but remember that one class that you had to for us, it was, you had to write how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or it was tell somebody how to brush your teeth. And then the teacher did exactly what you wrote down and you're like, no, no, no, no. And you didn't explain it very well. So yeah, same thing. So really open up chat and let's come up with an SOP on how to close out the shop for the day. And as you're closing out the shop for the day, just speak it into the, into your phone or whatever. And it'll come up and you'll have a template or skeleton to start working with. If it's not already perfect, we were better than nothing. That's how I did mine. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:08:39 - 1:08:47) I know I'm, I'm, I'm working the gumption up. I mean, the, the burnout is been a big problem lately, so. Do it after your birthday. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:08:48 - 1:08:52) Do it in January. Do it in February. You don't worry about that the day. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:08:53 - 1:09:00) No, but, but yeah, certainly having a new service advisor here and having her learn stuff is, it's. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:09:00 - 1:09:02) Or have her help you do them. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:09:03 - 1:09:04) Yeah. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:09:05 - 1:09:06) So I had to ask this. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:09:06 - 1:09:32) I had a dealership tech service advisor that just sold everything way too hard. And then I had, I had the old man here that, that came with the shop. I mean, those, I'm like, screw this. I'm, I'm starting from scratch. I am getting a perfectly green person here. And then this gal comes up into my shop and she's like, she's like, I've been wanting to ask you, can I have a job? [Tonnika Haynes] (1:09:32 - 1:09:36) And I'm like, you're it. Here, what did she do before? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:09:37 - 1:09:42) She was in a hospital nutrition. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:09:44 - 1:09:59) Get somebody green and train them up the way you should. You want them to get a really good at get her as far as you can take her and then maybe get her in training. What do you think you're going to train her like service about to train her through the Institute or somebody, or do you think you'll do training first? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:10:00 - 1:10:05) Well, I, I've been sitting with her for like hours a day recently. [Zeb Beard] (1:10:07 - 1:10:07) Yeah. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:10:08 - 1:10:36) Kind of homeschool situation. I, in that sense, but Dori Epstein, you know, her, she, she worked for the Institute for a hot minute. She, her, her and her twin brother own a shop down in San Diego. She's doing a training in October. And then in the Institute themselves are doing a training in November. So that's kind of where I want her to go. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:10:38 - 1:11:10) I know we're all over the place, but I'm dying to ask you because here recently I've been getting so many really good feeling out of girls from my dad. Like he'll say, you know, I started, I had a blueprint, but you're really taking it there. And it's like, really feels good to have your father proud of you. You get that from your dad. Is that a cultural thing? I was wondering that like, there's gotta be a way that he's doing it. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:11:11 - 1:11:21) I mean, I I'm, I'm sure he's proud and he just doesn't know how to express it. Yeah. I feel good about what I'm doing here. I mean, that that's enough. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:11:24 - 1:11:39) So cool. So what's next? We turn in 50. We've opened the second shop. We're going to get our SOPs in order. What else, what else are you up to? What are you going to do? Like when we're getting ready to be old, what are we going to do on the other side of this hill? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:11:41 - 1:11:43) I want to, I want a third shop. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:11:44 - 1:11:45) You want a third shop? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:11:45 - 1:11:50) You know what? And I don't want to do it the hard way. Like I did this second shop. What do you mean? [Tonnika Haynes] (1:11:50 - 1:11:52) Tell me the way that you want to do it. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:11:53 - 1:12:35) I mean, I, I don't want to go it alone. Like I, I walked in here, just buried myself in work and to open this place. And I want more participation from my guys, more buy-in from my guys and gals. That's, that's kind of the conditions of my next place that I want. So, and that's not, that's not anything near term, maybe three to five years from now. I want to cultivate something where we're ready for that as opposed to just plowing through what I did with this shop. So yeah. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:12:35 - 1:12:35) Awesome. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:12:36 - 1:12:41) I'm not the smartest guy in the world. Whatever, whatever. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:12:42 - 1:12:48) As soon as you think you are the smartest guy in the world, then you're probably the dumbest guy in the world. People that think they know everything. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:12:48 - 1:12:58) A lot of my peers in that smart group, GPG group, like, man, Totsie, you did it the dumb way. I'm like, yeah, I know. So you know how I just work my ass off. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:12:58 - 1:13:05) I don't want that hard work. Sometimes I think, oh, I could open a second location. And when I'm just, then I'm like lazy in the head. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:13:05 - 1:13:27) Yeah. I mean, there's, there's this continual thought that I'm getting hit with where my guys from various coaching groups and various predominantly from GPG where they're my friends in there and they're like, just make your existing shops better before you even think about a third shop. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:13:27 - 1:13:27) Right. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:13:27 - 1:13:29) So yeah. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:13:33 - 1:13:43) So you always, you're talking about your guys and you want them to help you. If you decide to do the third shop in three to five years, what do you think they would, what, how do you think they describe you as the boss? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:13:44 - 1:13:46) I'm too laid back, dude. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:13:46 - 1:13:46) Yeah. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:13:48 - 1:13:57) I'm not the D personality. So yeah, I am too laid back. I don't hold their feet to the fire enough. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:13:58 - 1:14:02) Right. You think that's a problem? Why do you think you should, should you? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:14:05 - 1:14:07) Productivity isn't one issue that I have at my shops. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:14:08 - 1:14:08) Okay. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:14:09 - 1:14:32) Yeah. But then again, that might just be a function of not having enough cars. I mean, we're certainly, my guys are in the 70 to 80 percentile in terms of productivity, but, that 20 percent might just be flow and not enough cars. But certainly recently, both of my shops have been getting a lot of new customers. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:14:33 - 1:14:36) Do you know why that is? What are you up to? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:14:36 - 1:15:19) Well, this location we have, are you familiar with Anduril, the military drone company? Mm-mm. They just opened up shop and are spending a lot of government money. And, you know, every week I get two or three people showing up at my front door going, I just got a job at Anduril. I just moved here from wherever, Alabama, Ohio, Oregon. And these young 20-something year old out of college or even 30-somethings, but they're all showing up here saying, I need a new mechanic because I just, I just got a new job at Anduril. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:15:20 - 1:15:21) Well, say let's come on in. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:15:22 - 1:15:23) Yeah, come on in. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:15:23 - 1:15:24) What does your marketing look like? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:15:26 - 1:15:47) I got Brandon, if you're familiar with Reboot Media. Yeah, he's big on the West Coast. Okay. A lot of us shop owners out here use him. So and he's also very big on GPG Group. So my friends in that group all use him. Not all, but a lot of them do. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:15:47 - 1:15:47) Right. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:15:49 - 1:16:43) I got a local social media company this time. And he was doing amazing things for a local bar and restaurant. So I was like, dude, yeah, that's my guy. Come to find out he, he's a local soccer coach for a girl's soccer team. And, and then he started doing social media for that local soccer team. And the metrics that were coming out of the social media for the soccer team started to outdo the US soccer team. So a side hustle from, from him being a school teacher slash coach, uh, that kind of came into fruition. And now he's got the imagination and a lot of clients in Orange County right now. So nice. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:16:44 - 1:16:47) School teacher to social media, dude. Ow. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:16:48 - 1:16:48) Yeah. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:16:51 - 1:16:54) Well, what you got next? What's your next training coming up? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:16:56 - 1:16:57) Literally tomorrow. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:17:00 - 1:17:00) Okay. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:17:01 - 1:17:02) Yeah. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:17:02 - 1:17:07) How often do you go? How many trains do you do a year? Do you think on average? [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:17:08 - 1:17:16) I mean, recently I haven't been going to very many just because I just put my, you know, put my blinders on and said, work, get this place running. Right. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:17:17 - 1:17:17) Yeah. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:17:17 - 1:17:34) But I imagine I'm going to be going quarterly to something. Now that I have my, my freedom restored a little bit, but I still got to train the girl. Right. She's still, she's still too green for me to leave her alone for too long. So. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:17:36 - 1:17:44) I feel you, I feel you, I feel you. What are you doing for the rest of the day? It's Friday. It's your last day of work. What time is it? So it's 1 45 here. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:17:46 - 1:17:57) 10 47. And then in 10 minutes, I have a, um, uh, a meeting with, uh, elite and Bill Greenhouse people. First orientation. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:17:59 - 1:18:01) So, uh, good luck with that. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:18:02 - 1:18:14) Yeah. So I've been really looking forward to training up with Bill Greenhouse. And then, uh, later today I got all the SCCA people coming into town. So I'm going to take them out to dinner. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:18:15 - 1:18:33) That'll be fun. Yeah. I am going to find me some lunch and I think I'll probably end up at the shop. Um, nope. I told Chrissy, I told Chrissy Falco, I was going to go to dinner, lunch or something with her. So I'm getting ready to text her. So we can go find some Mexican food and, um, have some margaritas. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:18:36 - 1:18:40) Well, if you ever find yourself out here in the West coast, I'm taking out the dinner. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:18:40 - 1:19:00) Okay. I need to, I need to get out there. I don't know. Last, last time I went out there was for, Hey, a GPG meeting. I can't remember. Where were we? San Diego. I don't know. I can't remember anything, but nope. That was the last time I was out there. I'll be out there for SEMA going to SEMA apex. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:19:00 - 1:19:33) Man. I got some, I got some, uh, I got burnt from SEMA. We did a car for the, for the Scion booth a long time ago. We put a, we had a Scion IQ. We cut out the floor in the back. We put an engine in the back, mounted it to the roll cage. That was a nutty, nutty project, man. Grown men crying, trying to get to a deadline. Oh my God. Flashback. The word I was looking for was PTSD. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:19:34 - 1:19:35) Oh, okay. SEMA. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:19:36 - 1:19:37) Okay. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:19:37 - 1:20:02) Well, this will be my first one. I'm excited to go. We'll see. Go to Vegas. Go to Vegas. Well, I enjoyed talking to you today. Enjoy getting to know you. You're so quiet. Sometimes you're going to be like, okay, Tanika, calm down. You're so quiet. Yeah. I'm gonna be like hanging out with Tim. Tim was a lot. I enjoy him. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:20:03 - 1:20:05) Tim burns me out. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:20:05 - 1:20:07) I enjoy him. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:20:07 - 1:20:08) Burns a lot of people out. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:20:08 - 1:20:14) Oh my God. He's a trip. So much. You need that good energy around you though. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:20:15 - 1:20:16) Yeah, he's good people. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:20:17 - 1:20:30) Alrighty. Well, appreciate you coming on. I'm getting ready to go find me a spicy margarita. And enjoy my mortgage. And you go to your meeting and have fun and learn all the things and get ready for that third shop. [Tatsunori Tsuchida] (1:20:31 - 1:20:34) In three to five years. In three to five years. [Tonnika Haynes] (1:20:35 - 1:21:08) Downshift with Tanika is where we slow down long enough to have real conversations. Hosted by myself, second generation shop owner, Tanika Haynes. This goes beyond your car count, your KPIs. We want to talk about leadership, legacy, mindset, and the messy, beautiful journey of building something that lasts. You will hear stories from shop owners, technicians, and other industry leaders who are figuring it all out by themselves in real time. This is a space for growth, tough love, laughter, and leveling up.