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‍Standing on the grid of the Indy 500 with 250,000 people around you and 33 cars on the grid—there’s nothing like it.

At the age of 13 I was working on semi-trucks. And when I turned 18, I opened up my first shop in the U.K. It was mobile; just me and a set of tools. 

In 1996, I got a call from Newport Beach, California that said “we need you to be a crew chief for the Indy Lights Team.” 

With no hesitation, I said yes. I was the crew chief for a two-car team for about a year. 

After moving from the U.K. to the U.S., I hopped around a bit. I lived in Oregon, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan. I went from being a crew chief to replacing rear tires and fixing exotics. 

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In 1999, I worked my first Indy 500 race. And let me tell you: standing on the grid of the Indy 500 with 250,000 people around you and 33 cars on the grid—there’s nothing like it. 

As you’re waiting for the car to drive up, your adrenaline will start pumping. Everyone is in their position, and you’re in charge of changing the outside rear tire.

Formula One guys can do it in 2 to 2.5 seconds because they have a group of 20 individuals, but when you’re the only one on a tire, and everyone’s counting on you, you do it in 5 to 7 seconds.

I remember they put a heart rate monitor on me when I was changing tires at the Long Beach Grand Prix. My heart rate went from 180 to 230 during that wheel change. 

Judi Haglin runs Haglin Automotive alongside her husband, Dana.

And whether they’re in the shop or out of the shop, they’re always looking for ways they can give back.

One of their favorite efforts is volunteering with Pilots N Paws®, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that rescues puppies by flying them to be adopted.

Over the years, they've saved over 200 puppies.

Judi: Dana got his private pilot license when he was in school.

And after we got married, we were looking at buying a second house. We decided to build our home in the hangar, and eventually Dana got his airplane.

Giving back to the community is extremely important to us. Through the years, we’ve donated several vehicles to Justice High School for the highest achiever, and each Spring have sponsored an Erie High School student to participate in the Hugh O’Brien Youth Leadership Camp.

Naturally, Dana started to look for additional volunteer opportunities. 

Tekmetric is a huge improvement over a traditional paper process for sure. Estimates are easy to draft, orders are easy to create, and work flows easily through the platform as cars move through your shop.

That's because there’s always a better way! Canned jobs in Tekmetric are particularly powerful, saving service writers time by simplifying the process of building job estimates. Less clicks means more time to focus on the customer and offer amazing service while selling even more amazing BG Products.

When you have the right tool that helps simplify your work, why not use them? You wouldn’t use an open-ended wrench when a ratcheting socket wrench cuts the time in half and saves your knuckles.

In our effort to keep growing Tekmetric so running your shop is even easier, our latest update to canned jobs now includes even more canned jobs for BG Products and services right in Tekmetric. Just enable the canned jobs you want to use, and start selling even more BG services right away! 

What are canned jobs?

Canned jobs are pre-saved job templates in Tekmetric that include labor and parts associated with common repair work done.

Instead of recreating jobs you perform on a regular basis, shops can create as many canned-jobs as they like to build estimates in just seconds. Just apply the right canned job and you're ready to send for approval.

In fact, shops find canned jobs so helpful, one shop running on Tekmetric has created over 2,000 customer canned jobs, and even uses at least one canned job per RO. 

The value of canned jobs is clear: making it easier for repair teams to provide customers with the best of the best. 

Simple, efficient, and reliable processes lead to more completed work and happier customers. And as we know, happier customers leads to even more customer retention, and better customer retention increases shop profitability.

In essence, canned jobs can even help you pay for Tekmetric. The profit generated from saving time, closing more repair orders and selling better service can cover the cost of the platform, and then some. 

Just why are canned jobs so powerful for your shop? That's easy:

• Make your jobs easier by simplifying your workflows for common repair orders into just a few clicks
• Shorten the time it takes to operate, get estimates built and approved sooner and move cars faster.
• BG Canned Jobs, using BG products in particular, enable your shop to offer more specialized service options for improved vehicle performance

A lot of shop owners, and business owners in general, get so busy with running their business. If we’re not careful, I think we can tend to forget our staff and our team members without even realizing it.

I have a routine where, every single day when I get to the shop, I walk around, and I talk with every single technician.

I don't care how busy I am, or if my phone is ringing, I make the time to talk with every single technician before I even set my stuff down.

I take care of my employees first, and then I take care of our customers.

The reason I put it in that order is because I believe if you take care of your employees and help them love where they work, then they will naturally take care of your customers; you cherish your employees to carry your customers.

When I first started my shop,  I was turning wrenches with my team, selling at the front counter, and running the place. But, no matter how busy I was, I would always walk around the counter and sit on the couch next to our customers. I would talk with them, not only about their cars, but I would also find out what’s going on in their lives.

I did this because I care about the customers just as much as I care about their safety when they’re driving on the road. And I teach my team to genuinely care, too.

When it’s time for them to present an estimate, and a customer is sitting over on a couch, they don’t call that customer over to the counter. Instead, they walk around and go over to that customer.

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Doing the presentation side-by-side creates a bond and a level of being equal.

The biggest secret that I have for shop owners is to hire a coaching company. I wish I could go back in time and do this earlier, but I hired a coaching company back in 2017.

There are so many coaching companies that are out there, and they really push that customers are numbers. But I wanted to find a coach that values their employees and customers the way I do, someone who builds a relationship with people, because me building a relationship is what got me where I'm at.

My passion for auto repair started off in my garage. It was the coolest garage in the neighborhood. I had pull-down air-hoses, and it was kind of like a little dream shop. All I did was have car hobbies and help friends work on their vehicles.

There were so many of my friends that went and talked to my wife and said, "He's got to open up a real shop one day, and you've got to encourage him to do it.”  

Before joining the auto repair industry, I was in the restaurant industry, but I always worked on cars as a hobby in my spare time. Being in the restaurant industry was very time consuming. I was working more than 100 hours a week.

I thoroughly enjoyed the restaurant industry when I had the time for it, but then my son was born. When my son was 6 months old, I was kissing him goodbye when he was in his crib, and I realized I hadn't seen him while he was awake in almost 6 months.

Eventually my wife said to me, and I’ll never forget this, she said, “Mike, you need to open up a shop. You have the passion for it. Working on cars is what you love, and I can tell you’re happy doing it.”

So I did it. I opened up my own auto repair shop. It wasn’t easy though. I worked more than I had ever worked before. That was 22 years ago now.