Becoming a Trusted Expert

Bryan Warman first started working on tractors on his grandfather’s farm in his adolescence. He became enamored with the intricacies of the big engines, and how, when they were maintained properly, the tractor would get the job done, day in and day out. 

He still has a tractor owned by his great-grandfather that runs as well now as it did in its heyday. It’s a testament to the work ethic and care Warman puts into his business.

Now, as the co-owner and shop foreman at Mike John’s Imports in Jeffersonville, Ind., Warman is taking a similar approach on a smaller scale—making sure the engines of his customer’s BMW and MINI vehicles are cared for correctly, so they do the same thing, day in and day out.  

Working on cars is backbreaking. When my partner and I first bought this company, I had dirt under my fingernails when I shook hands with the bank. It’s impossible to work on cars and run a business. 

When I walked in here the first day after buying it, I came in with my toolbox. The former owner looked at it and told me I wouldn’t be needing that for long. I’m sure every shop owner would say the same thing. You work on one car for five minutes and get called to look at something else or take a phone call or talk to a customer. 

I do prefer the management side a lot. I have found you can sit in your bay and turn wrenches, but if you really want to help your community outside with your customers and impact the lives of people, ownership is the most gratification you can get. If you have to do problem solving as a technician, you’re going to get pigeon-holed. I like the challenge. I spend more time in front of banks and attorneys now than I do in the shop as an employee. 

For anyone who wants to start a shop, our mantra is we are providing excellent customer service for a fair price with happy employees. Those three things, if you can wake up in the mirror and say you’re doing those, that’s the most important aspect to understand. 

Any given day, we try to schedule between eight and 12 clients. We schedule them depending on what needs to be done to each vehicle. People will swing by for oil changes, about three to six a day. We have six loaner vehicles that are all BMWs. A lot of customers request to have the loaner as long as we have their vehicle. l shuttle people to and from Louisville. We’ll pretty much do whatever customers ask us to do in order to get their business.  

Once a repair job is complete, the shop foreman will go out and put about six to 12 miles on the car. Every one of my techs is required to drive a six-mile loop before they lift a vehicle. You can actually mask system failures when you lift a vehicle. I have a lot of customers ask about it, they say they notice the mileage. We printed out our entire process and put it in the waiting room so customers know what we’re doing. It’s a failure in the industry when the cars don’t get driven enough. You’re trying to save your customer. A lot of customers get out of a Tahoe and buy an X5; you need to tell them and make them aware of everything about that vehicle. In the shop, we estimate everything that needs work, smallest to largest. We wouldn’t want them to put a transmission on a rusted frame.

As the shop foreman, I do a weekly walkthrough of the shop with the service manager. We walk the shop and take notes, which bay needs to be cleaned, move this there, clean up frayed wires, general maintenance. Trash needs to go out daily, and we have a floor scrubber, so every Monday night the techs roll all their equipment into the middle of the shop and clean the floors until they are clean enough to eat off of. 

Before coming here, my partner, Daniel Allen, and I opened a shop called Monkey Wrenches. The idea was to build our name and equity with the bank with the intent to purchase Mike John’s in the future. 

We paid a lot of money for this place. If I could recommend anything, it would be to buy an existing company. We had no money, we just started Monkey Wrenches with $5,000. Then we went from that to this. 

You have to always practice like you want to play. When you turn the key to open your one- or two-bay shop, you have to act like you’re a 10-bay shop. We were one of the first and few places to get a Small Business Association loan from the bank at the time. The only way it would have been easier is if I had an immense downpayment.

Everyone told us we would never get any money or a loan, but the banks came in and saw the work coming in and out of our shop at the time, and none of the banks let on any resistance. We checked off every box, and everyone is eating their words. That occurred because we had our foot in the door, leased our business properly, took the risk and practiced the way we wanted to play.