How To Start A Motorcycle Repair Shop | Metric Motorsports, Lewisville TX.

In this episode of An American Entrepreneur, we're going to Louisville, Texas, to meet a guy that started his own motorcycle repair shop. He decided to go on his own after years of working at dealerships and watching them overcharge customers for simple repairs. I have no doubt he will inspire anyone contemplating on starting their own business. So sit back and enjoy the story of his journey. This is where we keep a lot of the customer bikes that we're currently working on that are finished, ready to go. Some of our sales units are over on this side also. So some of these are used bikes that you have for sale as well as customer bikes ready to pick up? Yeah, like this Warrior right here. This is, we're finishing up on this. That's going to be for sale shortly. We've got to get a couple of things to finish that up. A lot of bikes outside are customer units also. Everything comes in at night, so everything's safe and secure. Nothing's going to happen to it. That's pretty much everything over on this side. On this side is where the magic happens. Five current lifts we've got going on. Bikes go up on the lift, diagnosed, figure out what's going on with them. And then we make the parts list, the estimate on that. Get going on that. Bike comes down and the next one goes up. How many square feet do you have here? 3,000 square feet. And I've got two storage units over on the side. What do you keep in the storage units? Just parts or extra bikes? Mainly parts. Some of the project bikes stay over there until we get stuff in. Sometimes customer units stay over there also until we get parts in to get them finished. When our overflow outside takes up too much. All right, Jeff. So tell us about this business, how it got started. Man, I got started a long time ago working on my grandparents' farm. We would always change, work on machinery, work on his pickup truck, changing brake pads, all kinds of stuff. It got me interested in the mechanics of how things work. And I think it kind of grew from there. I would always take stuff apart at home. Mom would have a problem with the vacuum cleaner. So I always want to take it apart and see why it wasn't working. Now, sometimes it got fixed, sometimes it didn't. But then it kind of grew from there. I would always want to see how something worked, why it worked. And it kind of just grew from there. Well, how'd you get interested in motor sports? I drove a lot of dirt bikes at a young age. I had some little go-kart with lawnmower motors in them. And unfortunately, back in the day, we didn't have a lot of extra money to do things. So it was always done in the garage. Either me trying to fix it, or Dad come out and help me try and fix it to fix whatever was broke. Dad was pretty good with his hands too, though. So he could teach me things, working on stuff. So that's kind of where it grew from there. I wanted to learn more about it. I was pulled more towards motorcycles and ATVs and stuff versus cars and trucks, as far as wanting to work on them. This interested me more than working on a car. Right. So how'd you get started, though, as a motorcycle mechanic? I know you used to work at dealerships or whatever. I started in 93. I went to MMI in Phoenix, Arizona, Motorcycle Mechanics Institute. It's a year and a half program. I did the basic course, the advanced course, Honda and Yamaha electives. From there, I moved to Springfield, Missouri, worked at a dealership out there. Worked in dealerships till I was, or till, oh man, like 2010, 2011. So I've worked at franchise dealerships all my time. Your whole career, pretty much. Yeah, pretty much. So what brought this about, the start of this business? I always wanted to start my own dealership. I would always learn from the owners at the dealerships I was working from. I wanted to know more than just how to turn wrenches on them. I would always work parts counter during the wintertime when service got slow. So I worked, I wanted to be multifaceted in the dealerships. And so I would always pick the owner's brains about other things that I didn't know about there. So it just kind of progressed from there. Mind's always turning, always thinking of new things that needs to happen to get my ultimate dream done. What made you branch out on your own and launch this business? It happened at a local dealership, not gonna mention the name, but it was to the point to where you were more of, I had been working on a job for several, several hours, wanted to take a small break, get a bag of chips and a Coke, and the owner of the dealership came back at the time and kind of yelled at me, what are you doing? This job has got to be done now. You know, I tried to explain to him that I'd been working on it all day. This was like two, three o'clock in the afternoon. I want to take a 10 minute break. Didn't want to have anything to do with that. So at that point, it, I kind of put two and two together in my mind. I said, I think this is the time. So you just clear it right then and there? Right then and there. And I guess you started working out of your garage of your home? I had been doing that a little before, but I kind of bumped that up at that point in time. I got a storage unit, or not a storage unit, but a building right down here was first. Started there, I think it was like 600 square feet, smaller little area to start with. Everything was going great there. I moved over here and I was doing a lot. I was doing some repair stuff, but I was doing a lot of teardowns and selling on eBay, selling parts and stuff like that. And one of my customers came in and asked me point blank, do you work on bikes? I was like, yeah, I know how to work on bikes, but that's not exactly what I'm doing at the moment. And he said, well, work on mine. So I did. And it just kind of grew from there. Word of mouth shot off like crazy, constantly coming in, customers coming in. Can you change my tire? Can you do a tune up on my bike? Whatever it was at that point, it was, and it just grew from there. And of course we ran out of room, had to rent another building and it just kept growing. So how many years have you been in business? For myself, 13 years. And how did you come up with the name Metric Motorsports? Honestly, I came up with this quite a few years before I started. I was always thinking, trying to think ahead of myself as far as what to... So you always knew eventually you were gonna be on your own. A hundred percent. It was just a question of when. When was that gonna happen? Not if, but when. Right. So I had thought of the name years before. It just kind of popped to me one day that I wanna work on Metric bikes for the most part. Now looking back on it, we work on a lot of Harleys here. Had I known then what I know now, I don't know if I'd have called it that. Because a lot of Harley guys think we only work on Metric, but we work on a lot of Harleys also. So what are all the services that you do here in this business? Man, we do everything from tire changes to motor rebuilds and everything in between. We do any maintenance on a vehicle that you bring in. Diagnosis on them. We can plug our scanner up to it and find out what's going on with the newer bikes. We do a lot of customizations like this one. We did rims, had those pulled off in the swing arm to get them, customer had them want them re-chromed. So we do a lot of things. You name it, we can do it for sure. Okay. So as far as locations, is this your second or third location? Cause I know you're growing. This is our technically our first location that we've been in, in this complex. I had a smaller unit back here at first, and then I moved to the front side of this complex, but we've always been in this. So this is basically the first business you've ever started? Yes. So what are some of the things you learned over the years that you wish you knew when you first got started? I know there's a lot of stuff. Cashflow is always the biggest one. Cashflow is the main thing. You know, you might have X amount of dollars in your bank account today, but you have to take into account what I know is coming out of my account in the next week, two weeks to make sure you have enough money to cover those expenses. So you don't go out and blow $10,000 on bikes today. And I know you're very seasonal as well, right? It slows up in December, January. We definitely start slowing down in December, January, February, March, depending on the weather, we kind of speed up a little bit at that point in time. But yeah, definitely during the winter time, customers aren't riding, so they don't need maintenance on them. They don't need tires. They don't need oil changes. So yeah, we definitely slow down in the winter time, yeah. So you also sell used bikes, right? You pick up some used bikes and advertise them. You sell them, they're out here. Yeah, yeah, we do. A lot of them are, I mean, we get them from a lot of different places. We go on Facebook Marketplace, buy them on there. Customer brings a bike in, which is where I got my last two bikes at, to get it worked on and then come to find out the bill is going to be more than they want to spend on it. So I'll end up buying it from them and then do the work and repairs here and then resell them. Or I also buy them at auction, which is repossessions, dealer trade-ins, something that a dealer doesn't want to deal with in their service department to recondition it to go on their showroom floor. I'll buy those, fix them, and then we'll sell them here also. Do you also do financing whenever people need a big repair and they can't pay the person, mainly the used bikes you sell? We do. We used to have a couple of companies in here that would do the, say, a motor rebuild. It's $2,500 to $3,000. A lot of guys don't have the money to come up with that when it's done. So we used to have a couple of companies in here that would do that, but they're kind of having a hard time now with the economy as far as they can't get the loans to be able to dish it out to us to be able to do those. So a lot of times it's, on a bigger job, we'll require 50% down before we start, mainly to cover costs and a little labor, and then you finish paying it when it's done all the way. So I guess people have to have it paid in full before they leave the shop with their bike, right? 100%, yes. And I guess sometimes you end up keeping a bike around here storage for a few weeks or a while until they can pay you, right? Yeah, and we've got a sign on the front desk that says $25 a day storage after a couple days. We'll give you a couple days leeway. But after that, we're not a storage unit. We're in it to fix your bike and then have it picked up and paid. But yeah, we do have a few that stick around longer than what they should. Well, I know in managing your space, you have to limit how many new jobs you take in because you've got all these bikes that need to go out. Right. How do you manage that? I mean, what are some of the things you do, or do you ever actually turn down work because you don't have the space? Yes and no. I don't want to turn you away because I still want your work. You're leaving money on the table, yeah. But what we may end up doing is saying, hey, we're packed right now. Is there any way you can bring it back next Tuesday? I know I've got five, six bikes leaving this week. I will definitely have room on Tuesday. Drop it off on Tuesday, or if I get extra room, I'll call you as soon as I can so you can drop it back off. We try and nip that in the butt before they just show up with a bike or a trailer. Because usually they call you first, I guess. Generally they call, yes. Yeah, that doesn't always happen. Sometimes they'll just show up because we've been here so long, they already know that we're here. Do you have a pickup service? We do. Some people, if it doesn't run and they can't bring it. Right, yeah. And a lot of times I'll go do the pickup, pick it up with the truck and trailer. Depending on what type of bike it is, I may take an employee with me to help get it on the trailer. It just kind of depends on what it is. And that's an extra charge too, I would assume, right? Yes, yeah. For time and trailer involved, to go do that, yeah. Well, as far as this business goes, what are some plans you have in the near future as far as any kind of growth or expansion, or you just like it the way it is right now? Tell us a little bit about that. No, I mean, it's nice the way it is, but it's not my ultimate goal. That's not what I want eventually. Right now, currently we're looking for a new building, something that I can purchase, that we can make a permanent home. I know it just seems like a temporary home. We've been here so long, but I want something that's a little more exposure on the front of the building to some type of major road, 407, 121, Main Street, 3040, something that's like that that's got major exposure too. Thousands of people driving by a day. That definitely helps with advertising, yes. Speaking of advertising, what are your advertising tactics? Right now, we're just doing Facebook at the moment. We're advertising on Facebook. A lot of our work is word of mouth, a lot of it. You know, you treat a customer right, they're gonna tell their friends. What differentiates you from the dealerships versus bringing their work here? Look, the biggest thing I've seen at a franchise dealership, and not just a franchise dealership, but bigger dealerships, is their way of thinking is, you are standing in front of me right now, today. I need to get as much out of you as I can, today, because I don't know if I'm gonna see you again in my lifetime. So they'll overcharge. Our theory of thinking is, look, I want to see your face and your bikes in here as many times as I can. With all the different bikes you may buy over the years, as well. 100%. Today is a $5 fix, I'm fine with that. Tomorrow, it's a $15 fix. Sooner or later, you're gonna potentially have a major problem, and we're still gonna be here to fix you. I like seeing the same faces over and over, obviously for different problems, but the same guys and females coming in all the time. Okay, well, how many full-time mechanics do you have right now working for you? Right now, I have three. And I guess you, what hats do you wear? I guess you don't hardly ever work on them anymore, or? It just depends. I wear every hat. If we need help out here, I'll come out and turn wrenches. If they need help holding a motor while they're torquing their head down or something, I'll generally help. I have a lot of paperwork that's gotta get done. And you do all that? I do all that, yeah. You do the monthly accounting, as well, and all that? How do you keep track of how much time you have in each repair, to be able to know that you build correctly? See, the thing is, sometimes you don't. Just kind of your best-guess estimate how much time they have in a project, and you build out? Right, well, we go by pretty much the fact that we know it's gonna take X amount of time to do something, whatever it is. Sometimes that works in our favor, sometimes it doesn't. Especially with the older bikes, you take two bolts out, they come out perfect, the next bolt snaps off for you. Now you have to drill it out, extract that bolt, and put a new one in it. It doesn't always work in your favor. Yeah. It doesn't. But that's what keeps customers coming back. We don't call them for a $250 fee to fix your bike, and the next thing you know, you're getting a phone call saying, oh, now it's $700. So we try and keep it consistent. Obviously, we're gonna charge just a little bit more because of the broken bolt or whatever it was, but it's gotta be reasonable, because we gotta also think from the customer side. One of the most common types of work you guys are doing on a daily basis is a motorcycle shop. Daily basis is probably just regular routine maintenance. Yeah, changing tires, balancing tires, oil changes, fluid changes, stuff like that. It's the main bread and butter. Are there any trends that you're seeing in the bike business from when you got started to now? Or just, it's the same, bikes are bikes, and people are riding them. It's pretty much the same. Yeah, it's just getting harder for customers to be able to afford some of the things that they actually need. If somebody wanted to start a business like this, what's some pieces of advice you could give them that would really help them? The biggest thing is to start out small. Keep your overhead really low. Keep your overhead as low as possible. That's honestly a lot. I see a lot of guys that try and start something like this and try and start at this size or even bigger than this. And if you don't have the backing to do that, the problem is is you run out of money fast. It takes time. I was talking to one of my customers the other day that does construction, and his brother wants to start a flooring business. Well, if you don't anticipate on taking losses your first two, three years, you're gonna go under. You are not gonna make money for several years down the road. And it happened here. It's not immediate. You do not make money right off the bat. You just try and keep your expenses as low as possible for as long as you can. And grow slowly. So when you first started off in that small, I guess it was a small storage unit, pretty much? Yeah. I guess really all you had or all you really needed was the tools you already had. Correct. And then, of course, your knowledge and your experience. Right. Yeah, so the only thing I was lacking at that point was customers, was work. But that takes time to build up. Well, how about, what's the demographic of the people? I guess it's all ages, just people, young and old are riding, aren't they? We get everybody from the 17-year-old all the way up to the 60, 70-year-old guys. Still come in, yeah, constantly, yeah. As far as working on a certain bike, is there a specific bike that's the hardest ones to work on? I'm just curious. Not necessarily. It really depends on what you're doing. A lot of times the Goldwings are a little harder just because they got all the tupperware around everywhere on the bike. You gotta take certain pieces off to be able to get to what you're looking for. But otherwise, they're all pretty close to the same. When you get your parts, I guess you have an account with your parts house that you get all your parts from and they probably bill you at the end of the month. How does this work? I've got a few part accounts. And a lot of times what I'll, just another way of thinking about it, you can do that. But the way I end up doing it is I put it on a credit card. So it goes directly on a credit card. Now I have separate accounts, obviously, for personal and for business. But, so I put it on a business credit card every time I do an order. Order shows up, we use the parts, that's fine. They deliver it? Yeah, it's delivered here. But also you gotta think outside the box, which makes you, in my opinion, a good business owner, it's on a credit card that gives me cash back. So I'm paying a little less for those parts than my actual cost. It's just something you gotta think about all the way around. What other pieces of advice you could give that's similar to that, that's really helped you do business smarter and more efficient? Don't take no for an answer. There's always a way to get something done. Always. You have to come up with maybe a different way of looking at something. A different way of explaining it. What you're trying to get to, to the banker, to the financial advisor, to whoever it is you're trying to look at, never take no for an answer. There's always a way. Always a way to get something done. So percentage-wise, I guess, you're probably 80 or 90% repairs and 10 or 20% used bike sales. What kind of mix is that right now? That's probably pretty close currently what we're doing. A year or so ago, we used to do a lot more sales than we do today. And a lot of that has got to do with the finance companies. When we started getting heavily into used bikes, we used to have nine to 10 finance companies in here that we would use. You had a floor plan, finance arrangement? Had a floor plan, stopped putting stuff on the floor plan because of the interest rate hikes that they were doing with that. You just couldn't make any money? No, you can't make any money with that. When they're charging your credit card rates on a floor plan, it's just not worth it at that point. So it's still there, and I still get phone calls from them. Hey, can we get you to put something on it? Well, my thing is, when are you gonna lower the interest rates? What are the interest rates right now? Right now, the floor plan's raising about 18, 19% interest. Yeah, you can't make any money. The only way you can make it is if you sold it immediately. And at that point, why do I need a floor plan? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, so I guess in the future, because I know around Dallas, you see a lot of these used bike shops that will have 50 or 100 bikes in there. And I guess so many people, they just can't really afford to go out and buy a brand new bike, so they'll buy something to you at three or four years old. Right, yep. Is that what you're seeing mostly, people buying used bikes, or brand new, or again, that's just a complete mix? It's honestly a complete mix. You get more of the older gentlemen that are buying the brand new bikes that can afford those payments, or pay cash for it either way. But your average customer that we see, in here at least, can't afford that $17,000, $20,000 bike. Now, they've gotten outrageous. Yeah, it's crazy expensive. So they're looking for the four, five, six-year-old bike that still has good miles left on it to ride it, that the maintenance is done, and buy those instead of a brand new bike. Well, have you ever, or have you considered sponsoring anyone that's a racer, whether it be motocross or road racing? Is that something you've ever done or thought about doing? I've never really thought too much about it. I mean, it might be something I would consider, yeah. Because that's always, they're around cyclists all day long. So, and then of course too, to help a kid kind of come up. Right, yeah. I used to want to do road racing at one point, and I'd see those guys that had these small sponsors. Of course, some of them weren't real sponsors, they just put stickers on. Look, I'm kind of big time now, but hey, you know, it'd be cool to do that. Well, anything else you'd like to share about your business, Jeff? Man, I think the biggest thing is, is don't be scared of doing it. Just do it wisely, because it can bite you in the butt quick. So, whenever you have, I'm sure there've been times that your spend has gotten way ahead of your cashflow. Yeah. How did you counter that? How did you manage that, get through it? First of all, you gotta look at where your leaks are, where it's going that it doesn't need to be going. Because you used to have more space here, right? We have condensed it a little bit over time, just because of what's going on in current timeframe. But the answer to the other question is, I think I looked at it smart a few years before it actually happened, and I have a line of credit. So, in case of an emergency- Which is what a line of credit really should be for. Right, and it was for emergency situations only, and at that point we were in an emergency situation. So, you probably dip into that in winter months when it's slow, and when it ramps back up in the summer and all that- Pay it off. Pay it off, and then you just, every year. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Well, Jeff, man, I appreciate you coming on this channel and sharing your story. I think this is an awesome place, and an awesome thing you got going on here. Thanks so much for coming on, brother. Thank you. All right. The biggest takeaway Jeff shared is how he makes adjustments to increase his profits. First, he decreased his rental space to avoid being a motorcycle storage, and instructs customers to bring in their bikes as he has bikes being picked up after repairs are completed. Secondly, he uses his business credit card to buy parts to take advantage of cash back, or points, which decreases the overall cost of his parts. Both of these tactics increase parts without requiring extra hard work. I hope this video added value and inspired you. I'm Curtis Mulberg, and as always, thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time.