Roy Merritt 0:00
Time for an intro.

Once again, it’s time to open your ears and expand your mind. Or maybe it’s Delhi your mind. Either way, I think these boys have some of the sense. So sit back, grab a brew, we’re gonna have some to

give you our point of view here on

Talkin Braap.

So,

once again, it’s season two episode 13 we got an interesting one tonight. I have somebody calling in that I had talked to you a little bit online on LinkedIn. And no, it’s it’s a I think the guy, you know, up until this point I hadn’t I mean, his or her name’s Terry. I think it’s a him. I really hadn’t read that much into it. So I’m pretty sure to him. Terry does go both ways. So you know, you can have a Terry guy theory here. Yes. Oh, yeah. Wait, definitely. Yeah. So which speak piqued my interest here is he is online like actively saying he wants to start an online technician training program.

So

if, you know obviously, we’re all technicians. So tonight, let me start with intros tonight’s technician. I used to be cut it. We’re all still technicians even even when we’re not doing it. Jordans here for a little bit. Maybe tonight. The need just you need to change gear with this thing when you’re talking to it. And well, I had to turn down. Yeah.

So you’re gonna change? We all went to MMI. Right? See? Oh, no, Jordan didn’t Jordan went to a tech school. Same thing. Yeah. So hands on. Um, you know, there’s a lot of question into maybe how you can do this online. You know, I don’t see how you could I, I don’t I see where you could provide a service online and I and you know, want to talk about that later. I don’t think it’s very far off. But I don’t know that you can take someone who has never turned a wrench before and show them a bunch of videos and turn them into a rich i don’t i don’t think that’s possible. You know, at least no more rich than they would be beforehand. Anyway.

Mike VO 3:18
Well, what would the difference be? Cuz, you know, they do they had those correspondents when, you know, I don’t know if they’re still on because I haven’t had TV in quite a while. But, you know, used to be if you stayed up late. On or not on drugs, they would have those true infomercials, and it would be like, you can get your degree at home in as little as two years. You don’t I mean, and that’d be like nursing and administration and bah, bah bah. And it would be like motorcycle mechanic and Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba and it was all correspondence classes, right? Yeah. And I never could I don’t know if they still if those infomercials are still out there. Guys ever. We’re not using drugs late at night. I don’t know.

Roy Merritt 3:59
I know. I know. You’ll see. Like you said like accounting, you know, clerical stuff. A lot of us used to see that go bill. I don’t know that I really saw motorcycle training. Personally in one.

Mike VO 4:13
Well, I remember seeing him because, you know, like, when I was in him, I was like, I bet that’s cheaper.

Roy Merritt 4:21
There’s Yeah,

Mike VO 4:21
I’d probably like a good segue for maybe a young dude who has no clue. And he’s thinking about going MMI you know, and maybe you know, some cheaper way

Roy Merritt 4:31
and so yeah, and and and that’s that’s kind of what we’re you know, we’re hoping to talk about a little bit here and I and you know, we’ll see how it goes but he actually have him on right now. He’s on kind of hold he would say

Mike VO 4:45
just to hold music go.

Roy Merritt 4:50
Now there’s no hold music is just listening.

So anyways, without further further ado, we have Terry boy on tonight. And he like I said I met him on LinkedIn. Terry, can you hear us?

Terry Boye 5:08
I can hear you can hear me. Yes, sir.

Mike VO 5:11
Very faintly. All right.

Unknown Speaker 5:12
Yeah. So, um, tell us

Roy Merritt 5:15
a little bit about yourself.

Terry Boye 5:19
I’m, I guess we’ll make like a dating thing here. I’m leaving Kenosha, Wisconsin. I’m 42 years old. I have two kids. And I work for the Union Pacific Railroad. And I love motorcycles. Cool. What’s your sign?

I’m a Leo.

Unknown Speaker 5:38
What am I super friendly?

Unknown Speaker 5:41
I’m so so

Unknown Speaker 5:44
sorry, knows this’ll work.

Unknown Speaker 5:45
Yeah. So

Roy Merritt 5:48
what do you do? Are you like a technician on the railroad? Or?

Terry Boye 5:54
No, I’m a truck labor. I replace rail and railroad ties. And so your

Roy Merritt 6:01
manual stuff? I was gonna say you’re doing all the fun stuff. Yeah. Okay. So what got you, you know, we were kind of just talking about this a minute ago, and I knew what kind of draw you drew us into bringing in tonight was, you know, you’re talking about doing an online, you know, motorcycle technician training program. And where where did this all start from?

Terry Boye 6:25
I’m, originally when I was younger, I want to go do you know, one of the coolest schools to learn how to work on motorcycles. And that just wasn’t in the car that was, you know, I couldn’t afford to go all the way to sort of Florida to any, you know, MIT or, you know, all those fancy places. So, I basically kind of learned how to work on stuff on my own. And as I got older, it got harder and harder to, you know, get into that kind of field, and then to the point where it just wasn’t going to happen. Yeah. And I basically looked around the local schools and thought, you know, maybe there’s something around here that would, you know, be able to teach me, you know, how to work on my bike, you know, how to take apart of motorcycle or something, and there isn’t, there is nothing available like that. I mean, there’s a very, very limited amount of schools out there that actually teach you anything about working on motorcycles will teach how to work on an engine or you know, basic stuff, but nobody that really breaks it down. And I’ll explain to you how to, you know, work on your Harley, or work on your hand, or whatever you have. So it’s basically just kind of like, why can’t I start a school like that? Why can’t I find somebody that would be interested in doing this? And that’s how it started?

Mike VO 7:37
Well, I’m gonna emotion Terry. So how does how do you get involved in a job? As a, you’re a track laborer? That’s your technical title? How does that how does one fall into that position? Because that’s, that’s one of those real kind of specialized fields that nobody even thinks about existing. Yeah. And

Roy Merritt 7:57
then the railroad usually got to know somebody to get in there anyways,

Mike VO 8:00
yeah. How does that happen,

Terry Boye 8:02
you’d actually be really surprised you just apply a lot and you hope you get an interview. They’re getting disability actually hires a lot of people, there’s a pretty good turnaround of people. One of the good benefits about where I’m at is I work for Union Pacific, which is based with Metro, so it does commuter. So I am located, where I’m at, I work out of the Chicago area, where if you get in other places, you’re going to be on a traveling game, you’re going to be playing all over the United States, or you’re gonna have a job for six months. And also you’re not going to have one. Yeah, yeah. So you know, it’s basically apply, apply, apply, apply, and sooner or later, you’ll get an interview, and then you just pray to God that you look better than everybody else in the room.

Mike VO 8:50
So how do you learn how to do that?

Terry Boye 8:54
Really, there’s nothing to learn. It’s all very simple labor. I mean, if you can read a tape measure, you can do my job. Oh, yeah. It’s not It’s not complicated. Everybody thinks it’s a very complicated thing. He gets you guys to come in all the time. And they’re like, Oh, my God, how do you know all this stuff? There’s nothing to know you. You know, there’s a certain amount of ties that you have to have, you know, how to space them out. It’s all written in the book. I mean, yeah, forget, open up a book and look at it, you know, or the guy next to you say, Hey, I’m acids. Is there a website?

Mike VO 9:24
I can go do to apply for that job?

Roy Merritt 9:29
How long have you been doing?

Terry Boye 9:32
I am going on about four years now. Okay. All right. Yeah, yeah.

Roy Merritt 9:37
Yeah. And, you know, honestly, everything you said kind of applies to a technician job. And, you know, yes, you know, it did. If you know how to read a book, there’s books somewhere that’ll tell you what you need to do. And, you know, and, and a lot of us, they go in through, you know, and pay all the money for like MMI or something like that. A lot of the bigger ones they’ll say that’s, that’s really all they teach you to do is to read a service manual. Yeah, you know, in the end, you’re going to figure it out on your own anyways, you know, after you get out of there.

Terry Boye 10:06
Yeah. And the more you do it, the more more experience you have, the more you remember. And I was like, Hey, why don’t you do this?

Roy Merritt 10:13
Yeah. Well, I know, we had talked a little bit, you know, some of us here, and I know, you, and you had mentioned somewhere about manufacturer support, you know, trying to get some kind of manufacturer support. And, you know, we kind of talked about that here. And I think, you know, I had an idea that I think it in the end, is going to be really hard. I know that through MMI, because I know a lot of people that work there. You know, the, the manufacturers have a lot of control over what is in their classrooms, the curriculum, as well as the engines. And you know, a lot of that stuff, I think, to school does a lot of the tools and, and the toolboxes and things like that. But the manufacturers send those bikes to those dealers and set up a curriculum. And I think that’s, you know, going after a manufacturer, maybe

Mike VO 11:13
then they sell them to the public.

Roy Merritt 11:17
Interestingly enough, I don’t know if you know, this, but at MMI, when a bike has had its life cycle in MMI, which is about a week, and then they, they have to grind them out, they have to crush them, they cannot let them leave the property out. There. They’re being crushed. So

Mike VO 11:39
I don’t know. I don’t think that they would be able to leave the property. Anyway. Students are Yeah.

Roy Merritt 11:49
Yeah, that’s, you know, that’s a whole different discussion in the online thing is, is there’s a lot of attrition or damage, if you will, and those learning stages. You know, we have a whole podcast about cross threading balls. Yeah. Yeah, it’s forever. Yeah. So, you know, my idea was, instead of going after the manufacturers, because there’s only a few manufacturers, what you really need to look for is the dealers, and maybe not so much the manufacturer dealers, but the aftermarket shops and places that will take in like we do here, we apprentice people, you know, you bring somebody into your shop, and they really don’t know much about what’s going on, and you have to explain it all for them. But if you could provide a curriculum that they could do on their own at home online, and then part of that curriculum would be them, or the dealer or the shop, or whoever kind of signing off on them doing physical tasks in a shop, then, you know, if you get in with, say, the dealers like the Veronica’s or somebody like that, that owns 12 dealerships, and they’re looking for, you know, some kind of help with with those kind of things. There’s a lot more shops than there are manufacturer. And then your target audience grows quite a bit. And your hands on part of it and becomes part of you know, who you’re partnering with, and and you can really invite any shop and for the most part is, is the shops willing to sign off and put their name on it? And say they’ve done it? Who’s to say that they’re not? You know,

Terry Boye 13:46
I guess what’s been going on right now is I’ve been dealing with the local Chamber of Commerce and all them, trying to figure out how exactly, you know, I can start something like this. And they had a lot of really good suggestions as far as like going out business plans that kind of, more or less, make you figure out where you’re, where your money’s gonna come from, how are you starting to finance this whole project? Yeah. And I’ve basically come to the conclusion that you can’t just jump right into a school, you know, trying to teach mechanics. Now, I feel like I’m gonna have to jump more towards like offering training, basically saying, you know, look, you have a new product and you want to be able to show it to these dealerships, or you want to show it to, you know, whoever Let me help facilitate like a virtual training session, you know, correct basically, you come on and we’ll set up and you can have four or five dealerships or mom and pop shops come on and you can show them how your new brake pad is. And you can do a virtually no, sort of trying to start out smaller like that.

Mike VO 14:55
There’s like a like a training slash marketing.

Terry Boye 14:59
Yeah. I mean, basically, right now we have with the whole COVID situation, you have all these kids, you know that were basically forced to stay home and start school. We have kindergarteners, they’re doing it. They threw this together within, you know, two or three weeks. But I don’t think it would be.

I disagree with

Roy Merritt 15:24
you mean, the pandemic?

Unknown Speaker 15:26
Yeah.

Terry Boye 15:35
I mean, the school system was, I mean, they weren’t prepared for it. And they were able to throw it out 30 for their whole training virtual programs for, you know, 30,000 kids in their school district. So, well, they also had a curriculum beforehand.

Yeah, no, I was, as far as being able to put something in play online, to be able to have the teachers and students to be able to meet, you know, they were able to put a program like that together. Yeah, the curriculum is yes, that that would be a whole process. But, you know, to put something together where I can put, you know, mom and pop shop on, and I can put this to manufacturer who, you know, has maybe 500 employees that’s trying to get their product out there. I can put them both together, and they have a show in Wyoming, they can have one in Texas, and they can have one in Phoenix all at the same time and demo their product and say, Look, this is what we have, you know, and it’s an affordable way for them to do it. Instead of sending out somebody to scout out these new locations, they get a you know, more of a broader

scope, people that they can talk to

Unknown Speaker 16:41
Yeah, yeah.

Roy Merritt 16:42
Well, you know, you gotta you have to kind of establish yourself somewhere in that training world. Yeah. Before somebody’s gonna fund, you know, a large project, you know, so you got to get out there and start recording some training and whatever it is, you’re, you know, you’re planning on doing. So are you? Are you are you set up for video and audio and stuff like that? Or?

Terry Boye 17:05
I am not. I, this is I mean, this is all just trying to figure out that this is even possible, or how would I go about doing it and trying to the business plan together? Where I can say, look, this is even feasible or not, I mean, nobody’s done it. So who knows? I mean, yeah, I’ve talked to enough people out there that have said, to put all that data in the computer and be able to share it with all these different people. You’re looking at one that $3 million, just for the cost of putting it together. Oh, yeah. Well, there’s so much information

Mike VO 17:36
and you know, you know, the way Well, you’re talking about every once in a while, you know, I do so the funny thing is, is as much as I hate how they’re trying to, you know, take away paper money and do everything online and get get rid of us being social and all that I fuckin love Amazon. And I by No, yeah. Like, I haven’t, I haven’t gone into a place that sells actual real clothes. in like three years. I got paid

Roy Merritt 18:05
today. I bought Amazon before I came to work.

Mike VO 18:07
Yeah, I bought. I bought pretty much everything that I can, that I can buy from Amazon, I buy it from Amazon. And every once in a while you see, you’ll see like, a like a product demo video. Yeah. They’re like from the manufacturer. Like, this is how this works. And then they’ll and they’ll tell you exactly what you’re talking about. They’ll have like, say you buy a door sweep, okay. And they’ll have some, you know, like Bob’s carpentry in Kenosha, Wisconsin, will be like, hey, so I got these frost King door sweeps. And this is how you use them. This is how you do it. And it’s like this, like a six or seven minute video on Amazon’s page, you go to buy that door sweep. And that would be something that would be actually helpful, especially with some of these new products, like you’re talking about as they come as they come to market to partner with a shop that would be willing to like, do the video and, and maybe a good avenue of approach would be for you to facilitate bringing those two entities together.

Roy Merritt 19:10
So do you do you ride? Do you ride?

Terry Boye 19:13
I do. What do you ride? I have a 2007 Harley Street Glide.

Roy Merritt 19:20
Yeah, one more. I’ll take one. Okay. Nice.

Terry Boye 19:23
Um,

Roy Merritt 19:26
so is do you have like a local shop? I do not. No, no. Well, you’re in You said you’re in Chicago.

Terry Boye 19:36
Why I live in Kenosha, but

Roy Merritt 19:38
yeah, Chicago. We’re going to Chicago. Okay.

Mike VO 19:40
There’s a lot of railways in Chicago.

Roy Merritt 19:43
The Oh, sure. Yeah. Well, there’s

Mike VO 19:47
all the major rail companies coming together will shop around right. It wasn’t Chicago like when they built the whole rail system across us wasn’t Chicago like the where everybody came together. Maybe

Terry Boye 20:02
I couldn’t answer that. I don’t know.

Roy Merritt 20:06
Maybe

Mike VO 20:06
I think I was reading that with Vanderbilt. And all those guys like back the tycoons back in the day like Chicago was like, and that’s why they call it the gateway city. Right? The gateway to the Midwest. has like some weird

Roy Merritt 20:24
like Chicago centrally located always amazed at some of the shit that comes out of this. So I’m

Mike VO 20:28
pretty sure. I think like all railroads lead to Chicago. Yeah, some weird shit like that.

Roy Merritt 20:34
Okay, that could be true. can tell you that to get a railroad job? in Orlando, you’ve probably killed three people.

Mike VO 20:43
Well, I can tell you it’s got us.

Roy Merritt 20:45
There’s not a lot of railroads. Very coveted job. Yeah, working for the railroad, you know, has always been a pretty high coveted job for benefits and things like that. Well, yeah, there. But there’s no it down there down in Florida. There’s no huge intersection of roads, like they’re all meaning here. You know?

Mike VO 21:05
What? I mean, if you keep going, you just go into the ocean?

Roy Merritt 21:08
Yeah. Well, it’s just a little dick sticking off of the side of America. And there’s not you know, it’s not a lot of girth.

Mike VO 21:16
Down to the tip. That’s where it all spews out.

Roy Merritt 21:18
It just spews out on the ocean. Yeah. That’s that’s the way it is.

Mike VO 21:24
But you know, but that would that would be, it would be a pretty cool

Roy Merritt 21:28
idea. So what I have an interesting question for you. What kind of phone do you have? I have an iPhone, which is like a pretty recent one.

Terry Boye 21:38
Yes. Okay. It’s iPhone SE I believe.

Roy Merritt 21:43
I’m an Android person. So I don’t know the iPhone so well. But I can tell you if you have a relatively new phone, all the video, everything you need to do you can do on your phone.

Terry Boye 21:56
I actually, I talked with a

camera where his name was but a gentleman in Spain, who is, I guess, the retailer for Brembo brakes. And he had said that they’re they’re looking for the like training videos on how to install the brakes and all that for local manufacturers. And he basically said, you know, that’s something I could possibly help him, you know, share it with that you’d be interested in working with me. And that’s kind of Yeah, the conclusion like maybe it’s more of a middleman process where? Well, yeah, yeah. I’ll take people’s videos sending them out making the context for them. Because I’m pretty. I’m pretty into emailing people. Yeah,

Mike VO 22:43
well, yeah, that would be super cool to do. And, and it would really be a, it would be beneficial. Because, you know, like, I was pointing out on that Amazon thing. I mean, those it’s like a five minute little deal. And it’s, you know, you watch them and you’re like, Oh, so that’s how it works. Yeah. Okay, cool. I will buy this that. Well, and that’s how

Terry Boye 23:04
I’m an idiot. I couldn’t figure that out. Yeah.

Roy Merritt 23:07
Yeah. And that’s how some people actually get started into the YouTube, like, unboxing videos and stuff is by reviewing Amazon stuff that

Mike VO 23:16
you had to go through gay porn first. You have to do gay

Roy Merritt 23:19
porn before you do straight.

Unknown Speaker 23:20
Oh. Oh, yeah.

Roy Merritt 23:24
That’s the only Right. Yeah.

Terry Boye 23:25
has opened all the doors before you go through? Yeah,

Roy Merritt 23:29
yeah. It’s a thing. You have to do gay porn before you can do. I was totally

Mike VO 23:33
off on my.

Roy Merritt 23:34
Yeah. Labor there. That’s the only reason I’m not important. Because I couldn’t do

Unknown Speaker 23:40
well, that

Mike VO 23:43
I refused to do so. If you listen to our podcasts before, Terry, I would not

Terry Boye 23:51
I have actually.

You had mentioned me being on I was like, I strike check this out and be like, so yeah, I did listen to a couple of them. Yeah,

Roy Merritt 24:01
yeah, we know, we keep it kind of loose. And, you know, we try to keep it pretty real only when it’s all said and done, you know. But, you know, like I said, the online training thing. It seems so interesting. And it’s such a good topic. Because, you know, in a hands on world, you know, even your job for that matter. It would be really hard to train somebody to do that with a video necessarily. You might be able to get their foot in the door, or genda. You know, so on that topic. And I don’t know if you end up talking to any other dealers or manufacturers or anything, but I can tell you that Harley Davidson itself has a Harley Davidson University is what they call it, and they do in class in a lot of online training. So I don’t know a lot about like Kawasaki or Honda. I would imagine if anybody else has an online training program. I think Yeah,

Mike VO 25:00
for sure. I’m pretty sure they do.

Roy Merritt 25:02
And I know that they do stuff with MMI. So that curriculum probably would transfer over into online training pretty well. But, again, I think they still need that physical side of those assessments to be done

Mike VO 25:17
right. But doing what he’s talking about where you’re taking, like, say, a Brembo brakes. Okay, so we we are in the process of actually becoming North American distributors, and retailers for Brembo brakes, or Harley’s because, you know, the, a lot of the Harley’s come with brembos now, and the Harley performance, motorcycles are really starting to move up the ladder, as far as you know, the big wheel, baggers are out. Everybody realized that this is kind of gay. Yeah. So they’re going to go more into like, how can we make these things run the way they’re supposed to? So radio brakes are coming in, you know, and Brembo is a huge manufacturer, and Brembo makes radio brakes for the Live Wire. And I bought a set of those for my Road Glide that I’m gonna put on there and test those out. But it would be cool to be able to do exactly what you’re talking about, like take a shop like us who were fairly well known in the moonshine Harley Davidson is fairly well known in the performance Harley world. Yeah. And if we did like a, partnered with somebody like you, that would be a liaison with the manufacturer, and said, Hey, can you make me a 10 minute video about how to install these brakes on a Harley Davidson? Here’s the brakes. Yeah, put them on, do an instructional video, send it to you. You sit you partner with Brembo. And either they put on their site, or they put on their distributor site, or we put on ours are however, that would work. Yeah. And there’s always the middleman facilitating that, you know, it’s never, it’s never the end user like us. And it’s never a manufacturer.

Roy Merritt 26:56
That’s kind of why I asked if he had a local shop. Because if you had a local shop, and you get in, you know, in touch with guys like like, say, Brembo, and he wants to send you some breaks, then you go to that shop and say, Hey, man, I have this product. Can I film, you know, a 10 minute thing, and you can have them you can put them on your bike or whatever bike you have here, you know. And, you know, we’ll make a little video out of it. Now, I have done a lot of I’ve, you know, I’ve been doing this a little over a year. Now, on to pod fest conventions and a bunch of other stuff. I have tons of equipment I have, you wouldn’t even believe how much equipment, but I can tell you that if you really wanted to, you could take your phone out and do everything you need to do. Yeah, there. There are videos here at moonshine that were shot on our phones. Yeah, maybe not the whole video, but bits and segments of and by the $25 version of iMovie on your iPhone, you can edit and slow down and add music. I feel like I’m doing a training video right now. Right? Yeah. I like to learn a little advice, because I’m amantha. So I’m that guy that’s always gonna have the best. So you know, when I buy something, I gotta buy the best of it. And I gotta have all the cool stuff.

Mike VO 28:09
And he’s like, I can’t tell you and so

Roy Merritt 28:11
yeah, very. But I can tell you that in the end, I can pull my phone out and shoot just as good a video, especially now my new song, but you know it when it comes out? In the end? It’s really hard to tell the difference.

Unknown Speaker 28:26
Yeah. Yeah.

Terry Boye 28:29
Like, I mean, that’s definitely a possibility. That’s something I really didn’t think about. So yeah, that is, you know, the more and more I think about the facility, facilitating side of it is looking at more of a good place to start, you know, to walk towards right, the greater good, but yeah, you know, to be able to put something out there and be able to say, hey, look, this is what I can do. This is how many people I can get in touch with. Correct, you know, maybe maybe we’ll, you know, look at using me for something. Yeah.

Mike VO 28:57
When and most of us touch on another point that Roy made earlier, most of most of these, you know, like YouTube personalities. They start out just by doing a couple of small things. Like there was a I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the show fastest car. Have you ever seen that? Yeah. Have you ever seen that? So it’s a show on Netflix. And basically it’s a it’s a drag race. And what they do is, each week, it’s a different set of sleeper cars that are like garage built, you know, low budget, drag race cars, and they all race a supercar. And it’s a quarter mile race. winner takes all winter advances to the next round. And then there’s a final but one of the guys on there that had a supercar was this kid that went to college. And when he was in college, he really liked cars. So he started doing YouTube videos about different cars that he was just like riding around in when he was in college like he do springs cars and and then people really liked it because he was talking about how comfortable the cars were. different features that they had. And so he just grew and grew and grew in popularity until now. That’s all he does. And I don’t even know he might have dropped out a car. I can’t remember watching the episode. But he basically went from college to YouTubing. This is how this is this car, and he’s going to do a review of it and get 5 million views. Yeah. And so that’s what he does for a living. And he just started out just doing small stuff. While he was passing his time, you know, probably going from the dorm to the bar when he was in college, and it just blew up. You know what I mean? Because it was information that people want. And it was from somebody that is not the manufacturer.

Terry Boye 30:37
Yeah, you’re getting more of an eyes for you. And

Mike VO 30:40
yeah, I mean, if I was gonna do a video about, you know, like, you know, tokico versus Brembo, I’d be like, well, kinkos, you know, cheap. So,

Unknown Speaker 30:50
yeah, yeah.

Roy Merritt 30:58
You know, if you’re not riding hard, and you read like a grandpa, the kids are great. You know, you like chicks, or beer, or having fun. tokico is great.

Yeah, you know, it’s cool. air cooled motors are cool, too, man, we like we like,

well, man, it was good to talk with you. And if you know, I’d like I’d like to stay in touch and see how you do and what goes on with. If you have any questions or anything, don’t don’t don’t be afraid to hit me up, man.

Mike VO 31:42
Yeah, thanks. I appreciate it. And if you have a manufacturer, that’s like, man, if you had somebody that could build how this product works on Harley Davidson call us. Yeah. Yeah. We’ll help you. You got Roy’s digits. You can also look at grinder.

Unknown Speaker 32:05
Red on.

Roy Merritt 32:07
Red read out. You know, you guys are on Grindr too, aren’t you? Alright, brother, it was good to talk to you. Ooh, fancy noise?

Mike VO 32:23
things up?

Roy Merritt 32:24
Yeah, I didn’t use my phone this time I use my computer. So. Oh, yeah. Sounds like he might had a kid in the background there. So? Well, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 32:34
I gotta play it. But

Roy Merritt 32:46
multitrack record, so at least hopefully, most of that will be gone. I am as a father with a young

Mike VO 32:53
check lately. So I set him up to you know, what he wants to do? makes a lot more sense. Well, yeah.

Roy Merritt 32:59
Well, what he’s putting out there is more online training. So I kind of sent him a couple of questions before this.

Mike VO 33:06
Did we ask those questions? Not exactly. Oh,

Roy Merritt 33:09
because I guess it kind of got off of the online technician training thing pretty quick. And so I didn’t want to hammer away so hard. Well, why not? What was why wouldn’t Why wouldn’t I just watch john Maxwell? Well, yeah, I wouldn’t I just turn on YouTube. But well, what’s gonna what’s gonna bring me to your online training that I can’t get from YouTube?

Mike VO 33:27
Well, not only that, but you know, firsthand, you get these kids that go to an actual fucking trade school for a year. And so they come out and they’re like, Oh, my show you? Yeah. And about six minutes into their first day. They’re like, I’m in trouble. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 33:42
you see it? We see it. I mean, let’s see what everyone’s

Roy Merritt 33:46
new guy or just personal stuff.

Mike VO 33:49
You know what? He’s trying to figure out some life stuff. Yeah. That’s why I said,

Roy Merritt 33:54
if his personal service

Mike VO 33:55
going on, I don’t know if we’re gonna lose him or not. But yeah,

Unknown Speaker 33:58
that’s up to him. Yeah. Yeah. I

Unknown Speaker 34:04
you know,

Roy Merritt 34:06
I think he was expecting to come out and make more money like everybody does after that toolbox as wheels combat. Yeah.

Mike VO 34:14
Well, here’s the deal, man. When you don’t know shit, you’re not an asset. Oh, sure. I mean, and when you’re not an asset, you need to do what it takes to become an asset, or you need to figure out what you’re actually going to do with your life. Yeah, yeah.

Roy Merritt 34:26
And I’m still trying to do what it takes to be an asset.

Unknown Speaker 34:31
That’s how I feel every day.

Mike VO 34:34
Pretty sure. Pretty sure it was like 1130 I walked up the ROI. And I said, How come everything always has to be fucked up? Yeah.

Roy Merritt 34:43
That’s because you know, I know everything’s always fun.

Mike VO 34:45
I know. Everything’s always

Roy Merritt 34:47
I there’s a reason why you haven’t heard me complain at all or anything since we’ve made a change because I know what you’re dealing with and I’m not upset that I don’t have to deal with it. If you want to simplify everything. That’s what it all boils down to. It’s like yeah, I mean, I’m not upset. I don’t have to fuck the budget anymore. It’s cool. People kind of look weird at the situation. It’s gonna. I was talking to somebody about it last night. One of my friends is in town for the veto and visionary thing. He works in

Mike VO 35:18
town. Does he know that?

Roy Merritt 35:20
He’s in Marysville from Florida. Marysville is in town. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you know what I mean? That’s Tennessee. He posted something on on Instagram about riding around Tennessee. And I was like, What the fuck you’re in Tennessee and phone call me. You know, me and this guy work together. If he ever, like wanted to come to Franklin, I would tell you to hire him without question. He would fit any super weird. Kind of like, we are very anal. And very like,

Mike VO 35:49
Hey, I’m not weird. I do like analysts.

Roy Merritt 35:56
But he’s got a good sense of humor. Okay, so he doesn’t get butthurt easy. Oh, and he’s he’s very like, particular about the way he does things. So people that can’t work with people like that might have a little bit of an issue with him. But I totally think he would fit in here. But anyways, he’s working at a shop, he built a bike. I think they’re taking it out to eat to envisioneer show. And he called me and we were talking and he’s like, what’s your service manager? And I was like, Yeah, not anymore. And he’s like, yeah, being a technician is nice, isn’t it? Yes. Because he’s done it too. You know, he’s been around and I said, Yeah, man, it’s nice and you know, he avid so there’s there’s a whole different world of struggle back here than there is up front.

Shane Langdon 36:41
Yeah, and

but when you’re putting out fires that you didn’t cause because it was a man. Actual fires

Unknown Speaker 36:48
sore subject brown actual fires.

Unknown Speaker 36:56
Fires not literal fires. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 37:03
Got it is afraid to get out.

Unknown Speaker 37:06
Yeah. saved them.

Roy Merritt 37:09
I give Jamie some credit, man. So Hey, dude, you grinder man. He’s he’s

Mike VO 37:15
he’s on grinder. No.

Roy Merritt 37:18
I’m serious. Dude. That guy never stopped. Like he didn’t never stop playing the game. You know, Jamie? He calls customers and fucking video chats and shit. And fucking walks him around the building and does and I’ve worked he does the opposite. Okay, he’s, I’ve worked for the awards provided

Mike VO 37:37
that

Unknown Speaker 37:40
in the office.

Roy Merritt 37:43
Come down and shake your hand if you buy a bike.

Unknown Speaker 37:47
Maybe, maybe,

Roy Merritt 37:49
if you’re like, hey, wow, Jamie, like has to talk to everybody in the damn building. If he had his way he would. Honestly I believe he would if he thought if he thought that he could talk to everybody in the building. He would he knows he can’t. And he picks in you know, does what he needs to getting better. He is getting better, but at the same time he isn’t stop. me know. He’s just talking to more people. No, but he does it quicker now. You know.

Mike VO 38:13
He’s getting he’s getting better at being the

I’m the chief. Yeah, and not like, trying to get in the middle of all the ground level stuff. You know what I mean? Yeah, he’s getting a lot better at that. Good.

Yeah. You didn’t you didn’t know a couple years ago.

Yeah, I would literally kick him. I’d be like

Unknown Speaker 38:34
a year ago I’d be

Shane Langdon 38:36
like yeah, also notice if you just walk away with this mess around you’re left to leave quicker. I don’t know if

Mike VO 38:45
you’re seeing toys. Oh, of course. Oh, yeah. Yes, one of the best movies ever made. But so LL Cool. J he’s pretty much a technician. gets a point.

Roy Merritt 38:59
These are video. Can you

Unknown Speaker 39:04
touch like military pleats on a military man? I want a military meal. I want my spring beans to be quarantined. Potatoes or meatloaf doesn’t be my mess potatoes because

Roy Merritt 39:23
dude, my kids like that bro. He if there is a closed container of ketchup on his plate, he will not use food. He like nah, get that off my plate. Take it off his plate. He’ll he

Mike VO 39:37
doesn’t like ketchup

Roy Merritt 39:38
or anything. I’m just I used that as an example. Anything that he does not want or doesn’t think passes just like it’s on his plate. He won’t eat like shepherd’s pie tempers.

Mike VO 39:52
texture like you don’t take missions like we do. We have a method and we put everything away it is and if somebody’s like Get the fuck away from Yeah, you know, like, don’t touch it. It’s all laid out the way I want to you know, except for roadie jobs

Unknown Speaker 40:11
and then he blames

Roy Merritt 40:12
I don’t know how you guys do it Matt like Matt torn I know he does to learn like they have to learn how you guys do stuff Yeah, Matt tore down that job and I like I came in it was already in pieces and it was like yeah you got to do this and yeah of course I can do it you can put in a basket I’ll fucking figure it out but it takes twice It feels like it takes twice as fucking love

Mike VO 40:31
these bolts over here Yeah, is

Unknown Speaker 40:34
this you got to count them and clean

Mike VO 40:37
all this in a bag together that was a particularly

Roy Merritt 40:39
horrible job what happened on that one so lifter roller came out? The paps yeah the the pin the roller pin Walker is Yeah, I wouldn’t say his name but it was Yeah, yeah. One cooler board clipboard.

Mike VO 40:59
clipboard. Maybe one was the was using excessive oil.

Roy Merritt 41:05
That was mine. That was okay. So it must have been Walker Walker down. Yeah, he took Walker sorry. They had it had metal and thing everywhere. So I had to flush the whole motor everything I took apart to flush and clean and read Chase and it was do it felt like it took days.

Jordan Huerta 41:21
oil pump. Holy shit. Battle It

Mike VO 41:27
was good. Oh, nothing went through the motor. Yeah. Glitter went through the motor. But no.

Roy Merritt 41:33
The only place it really went was to the pan. Wow. Yeah, the

Mike VO 41:38
magnet. magnet was literally like so. You know the s&s oil pump has three magnet, two magnets and a screen. Yeah. Which is green. And there was there was some debris in the screen. Yeah. Yeah, it came apart. That’s the secondary magnet. It’s on the other side of the screen. And I’ll tell you what, and I looked at the oil pump. I set the old pump to SNS and I was like, Hey, this is a catastrophic engine failure. I’d run this pump. Yeah, yeah.

Roy Merritt 42:06
I mean, I’m sure you’ve seen that you were like, I don’t know how this is even working. And there was not an oil issue. You know, you go put cams in a bike or something. And you believe it’s all fucked up. And you’re like, what the fuck and and there was no oil pressure issues. I should work we

Mike VO 42:21
have a 120 er, that’s here. That the cam got eaten by the lifter? Fucking Oh, I wonder if those lifters are from China? Well,

Roy Merritt 42:32
Mexico. I thought it was Mexico

Mike VO 42:34
knows the Screaming Eagles used to be Italian. But I don’t think anymore. Oh, damn, well,

Roy Merritt 42:38
I would not run the screamin Eagle lifter, like period, I would handle anything. I would not run I would run I would run a factory lifter look all the way up until all the way up until like a nasty motor. Like I would factory lifter I wouldn’t even care

Mike VO 42:55
Did I tell you about when I was at Advanced electrical. And they got and they got like a box of warranty electrical parts. So we’re at Advanced electrical, and you know, it’s a super intense class. So like, everybody’s everybody’s like fuckin pucker factor. Thinking

Roy Merritt 43:14
of class and

Mike VO 43:16
the instructor, he gets this box, and he’s like going through it. And he’s like, Hey, guys, come here. We’re taking a break. Come in and check this out. He’s like, when you guys warranty shit in the field. For electrical components, like you know, speed sensors, BCM whatever he’s like, they sent it to you. And then we use these for buck bikes in advance electrical, and he’s like, here’s, here’s the fucked up thing. This whole box there might be two parts that are actually we’re gonna plug into bikes and they work 70% of the electrical issues are not opponent. I know. So anyway, so he’s like reading it. He’s like he’s like, but my favorite part is reading the reasons until he’s like, and this one was problem co you know, on the back of the warranty tag so one of the warranty tag and Harley’s you know, you have like the work order number the day and all that stuff. And then the back it says failure reason. And he says look at this. Made in Mexico.

Roy Merritt 44:29
I have kept bad components that I knew were bad, like ck PS and things like that when I was in Central Florida, because I knew teachers there so I would call them be like Hey, man, I got it. I got a bad like, weird stuff that would throw like strange escos map sensors that would throw shit you know? And I’d call them be like, Hey, man, I had this this is what happened I replaces it fixed it I put it back in in a fucked up again. I know this is a problem. You want it they’d be like fuck yeah. They come by the shop pick him up and use them you know because they knew you know they knew what it was going to do well the

Shane Langdon 45:06
format and by the 40 years back and all he did was like oversee and watch and then wintertime he’d get there early and he would bug bites he take diode turn it backwards

Mike VO 45:19
today say that a lot of free time I was gonna

Roy Merritt 45:22
say I was gonna say my last shop I did things like that with the new guys but I feel like we’ve never had the free time to do that. I don’t know maybe maybe the first winter I was here

Unknown Speaker 45:36
I’m hired another tech. Good. So Matthau

Mike VO 45:43
hears Yo, he’s moving out here, California or he doesn’t. He doesn’t read. So he’s like I’m out with another Cali guy in the shop. Ah, when? I don’t know. I got the guy you don’t run the other day. Please pass this drug test. I’m just calling random shops. I want to talk to

Roy Merritt 46:11
you don’t slow down and winner.

Mike VO 46:13
Oh, yeah. Well, it will it will

Roy Merritt 46:17
and it won’t be hard to bring somebody in right before slows down. Well, I don’t I don’t I don’t you completely can get him here like right is it’s right before it picks up again. Fuck Yeah. You know, then then it’s not so bad you come into might suck for a month.

Mike VO 46:29
What’s that like? December? Oh, well, but you know, is January Yeah, I did a 205 hours last year, this year. You know, if I have to bring somebody out like immediately to get him for spring. Then I can just do some sort of guarantee or something and

Roy Merritt 46:46
sweep the floor early or something. Yeah, that’s what we head up. It just sucks, man. You don’t mean? Yeah, we just we just

Mike VO 46:51
get wrapped up the spring because you when we get rid of the break room and we don’t have any more. Nothing standing in our way. Because you know, you can take a break after work. Yeah, right. Oh, we didn’t even

Roy Merritt 47:03
know where to guide me bears.

Unknown Speaker 47:07
I don’t know. Gummy Bears.

Roy Merritt 47:11
I’m looking at my schedule. Like there’s no fucking way I’m gonna get this done. right up until like, 530.

Mike VO 47:17
And I go, where are you?

Roy Merritt 47:21
I make sure I tell her?

Unknown Speaker 47:25
I do. That’s what

Unknown Speaker 47:29
that’s what I’m here for. Yeah.

Mike VO 47:33
Yeah, He’s good. He’s good at getting lunch. Yeah, he’s really good at getting lunch, getting lunch because they’re not getting anything else.

Roy Merritt 47:41
Well, they also like, for whatever reason, they don’t care about taking long lunches. Like, none of that makes sense to me.

Unknown Speaker 47:49
And like, really,

Roy Merritt 47:50
I don’t get our, like, my hourly mentality is I’m gonna be the first one here. And I’m gonna stay as busy as I fucking can all day. That way. I’m gonna be the last one to leave. I’m gonna watch you turn the fucking lights out. And then most of the guys like me can leave early. So yeah, yeah, go get the fuck out of here. We don’t want to be here. Do go home. Yeah, get the fuck out of here.

Mike VO 48:11
Yeah, but but you know what’s funny, though, is that’s why they’re out. Okay.

Roy Merritt 48:16
But even is sour,

Unknown Speaker 48:19
sour. So 30 salary or

Roy Merritt 48:21
however you want to position because it’s really not salaries. It’s ours. Now, are you making any money? But I’m still first one here. You know?

Mike VO 48:31
Well, you don’t have a choice at that point. Well, yeah, but I mean, you gotta let everybody

Roy Merritt 48:36
Yeah, but but I was here like, early as fuck every day. You know, I was here. If I wasn’t here by eight o’clock. doors open, something’s wrong. You know what I mean? I and then that’s me, because I’m an early bird anyways, you know what I mean? Like, I’m fuckin

Unknown Speaker 48:50
Well, I know. But you know, that’s like,

Mike VO 48:54
you union mentality. You know what I mean? You have? You have the people that are like, well, man, I make this much an hour. And I you know, and that’s our mentality. Yeah. Then you have the people that are like, well, I want to be the best at what I can do. And they don’t stay hourly. Because they don’t have that mentality. Yeah. You don’t I mean, work ethic. Yeah, yeah. So it’s just that’s how it works. And you know, they say whatever they want about metrics. There’s a reason that 75% of the population is a wage, you know, earning an hourly wage. And it’s not because that’s the only jobs out there. It’s because they don’t want to do what it takes to do more than make $15 an hour. So

Roy Merritt 49:40
I wanted my experience. Probably since I’ve been 20 years old. I have never basically worked a job that I didn’t start out, like pretty low and end up running. Like never, every job I’ve ever had, yeah, no matter what it is, I started, I would at some point, you know, start pretty low in the process and at some point be mad at, you know, every job. Even my last job even here, you know, it happens. Some, some people are better management than other, you know, well, and that’s just all there is to it. So just because you’re, you work hard and you know you can do everything doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to do the job. Well, you know, so, things happen. It is what it is. I know that I can. I am valuable as a technician. I’m valuable in many places. So I know I can always earn my wage. There’s one way or another, you know, there’s always a way for me to earn money. But

Mike VO 50:45
he’s pretty much reading his grinder bio

Unknown Speaker 50:48
as you’re looking at it now.

Roy Merritt 50:53
Seriously, though, let’s roll.

Unknown Speaker 50:56
Big Red Ryder.

Roy Merritt 51:01
Big Red.

Unknown Speaker 51:10
Big Red.

Unknown Speaker 51:16
Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 51:19
Horrible. Awesome.

Mike VO 51:23
Bottoms and tops.

Unknown Speaker 51:26
Which one do you want to be? Hey,

Mike VO 51:33
by the way, I want to put a shout out to our only actual fan listener whenever I think Andrew West Oh, yeah. A

Roy Merritt 51:43
writer and

Mike VO 51:44
writer. Oh, yeah, right. Riker. Does he actually listen to this? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 51:48
yeah. My God. Yeah.

Roy Merritt 51:55
Yeah. Aaron, Aaron Aaron. working late anyways, and he’s here but you can’t really in the background.

Mike VO 52:02
So yeah, neared butter and he’s just basking in it.

I can’t I can’t be on the podcast. I gotta comb.

Roy Merritt 52:16
Like nine listeners now.

Mike VO 52:23
Hey, how did you I saw your face when I brought green over this afternoon. I hate greens. close out. Like motherfucker. Buddy, give me your money. Give me your money. all your money

Unknown Speaker 52:38
before you before you pass out.

Mike VO 52:40
Yeah. Hey, are we gonna do this? Yes. Then give me your money.

Unknown Speaker 52:45
Oh, the guys.

Unknown Speaker 52:48
Oh, God, we don’t

Roy Merritt 52:50
know who’s the listener news listener? Oh, yeah. So yeah, but he wouldn’t be much better stories he would have rode the bike and then came back and had like a seizure. I know that sort of said like

Unknown Speaker 53:04
to talk about

Roy Merritt 53:06
so yeah. So in the background, but here’s the story so guy came in and nasty motor build was coming in paid whatever. I don’t know if he paid it doesn’t matter. It didn’t matter.

Mike VO 53:20
That’s the funny part of the story. So he came in

Unknown Speaker 53:25
and

Roy Merritt 53:27
had like a seizure. Oh, in the showroom.

Unknown Speaker 53:31
Two nights. Two nights here was pretty hard wait for the build to be done.

Unknown Speaker 53:35
So he’s okay. I didn’t know that. He’s

Unknown Speaker 53:39
super dehydrated. He came back close

Unknown Speaker 53:42
some dyno did some videos all excited solid numbers super excited went up front to pay when they came back at the miles of the bike and the dyno sets. I was done running it. I finally got back up on the floor. Oh, wow. So let’s go gums. Yeah, take some away. And I walked up there and I was like, you

Mike VO 54:04
know, and I was like

Unknown Speaker 54:08
if this guy’s even gonna live

Roy Merritt 54:14
already had one motorcycle where the guy died by loose here.

Unknown Speaker 54:18
Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 54:24
I don’t know how you pronounce

Roy Merritt 54:25
it, but copperopolis is not wrong.

Mike VO 54:30
I think it was polish. It was Coachella.

Unknown Speaker 54:35
I’m sure in some

Mike VO 54:38
cases. Yeah, I almost call him Alex. No, God knows what’s up.

Unknown Speaker 54:48
Buddy. That’s why I say buddy. buddy,

Roy Merritt 54:52
buddy, buddy, buddy, buddy, buddy. You want to be my buddy, buddy? Yeah.

Mike VO 54:58
I just I thought So then I tell her and I’m like, this is why you get all the money. Because then again, it’s it sucks that the guy goes through it, but you know, oh yeah, we’re still a business. We suck.

Roy Merritt 55:13
That’s what I’m saying he would have been much better if he would have rode the bike came back and be like, on the ground.

Or worse. Yeah, well, no.

Unknown Speaker 55:30
Not cool.

Terry Boye 55:30
Oh, yeah. He came

Mike VO 55:32
back the next morning and he squared up and everything was good. And yeah, I’m just super easy. Super nice guy. Yeah. Yeah, I just told him like, drink water, buddy.

Roy Merritt 55:42
Yeah, well, that’s what I’m saying. Like, no, no way. Do I want anybody to get hurt? No, absolutely not to happen on the motorcycle a buck. Nobody get hurt, you know. So the timing, you know, after the road would have been a much better story. In the end, you know, what have been on the screen?

Unknown Speaker 55:59
This is what this is. What

Unknown Speaker 56:01
do you if you buy moonshine? What’s it

Mike VO 56:09
gonna be like when I read it like this?

Roy Merritt 56:12
Somebody somebody sent a meme to the group chat this morning. I think it was slingblade. And it was like an interview cartoon interview. And it was like, what are your life goals? And it was like some I can’t remember what it was as hot rod, and it was like No, I mean, long term life goals. And it was like two hot rods in a bigger garage. Like, oh my god, I want to redo this meme. So that it says What are you know, what are your life goals? And it says, moonshine motor, you know, and then it says no long term and then be like moonshine motor legend suspension, and attract a hammock.

Mike VO 56:50
Be a perfect eight means living the fucking life. Yeah. We still you pull that apart?

Roy Merritt 56:59
What’s he doing? Doing a 143 a 143. Really? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 57:06
Okay,

Roy Merritt 57:07
so he’s gonna do a 143 bender. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he’s got parts. Yeah, he’s getting a bunch of stuff. So have we we haven’t done a transmission in that yet. Have we r&d? Speaking of transmission, he This is r&d.

Mike VO 57:22
No, the r&d he’s we’re doing r&d transmission. Oh, so he’s doing a treat Jesus Christ.

Roy Merritt 57:26
I do got some money apparently.

Mike VO 57:30
blew his motor.

Unknown Speaker 57:32
30 miles and he was just cruising.

Unknown Speaker 57:34
Yeah, whatever. I told him.

Roy Merritt 57:38
Trash that before you did the motor.

Unknown Speaker 57:39
Oh, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 57:40
If it didn’t blow up on the dial

Roy Merritt 57:44
roles but teacher cracked are already going and it just took one good poll. Well, I think we need to wrap things up and we talked a little bit tonight.

Unknown Speaker 57:58
The

Unknown Speaker 58:01
check us out.

Roy Merritt 58:04
Talkin braap.com I’ve been trying to keep that thing up. I’m doing horrible. I’m really bad. But I’m just gonna let this play

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