Mafia Memoirs – Episode 2
Interview with Scott Macha Total Eclipse Detailing
Transcription
Jody: Hey, good morning and welcome to our second episode of Mafia Memoirs. We have a very fun thirty minutes ahead of us were actually going to be talking to Scott Macha of Total Eclipse Detailing. And while we’re waiting for him to come and we have some pretty exciting things happening this weekend, we will be heading over to The Rag Company. They’re sponsoring an event. Renny Doyle is coming in. I think Bob Phillips is coming out. I know Dave is coming. And so they always have a great show. So it’s going to be a great time will be there from nine to two. Shane Mayfield is coming over from Oregon so it should be a really good time tomorrow, So actually Saturday from nine to one I think.
Rod: Nine to two
Jody: Nine to two! So its gonna be a long, busy day. Hey, Ryan, how are you? Uh, you are in beautiful Alaska. The boat is put away and so what are you doing in the house since you can’t go fishing.
Rod: shoveling snow, shoveling snow
Jody: that’s it so and then we’re, we’re also heading up to SEMA here in a couple weeks, we will be at the P&S products booth. So make sure you swing by and see us. We will be there with Bob Phillips and Keith Duplessie. We will be there all week. And so, yeah, we’re just waiting right now for Scott Macha. So let me see if I can add him real quick. See, I think, all right I need okay, We just need Scott to join us. All right, let’s just wait a few minutes,
Rod: Give him a call. So the event at The Rag company had to be pretty pretty cool. I didn’t know it was we don’t know what quite what to think about how big of an event it was going to be. But it seems like quite a few people are going to show up there And The Rag Company always is an awesome host, you know, Jeff and Caroline and, and, the crew down there are always awesome and very gracious and have a beautiful facility to have. Ah, anything to do with detailing there, you know, they get a shop that rivals most detailing shops right there on site to film with that so anybody that’s in the general vicinity should sign up and come down and see that. You know, like Jody said, there’s going to be a lot of people there and there gonna present, um they always do a really good job presenting products.
Jody: yeah, with Renny being there, it will be interesting to see what the topic is, so
Rod: yeah. I’m not sure if you saw Renny’s post yesterday. He’s here in Idaho with his daughter Daryn and it’s, uh, you know, yeah, that’s. One of things we’re talking about with, with Scott here in just a minute, is some of the, the things we see which are weather. And yet it’s there’s. Some snow here in in Idaho, already up in the mountains, it cools right off. And everybody’s gotta deal with that as far as their own environment. And, you know, another thing we’re looking at is coming up. Here is SEMA. You know, the SEMA show is coming up the thirtieth, thirty first, the first and second of November. We’re getting really geared up for that. We will be joining the P&S crew again to kind of highlight See Shawn Sepulveda, I see Ryan, but I’m not seeing Scott yet. So I appreciate you guys, patience as we get going.
Rod: Well, while we’re waiting for Scott to show up anybody that’s out there. Is there anybody, how many of you are going to SEMA? I mean, we haven’t really seen a lot of people. I know that some people have posted their tickets or you know whether they’re going or not. But you know, if you’re going to go there’s a lot of events, if you if you’ve been, you know, that there’s a ton of events around the IDA or the Mafia themselves. They always, you know, put a big showing on. Renny will be doing a bunch of stuff live. We’re actually planning on doing one of these live at SEMA on Thursday morning, same time we’ll figure out, you know, the mystery guests that will be bring on board to do the Mafia Memoirs. But always a good time with SEMA show to. Look at the latest and greatest in the industry and what people are offering.
Jody: Yeah, we’re actually gonna be there the entire week, so we head up there Monday will be there Tuesday through Friday.
Rod: Yeah, we’ll be there the entire week again.
Jody: One of the things that I’m really excited about is The Rag Company event that will be doing there that we’ve been invited to. That will be fun. Yeah, going to Top Golf right there.
Rod: There we go, Scott Macha.
Jody: There we go. Well, let me ad him real quick, all right, let’s, see add Scott, all right.
Rod: Thinking about it. There you go, thanks for your patience. All right, Here’s the man, The myth Scott.
Jody: What’s that?
Scott: I said, how are you doing today, guys?
Jody: Can you hear us Scott?
Scott: Yes, I can.
‘
Jody: Good. Now we can hear you, good deal. So how are things in beautiful Maine?
Scott: WET!, right now we getting a lot of rain from the from the lower half, from the eastern, eastern border. Right now, we’re getting all that rain from the storm. How about you guys?
Jody: Oh man, I hope you, are well. You know it’s actually sunny and wet. It was wet all day yesterday and it’s a little sunny today, and, ah, you know it is you may have seen from, um ah, Renny Doylee’s post there, up in the mountains, up, my Marshal Lake and there is snow. So it’s going to be a good year for us snow wise.
Scott: That’s, pretty cool.
Jody: So, Scott Macha, so you guys, uh those that don’t know him. He is one of the members of The Detail Mafia. He is a very proud and a very awesome detailer. In fact, he calls himself an artist, and I agree that he is very good. So, um, he and I had the opportunity to work shoulder to shoulder on Air Force One, and he was, he and Shane Mayfield were very kind in helping me improve my technique as I worked on that Flex 3401 on a number of planes. So thank you very much for being my mentor there with you and Shane.
Scott: it was a pleasure, man. We had a lot of fun out there. Seattle was it was it’s always. Ah, brand new experience out there. You know, working with the new guy he’s even working with the you know, you know, some of the guys that have started the project right from from day one, even working side by side with people like Jim Goguen, Harry Sandwith, William Lara, Ryan Magowan. The list is so long, you know, all the guys out there that really take a lot of time to bring in the few that, you know, I haven’t been in the project very long to show us how to do something. So you know, it was a great pleasure sitting down with you actually took up a lot more space, and I thought you were going to at first. I mean, getting into one of those engines right there. You just you kept pushing me all the way. I didn’t know how to keep up with you,
Jody: you gotta, you gotta make room for my big butt either that or my big head. So it’s all good. So we’ll tell us a little bit about Total Eclipse Detailing. So you guys are Yarmouth in Maine. Um, I know and from our conversations you, you’re kind of and I think, correct me. If I’m wrong, you’re you’re moving into a lot of the motorcycle realm of detailing or is that all you’re focused on or what, What us your shop’s Expertise.
Scott: Expertise, uh you know..
Jody: Perhaps focus is a better word.
Scott: Yeah. There you go. I like focus. I focus on motorcycles. I love motorcycles a lot. We get to spend a lot of time with us being like one hour away from Laconia, New Hampshire. This gives us a great opportunity to spend a little time with the bikes that you know, Indians and Triumphs and Harleys. And you know, I have a real passion for that. And I’ve gotten really extend that passion out because my continue education with The Detail Mafia and be able to go down to places like New Jersey and and underhand and study what, what Harry who uh, He’s the true Hog Father, man, I can’t help but want to train with him all the time. So, it’s been a it’s. Been a great feature. Hey, Christian, how you doing today, man?.
Rod: There’s the Parkers Hey, so question for you, Scott. And we were talking about earlier with the weather. That’s, that’s a really interesting topic because a lot of people, everybody has to deal with some kind of weather. But in our area, we deal with it. And I know you do is well where we have the we have kind of the extremes. I mean, you’ve got your summer weather. But then you guys also have very cold in inclement weather. And so one of the things we wanted to talk about with you is how do you, in your market, deal with that, both on a customer basis of how to explain to them, you know, the benefits of doing something Maybe when it’s snowing, a reigning versus someone that’s in a seventy degrees, all the time.
Scott: You know, the market in our area is ah, we hold sometimes we can hold anywhere between five to six months or, you know, five to eight months worth of snow and a lot of our clients it’s been a, it’s been a pretty tough conversation, sit down with some of our clients and look at them and say, hey, you know, we want to focus on getting your interior prepped up for the winter time, a lot of calcium, a lot of deposit on the floor and stuff like that. Ah, they don’t know that you can use coatings to protect the inside of your car. You don’t know that you can use smart fabric, so, you know, make sure they don’t get water stains in and abrasions in their fabrics and stuff like this just informing our clients and showing them by hand each, you know, each of their options has been a great feature for us, especially this year in our market. With technology rolling the way it is every day and bringing in new products in and bringing in new machinery. It’s, it’s been great to show our clients what they can do versus what they couldn’t. Do a long time ago. You know, I remember a long time ago, when we were, when I was a kid. My dad used to clean a car and put a Scotchguard on the seat, just the stop it from getting all wet all the time. Nowadays, we have better products in that give us longevity and durability for, you know, anywhere between five to six months. So this is this brings you right out in the spring and that’s how we probably market the product to our customers.
Jody: Interesting. So, do you have, do you have a preference on products that you used on the interior side of things? Or, um, well, where you heading that way?
Scott: Preference of products. You know, I think it really depends on what type of car working on every car is different. If you know we, we love the P&S line as you can see, I gotta rub it out of my hat here for a second. But there’s many, many, many, many products these days that hold the fabric protection you have G Technic, cleaning you have P&S mean, they all work so well together. Now most of these guys get to really shake hands and talk to people in the industry, especially when they get to sit and walk into ah educational things like, you know, SEMA international show is coming up and that’s where these guys in the industry, the bigger part of the industry really get to sit down and talk amongst each other and say, you know, what’s making the branding happening this year, what’s making it better. And how can we make our products better? And this is that’s why I love this industry so much is because most of these companies are afraid to reach out and say to the local detailer hey, you know, how can we make our products better for you and what’s gonna what are your, your clients of your customers looking for? So this is, you know, it’s, it’s, an enjoyment to walk out the places like SEMA and learn from these guys.
Jody: So are you. You know, I know you and I have had a lot of discussions online and offline about the things that you’ve done to improve your business this year um, and you have some pretty exciting things that you’re looking towards, and you’re working on in the background that hopefully will come to fruition. Now, what, what are some of the drivers that they’re helping you, you know, really evolve your business to the next level.
Scott: My clients are my drivers, every day we wake up, we do things to make sure that, you know, we can grow. But, um, we’ve got big plans in the future. I’m excited, you know, I’m going to give it a little bit more time before we make the big announcement, but it’s, it’s, the business growing. When we first brought in the business seven years ago, we started from a little truck doing backyard and going house to house and reaching out to people and detailing their cars. And, uh, my business is grown a lot, because I reached out to people to educate myself and educate my business, and because of this, you know, it’s. Ah, it’s allowed me to grow my business astronomically and that’s, a stumping question. Well, you got me real good. You’re all so.
Rod: Let me let me ask you a couple of questions about that. So sorry, but you do a lot of different things, right. When we see guys out there that primarily focus on coatings or primary focus on, you know, just this four product offerings or for service offerings were, I think, that’s, something that’s different about you is you do a lot of different stuff. So that’s, that’s, I think one of the things it’s intriguing about your particular businesses. You know, you might be doing floor mats and doing an interior, and the next thing you know, we get some wild, crazy fire truck looking thing out there. So what, What is it that drives you to be so diverse in your product offerings or your service offerings?
Scott: My location, a lot of people don’t, so in my location, there’s a there’s a people when they think of detailing they think of ah, you know, bring my car and get it detailed it’s gotta be one big package kind of deal. It’s, it’s, it’s, like a friend of mine, said he said there’s a difference between a car washer and a detailer. Um, if you have, um oh, a long time ago that you specify well, we’ll do package number one and package number two in package number three and that’s what you can offer to your clients and after sitting down with, ah, couple of mentors that I’ve had in the last three years, I’ve redesigned my business as well as others have redesigned their business to say our clients don’t, they didn’t need to have a complete detail on it, a whole inside outside job or you know what, Uh, how can I prep my client for the wintertime? Well, we would, we brought in weather tech and we said to them, said, hey, you know, we can, we can maximize on how well your car comes out and keep by looking at our clients is saying when we are for you weather tech, and how about we offer you fabric protection, Because by adding longevity and durability to your car and protection to your car inside and outside, this gave us a chance to keep our prices down. Um, it was a good, good question about, you know, you know, separating the interiors and the exteriors, but a as well, as, you know, the big fire trucks that we do that because clients came out to us and they said, you know, ah, we saw your education within the last couple of years, and we see that you’re really thriving for some of the older cars and some of the older techniques that that fire engine we did was from the country Poland, and he came out to me and he said, hey, you know what, I just want to get cleaned up, but I don’t need to have a three stage correction done to this because I want to try to keep it as original as possible, so that was a really exciting piece for me to do. We do, you know, a lot of companies are just like a lot of car care specialist are just like me where they’re doing, they really got themselves out of just doing one thing. I’ll throw a name out there, you know, Uh ah, a gentleman, Bill he’s he’s from across the states and he does a lot of multiple things. Jimmy Groguen does radio installation. Ah, Parker brothers are doing ah, Detail Boss is doing what they do. Ah, plastic coatings on the front of the cars and people…
Rod: (speaking about the Parker Brothers) a lot of lifting weights
Scott: yeah, yeah, I just can’t look that good, man. That’s not my thing.
Rod: Some of us just don’t have that ability to look that good. Sorry, you got me beat so
Scott: you know, not everybody can have hair on our heads. Look at that one over there. I mean, he still has hair and he’s, exactly a little bit older than you are.
Rod: We had a client a couple of days ago that I’m going with his statement. He said, God put God, put hair on ninety percent of the people and on the good-looking ones, he took it off or something like that.
Jody: You need something I’m telling your hair would help. So I think, I think what, what is Interesting. About what you shared is that um your market, really does drive a lot of what you can do. It also drives new ideas and how you can better serve your customers, because you’re like, look, I have no half my season that is encumbered by heavy snow. So how can I better serve those customers? You know, during the, the active season, and are you doing anything, actually, during the winter that, you know, enables you to go through those slower months?
Scott: We have something coming up Yeah, we’re doing. We have, we have a lot of plans in the next year. We’re going to be reaching out. And some of our smaller plans are you know, we’re ah might be doing, you know, additions, snowplows and stuff like that, you know, we maybe find a little bigger property, um, it’s all about pre-prep when it comes to me in the business. So we want to make sure the client’s air, you know, getting the inside, getting the outside done, making sure we put coatings on cars. Coatings have been a big thing for a lot of people this year. They wanted to reach out and make sure that ceramic coatings on cars and I’m all for that, you know I mean, I, it is about protection, you guys, it is about reaching out and talking to our clients, finding out what our clients want on a daily basis, making sure that our clients know that you know, The Detail Mafia as, as well as the IDA are willing to educate people, and the IDA is really pushing this year, they’ve been really strong go IDA that they’re reaching out to detail are saying instead of just being yes, sir, hold on a second, let me brush it off. Okay, making sure that they reach out to people in saying, hey, we are educating our detailers. Now we’re inspecting more of them. You can either be here or you can be here and that’s what’s, inspiring the detailers this year to magnify their education, is at thrust into to life now, where you can’t make it as the garage guy, because people are now starting to notice that, hey, you know, this guy isn’t part of the international detailer association. What is separating him from the rest of the group? Listening to our clients is everything. You know. If we can’t listen to our clients, your business can’t go anywhere.
Rod: And one of the things that’s very, that really struck me getting involved in the organization. Both the IDA and particularly the, the IDA members that are Detail Mafia was the, the willingness to share business secrets.
Scott: Yes
Rod: I mean, you know, earlier, I’m picking on the Parkers, but those guys will answer their phone. And if you’ve got an issue, you’re dealing with something you’re like, hey, guys, how do Ideal with this? They’ll tell you because they deal with some extreme temperatures on the other side, you know, I mean, they’re dealing with the, the Phoenix Arizona stuff, whereas you’re dealing with the cold, which is more similar to Idaho. But I mean, I remember talking to both Mark Elliott, the Parkers uh and William Lara, both about their say, well, I’ll be working in the shop and all the sudden Scott will call or Mark will call, and I’m going, these guys, they’re, they’re not competitors, but if they’re in the same market, they would be but there sharing stuff. It’s, just an industry trade.
Jody: I think they’re trying to elevate the industry as a whole.
Rod: Yeah, I mean, we, we
Jody: I was recently out in Jacksonville with a brand new customer of IDA members and had they thought about, you know, or becoming part of The Detail Mafia. And we had a really, really good discussion about why it was important to become a member of the IDA, and that it really does elevate not only him and his company, but also gives him tools to elevate his customers education so that he can better serve them. And he actually went out and joined up the IDA that very next week. And I was talking to him. He goes, yeah, I cannot believe it already the community involvement that I’ve gotten just in the first two weeks of helping me elevate my business so.
Scott: I know, the elevate, the education. This industry has grown so much since the days when it was putting turtle wax on your car or buffing it with a heavy, you know, forced rotation. I mean, without the people we have in our group or even without the people who have helped us grow in this industry talking amongst each other is very important. William. Laura said, just in the post down below it said, you know, it’s, “the key to education is for both of us in our clients”. You know, if I can reach out there, get a customer in, they brought a car one time, I think it was a Porsche, and I reached out to the Parker brothers, and I said, hey, you know, you know, I got this car and I’m not familiar with the car, you know, you mind reaching out to me and, and explain, you know, the best the best way to handle this car and, you know, they made sure that it was instant text messaging and that’s the best part about detailing in this industry right now. Now I don’t have to, you’re not, you’re not making five hundred million phone calls anymore. It’s, you can text message, we couldn’t do that before, you know, a long time ago, you would have to stop everything you’re doing to go and make that phone call, or if, if anybody wanted to, I think Renny Doyle said it the best. It used to be a gypsy business. Now, it’s, not a gypsy business. A lot of people are reaching out. A lot of people are caring about the way that a lot of people are showing everybody, hey, we’re the mechanicals now and that’s, how we’re reaching out to people.
(slow video connection)
Jody: Great, yeah, I think that’s a really big, big thing. That’s awesome. I mean, it’s, you know, Rod and I, we’ve actually been in, you know, around ah, on the technical side with our software, you know, since two thousand nine and even since two thousand nine, we’ve seen a huge elevation of the industry as a whole were seeing more guys move from, you know, a truck and a van to having inside the four walls full operation with, you know, wash space drying bays and and it’s really fun, to watch and be a part of a small part of helping people know, evolve and grow their businesses. And this year we had the opportunity to you know, to to be heavily involved with AFO, um, just that experience alone of working side by side, ah, with the men and women that are leading this industry was incredible. I mean, it, it just was an amazing experience. Um, and you know, the more I personally get into it, I mean, Rod he’s IDA certified already waiting to get his skills validation. I’m going to get IDA certified and really the driver is so that we better understand the industry so that we can better serve people like you guys that are out there every day doing the awesome work for your customers in your communities. So
Scott: That’s, what I was saying earlier that that’s, what impresses me is to be able to reach out to you guys and reach out to others and that whole talking amongst each other in this in this industry right now is the exciting part of my career. Um, watching businesses like yours go from being maybe little to being oh my god, you know, we’ve magnified our business because you don’t talk to each individual detailer and individual states, But, you know now, even just detailers I’ve seen you guys magnify your business into other areas right now. Congratulations about that, guy’s I’m excited about what you guys have done this year on that. You know, as far as you know, sitting down with the P&S line and sitting down with guys that do ah, you know with paint, paintless debt repair, PDR I mean, it’s been a crazy season for you guys. I’m looking, I’m looking forward to a scene where you guys go this year and I’m looking to see where, how much bigger Zenware becomes and finding out how many people actually, you know, look to you guys as the end all be all in the game, in this industry right now.
Jody: Well, we’re we’re working on it as hard and as fast as can. It’s really, because everything that is evolving in our software it’s really driven by feedback from you and from other customers. I mean, I was looking at what we’ve developed the past year, and I would say all of the new features were customer requested. So that that’s a lot of fun to kind of evolve with people. Um you know, so we’re coming up on our thirty minutes. We’re trying to keep these locked in at thirty minutes so that we know that people have to go in detail cars and service their customers. So do, do people find you in in your area? What is your web address, phone number and let’s, give a shout out so we can drive some business your way, man.
Scott: Hello, everybody, I’m Scott Macha of Total Eclipse Auto Detail and Design were located in Yarmouth Maine keep an eye out for that one. Our phone number is 846-3310, area code 207. We’re on the main strip Route One in Yarmouth. It’s easy to find us. Ah, we’re, you know we’re, we’re around from Monday to Friday, eight to five, you can pay attention to us through our Facebook. Our web page is totaleclipsedetailing.com and make sure you pay attention, sign up for our news letters every month so each week you can find out the ends and outs of how our business is growing. You, by paying attention to our Facebook and pay attention to our videos like this one here, where we’re sitting down with these intelligent people and I get to learn the business.
Jody: You’re intelligent?
Scott: oh, hey, man, you know you know, I got excited this morning for a quick second. We got the talk, Jody, I heard you’re a Slave driver. You know, I could never keep up with your work, man.
Rod: It’s, it’s just work it’s like anything it’s like any industry.
Jody: Yeah we just try to figure it out every day like everybody else. And I think that’s a big thing, you know, first thing I walked in this morning and Rod goes there’s some things we need to improve and, like, all right, what’s the list today? And so he went down on like, yeah, I agree there, I agree there. Well, not so much there but it’s, you know, it’s really recognizing, doing that self assessment both on a personal level and a business level that if you can be honest with yourself and truly self assess, then you can make, make the minute adjustments to really take your business to the next level. And I think that’s really what we’re trying to do, what you’re trying to do, what others that we see in the industry now are trying to do and and I know Renny Doyle with The Detail Mafia and that whole crew, I mean, he’s really trying to elevate everybody and industry so we have to give a shout out to him. And really, we appreciate you taking the time. Um, we’re super excited to, you know, interview all of the different guys and the ladies and gals and the vendors that are really pushing the industry and appreciate you giving us some of your time this morning.
Scott: Yeah, I’m just a little bit I’m just a little bit, you know, I was hoping to get a little time in tow work with that low rider that robs working on and maybe one of these days we’ll head out there and go visit you guys.
Rod: Hey, hey! Any time you want to come help that’s fine. Come on over, man.
Jody. I’m glad he invited you to the shop. He doesn’t invite me to the shop. Since we changed out the engine in the Chevy,
Rod: he knows where I live. He can come over any time.
Jody: Yes again. So anyway, well you have a great day And thanks for joining us, buddy.
Scott: Hey, it was a pleasure. Good luck, guys. And I hope everybody else that’s watching this video enjoys the rest of the day and, like Scotty says always, “you know what keep it shiny”.
Jody: Keep it, shiny
Rod: Thanks, man. See ya