THA 143: myASE Renewal APP – There’s an APP for That!

THA 143 My ASE Renewal APP – There’s an APP for That!

You are going to get an interesting behind the scene understanding of the myASE Renewal APP. It is in Beta, however, you can get on board.

This a perfect evolution from ASE to embrace and engage every certified technician into keeping their certs current through this very intuitive app.
The panel: John Tisdale and Kevin Lekas from ASE, Technician Rudy Mestaz and app developer Ron Meyer.

Based on technicians’ requests, you can find out when you get an answer wrong and what the correct answer is. You’ll hear the logistics behind how to get started and how you get questions sent to you each month based on the number of certifications you have. As an example, a master technician would get eight questions a month sent to your app. You can answer at your convenience. No need to register for a test center, take time off work or drive miles to sit for the exams.

You may just find this new tool from ASE an important part of your credential process and you may even dust off those expired credentials and get on board and renew them.

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RR 479: Sara Fraser – Important Millennial Buying Habits and Tendencies

RR 479: Sara Fraser – Millennial Buying Habits and Tendencies

Millennials have become the largest generation recorded. So it is with a meticulous and careful analysis that we need to understand what do millennial customers want when it comes to vehicle service and repair. We need to adjust!

Sara Fraser is a millennial with over 15 years of retail management experience. To bring her customer service, marketing, and business knowledge to the automotive industry she has recently joined the team at Haas Performance Consulting.

She shares how millennials demand a level of service, convenience and digital finesse from whoever services their vehicles. Millennial customers can’t live without their smartphone, share great experiences, want fast communications, know how to post reviews and share on social media, and like at Amazon what things quick and fast. How do you adapt?

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RR 478: ASTE Panel Discussion – Technician Pay – Retention – and Benefits

ASTE: Technician Pay, Retention, and Benefits

This episode is packed with great gems of wisdom and gives you a bird’s eye view not only on some great benefits and pay ideas, but as we all must understand it starts with having an enduring business culture. All the pay in the world doesn’t trump an acidic culture.

I’m with Lucas Underwood an Automotive diagnostic specialist, he owns L & N Performance Auto Repair, Erick Bock owner of Bock Auto, and Rick White, President and Lead Coach for 180BIZ, an auto repair shop training and business coaching company.

Building a business focuses on the team you have and how to treat it like a family! We also tackled the creative benefits that entice and motivate employees more. And learn what are the most important tactics to attract and keep technicians?

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THA 142: Business Coaches Lab – Building an Enduring Business Culture – Part 2

THA 142 Business Coaches Lab – Building an Enduring Business Culture – Part 2

One of the hottest topics on the mouths and minds of leaders these days is organizational culture. The longer organizations look for competitive advantage and a sustainable way to grow their organizations, the more important culture becomes. If you are a leader looking to create, improve, or nurture your organizational culture, you have come to the right place.
It must have been an exceptional Friday because these coaches were on their game. They nailed finding your hidden strengths, the power of having standards, what does talent got to do with it, tasks vs outcomes, that culture happens … you’ve got one … good or bad … you’ve got one. We talk assessments, behavior, the accountability mirror, learning from failures, and that culture is not a hard concept.

The panel in this Part 2 of Building an Enduring Business Culture is Rick White from 180 Biz, Cecil Bullard, The Institute for Automotive Business Excellence and Bob Greenwood, Automotive Aftermarket E-Learning Center

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RR 477: Danny Sanchez – It is Not Rocket Science to Run a Successful Shop

RR 477: Danny Sanchez – It is Not Rocket Science to Run a Successful Shop

Danny Sanchez, CEO of Autoshop Solutions, likes to keep it simple and direct. Having been a successful shop owner Danny is able to share his past experience as it relates to the challenges of the day. He sees your success as the totality of the shop from the ground up! He shares some key insights that will apply to any shop or organization. We continue to build on the trending talking points that my guests say are the fundamental building blocks of a successful shop today.

Some of the things we talk about are Building a culture, investing in people, using time efficiently and having better customer service. These are the key ingredients of becoming a successful owner!

Danny warns that every time you start something new there is a heavy investment of time, time is a commodity in shorter demand than money. Spend it wisely

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RR 476: Chris Cloutier and Scott Brown – Productivity Hacks

Chris Cloutier and Scott Brown – What does it take to become more Productive and Efficient?

There are a lot of ways to become productive and efficient. There are a lot of strategies and systems that can be followed by just hearing this episode. Follow the process, improve communication, leverage to software technologies, learn to improve diagnostic methods and a whole lot more!

The experts: Chris Cloutier and Scott Brown. Chris is the co-owner of Golden Rule Auto Care in Dallas Texas and CEO of Auto Tex Me. He spent many years in the software industry developing solutions for companies. And Scott is an ASE Master Certified Automobile Technician with over three and a half decades of professional service industry experience. He and his wife own Connie & Dick’s Service Center Inc. Together they are the productivity and efficiency duo that bring results.

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THA 141: Selling Your Business – Valuation Strategies

THA 141 Town Hall Academy on Selling your Business – Valuation Strategies

This episode on ‘Selling your Business – Valuation Strategies’ will provide a great lesson on tactics to obtain a great value for your business. The caveat is that you need to have a successful business and we do discuss some strategies on how to make that happen.

I’m delighted to have Greg Bunch, owner of Aspen Auto Clinic a five-store operation in Colorado Spring, CO and the President of Transformers Institute that provides proven strategies to transform your business, Bob Ward from Wardden, LLC believes that a Perpetual Business is profitable and sustainable without you as you prepare for sale or succession and Joel Zaleski a partner at Cardinal Brokers.

This panel will inform you as we continue an important industry discussion on succession and business valuation. There are many misnomers about what can I sell my business for. If you’ve never done the research you’ll find out it is much different than what you may want for your business. You’ve got to have something to sell to a potential buyer. If your only real asset if location, you could do well, however you need much more than that if you want to sell and retire after years of hard work.

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RR 475: Dirk Fuchs and Jeff Bly – Will System Training Impact a Technicians Ability to Diagnose and Improve Shops Profits

RR 475: Dirk Fuchs and Jeff Will System Training Impact a Technicians Ability to Diagnose and Improve Shops Profits

Why do we shun training? It is a huge industry problem. Our trainers know that the same people show up time after time. Not many new faces. What does that say about the state of our industry? Why do we ignore the power of training? Do you know that it supports your efficiency?

In this episode, Dirk Fuchs Technical Training Manager at ZF Group and Jeff Bly NAPA Autotech Curriculum Developer say that many young industry techs want and need training. But why aren’t they getting it? Why do Canadians show up for training at greater numbers than in the US? What are regarded as preferred training methods in the US versus European; knowledge-based or solutions based training? All of these questions will be answered in this podcast.

This episode will open your eyes to possibilities for you and your future in the industry.

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RR 474: Dan Taylor – Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Leads to High Performing Leaders – Part 2

Dan Taylor – Emotional Intelligence leads to High Performing Leaders – Part 2

Leadership has its different styles and strategies. How well you lead depends on how you treat followers and how you treat yourself as a shepherd towards its own flock.

Throughout time, we learned that there are different types of leaders, leaders who have different mindsets, discipline, strategies and even outlook. As you have studied lessons of leadership you may have discovered a formula that works, grows your influence and builds a team. So much of your leadership skills are about your Emotional Intelligence or EQ. We are talking EQ in Part 2 with Dan Taylor, a Senior Business Advisor at Transformers Institute

We will be expanding on our discussion of Emotional Intelligence and its relevant effects on leadership as a whole and how it can impact the aftermarket industry.

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THA 140: Interview Tactics for a Cultural Fit

THA 140 Interview Tactics for a Cultural Fit

How many interviews have you done? How many have sparked a great hire? We are here to talk about that.
Welcome Kirk Richardson, South Street Auto Care, Rochester, MI, Jim Hayes, Shop General Manager at Pacific Motor Service in Monterey, CA 2 Shops and Dan Taylor, Coach at Transformers Institute.

This episode is packed with Human Resource wisdom and we get into interviewing tactics, form and format that will help you build your bench and make quality cultural hires that fit into your business like a glove.

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RR 473: Derek Kaufman on Augmented Reality – Closer Than You Think

RR 473: Derek Kaufman on Augmented Reality – A Future Game Changer

Derek Kaufman, a managing partner of Schwarts Advisors digs deep into the world of Augmented Reality. If AR lives up to its promise of faster diagnosis and faster part removal and replacement, the increase in bay turns will be the return on investment shops need to justify this technology.

Derek says Augmented reality will be an important tool in our not too distant future. The Army and Airforce mechanics have been using augmented reality for a few years to repair really sophisticated electromechanical systems.

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RR 472: Jeff Rudnick – Marketing Do or Die

Jeff Rudnick – Marketing Do or Die

We are talking about marketing. For some, it is like a root canal, for others they love pulling every marketing lever they have to generate traffic, loyalty, and revenue. You may dispute this, but marketing is one of the most important jobs in the company.

I’m with Jeff Rudnick from Pit Crew Marketing creator of eWardMe Auto Shop Reward card. Just one of Jeff’s areas of expertise is loyalty cards, however, he can talk on just about anything marketing. He is providing some great insights into the barrier he sees between management and the front of the store.

He says we are governed by the laws of retail, he provides some insights into converting ‘one and done’ customers into long-termers and shares his thoughts on measuring your marketing efforts. But he sees a huge communication gap between ownership and the service advisor as it relates to marketing campaigns.

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THA 139: Trending – Close the Shop and Take My Entire Team to Training

THA 139: Trending – Close the Shop and Take My Team to Training

How many excuses can you come up with for not closing your shop and take your team to a weekend training conference? About 10? They are not acceptable to my guests as we serve up exactly why you should close and take your team to training.

I was surprised when I asked the audience of 500+ shop owners and technicians at ASTE 2019 how many were there because the shop closed and the team is at training. Many hands went up, I would say about 40. This trend is getting stronger and you need to heed this. In this episode, you’ll hear no excuses only reasons why it works and pays dividends.

With me is Greg Ritter, Ritter’s Auto Repair in Kinmundy IL, Tristan Ramer, Locke Performance Nappanee, Ind and James Perry from Perry’s Diesel Performance in Elizabeth City, NC

This panel nailed it and if you don’t get why a weekend team conference is good for your shop then you must be ready to close or sell. If you are in for the long haul you need to hear this episode and do something with the knowledge you will gain.

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RR 471: Vin Waterhouse on Intensive Labor Rates & Financial Benchmarks

RR 471: Vin Waterhouse on Intensive Labor Rates and Financial Benchmarks

Are you aware that you are selling fewer parts? Do you understand that the hours of diagnostic work you do does not reflect the typical parts sales per hour that your financial business model has generated in the past?

So what you say. Ouch! The wrong attitude. You are bleeding to death and the math exists to prove it. You must pay attention to having an intensive or recovery labor rate. In this episode with legacy aftermarket coach and trainer, Vin Waterhouse, we get into the power and value of benchmarks and how to calculate a recovery labor rate.

If you are not happy with your net operating income (your bottom line) vs the hard work and time you spend at your business, then Vin may just help you formulate some next very important moves you need to make, so your financial strength improves.

Vin Waterhouse is President and Founder of The Waterhouse Group, an automotive Accounting, Training, and Coaching.

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