Impact Award Winners 2019 [RR 502]
Ashlee Arnold, Vice President, Arnold Oil Company of Austin, has quickly become an influential figure in the aftermarket industry at large and within her own company by persistently showing remarkable leadership and cementing its placement on the esteemed “Aftermarket Business Top 25 Auto Chain” listing several years in a row. Arnold serves on the Federated…
Listen and view episode notesRR 494: Women In Auto Care 2019 Honorees
The winners of the 2019 Women of the Year Awards are: Auto Care Woman of the Year: Jennifer Maher, Chief Executive Officer, TechForce Foundation and America’s Automotive Trust Auto Care Woman of Excellence: Cindy Frasca, Chief Operating Officer, Kukui Female Shop Owner of the Year: Jamie Carlson, Owner, Ervine’s Auto Repair and Grand Rapids Hybrid…
Listen and view episode notesFTR 074: Deb Van Batenburg – Fix The Things You Tolerate
FTR 074: Deb Van Batenburg – Fix The Things You Tolerate
Listen and view episode notesRR 483 – Managing On-Line Reviews – Kim Walker and Mitch Meier
RR 483 – Kim Walker and Mitch Meier – The Importance of Managing On-Line Reviews
Everyone hates to get a negative review. But the worst thing you do is to ignore them or lash back at them.
My panel does an excellent job of putting reviews into perspective and how to deal with them. With me is Kim Walker from Shop Marketing Pros and Mitch Meier from Broadly bring an impressive dialogue on the importance of how we handle reviews.
As aftermarket pros, we always want five-star reviews, but life happens and we get the occasional 1, 2, 3, or 4-star review. What do we do, how do we follow up and what does the consumer think when they see anything less than a five. We look deep into review management.
Listen and view episode notesRR 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?
Listen and view episode notesRR 456: Jennifer Grady ESQ – Harassment Training Required by Law
Jennifer Grady ESQ – Harassment Training Required by Law
Jennifer A. Grady, Esq. is the founder of the law firm The Grady Firm, P.C. Ms. Grady is an attorney, corporate trainer, and international speaker. She founded the firm in 2012 with a passion for helping business owners, entrepreneurs, and their families achieve the American Dream of freedom, opportunity, self-sufficiency, and success.
Are you aware that the lion share of small businesses must have required harassment training for their employees? In this episode, you have a chance to be personally updated on harassment training and the change in the law that requires training if you have 5 or more employees.
This episode helps you understand the serious issues of sexual harassment in the workplace. Never discount the fact that your business is resistant to a harassment claim. We rarely talk about this topic and it is time.
Learn how you can improve your position or understand what you need to do to implement strong policy in your company so you can minimize your exposure and also be compliant to the letter of the law.
Listen and view episode notesRR 443: Jill Trotta – Survey Results – The Best and Worst Metro Cities for Car Repair
Jill Trotta Best and Worst Metro Cities for Car Repair Survey
My guest is Jill Trotta. She is the Vice President for Industry Advocacy and Sales at RepairPal. We talked about the surveys that pointed out which metro cities are best for car repair. This is based on factors like average repair order, road quality, average labor rate among others.
The survey talked about the statistics and information about car repair. You will learn the best and the worst cities for repairs according to the survey. The survey also pointed out which cities are most affected by the technician shortage.
Listen and view episode notesFTR 048: Amy Mattinat – Our Technicians Are Car Doctors
Our Technicians Are Car Doctors
Amy Mattinat delivers her impassioned perspective on the value and benefits of ASE. It may be time for you to understand why you support ASE and if you don’t, to understand why you must. If there was ever a time to embrace ASE it is now. The high tech world of the automotive creates the need for highly trained technicians and through ASE certification allows us to differentiate ourselves and improve our image.
Listen and view episode notesRR 433: The Importance of Third Party Credentials | Creating a Learning Culture in Your Business
The Importance of Third Party Credentialing and Having a Learning Culture in Your Business.
You are a professional in the automotive service aftermarket. You know your stuff, you are smart, accomplished. You put your knowledge to use every day. Ever decide to have a third party provide you the professional credentials to verify your practical abilities? Twenty percent of our industry has their credentials so I’m talking to the eighty percent that don’t.
This episode with Trish Serratore, Senior Vice President of Communication at ASE and ASE and Jeff Peevy, President of AMi is a departure from what testing is and will help you understand the value in credentialing. Credentials are becoming more important than ever, and prove to customers and your shop owner you know what you’re doing.
Listen and view episode notesRR 431: Sara Fraser – The Power of Social Media for Automotive Professionals
Sara Fraser – The Power of Social Media for Automotive Professionals
There are a lot of trends happening on social media in the past couple of years. Understanding these trends can give us a competitive advantage and hashtags plays an important role especially on Facebook and Instagram. This episode will help you better understand the power of social media and some of the tricks that will make it work for you.
Sara Fraser has over 15 years of retail management experience, the last 6 of them as an office manager for a used car sales and service center. To bring her customer service, marketing, and business knowledge to the automotive industry she has recently joined the team at Haas Performance Consulting.
Listen and view episode notesRR 430: Jennifer Filzen- What Dancing Taught Me About Running a Successful Business
Jennifer Filzen- What Dancing Taught Me About Running a Successful Business
A very interesting discipline that incorporates how you lead and how you strategize your life and business as a whole. Imagine learning the principles of dancing to improve your aftermarket success
Jennifer Filzen, from Rock Star Marketing, is here talking about her new book ‘What Dancing Taught Me About Running A Successful Business”. I was fascinated to hear how she connected dancing to being a strong leader and entrepreneur. I think she nailed it. So if you would like some self-help introspective don’t go anywhere.
We are talking about Clarity, confidence, certainty, teamwork, timing, and technique. Do you want your team, at the shop to move like poetry in motion? You’ve come to the right place.
Listen and view episode notesRR 420: Kim Walker – Building a StoryBrand
Kim Walker – Building a Story Brand
People are bombarded with 3,000 marketing messages every 24 hours. What does your message say?
Catch the power of ‘Story Brand’. Learn about the Guide, the Hero, the problem, and the plan among others. It is a perfect fit for growing your relationship with your client. This is a review of the book ‘Building A Story Brand’ by Donald Miller.
Kim Walker is an official Story Brand Guide and along with her husband, Brian are former shop owners who are taking their personal experience and helping shop owners with their ‘story’. Their company is Shop Marketing Pros and they are helping the service professional bring their story brand to their clients.
Listen and view episode notesTHA 107: Discover How To Keep Your Women Customers For Life
Discover How To Keep Your Women Customers For Life
We heard the stats that the female makes up over 50% of your customer base. That is based on certain geographies and demographics. Some are higher, some are lower. But no matter your mix you’ve got to have important tactics in place in order to create loyalty in your women customer.
We’re going to serve up a strong discussion building loyalty from your women customers. My panel includes Kim Auernheimer, Co-Owner of CS Automotive, Brentwood TN, Kathleen Jarosik, Xpertech Auto Repair, Englewood, FL, and Jonathan Ortiz, Foreign Affairs Auto, West Palm Beach, FL.
They bring their A game and serve up the important issues, from their perspective, that will help you create the right environment so you can have a long and lasting relationship with all your women customers. We talk about trust, safety, relationship, environment, and amenities among many others.
Listen and view episode notesRR 401: Family Succession Part 1 – Our Future Female Shop Owners
Family Succession Part 1 – Our Future Female Shop Owners
We are talking to three millennial ladies who are geared for the succession of the family business. Many of our aftermarkets family businesses want to retire knowing that the business they have built is in safe hands, is moving forward and continues to succeed. Grooming a family member to become the CEO is a big decision and challenging journey.
Our guests are young and energetic female successors; Carly Paiva from Elite Auto Repair, in Warwick, RI, Jacquie Hower from Zimmerman’s Automotive in Mechanicsburg, PA, and Lauren Anderson from Victory Auto Service and Glass in Minneapolis. They understood very well the stakes and the responsibilities. They are not shying away and have shown maturity above their young age.
Carly Paiva has been actively participating in service advisory classes to better herself, Jacqui Hower recently graduated from Northwood and Lauren Anderson is finding ways and solutions to better equip her staff for success. The energy and passion of these three must make their parents proud.
Listen and view episode notesRR 392: Shop Talk 7 – The Leading Ladies
Shop Talk 7 -Leading Ladies
Judi Haglin, from Haglin Automotive, Boulder CO, Shelle Bennett, from Mike’s Kars in Gettysburg, PA and Kelli Weatherby from Accurate Automotive in Mesa, AZ.
These three ladies are members of an ATI twenty group that is called Leading Ladies. They are proud of their numbers. They are the top twenty group in performance within the ATI program. How is that for ‘strength in numbers’.
We had a really relaxed and wide open chat in the AAPEX18 Studio where we touched on the disciplines they have in their 20 group, what they believe is the secret to a successful business, finding your humility will change your world, and why the fear of sharing hold businesses back. There is plenty more especially the talk on the secret sauce.
Listen and view episode notesRR 384: Women In Auto Care 2018 Honorees!
Women In Auto Care 2018 Honorees!
In this episode, we are talking with the 2018 Women In Auto Care honorees. Share their achievements, triumph and the road to their success in this long-form audio interview recorded at AAPEX 2018.
Tammy Techlenburg, President of Women In Auto Care and the Vice-President of Global Sales and Marketing Operations for Spectrum Brands, Dawn Zieren, SVP Global & Strategic Initiatives, The NPD Group, Kathleen Jarosik, Owner, Xpertech Auto Repair, and Nicole Huard, Manager, Category Management and Consumer Insights, Robert Bosch LLC, grace the remarkable results radio airwaves discussion this industry milestone.
Listen and view episode notesRR 382: A Champion for Women in The Automotive Industry
A Champion for Women in The Automotive Industry
Jody DeVere is a champion for women in the automotive industry, and her company AskPatty.com, Inc. serves as an important point of contact for many women who are seeking the very best experience to buy a car and service by visiting Certified Female Friendly® automotive retail locations across the United States and Canada.
In this episode, we will be sharing with you the misconceptions that we have in hiring women in the industry. Jody says that there are only 26% of women working in the automotive industry and that we can and need to do more to grow that number.
Listen and view episode notesTHA 094: ASE – The Industry Credential and YOU!
ASE: The Industry Credential and You
It is time to best understand “your” role in bringing the value of ASE to your technician, your customer, and the industry. It’s time we, you, stepped to the plate and used ASE for what it does for you.
Since ASE is a non-for-profit it is not their role to promote your people’s certifications. They do want to do more, but it is your role to promote your technician’s credentials in all your marketing, and on uniforms and inside your shop. ASE must become an ingrained part of your training program and used as an assessment to that means.
We had some candid dialogue, with some great input from the ZOOM chat stream. We also learned of some long-awaited improvements to the ASE program from Mike Coley, the Sr. Vice President at the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence(ASE). You’ll be happy to hear about them.
Also with us is Jeff Walker President of Walker’s Automotive Service of Pleasantville, New Jersey a current ASE board member and ASE past chairman and Amy Mattinat, President of Autocraftsmen, Montpelier, VT who shares a bunch of ideas on how to market and ingrain ASE into your business culture.
Listen and view episode notesFTR 009: Jody DeVere – Biases In The Automotive Industry Toward Women
Jody Devere, CEO from Ask Patty.com Has A Lot To Say About The Biases That Exist In The Automotive Industry Toward Women.
Listen and view episode notesRR 357: Shop Talk Volume 2- Women Shop Owners
Shop Talk Volume 2- Women Shop Owners
Kim Auernheimer of Cool Springs Automotive Brentwood Tennessee, Mary Ann Croce of Croce’s Transmission Specialists, Norwalk, Connecticut, and Kathleen Jarosik of Xpertech Auto Repair, Englewood, Florida comprised the roundtable of the second edition of Shop Talk the Series.
Kim went to her first WorldPac training expo when she was in a tough financial situation. A light bulb came on. She is naturally competitive so she and her husband Rob decided they were going to be one of the best shops in the United States.
Maryann wanted her business to be sustainable. In the beginning just being able to take a paycheck home was a challenge, but keeping an eye on the goal will help you make important decisions to grow and sustain the business.
Kathleen hired a business coach who gave her the courage to step forward. She did a women’s car care clinic that ultimately led to her first Women In Auto Care meeting. That is when she realized she was not a unicorn and there were other female shop owners that inspired her.
Listen and view episode notesFTR 005: Jennifer Filzen – She Wants To See More Women in the Auto Care Industry
For The Record. Jennifer Filzen Wants To See More Women in the Autocare Industry.
Listen and view episode notesRR 350: Carrie-Lynn Rodenberg on Building Relationships One Transaction at a Time. The Power of CRM.
Building relationships one transaction at a time. The power of CRM.
Carrie-Lynn Rodenberg is the founder of Turnkey Marketing. It is a leading all-in-one marketing system for Auto Repair Shops. It is not just a software platform, but is an entire strategically planned, timed, and executed online and offline system, developed by marketing experts, that removes virtually all of the owner’s stress and time spent on marketing.
She and her team specialize in helping auto repair shops attract new leads, increase car count, and keep customers longer, without the shops having to do any work. She managed to do this by integrating cutting-edge technology with the best digital marketing tactics.
Her valuable tips and advice provide insights on how to build and connect with customers while maintaining healthy marketing content to keep businesses visible. Her strategies also include the most basic form of connecting, the normal conversation and content that revolves around helping customers get over their immediate issues. Appealing to humanize the complicated world of CRM, she enlightens us that the key to loyalty is built one transaction at a time.
Listen and view episode notesRR 336: Bogi Lateiner “On the Road” with the ’57 Chevy Montage
Bogi Lateiner’s Completed Project: The 1957 Chevy Pick-Up Montage All Female Build.
Bogi and her all-female team completed this unique project with women team members from all over the country. The truck was unveiled at SEMA 2017.
Carm met up with Bogi in Buffalo New York at the Autorama, as Bogi took the truck ‘On the Road’ to present the final build to car and truck enthusiasts.
Get behind the scenes stories and the purpose of project.
Listen and view episode notesRR 326: Sherri Stock from InMotion Auto Care
Five Years A Shop Owner and a Succession Plan in Place.
The secret to success, according to Sherri Stock is doing the right thing for the right reasons. No matter for your team members or your customers she is passionate to always treat people well.
Sherri Stock from InMotion Auto Care in Lincoln, NE has worked at dealerships for over 25 years and had the opportunity of a lifetime to go into business for herself. She shares some early strategies that has set up her succession plan.
We talk with the Sherri Stock, the ASA Midwest Service Facility of the Year 2017, about the power of a strong business culture, technician pay, business coaches, vendor partners and her commitment to technician training.
Listen and view episode notesRR 323: Jennifer Filzen from Rock Star Marketing
Your Story, Your Accomplishments Brings Authenticity To Your Website.
Jennifer Filzen from Rock Star Marketing helps shop owners bring their story to life on their website. Her purpose is to bring joy to millions of people and she has a proven method.
Jennifer says when you tell your story, you are being authentic and putting your company in the limelight.
There is an excitement level in this interview that will keep you engaged as we talk content marketing and how the power of your story connects you to your clients and prospects. We also get into her training seminar she held at Vision 208 called Fishing for Millennials.
Listen and view episode notes