Thursday Jun 12, 2025
126 - Loyalty That Lasts: How Top Shops Build Repeat Business and Stronger Relationships
126 - Loyalty That Lasts: How Top Shops Build Repeat Business and Stronger Relationships
May 29th, 2025 - 00:57:15
Show Summary:
This podcast webinar was hosted by Jimmy Lea of The Institute at the Tools Conference in Pennsylvania, the spotlight is on the evolution of customer loyalty programs in the auto repair industry. The conversation features Jeff Rudnick of Pit Crew Loyalty, alongside shop owners Joe Sturza from Auto Doctor in Michigan and Mike Simard from Alaska. They discuss the shift from traditional, manually-managed rewards to an automated, flexible loyalty platform that drives customer retention, community involvement, and business growth. Real-world examples illustrate how Pit Crew's customizable and scalable platform helps shop owners streamline customer engagement, promote referrals, support local charities, and create long-lasting connections. The episode concludes with data-backed insights and heartfelt reflections on giving back to the community.
Host(s):
Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development
Guest(s):
Jeff Rudnick, Pit Crew Loyalty
Mike Simard, Simard Automotive
Episode Highlights:
[00:01:38] Pit Crew Marketing rebrands to Pit Crew Loyalty, emphasizing a shift from rewards to full loyalty and engagement.
[00:04:49] Mike shares a failed attempt at a self-managed membership program due to administrative burden and lack of automation.
[00:09:09] Joe describes the challenges of old-school punch cards and manual gift card referral tracking, highlighting the need for automation.
[00:12:27] Jeff explains how the Pit Crew platform automates and gamifies customer referrals, allowing real-time tracking and incentives.
[00:14:40] Mike outlines how automated rewards are crucial for high-volume quick lube shops to avoid manual errors and maintain engagement.
[00:19:00] Joe showcases the power of “cross pollinators,” where local businesses collaborate through the dashboard to offer exclusive customer deals.
[00:26:09] Jeff highlights how the platform transforms the shop into a community hub—similar to the old-school barbershop—with tools for charities, referrals, and events.
[00:29:04] Mike shares how supporting a soup kitchen through storytelling and loyalty point donations resulted in community buzz and positive business impact.
[00:34:34] Data shows that customers who donate loyalty points or refer friends spend up to 35% more and return more frequently.
[00:45:53] Joe praises the customization and partnership approach of the Pit Crew team, which tailored the system to fit Auto Doctor’s community-driven mission.
In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry?
Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode.
👉 Unlock the full experience - watch the full webinar on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4c4Ewbo2DM
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Episode Transcript Disclaimer
This transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com.
Episode Transcript:
Jimmy Lea: And good afternoon, good evening, or good night, depending on where you are. And when you are. It's a morning or afternoon. And today I am presenting from the afternoon. Usually it's 11:00 AM Mountain. I am in Eastern. I'm at the Tools Conference in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, here with the MWACA Association. And we are, we've got a trade show going.
Jimmy Lea: It is phenomenal. I'm so excited for this third in the series this week of webinars that we're doing. As we lock arms together to really help this industry grow and to help it become awesome and amazing and become better 'cause it's a crazy storm. We're all in. And if we lock arms and we do this together, we will be able to weather this storm together because it is all about a better business, better life, better industry.
Jimmy Lea: My name is Jimmy Lee. I am with the Institute and that is our mantra. Better business, better life, better industry. Our guest today, we have joining today right here beside me, Mr. Jeff Rudnick. Hello everybody. As we're here at the Tools Conference, we can put Jeff's camera up. Jeff is with Pit Crew Loyalty.
Jimmy Lea: Hey, look at the difference in our cameras. You're sitting right next to me. Yeah, I know. Totally different. Oh, that's funny. We're a couple inches apart, right? I. That's too funny. That's too funny. All right. Jeff is with pit crew loyalty. And the tremor you felt in the force is the fact that pit crew marketing has become pit crew loyalty.
Jimmy Lea: The re rapid the rewards program is now a loyalty program. This is not a rewards program. You felt that you're gonna hear about it here. Thank you for doing this, Jeff. Oh, thanks. This is gonna be awesome. I'm excited. Joining as well is Joe from auto Doctor. And Joe. Joe.
Joe Sturza: Joe, thank you for being here, brother.
Joe Sturza: How are you? Hey, appreciate it, Jimmy. I've been trying to get on your podcast for years, man. Well, I'm glad we finally hooked this up together, brother. Where's home for you, Joe? We are in Michigan, north of Detroit,
Jimmy Lea: north of, well, okay. I was in Michigan, north of Detroit. I understand the, I know where, how far north of Detroit are you?
Jimmy Lea: About a half hour north. Okay, so I took the Kakuy van once upon a time, and I dropped this. Yes.
Joe Sturza: But you weren't here. I missed you.
Jimmy Lea: All right, Joe. All right, Joe, I got you, brother. Thank you. Thanks for watching the van too. I really appreciate that. In fact, long story short, I couldn't get an Uber out of your shop and I had to finally call Lyft.
Jimmy Lea: To get a ride down to Detroit so I could catch my flight the next morning. That was a funny story. No, Uber's up in your area. It's all
Joe Sturza: Lyft. No. Yeah. There's nothing out this way.
Jimmy Lea: We're in a rural area. Oh. Oh, it was, I felt like I was on the edge of existence.
Joe Sturza: Yeah. Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: That's us.
Jimmy Lea: That was you. That was the shop joining us as well. From the other side of the continent, from Alaska, Mr. Mike Simard, Mike, how are you brother?
Mike Simard: Good morning. I'm wonderful. Thank you.
Jimmy Lea: It is Good morning for you. It's like 9:00 AM
Mike Simard: It's 9:10 AM It's still early here.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. Did you make the drive to Anchorage or are you still in Fairbanks today?
Mike Simard: Still in Fairbanks today. Beautiful sunshine in Fairbanks where my home is
Jimmy Lea: so. It's gorgeous. That's awesome. So as soon as we're done here, are you headed to Anchorage or, yep. Actually driving
Mike Simard: to Anchorage. You see my other stores down there, here and as soon as we're done here. So it's
Jimmy Lea: gonna
Mike Simard: be a good
Jimmy Lea: day today.
Jimmy Lea: Nice drive. Very cool. Very cool. Well, we've got a great conversation. I look forward to what we're talking about because we're talking about a revolution of the rewards program and I say revolution, Jeff, that's my word. I don't know what word you use.
Jeff Rudnick: Well, I don't think it's a revolution.
Jeff Rudnick: I think in this industry maybe it's a disruption. You
Jimmy Lea: are disrupting the re the loyalty program.
Jeff Rudnick: Loyalty rewards has been slow and coming to the automotive industry and I think for a lot of reasons that we'll go into technology integrations with shop management systems retail sophistication.
Jeff Rudnick: Recognition by auto shops that they're in the entertainment business finally. And they're in the customer service business. Yeah, the hospitality business. Yeah. And so sometimes things come a little late to the industry, but it has been growing really quickly in the last two years.
Jimmy Lea: So before we launch into the greatness of what Jeff has created I'd love to get from you, Mike, and then from you, Joe.
Jimmy Lea: What's something that you've done in the past that did not work, that you thought, oh my gosh, this is gonna be great. This is gonna be awesome. Oh, this is, we're gonna have to buy heavy duty hinges. The doors are gonna blow off the hinges. What? What kind of a reward program Mike have you implemented in the past and it just fell flat?
Mike Simard: Well, I would say I've tried a lot of things that didn't work and that's usually how you get better. Right. And specific specifically towards customer retention and how to give them maximum value. One of the things we tried to do in the past was create like a budget program. So in the north you need to keep your heating oil tank full multiple times a year.
Mike Simard: And for example, you know, you would get an autofill and you have a smoothed out payment for 12 months. But we tried to institute, like our own program and manage it ourselves.
Jimmy Lea: Like an automotive, a an automotive warranty or a, a self-care program, a membership,
Mike Simard: like a self-care membership base. Pay $300 a month and that way you like a budget program.
Mike Simard: But here's the thing. The idea was to get them to want to come back. And because they have a credit with you and they feel like you give them value and the program gives them value, so there's no surprises. Well, it was way too much to manage the admin part. And so, you know, and we found someone like Jeff, for example, that can help you not in the same context, but in the context of bringing maximum value to customers and something that's already built and can do all the admin work for you behind the scenes is.
Mike Simard: It's huge. So that's one program that never worked.
Jeff Rudnick: You know what? And then until I met
Mike Simard: Jeff
Jeff Rudnick: early on when I first met you, 'cause it was probably 15 years ago or so, and we started going down the path of doing the rewards program and it got very, you had a bunch of ideas. There were a lot of things technologically that we weren't doing yet.
Jeff Rudnick: And we kind of went our separate ways for a few years. I think that's when you implemented an in-house kind of a membership program.
Mike Simard: Yeah. We also, we did a manual system and there was a lot of benefit to that, a lot of learning. I. And so that system was good, but again, a lot of manual having to send things out manually.
Mike Simard: And what would happen in the busy life of an automotive repair shop, the advisors would forget to send out a thank you or an email or a reward. And so the nice thing that I like about systems like a pit crew is that, it's mostly all automated, so, the streamlined efficiency of the process is extremely important.
Mike Simard: I think when you're looking for a loyalty program. One of the
Jeff Rudnick: things we learned so early, every shop owner, I used to say, you're like snowflakes, but then that became a bad thing to say, right? And but they're all different. You all have, you're all unique ideas, all your unique, so the software has to be infinitely flexible.
Jeff Rudnick: It just has to, you have to be able to try things, do different things. We can measure and we know, I think like any other solutions provider, when you do it for a long time, yeah. And this is probably wrong, you start to think you know exactly what to do,
Jimmy Lea: right.
Jeff Rudnick: And you just get this tunnel vision. Do it like this, do it like that.
Jeff Rudnick: Oh
Jimmy Lea: yeah. That's a developer's nightmare. I mean, that's the developer mentality is you think, you know, best
Jeff Rudnick: you do. I mean, you do it for a long time. You get ate, you can't help it. You know, and you say, but you get new ideas all the time. So that's. Probably one of the best innovations that in thinking as well Yeah.
Jeff Rudnick: For us is that we make sure it's infinitely flexible so that it can be tailored to Yeah. Individual. Yeah,
Jimmy Lea: for sure. Now, and Mike, one of these days we have to talk about your membership program. I try to suggest that to my shop in St. George, and probably for the same reasons that you stopped doing it.
Jimmy Lea: They never started doing it, but man I thought for sure, this has got to be a banging.
Jeff Rudnick: We actually support that now. No, we do. I mean, that's okay.
Jimmy Lea: We'll have to talk about that in a minute then. Yeah,
Jeff Rudnick: exactly.
Jimmy Lea: Let's get to Joe. Joe, what's a, an implementation that you made that did not,
Joe Sturza: I mean two parts.
Joe Sturza: One we did the old fashioned business card. Punch card. Punch card for oil changes. Five oils. 10 oil changes. What, how many was it? It was five. Five, buy, five get one free. And you know, that's when you know, you forget to put on the card and the printing of like, am oil doesn't count. And you now you're eating $150 oil change and, you know, so yeah that it became a little hectic.
Joe Sturza: And then, you know, referrals. We would send out thank you cards every week along with a gift card for the local coffee shop. Which was nice 'cause it supported local, but it was, again, like Mike was saying, administratively burdensome in the sense that we had to keep track of all that. Where now we are part of a team that things can be done behind closed doors and help us focus on what we're supposed to be doing here at the shop.
Jimmy Lea: Interesting now and when you're talking about gift cards for the coffee shop, was it just a good old here's five bucks of the coffee shop,
Joe Sturza: or was it
Joe Sturza: Yeah it was just, yeah, just a little token.
Jimmy Lea: Thank you. So you had to buy it ahead of time. Yep. Yep. So there wasn't a redemption point of view where like you could hand out a hundred cards and maybe only 35 get redeemed.
Joe Sturza: No, it, it was if for instance, Jeff came into my shop and he said, Hey, Jimmy Lee referred me to you. I would send Jimmy Lee a thank you card with a coffee card to say, Hey, thanks for sending Jeff our way. We really appreciate the recommendation.
Jimmy Lea: Love it. Love it. I, you know, I have a really good friend in his shop is in California.
Jimmy Lea: He gives a $50 gift card to his shop. This is a $50 gift card only redeemable here. No cash value. You have to redeem it at my shop. As a referral. As a re Yeah. Not only a referral, but even a Thank you. Yeah. So you could use it on an oil service. On a I Maybe he specified no batteries and no tires.
Jimmy Lea: I, I don't know, maybe it was just 50 bucks. You could use it however you wanted. They've found that to be very successful because not only would he hand one to the client, he would hand 'em additional two. Say, give these to your best friends, because if you like that client right, chances are you're gonna like their friends too.
Jimmy Lea: No, chances are their friends are very similar to them
Joe Sturza: as well. Yeah. Word of mouth you know, out here is huge for us.
Jimmy Lea: Word, mouth. That's the,
Joe Sturza: the best type of advertising. And now that we're I call it part of the pit crew team, the ability for a customer, a client, a family member, to get into their dashboard and send referrals out on their own.
Joe Sturza: They get a $25 gift card if they use it. The person referring it to $25 gift card. It's all part of that system that Mike was talking about that's automated. And the customers absolutely love that. That, oh, you're gonna send a gift card to someone on my behalf? Absolutely. And if they use it, I'm gonna give you that same amount.
Joe Sturza: They
Jeff Rudnick: can actually see who came in. The consumer themselves can see in their dashboard, here's everyone you sent it to and here's who came in. And you can reshare and you can gamify it. So you can say, oh, I like it this month. You've earned the right to give out three referrals or, Hey, it's Christmas. Why don't you use these as a stocking stuffer?
Jimmy Lea: Ooh, there you go.
Jeff Rudnick: And it can go out that way.
Jimmy Lea: Love it. I mean, that's a perfect segue, Joe, into what are you doing now? What? What is working? So let's break down this full loyalty program. Mike, what are you implementing in your shops? 'cause you've got quick lubes as well as general repair. Are you using the pit crew loyalty for all of your programs?
Mike Simard: Not yet. I think Jeff and I have a future to do on integrating a lube shop. So the lube shops are going to be a much higher pace, higher volume. Yes. The good part about it is then, is that
Jimmy Lea: more of like the coffee shop idea, where it is that buy 10 get one free. Do you think or no?
Mike Simard: Well, I do think that those types of customers are gonna definitely be looking for value. All of our customers are looking for value. But the retention model or the concept, I think would work excellently. Now, I don't know how many lube style lube and tire shops Jeff has specifically the technologies there.
Mike Simard: I think there might be, I think with traction there might be a little bit of backend code to write. I'm not sure, but I know they have the abilities to do that. And I'm actually kind of excited because to go back to the old system of the referral cards, the manual stuff, it's gonna be worse. It's gonna be worse than 10 cars a day at a high average row 30, you know, we're 90 to a hundred cars a day in three stores.
Mike Simard: Like, there is no time to be writing handwriting, thank yous. So it has to be a quality program so that way your people can focus on people, focus on communicating value and expectations and serving their needs. And let the system in the background give them added value reminders about the rewards.
Mike Simard: And so when they come back, they're like, you know, why wouldn't I go there again? 'cause they have credit. Like, yeah it's, I get a free oil change like. I think it's gonna be super powerful and I think Jeff just needs to, after we complete this last awesomeness of customer loyalty and communic community things that we're finishing up, I think we should just push and get those loop shops signed up here in the next couple months.
Jeff Rudnick: The most important
Mike Simard: thing here that,
Jeff Rudnick: that everyone should understand about loyalty. You wanna throw a party for every customer that comes through the door. Yeah. There the data is so crystal clear. You get the second visit. I have this data on every one of our clients. If you get that second visit, your, the likelihood of a third visit is this, for that shop.
Jeff Rudnick: You get the third visit, the fourth, fifth, and sixth come. So it's about throwing that party with that first time customer and having a suite of benefits for them.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Jeff Rudnick: And that suite of then where we come in, 'cause everyone can do this.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Jeff Rudnick: Anybody can run a loyalty program with a suite of benefits on their own.
Jeff Rudnick: Will you remember to tell them, like, this is where technology comes in. This is where you make that decision. Do you need a technology partner or you don't, here's the suite of benefits. Are they automated? Can you scream it at them so they know it? Is it texted to them, emailed to them? Do they have a login to see it?
Jeff Rudnick: And then will it continually keep that relationship? But coming up with the benefits is not hard. Yeah. Any shop in the world can sit down. With their friends or their consulting company and say, let's list 10 unique selling thing points that we want for our shop. Let's list four benefits. But like what Mike was, what Mike learned was how do we actually manage this?
Jeff Rudnick: I love it through multiple advisors coming on board and it becomes very difficult.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. Joe, what do you view implemented for your program in your shop with the pit, Lou pit? I mean, at this point, what haven't we
Joe Sturza: implemented? You got the full Monty, huh? Yeah. You know, my, my background Jimmy, is I came from a business management, marketing sector.
Joe Sturza: Retired very young. I got an early retirement. My wife didn't want me home anymore, so she's like, go find a job. And so a mutual friend of ours knew the owner here at Auto Doctor and says, you know, he's looking for someone just to answer phones, Joe. I'm like, easy enough. Well, it's now turned into the general manager, but role, right.
Joe Sturza: So, you know, we've created this huge role and you know, he's the visionary. I'm the implementer. He says, Joe, I wanna do this. Let's get this on board. And one of the things was definitely a loyalty program. I happen to see Jeff in a webcast webinar and I'm like, we've gotta get in touch with Jeff because I think this is what we've been looking for all along and everything is automated and tracked for us.
Joe Sturza: So, not only do we have the free oil changes, but we actually have the ability through pit crew. To put. Charities on our dashboards. So, so what we did, and it was the first one we ran and we've only been active with pit crew since January. The first one we did is we have a veteran's home.
Joe Sturza: Here in our area, and we ran a monthly collection of tangible goods, but we also invited our customers through pit crew, through text message and email to donate their loyalty dollars to the cause. We raised a thousand dollars, and now mind you. We hadn't been active that long, so people didn't have a lot of dollars raised in their accounts yet.
Joe Sturza: Right? So to reach that was huge for us. And we're like, wow, this is fantastic. So now we have a second one up there that we're promoting now. So that has been huge. The other thing that has been like I think Jeff was even surprised at how well it was received in our community is the cross pollinator.
Joe Sturza: Ooh, yes. So we have to buy local. Yeah. So we're very big into our chamber of commerce. We're very big about supporting our community. 'cause this actually behind me is maybe half of our brand new shop that we built. And we know we could not have done this. Without the support of our community.
Joe Sturza: So we make sure we're giving back, we're supporting local by local. That is huge for us. So the cross pollinator gave us a unique opportunity to reach out to some people that we've worked with in the past or not and say, Hey, no cost to you. We'd like to give you the opportunity to basically. Showcase your product on our dashboard and offer our customers some type of a discount.
Joe Sturza: Love it. No cost. And they're like, no cost. There's nothing in it. I'm like, no. It's simply just being business partners together. Let's refer each other. Yeah. Right. So as of right now, I've got six cross pollinators live on my system, and the one that expired, which I think they're gonna renew was a local Mediterranean restaurant.
Joe Sturza: They started knowing our customers so well. They weren't even asking for the downloaded coupon on their phone because they knew, oh, auto doctor, customer, I already know. Yeah. You get 10% off. Wow. So, so the cross pollinators have been absolutely fantastic. And now some of the businesses are reciprocating, like down the street from us.
Joe Sturza: If you're familiar with pickleball. Yes. We just had a 24 7 pickleball establishment open up. They're cross pollinating with us. They asked if we could send them a a p and g advertisement that they could run on the screens in their facility to promote our business. Dude that's so rad. So it's like, wow this is working even better than I dreamed it would work with the businesses.
Joe Sturza: I love it. So what would and the customers absolutely. Blown away when they come in. We actually had a flyer printed that explains our loyalty program to them, how to get to their dashboard. Everything you can do with it. They're like, you're giving this to me? Like, yeah, absolutely. They're like, this is so cool.
Joe Sturza: No one else does this around here. And it's like, you know what? That's what sets us apart. That's why we wanna add value to your visit to us. TH and this loyalty program is part of that value of being an auto doctor customer. This is everything you're gonna get, and we're gonna get other people on board with this program too.
Jimmy Lea: That
Jeff Rudnick: Do you want me to, why don't I just, Joe, that was awesome, man. You know, so we've been around a long time and we've had a lot of ideas, this cross pollinator idea. It was literally the idea was a bee flying around Love it. Just pollinating local businesses.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Jeff Rudnick: And like why shouldn't the goal be to spend as little as possible on marketing?
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Jeff Rudnick: And get the biggest possible result. Local businesses all have the same challenges.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Jeff Rudnick: And we like to say we support each other, so why wouldn't we just do this? So we built it into our program that you can easily showcase a local business and have. The consumer from the portal download the offer right to their phone.
Jeff Rudnick: I love it. Show it, track it, manage it, love it. And now these other LO local businesses are also putting in the rewards program. I love it as well. So now it's interesting with new customers. So Joe has been around since January and I like to say like. My customers that have been around a long time, there's some scar tissue.
Jeff Rudnick: Right. You know, because they've been through the
Jimmy Lea: trenches.
Jeff Rudnick: Yeah. Like Mike can tell you, he's believed in us since the beginning, but like, Hey, you're not quite there yet. Or That's not quite finished and let's keep
Jimmy Lea: working on it. Keep tweaking it. So you get all these new
Jeff Rudnick: customers and they're like, wow, what the old customers are going, why aren't I doing that?
Jeff Rudnick: I'm like, well, 'cause we weren't good enough quite at that point. Right. You know? Yeah. So you gotta play a little bit of catch. But this cross pollinator thing, you gotta remember. People remember what they feel. Yeah. And so the consumer, at any retail retailer in general, they remember the experience, what they feel, how you made them feel about their community or about themselves.
Jeff Rudnick: And when they do a donation, they're not just donating,
Jimmy Lea: right?
Jeff Rudnick: They're clicking that button to donate their rewards. They're an instant teammate of yours. To
Jimmy Lea: doing good. And to promoting your company too, and your, yeah. And promoting the emotion, the feeling, the,
Jeff Rudnick: the, you're on a team to help the community be a better place to live, work be.
Jeff Rudnick: And the same thing goes with the cross pollinators. People feel it. Yeah. They might not be able to put it into words, but it's more than a 10% discount at the kebab place. It's small businesses, you know, we all go home at night with the same challenges. Yeah. Sometimes business is awesome. Sometimes you're crying at dinner.
Jeff Rudnick: It's just the truth. Small business isn't easy, and when you feel that you have a team, life is better.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, it's so true. Absolutely. Totally agree. And I wonder if there's a way for us to analyze this, Mike, Joe. Jeff here. Is there a way that we can analyze it so that instead of. Offering a discount.
Jimmy Lea: What if we offered a value add? So when you partner with these local businesses, instead of saying, Hey, give a discount to my customers, we say, Hey, I want you to charge your premium amount. I want you to charge yeah, 10% more, but I also want you to give my client something more. What is it that we can do?
Jimmy Lea: And some
Joe Sturza: of 'em
Jimmy Lea: do that and some of 'em do that.
Joe Sturza: Yeah. I actually have one that's doing that right now at Jim. If you sign up, you get three free sessions with a personal trainer. So we actually have that value added into that,
Jimmy Lea: and the beauty of it, of that, I love what they're doing. The beauty of that is with those three free training sessions, hopefully the trainer demonstrates the value of continuing to work with them.
Jimmy Lea: Now they add that to their program. I love that. I think that's phenomenal.
Jeff Rudnick: And these local businesses now, everything the word of the day it seems is frictionless. You need to make everything easy. Like if Joe had to sit there and get on the, like Joe's done an amazing job getting on the phone with everyone.
Jeff Rudnick: Yeah. Like Mike did, it has done a great job with some of his charities. But in order for this to work for. A lot of small businesses, it has to be super easy. Yeah. So we've made it so that the businesses can now log in to their own account at the shop. The goal is to have the shop be the hub of the community.
Jeff Rudnick: Yeah. So it's charity, cross pollinators, and community events. Yep. So it's a calendar. It's,
Jimmy Lea: you're the source of truth.
Jeff Rudnick: Right. And it's like the barbershop of old, right. Yeah. That's kind of where the idea is from.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. But
Jeff Rudnick: it has to be easy.
Jimmy Lea: It does, it has to be easy. Mike, question for you.
Jimmy Lea: When it comes to the charities, which of your charities have you found to be the most successful, the most attractive, the most attention grabbing?
Mike Simard: Well, I think there's a little bit of a explanation of the why about this and a discovery process. I. I've realized over the years, and we've done a few different things and we went deeper in this concept.
Mike Simard: So for example, in oh seven we sponsored a local dog musher. And I discovered that when you have somebody else tell their story and then you can combine it with yours you know, overcoming adversity and doing hard stuff, like running a thousand miles on a dog sled with 16 of your best friends at 45 below and winning the race four years in a row that's a heck of a story.
Mike Simard: And you don't just, you don't just get on a dog sled and. You're Michael Jordan on a dog sled, right? There's 20, 30,000 hours plus. So that was a discovery about local community and it was a bit of a service thing. But then I went deeper. I was like, okay, people actually like that. They were telling me that I was on TV years later when I wasn't even on TV anymore with this guy.
Mike Simard: So that was like, oh, I discovered storytelling. A long time ago. And then Jeff encouraged us to, to couple our charity program with pit crew. And what I discovered there is a deeper level. So, and it's, look it when you can like, try to give back to the community and not necessarily expect anything back, like that's the ultimate form of giving, I think.
Mike Simard: Now obviously there is a business and the more that we make, the more the bigger checks we can write. Yeah. So there's a way to, to do charity, and that's what, you know, I think the institute coaches taught me a long time ago, like, make good money and write big charity checks. Be careful not writing, you know, big discounts on the counter or else you can, you, you can go bankrupt and you have nothing to give.
Mike Simard: So the more you can do in an ethical way be successful for your people, you can elevate them in your community. So what we learned was Stone Soup Kitchen. Was where the need is at. I mean, these are literally people that have no food. It's cold up here. It's a challenge anywhere when you're homeless.
Mike Simard: And so we just simply did a big drive with Stone Soup Kitchen. So learning about storytelling we went on TV and told us their story. Not our story combined with a local celebrity, but their story only, I'm here to just sponsor your story, so we just took us out of it. Really, that's what it was about.
Mike Simard: We just took us out of it and said, we're just here to let you know that there's a little place here that Sues serves breakfast and soup for people that don't have a jacket, don't have a place to go, and they really need your help. And they spoke about it. We did bring in another local celebrity who this year won the Iditarod.
Mike Simard: So like we're repeating history. And we did this before he won the Dita Rodd. All that does is bring credibility to what the call to action. So when we pair up credibility through a local celebrity, we learned by accident again, by just trying to go outside ourself and do something for the community. We raised $4,500 to do this little place, which to them is like humongous.
Mike Simard: Oh yeah. And and then all of a sudden people just, they said a couple months later said. We've never had anything like this. People are just coming by. They didn't know we were here dropping off food, clothes, money, just because you said, told your story and we're the pit crew comes in. The technology part is we also made phone calls and we asked people to donate and that's where that $4,500 went.
Mike Simard: So instead of giving a discount, they have a feel good and they felt good about it. They obviously feel good about the brand. We wrote a nice check, so we felt good. And more importantly, we fed the homeless. We helped feed the homeless and we brought the community along with it. We're about to do another big one with that Iditarod champion for another soup kitchen.
Mike Simard: Same thing. And we just learned so much about storytelling, how to serve your community, think outside your own self and your own needs. And, you know, at the end of the day, one of our sayings is, if you do the right thing, then money should come. So do the right thing. Don't worry about, you know, gotta stay in business, but don't worry about what you're gonna get back.
Mike Simard: And I think it will always come back to you. Oh, it's so true.
Jeff Rudnick: And where the magic again comes in. This is a really subtle shift. 'cause a lot of shop owners and rightfully so, they don't wanna promote the, these good things they're doing. They're doing it 'cause they want to and it feels good. Yeah.
Jeff Rudnick: But they're not looking to grow business necessarily in that manner. Here's what you're missing is people are hungry for connection.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Jeff Rudnick: And when you put the plaque about the baseball team up in your lobby, that's nice. You've made a donation and you know, you share those things. It might make it in the local paper, but when you reach out and say, we think this is important at ARD or at auto Doctor, if you think it's important too, click here and you can donate a portion of your rewards.
Jeff Rudnick: I always call it the God particle. That's the magic happens right there.
Jimmy Lea: Poof.
Jeff Rudnick: Two people doing something good together and
Jimmy Lea: it
Jeff Rudnick: changes the
Jimmy Lea: world. Oh, it does. Oh totally. It does. Yeah. And I love that, that you can do that. So the example that, that caught me when you shared this with me, Jeff, was you talked about donating to the VA hospital.
Jimmy Lea: And so all these people are donating to donating, and then when you get up to that a thousand dollars point. You tell all these people, Hey, next Wednesday at one o'clock we're all gonna get together and hand 'em a big giant check. You are part of this. We'd love to see you there.
Jimmy Lea: Wednesday at two o'clock
Jeff Rudnick: and here comes the marketing, the conundrum with marketing in general. 'cause this is just about doing good.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Jeff Rudnick: But for every idea there's like a list. A thousand oh items long of what you can do. So you can extend it as far as you want.
Jimmy Lea: Sure.
Jeff Rudnick: And when for reach. If you post online about what you're doing, these local charities will also share what you're doing.
Jimmy Lea: A hundred percent.
Jeff Rudnick: We had one shop in Minnesota had 55,000 views on their Facebook page. From one fundraiser, what? 55,000. That's a lot. That's a lot. People care about this. It's tough. As an automotive repair facility to come up with things to talk about.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Jeff Rudnick: But when you talk about goodness and kindness and the benefits of your loyalty reward program or anything else that's more personal.
Jeff Rudnick: People actually care about it.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Well, and this is a beautiful thing to contact all the media in the area and say, Hey, look, next Wednesday, two o'clock, we're handing over a big check and there's gonna be 20, 30, 40, 50, a hundred people there because they have all donated. Through our automotive repair shop and we're gonna hand a check over.
Jimmy Lea: Correct. You are welcome to be there. And that's all you have to put out there. Right? They're looking for feel good stories, so put it out there and they'll be the ones to tout how great you guys are and Oh, that's wonderful. So, and I love the loyalty, I love this idea. I wanna ask Mike and Joe and then Jeff, if you can support this as well.
Jimmy Lea: What have you seen? Loyalty wise, you know, the average nationwide is 1.2 visits per year. Maybe it's 1.3. Do you know what your visits has? Has it increased? Have you retained more, retained higher? Those that are participating in the community, do they spend more, those that are participating in charities, do they spend more.
Jimmy Lea: So start first with the idea are you retaining your clients or is there a loyalty that's happening by implementing a program like this?
Jeff Rudnick: Do you mind if I jump in just real quick?
Jimmy Lea: Hey,
Jeff Rudnick: hit it. Mainly because we haven't had great access to numbers until this year. We spent the last six months, like three data scientists looking at every touchpoint and how people behave differently.
Jeff Rudnick: So, yeah, we have Joe's a little bit new on the program to have, you know, a bunch of numbers on it. Right. But we know with Mike, people that donated to the Stone Soup Kitchen, yeah. Spent 24% more the next year than his customers that didn't, and those other customers still came back. I know Mike's average repair order, so that's pretty good.
Jeff Rudnick: And. Number of everything goes up and I'd have to read from the actual data, okay. But the number of visits is off the chart. When you have a really good loyalty rewards program, and for any retailer listening, a loyalty rewards program is not just dollars. It can't be in the automotive industry.
Jeff Rudnick: I'm just telling you, we've done it for so long. Consumers don't come in enough. You're not Starbucks.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah, they.
Jeff Rudnick: They are not there frequently enough where they're excited to earn their free cup of coffee and Right. You know, so it's about the other things and it's the other benefits of the program, which I don't wanna be too much of a salesman, but there is a list of benefits that we've created that's ever expanding along with our partnership with local businesses and national businesses that are now supporting our program.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Mike, what are you seeing from your point of view as a shop owner?
Mike Simard: For retention rates. Again one of the things that's important is our one and done. So when you do a marketing campaign, you get, you know, you get one person in. You know, I think the maybe about 50% return rate, it's a pretty good rate.
Mike Simard: We've increased that return rate probably about 30%. So, I don't know the exact numbers, but I know we've seen a rise in people coming back. So that's super important for us. You know the benefits of the reward dollars that you earn for every dollar you spend, you earn money. The referral program, as you described recently earlier, free oil changes.
Mike Simard: The roadside assistance program is very big, especially up here. We've actually increased that towing to 150 because I. Yeah, tos expensive. And you know, the local ch local charity donation with those reward points is another feel good awesomeness because it's like I can come in for a discount or I can also give it away.
Mike Simard: And that provides that, that awesomeness there. So the customer account portal is really a huge benefit that we've also seen where they can go in and see what's going on with their account at a deeper level and give to charities and do the cross pollination and get those rewards from other.
Mike Simard: Other businesses. So we just know that the more we do this, you know, the biggest thing is making sure that you have a proper, consistent approach to educating your customer. Oh yeah. And how you bring that into, obviously we're fixing their car, we're servicing their vehicle. So how do you bring the right amount of information to the person and communicate?
Mike Simard: It's not just a script, right? It's a conversation. And so how you can bring that to them in a way that they can understand the value. And I think that's the key to any program out there. And so it's been huge for us to see repeat customers across the little town of Fairbanks. Oh, that's beautiful.
Mike Simard: So Mike's one and done
Jeff Rudnick: rate 30%. And Mike, that's huge. That's awesome. And everyone's across basically you're if you were to build something like this yourself and just give out.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah.
Jeff Rudnick: Just if, honestly, any shop owner listening, if you literally just didn't let a customer leave your store without telling them the awesome things you have, most shops don't even tell the customers about their warranty or you know, they have roadside through maybe the tires that they purchased or any of the other things you might get from a TechNet or from a napa or whoever.
Jeff Rudnick: You would get a decrease in one and dones wouldn't be probably quite as big. But just remember if there's one tip you can take away from today, make sure you tell your customers about the cool things you already have for them.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Oh, that's super cool. Yeah. Joe, what about you as well? Are you seeing a increase?
Jimmy Lea: I mean, you've only been on it for a few months, but
Joe Sturza: I mean, we I think when we came on board with Jeff we kind of said let's do a, a. Follow up in six months.
Jimmy Lea: Six months, yeah. And just,
Joe Sturza: just to kind of give a good window of is this gonna work or not? What'd you say, Jeff? You held my feet to the fire.
Joe Sturza: But you know, you know what I mean? It was almost an instant result and reaction from people. I think. And I don't wanna speak for you, Jeff, but I think Jeff was pleasantly surprised with. How quickly we were getting the response. We were really happy with the outcome because I'm one with a marketing background, you know, with your former place of employment, Jeff or Jimmy kakuy.
Joe Sturza: When I started here, we had Kakuy, but it wasn't being used to its fullest. So I was a kid in a candy shop. Right. You know, I sat down with my rep week or monthly and just dove in there. I'm like, man, if you're gonna pay for this program, use the tools and I. The follow-up portal in that program was like, fantastic.
Joe Sturza: So when I saw Jeff and we went through the program and I saw everything that we could do with it, I'm like, we're doing everything. We're not just launching a little bit. We're doing everything. And I think I caught Jeff off guard. I think I caught Jeff off guard when I said, I want everything. Now.
Joe Sturza: Yeah. I'm not gonna launch just an oil change program. I want it all. Yeah. And I, I think that explains on who we are as a business and how important it is for us to give back to the community, give that value to the customer. And since, I mean, we've only been in this facility, we haven't even been in this facility a year and this brand new facility.
Joe Sturza: And I really a hundred percent believe that pit crew loyalty has been a huge part in. Keeping our customers, retaining them, getting more customers to us, and getting those other businesses to come to us as well, to promote their business and to promote us too. Because when we put our name.
Joe Sturza: On the kebab house down the street, or what have you. That says a lot because we have a really high Google rating and for us to put our stamp of approval on another business in that dashboard says, we endorse this business, we support this business. And them flipping it back to us says the same exact thing.
Jimmy Lea: Love it. So,
Joe Sturza: you know, customers absolutely love that. I had a real quick, I had a guy come in, I didn't know where he worked. Brand new customer. He had a logo on his shirt. I'm like, you work for that company? And he goes, yeah, I'm the director of operations. It's one of the larger movie theater chains in the state of Michigan.
Joe Sturza: Huh. And I started explaining the, a loyalty program, the cross pollinator to him. And he goes, I said, are you interested? And he goes, absolutely. Email me what you want from us. So then I explained one of my charities, which is called Neighbors Helping Neighbors. And we actually work with our vendors, our part vendors and the business community to fix people's cars for them that cannot afford to do it, but they need their car to get to work.
Joe Sturza: To put food on the table. Yeah. So people can go on our website, they can nominate someone in need, and we have a process that we go through that and then we work with our part vendors and businesses. I'm like, Hey, I know this movie company gives back to our state. I. Tenfold. They are huge in charity. I'm like, interested in this too.
Joe Sturza: Absolutely, Joe. He goes, gimme all the information. So Pit Crew is allowing us to do that networking and build all of those relationships to let the community know, you know, it's not. I mean, yes, ultimately, like Mike said, we're here to make money, but it's also about helping the community that helped build us and giving back and do we want the kudos and props?
Joe Sturza: Absolutely not. We just want to be here to do our job. We want to treat others the way they wanna be treated and show them. And this tool would, I mean, not to keep pumping you up, Jeff, but I'm gonna, but when I saw this. Tool. I'm like, holy cow. This is everything we wanted in one platform, in one dashboard for us.
Joe Sturza: And we can do it all. And it monitors everything and we can track everything. And holy cow, this. This was like great. It's like we did not have to reinvent the wheel or administer it. We got this program right here that does it for us. Well, obviously I appreciate you saying all that.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. But I want checks in the mail, Joe.
Joe Sturza: Yeah, I was gonna say, this is not a paid compensation endorsement.
Jimmy Lea: No, it's not. And thank you for. Saying that, Joe, thank
Jeff Rudnick: you. I don't know if people realize how hard every vendor works to really make something that you guys are gonna use and that's gonna work and, you know, there's blood, sweat, and tears that goes into it.
Jeff Rudnick: For us, one of the most important things, and I don't, I still haven't been able to get the word out about this, our job has to be about making marketing fun and easier to do. Yeah. And this is why Fortune 500, 100, all the big retailers have loyalty programs. It is an incredibly efficient. Way to communicate and execute your various programs that you wanna run.
Jeff Rudnick: And it's comprehensible to the consumer Yeah. The community. And it's actionable. So it becomes a playground for you.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. Yeah.
Jeff Rudnick: And that's what a good loyalty reward program should be. And it, that's what we've been striving to, to build and hopefully we're getting there.
Joe Sturza: Oh, I love that.
Joe Sturza: And Jimmy, you know, what's nice about pit crew is, you know, initially we had a few hiccups on implementation. We're perfect. Whatcha talking about Jeff? Jeff got his whole team on a teams meeting with me and let me share my vision guys. This is what I see this program to be. And you know what? They designed it for me.
Joe Sturza: They're like, okay, this is what Joe sees for his community. And they the team got to work. It took a little longer to implement than what we initially thought. But you know what? I wanted to implement something that was as close to perfection as possible, and that's what we got. That's, and the team worked with us.
Joe Sturza: We were in constant communication, but by Jeff getting that team on a teams meeting with us showed me that, you know what? I'm not gonna give you this cookie cutter design thing. I'm gonna make this. For you and for your community, and then you run with it. And that's the key thing is you running with it, Jimmy.
Joe Sturza: Because if you just subscribe to this product and let it do its thing, yeah, it'll work. But if you're not involved and getting those cross pollinators and checking things and all that, it's not gonna perform a hundred percent for you. Mike's nodding. You agree with that?
Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah, for sure.
Jeff Rudnick: Yeah. I mean we're automating the living daylights out of things so that like businesses can sign up on their own, consumers can check things on their own, the marketing calendar, but there still has to be some will.
Jeff Rudnick: Yeah. And no marketing company can send things out without approval. Right, right. So you, there has to be some involvement. And what Joe did, you know, this is where I'm always so grateful when I. I remember when this happened. I'll tell it real quick. I know we gotta go, because Joe was upset. There was a moment where he was upset with what was going on, and my team who had been working so hard was upset that he was upset.
Jeff Rudnick: And I'm like, guys, we're all gonna do this meeting. Here's why. This is that opportunity for someone who's, he's willing to do everything that we've ever wanted, every idea that we have, and he's gonna implement it all. Why not just let him teach us what we're screwing up at? Yeah. And he did. And so we're better at what we do.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Thanks Joe for getting 'em out of their developer cave.
Joe Sturza: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Putting 'em into the sunlight.
Joe Sturza: I I think the, there are companies out there that won't listen to you and won't take your feedback.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Jeff.
Joe Sturza: Jeff is an example of a company that will listen to you, take your feedback. Implement it and give you the product that is going to help you be successful.
Joe Sturza: 'cause that's the key. This product is gonna help me be successful and help grow in my community. And Jeff and his team really listen to us and we have developed a program and in fact we're meeting next week to actually look into going to the next step already with what we have. We're ready to move forward with even another step of this program because it has been that successful.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. Hey, Mike and Joe, I want you to gimme a thumbs up or a thumbs down. I'm gonna ask Jeff some rapid fire questions and yes, you agree or no? No, don't agree, uhoh. All right, so Jeff those shops that are participating in a loyalty program. What's the percentage of increase that they see for customers that are participating versus customers that are not participating?
Jeff Rudnick: Customers? Revenue spent. Revenue percentage increase. We can back this up in court. You're gonna see a 30% increase from customers that you do a redemption with. They come in that first. They come in the second visit. Yeah, you do a redemption. Now they're in. Now they're in. And you're gonna see, but
Jimmy Lea: thumbs up, thumbs down.
Jimmy Lea: What do you think Mike? Your thumb
Mike Simard: is hit. Yes. It won't. It won't. Oh, there we go. There's thumb. It's like it's in the virtual world. It's in the virtual,
Jimmy Lea: yeah. Oh, alright. So, so two, two more questions. Or maybe it's three. So that's those that are participating in the rewards program. What about clients that are using the community and the redemption part of it with the coffee shop, the movie theater?
Jimmy Lea: The restaurant. How much are those
Jeff Rudnick: customers spending? That's the newest part of our program. Okay, so we don't know that number yet. Don't know that number yet, but I do know from anecdotally we have the numbers of what, the number of people downloading the offers. Oh, there you go.
Jeff Rudnick: Right. So at Joe's location. Yeah. You're roughly, I think last time I, because I wasn't prepared for this.
Jimmy Lea: Okay. No, you're good. We had
Jeff Rudnick: somewhere around a hundred customers that have downloaded the deals. He got a call from the kebab place that said, wow, that's working
Jimmy Lea: good.
Jeff Rudnick: But from a charity standpoint, I think I already shared
Jimmy Lea: it.
Jimmy Lea: Yes. That's the, and that's the third question. Those that participate in those of us that are clients participating with the shops that are redeeming our points to donate to the VA hospital, the A-S-P-C-A or the animal shelter, or the battered. Women and children shelter, what? Those of us that are participating in that charity and gaining recognition for it, what's the, what are you seeing from a shop point of view?
Jimmy Lea: Across
Jeff Rudnick: all of our clients, it's 24% increased spend by a consumer that does a
Jimmy Lea: donation. Thumbs up, thumbs down, Mike,
Jeff Rudnick: but we have more numbers. Well, okay. If the customer does a referral, if they send a referral to a friend.
Jimmy Lea: Okay.
Jeff Rudnick: Just the act of send, just the act of sending it. That customer spends 35% more than the, than.
Jimmy Lea: So if I'm referring Mike, I'm spending 35% more because,
Jeff Rudnick: and you know what? I never realize, it's not just that they're spending more money, they're bringing in their, a lot of times it's if the wife or the husband, they go to a different shop 'cause it's closer to work.
Jimmy Lea: Sure.
Jeff Rudnick: When they see the benefits, they say like, you know what, we're getting all this.
Jeff Rudnick: Let's just all go here comes there. So in the referral program, I'll tell you it's the hardest piece. You have to work that a little bit. Yeah. If you want the best benefit as a shop owner, you really should have the pre-printed card as well. Yep. And pass that out. Yep. Yep. We all want set it and forget it.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. But it's not a thing.
Jeff Rudnick: It's not all. There's no
Jimmy Lea: silver bullet.
Jeff Rudnick: No.
Jimmy Lea: You gotta work it. All right, last final questions. We've got coming in from those that are listening to us, so I don't want to ignore these. I acknowledge them. Thank you very much, John, for your question. With larger accounts, are you guys giving the loyalty rewards to those accounts that are fleets?
Jimmy Lea: Does you mean? Okay. I thought he meant fleets, multiple vehicles. Yeah. And Jeff Jeff says that, or no, Jeff. No, Joe. Joe says that you're not giving it to Yeah, no,
Joe Sturza: no. We do not do it for the fleet customers, right? Yeah. 'cause we have special pricing for them already. So we don't give it to them.
Joe Sturza: It is for the residential customer. Got it. This
Jeff Rudnick: gets back to that previous snowflake comment that I made earlier. Everybody's unique. Everyone's unique. So in the automations tab, by the way, everything that we're, we, we know this. I learned if I make the advisors do all of this, it'll never get done. So in the automations tab for any of the different shop management systems, you can choose to auto-enroll fleets or not.
Jeff Rudnick: Or you can manually enroll fleets on your own. But most people that do fleets have a fleet program. But they can leverage this 'cause just, this is a really good sales tip. You wanna go in and impress a fleet on a sales call. You show them your benefits package, including that you will give one per, all you have to do is go to their website, they give away money to charities too.
Jeff Rudnick: Say you come in, you're gonna get 2% back on your rewards card and we're gonna give. Half a percent to charity. Yeah. This charity in your name. Yeah. And this tracks all that. And there's a whole bunch of other things that we do for fleets. Love it. Love it.
Jimmy Lea: Most people
Jeff Rudnick: don't give rewards to fleets though.
Jeff Rudnick: 'cause they're already doing 10% off,
Jimmy Lea: typically. Yeah. Well, and I think if I was doing fleets, I'd charge 'em 10% more.
Jeff Rudnick: You always say that.
Jimmy Lea: I know. Well, they want it done so fast. Right.
Joe Sturza: Exactly. There's a premium for getting it out the door today.
Jimmy Lea: Yep.
Joe Sturza: And if you don't have
Mike Simard: a fleet program, just walk in with this program.
Mike Simard: And I would say either or is good if you have a different program, but if you don't have a program, just make this your fleet program. And that really works well as, as well. People will appreciate that we have a little fleet. Thank you. We have a little
Jeff Rudnick: fleet packet that, that people use. It's a letter, you know, and a that tells the benefits of the program.
Jeff Rudnick: And a lot of the fleets use it as a giveaway to their, so you say, here's our fleet program and here's. A bunch of gift cards for your employees. Oh, employee benefit program. Now the employees come in, they get enrolled into the plan as well. Love it.
Joe Sturza: And, you know, pit crew adapted one of our segments for our, one of our business partners.
Joe Sturza: We do trade into towing company. They tow for us. Don't charge us, but. We do stuff for them. So now that's managed through the pit crew system that we can go in there and we can add value in there and subtract value when we know, so we're not doing it on paper and pencil. It's all managed through that system.
Joe Sturza: So they really tailored that to what my needs were for that system. That's perfect. Yeah,
Jimmy Lea: that's perfect. All right, let's wrap this up with a magic wand question. In a sentence or two. Joe, then Mike. Then Jeff, what would you magically change? What's your magic wand question? Solution. Something that you would want to change if you had a magic wand in the automotive aftermarket Joe
Joe Sturza: customers with patience.
Jimmy Lea: Ooh, that's a good one. That's a good one, Mike.
Mike Simard: Training important things in like this on how to communicate and connect with customers and express value over the transactional price. And if we could do that consistently, immediately, and do it better than anybody else, which I think we do have a pretty high bar, there's still more room to grow.
Mike Simard: That's the magic wand for me.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. That's beautiful. Mike. Thank you. Training. Yeah. Training. Jeff, what you got, brother? Magic wand.
Jeff Rudnick: I wish that we could magically make customers understand that they're better off spending the right amount of money on their vehicle, maintaining it than cons, than fixing it.
Jeff Rudnick: That it would cost them less money and that they would just know that.
Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah. Hundred percent.
Jeff Rudnick: Yeah.
Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And that, you know, if we do the proper training, as Mike is saying, and we train and educate our clients, our customers, with an educated customer. Buys more. They make better decisions. They stay safer on the roads.
Jimmy Lea: They protect my family. They protect their family and Jeff's family, and Mike's family and Joe's family. And we're all safer on the road because we're educating our customers better so they can make better decisions. Oh, that's awesome. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you, Mike. Thank you Joe. Appreciate you guys being here.
Jimmy Lea: Thank you all very much. Yeah. And those of you in our audience that are here, you're listening to some awesome and great information as we talk about the industry elevating the industry. This is the institute. We bring together the best of the best to help the industry become better. We're here to help you build a better business, have a better life.
Jimmy Lea: Which in fact helps the institute to build a better industry. If you find this information valuable and like to have a discussion in the next 30 seconds, there's gonna be a QR code up on the screen. Pull out your smartphone, scan this QR code, and let's get together. Let's talk about your business, your goals, your numbers, so we can take that to the next level.
Jimmy Lea: My name is Jimmy Lee. I'm with the Institute. Thank you very much. We'll see you again soon.
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