99 - Sharpening Your Skills and Staying Ahead of the Curve

99 - Sharpening Your Skills and Staying Ahead of the Curve

July 23rd, 2024 - 00:59:42

 

Show Summary:

In this episode, Gregg Rainville and James Harris from Steer lead a discussion with automotive industry pros and shop owners, including Jimmy Purdy and Jennifer Hulbert. They discuss how to proactively prepare for seasonal slowdowns in the auto repair industry. The conversation explores smart CRM usage, campaign timing, customer retention, and reputation-building strategies that drive long-term success. The panel emphasizes the power of data, the importance of a marketing plan, and how to turn marketing efforts into measurable results. From Google Ads to handwritten postcards, they cover it all, with humor, real-world insights, and a heavy dose of experience.

 

Host(s):

Gregg Rainville, Steer CRM

James Harris, Steer CRM

 

Guest(s):

Jennifer Hulbert, The Institute

Jimmy Purdy, Shift'n Gears Auto Repair

 

Episode Highlights:

[00:05:14] - Jimmy shares how fair season marketing didn’t deliver results and why shop owners should carefully evaluate where their target customers actually are.

[00:07:52] - Jennifer explains how analyzing seasonal trends and planning 60–90 days ahead can help avoid last-minute marketing scrambles.

[00:10:15] - Shops should have a “slow day” action plan ready to go, including quick-launch campaigns and customer communication tools.

[00:12:17] - You can’t out-market poor phone skills. Jimmy and Jennifer stress the importance of phone training for service advisors.

[00:13:11] - Trust-building through DVIs, solid repair work, and personalized follow-up is just as crucial to marketing as paid campaigns.

[00:17:25] - Referrals and reviews still work, if you actually ask. Jennifer shares simple ways to turn happy customers into promoters.

[00:21:53] - Visibility in your community is powerful; from volunteering to gym memberships, Jimmy highlights low-cost ways to grow your network.

[00:25:04] - Many shop owners market to the wrong audience. Defining your ideal customer avatar helps you stop wasting money on ineffective tactics.

[00:29:55] - Retention often outperforms acquisition, Jimmy shifts budget toward existing customers when new car counts dip post-holidays.

[00:34:36] - Use your CRM and tools like Google Analytics or The Institute's dashboard to measure campaign performance and make smarter decisions.

 

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=SldUPs30PsU&t=3s

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Gregg Rainville: To discuss today, sharpening your skill, your skills and staying ahead of the curve for whenever your shop might have slowdown periods throughout the year, which really could be any time of the year. A big thing, what we've done over at STEER is not only our company, but what we've tried to build a platform to really help making data driven decisions.

Gregg Rainville: So being able to look at your data back in 2023 to know what might happen in 2024 now it's just crazy that we're halfway through 2024 looking into 2025 and we should start talking about You know, when are those slow periods? We have back to school. I know after the holidays, things typically slow down for shops, but we have a great panel today to discuss this with the Institute and also Jimmy party from shifting gears.

Gregg Rainville: It'll be a great way where we can discuss you know, what's some shop owners and coaches, what they look at, some strategies you'll also have me and James Harris from STEER here also just to give some insight with some of our. What we've seen in the marketplace quick background on me.

Gregg Rainville: I've been with STEER for over 12 years now have a lot of industry experience. Fun fact, I visited over 200 shops in 2022. It looks like from looking at James's bio, he's got me beat with 400. Over the last year, and I believe James is actually on the road right now in Kansas city, visiting shops.

Gregg Rainville: I'll be out in the market next week, visiting shops for mobile one which I love doing. But personally, I love being out in the fields. I love visiting shops, love talking to shop owners. I do also like going in the STEER platform with some of my friend shop owners and building campaigns and seeing how those campaigns work for the shop doing a B testing.

Gregg Rainville: It's probably one of my most favorite part of the job is actually going into the STEER platform and seeing if I can turn around car count for some of these shops that I work with. Other fun fact about James is he's a great golfer. A lot of people tell me that they're good at golf.

Gregg Rainville: I don't believe them. I actually golf with him a couple of weeks ago at tools and he can drive the ball probably close to 300 yards consistently. So James, I'll give you, I'll give you some props there. 

James Harris: I appreciate that. Appreciate it. 

Gregg Rainville: We're lucky to have James. He's been with us for over a year now. He came from shop where so he does have shop management system experience.

Gregg Rainville: And now he has over a full year of CRM experience and he really helped us with launching the advanced auto parts relationship. And now he's working with me closely on, on mobile one, visiting some different type of shop with quick loops and stuff like that. But again, with me and James, we have a lot of experience visiting shops and really just talking to shop owners and trying to help them overcome some of their struggles.

Gregg Rainville: Next, I'll introduce the panel. We have Jennifer Hulbert here from upstate New York, right? Right, Jennifer? That's correct. Upstate New York. All right. We're covering the whole entire United States with Jimmy being in California. Jennifer has spent her whole entire career in the automotive industry.

Gregg Rainville: So she's got me and James beat there. Definitely. I love that she's into data. I think you're perfect for the panel. The fact that you like. Like looking at data and you like financials and I love that you care about your shops and seeing them succeed. I think that's something that also me and James like to see too.

Gregg Rainville: So welcome to the panel. I'm very excited to see what you have to say about KPIs and some of the things to look at for a shop when doing campaigns and stuff like that. 

Jennifer Hulbert: Thank you. I'm excited to be here and excited to, to get this information out to the public. 

Gregg Rainville: Excellent. And then we got the rockstar Jimmy Purdy.

Jimmy Purdy: I think you're the only one that says that Greg. 

Gregg Rainville: Jimmy has mastered the 3 60 Facebook live and it's going, I think it's going viral amongst other groups. Jimmy, 

Jimmy Purdy: Talk marketing, thats important, you know.

Gregg Rainville: We are, that's right. So we've got a marketing expert in the house. 10 years, 10 years, a technician led to him owning his own shop.

Gregg Rainville: So he's got a lot of experiences, I guess, on both sides of the house. 

Jimmy Purdy: Yeah, the atypical tech term shop owner. 

Gregg Rainville: Perfect. I met Jimmy this past winter out at the Mars conference for the institute. So it was great just actually meeting up with him, talking to him a lot about my experience and then him telling me stories about kind of his experience in the industry.

Gregg Rainville: And then we also had some fun kind of going around Ogden and meeting some local people and seeing what they do for Facebook marketing live at their bars, which was, yeah, which was pretty, pretty interesting, but we are super happy to to have this panel today and kick things off.

Gregg Rainville: All right. Excellent. So, so Jimmy, one of the things I talked to you a couple weeks ago we were talking about things slow down typically towards the end of the summer going into back to school. A lot of my shops to our shops that I see when I look at the data and STEER things slow down after the holiday season.

Gregg Rainville: I don't know if there's like a lot of spending that goes on and then, you know, Consumers typically kind of watch their wallet and sometimes car repairs right now might not be top of mind during that time. But Jimmy, you said something really interesting to me where you're talking about not only back to school, but right now is like fair season, especially where you live.

Gregg Rainville: And I know where I live in Massachusetts, there's a lot of fairs popping up. So. You were talking about doing maybe some campaigns or some marketing around fairs, but then leading into the school season can you tell us a little bit of kind of what that looks like? Some of the strategies and some of the things you're thinking about.

Jimmy Purdy: Yeah, its tough man because it's like, what are the ebbs and the flows?

Jimmy Purdy: What are the highs and the lows? What? I mean, you can put all your eggs in one basket and it works. Then you do it again and it doesn't work. And then you're trying to like find the rhythm and the seasons and I don't think auto repair is Not in california seasonal right and that's like different across the whole country too.

Jimmy Purdy: Like because you have seasonals Like, I don't even know tire, the tire thing was the thing on the east coast, right? Where you like store the tires, you do the tires, like that just blew my mind. I'm like, I'm in California. We don't have snow season. So marketing that way is like, that's, that doesn't work for me.

Jimmy Purdy: Like that wouldn't make any sense. But to your point with like the fair season, that's something that affects everyone across the country because fair season is the same time. Across the whole nation, right? Like it's always the same and the same with road construction. And we're talking about, like, everyone seems want to do road construction at the same damn time across the whole United States.

Jimmy Purdy: Like they all get together. So how do you like market towards that? And how do you anticipate that? Because if I did it today, the fair started four days ago. So if I put a campaign together right now, they're going to do anything for me. So I've got to anticipate that. And then is that even worth the time though?

Jimmy Purdy: Because then we were talking like, well, people come to the fair. Are they even interested in auto repair? And like, are those people that need the auto repair when they go to the fair? Is that your ideal client? Right. And we were talking about trying to find the avatar and like, who exactly is it that we're trying to market it towards?

Jimmy Purdy: Like, is that even something I want to spend my time and energy on? I know a few years back they have a booth at the fair and I wouldn't got a booth for the shop fair. It was like the worst decision I ever made. Like it was a waste of money. I spent all, I mean, other than I can bring a cooler into the fair and we can drink our own beer there.

Jimmy Purdy: That was pretty much the only benefit, but I only think it benefited my friends, you know, cause they're like, Oh, Jimmy's got beer at his booth. We'll go over there and hang out. Right. Like I didn't do anything for the shop. So it was like. I don't think that was the right tactic to go towards, but it's just paying attention to those outside things that are around and how can I capitalize on those situations?

Jimmy Purdy: I think it is the main takeaway, right? 

Jennifer Hulbert: I would absolutely agree with that, and having a plan is the first step. So looking at the data, you mentioned that in my introduction looking at your historical ebbs and flows and highs and lows, and then putting a plan together so you're anticipating those typical slower seasons.

Jennifer Hulbert: Back to school is a perfect example of that. That timeframe can shift across the country. I'm in upstate New York. We don't go back to school until after Labor Day. A lot of Southern states start now or in the next couple of weeks. So pre planning for that in, in months in advance. Also looking at your total marketing.

Jennifer Hulbert: So STEER focuses on. Customer retention marketing. We also are concerned about new customer attraction, but making sure that you have all of those pieces, new customer attraction, retention, and image and branding handled in your marketing plan and have an actual plan with a calendar and a budget is very important as well.

Jennifer Hulbert: Yeah. 

Gregg Rainville: How far out should you be planning? I was gonna, I was going to say, because I have some shops right now that I'm talking to that are scrambling. So they're like, my car count just died. Right? Like, like, they just told me this last week. They're like, what can we do? So I'm sending out some text blasts and I'm trying to do whatever I can to kind of get creative in the month of July to help this shop.

Gregg Rainville: But. What could they have done better kind of planning, just knowing that things slow down maybe for them in July, like, like, like, should they have planned this two months out, three months out? Is there like a magic number of when you should be planning this out or a year out if you're a real good planner?

James Harris: Yeah, that's what I was going to say, Jennifer, on top of that, like, how much of the plan would you say get into place at the beginning of whatever that cycle is? Do you go ahead and look at the whole year or kind of what are you doing there? 

Jennifer Hulbert: Yes. And no, I think more than 30 or 60 days customers aren't going to remember the pieces that you sent to them.

Jennifer Hulbert: And I'm talking about planning for mail pieces typically because the email campaigns, the text message blast can happen pretty instantaneously or within a couple of days. But if you're preparing for something in physical mail that takes months to prepare for, to make sure the print is ready for the date that you want it to go out.

Jennifer Hulbert: Slow times happen unexpectedly. I think in every single market, I am a shop owner as well. And that happens to us. So having a prebuilt like slow day action plan, what can you and your marketing and your staff do to communicate with customers within a couple of days notice? So having just some of those campaigns ready to go out, Would be my recommendation.

Jennifer Hulbert: And then communicating with your marketing team, being someone like STEER and saying, okay, you know, I can contact my rep and in a short period of time, I can have a piece go out for a specific, like an immediate. turn that maybe wasn't expected for. Jimmy, you mentioned road construction. Many people have had complications because of road construction and you can't plan for that.

Jennifer Hulbert: So if your physical road is closed in front of you, how do you communicate how to get to the shop easily and quickly? And again, that relationship with a marketing rep would be very important. 

Jimmy Purdy: Yeah. And making sure you're paying attention to how many new clients you're getting every month versus your growing debt database.

Jimmy Purdy: And that's the one thing I'm struggling with, right? We have a huge. Problem with retention and having a CRM program put in place to constantly be in front of mine is what I struggle with because I hate sending out those text reminders. I hate when someone clicks unsubscribe right to my email that I worked so hard to get in.

Jimmy Purdy: And that's the other point. How many of these emails are you capturing when these people come in? How awkward is that conversation when someone comes to the counter and you're like, Can I get your email? They're like, actually, I don't believe in that stuff. And you're like right. And then so like the next time around, you don't want to ask for the email, but that's all the stuff that builds that client base that helps you when you're slow, you can send out that text or that email blast and be like, Hey, you know, we got some spots available this week.

Jimmy Purdy: If you're looking to get that old change we talked about last month. I mean, that's just been huge in the last year for me to start learning that and like implementing that instead of like constantly going for the new stuff. Like, well, why don't you just pay attention to what's already sitting in the, And the cash register has been huge. 

Gregg Rainville: I'm sorry. I was just going to ask about just like picking up the phone too. Like, Is that worth it to like set aside some time and go through the list and call customers 

Jimmy Purdy: if you like it? 

Gregg Rainville: Yeah. 

Jennifer Hulbert: And if you're good at it, so it, it takes a, the right person to make those calls. So they're not, they sound not scripted or they're not floundering.

Jennifer Hulbert: So yeah. 

Jimmy Purdy: And Jennifer, on that point 

Jimmy Purdy: too, like having like someone like the Institute, take your advisor through their coaching program. And like, learn how to answer the phone. Cause you can do all the marketing in the world, but if you don't have someone that knows how to answer the phone, that's like, what can I do for you?

Jimmy Purdy: Right. Instead of being like, Hey, this is Jimmy with Shifting Gears Auto Repair. How can I help you today? Right. It's like, it just changed. Like you can spend all the money in the world of marketing or retention. It's like, why isn't anybody coming back? It's like, well, cause you suck to deal with. 

Jennifer Hulbert: Well, I think that's a great point, because if the phone isn't answered correctly or the customer's not handled in the proper way, then the customer's not gonna have trust with the shop.

Jennifer Hulbert: And that's why customers stay with typical shops is because of that trust factor. So

Jimmy Purdy: They got no right to trust you. 

Jennifer Hulbert: They do.

Jimmy Purdy: Just like Walker says. 

Jennifer Hulbert: Yes. And that leads to a couple other areas. I mean, you need to do the repairs right the first time. So you need to have the technical staff behind the scenes doing the work correctly.

Jennifer Hulbert: And you need to be able to communicate what the vehicle needs like through a DVI or a vehicle health evaluation with the customer. So those are a couple other pieces that people typically don't think as marketing. But in my opinion, there are. As important as a CRM campaign and reaching out and say, Hey, remember when your vehicle was here and we provided this beautiful report, all kinds of pictures and data about your vehicle, these are the items that you didn't do, but because we developed that trust level with the customer during that DVI and sales presentation, they're more likely to come back because of that trust.

Jennifer Hulbert: And then the reminder from a STEER CRM. 

Jimmy Purdy: And that gives you a better ROI, right? You raise your ARO. That makes gives you a better return on the investment of marketing, right? So if you get them in you do the dvi and you get your pair order up And that makes it more feasible to spend more money on marketing.

Jennifer Hulbert: Absolutely. 

Jimmy Purdy: You have a low ARO, then it's like, well, I'm spending all this money on marketing and I'm not seeing any dollars in my bank account. Trust me. I know I've been there. 

Jennifer Hulbert: I remember the time that you were there. 

Jimmy Purdy: So it helps. And then you start watching the numbers and you're like, Oh, it's all starting to kind of make sense now.

Jimmy Purdy: And then Greg, we talked the, what was it about a week ago about using that money for retention. So how much does it cost you to acquire each one of those clients? Right. And what if you, instead of spending that kind of money. And if you're just going to spend a dime on acquiring new ones, why don't you just give a discount to your existing client base that's already there?

Jimmy Purdy: Because it's going to cost you money either way to get someone in the door. And I was like everybody, I was like everybody else. I didn't believe in marketing. I'm like, nah, if I just do a really good job, then everyone's going to know about it and everybody's going to come to me. I don't need a market.

Jimmy Purdy: Marketing's for the week, right? Like, I was like, I just, I'm just gonna fix the car so good that the world will spread and I'll have to worry about spending a dime in marketing. Right? Like I really believed that and it's like that's so wrong. 

Jennifer Hulbert: No, I absolutely agree with that. And many shops feel that way that they don't need to market and they don't need to get their name out.

Jennifer Hulbert: One of the areas that we haven't talked about yet is reputation. So are you asking for reviews? Are you talking to your customers about that? Are you sending a campaign and saying, hey, if we did a great job, please leave us a review? Are you responding to those reviews and monitoring them and communicating with a customer who may be not be satisfied and rectifying that situation?

Jennifer Hulbert: So I think reputation is as important as well. There's a lot of pieces that go into this. 

Gregg Rainville: Yeah, I was going to mention getting that feedback loop during those slow times might be a really important time to see how your staff might be handling the stress. I know personally for me, you know, coming from a sales background and James, you also have a sales background, you hit the end of the month.

Gregg Rainville: And it's the same thing. It's like, are you near your number? You're not at your number. Like, are you, do you smell desperate when you're actually calling the customer? You don't want your team to do that. And also that, that could trickle over into other parts of the business. But I think to your point, Jennifer, like if you're having that feedback cycle and you're monitoring that closely, and especially during a slow time, I think.

Gregg Rainville: Some things might be exposed that, you know, I didn't appreciate this about the shop or it's like when you, your standard operating procedures kind of get exposed. If there's something that happens by, and then again it's that feedback loop, but I think during these slower times, it's probably a better time to keep an eye on it 

Jimmy Purdy: Not just listen to negative 

Jimmy Purdy: stuff, but the positive stuff too, right?

Jimmy Purdy: The one missing part is the CRM is okay. Maybe you don't want to bother your clients. You don't want to hound them, whatever, but a lot of people are waiting for you to ask them. What they thought, like most people won't tell you unless you ask. But if you ask, they will tell you, right? We've had over 100 Google reviews in the last year just based on asking for a review, right?

Jimmy Purdy: Like just that simple text. Hey, let us know how we did and all of a sudden our reviews grow. And guess what that does to the Google, right? Like my whole thing is to stop paying for Google ads, right? Because it's not sustainable. You know, it's like if you're paying for Google, what's the best patient out there?

Jimmy Purdy: A sick one. Right. So if you're using Google ads and they're getting you business, they go, well, they're going to want you to keep paying for Google ads. So the more organic stuff you can get, the better off you are. Right. And one of the big things is getting reviews, but you can't get the reviews unless you ask.

Jennifer Hulbert: Correct. And the same goes for referrals. So asking a customer to refer a family or a friend can do the same thing. Because again, that existing customer already knows and trusts you and has a relationship with you. So they're going to sing your praises to another new customer that could potentially be yours.

Jimmy Purdy: Maybe not the in laws, but most families, 

Gregg Rainville: do 

Gregg Rainville: you have a process that you coach for asking for referrals? Cause I know this is like, it's almost like the, it's difficult. Sometimes when I talk to shop owners, we're like, I can't ask for emails. Kind of like what Jimmy was talking about earlier of just being like, you know, it sometimes gets awkward, but I see asking for referrals almost being sometimes awkward.

Gregg Rainville: Are there any strategies to help with obviously boosting those new customers through referrals that, that. You could give anyone who's listening today on. 

Jimmy Purdy: That's a good question. I'm listening to this one. 

Gregg Rainville: Yeah. 

Gregg Rainville: I don't know if you have it built in the CRM or if it's just asking. 

Jennifer Hulbert: I think you do both.

Jennifer Hulbert: Any in front of customer requests that you can have, I think is going to be the most impactful. So at my personal shop, we have a little card that we printed up and give to customers who we want feedback from. There are some customers that you don't necessarily want their feedback. Everyone is getting the email as a follow up CRM, but we do give a personal just little note, Hey, if we did a great job, this is how you can leave us a review, and this is where to find us on Google, the same thing for a referral program.

Jennifer Hulbert: So you need to have a process and you mentioned a standard operating procedure. before. Many of this type of items can fall into that. So are you offering an incentive for the customer to refer someone else? Are you offering a discount for the new customer to come in? Are you doing something like cookies or candy or is a thank you enough?

Jennifer Hulbert: So looking at Who you have in your database and who are your best customers. We all know who our top 10 to 12 or 10 to 20 customers are. You could ask them and do a survey. What would be a reward for you to send me a referral? Many people in my experience say just your thanks and just the fact that you do great service and are a part of the community is thanks enough.

Jennifer Hulbert: Some people say, you know, Some small type of discount. So defining what your process is and then following that process. I do think referrals are best if they're asked for in person or something, maybe like a mirror hanger. where the technicians faces. Hey, I'm proud to work on your vehicle. I would be proud to work on a friend or family members vehicle.

Jennifer Hulbert: Here is our referral program and please refer because it means a lot to me so you can really personalize it. And I think that means something to customers. But having that process is And Jimmy knows that we talk about SOPs all of the time in our group process. So I'm a proponent for having a lot of things in writing and documented, and then communicated with the staff.

Jennifer Hulbert: So they know exactly what and how to do that process. And this would fall into them. 

Jimmy Purdy: Yeah. Cause guess what? Six months go by and you're like. Wait a second. What did I put in that lasagna? And you don't remember the recipe, right? How did I get right but on that networking side? So the other thing too for referrals is like joining a bni group or the chamber of commerce or bdg, right?

Jimmy Purdy: Maybe starting a podcast getting a radio show but it can be as simple as like just volunteering at community events Like just getting out there one day spending two hours, right? The volunteers are like they only need you for two or three hours But the amount of contacts that you make and the people you talk to and they're like, oh you want auto shop?

Jimmy Purdy: Right, like I can tell you how many people I went to a local jiu jitsu gym, and I recommend everyone at least do one year of jiu jitsu But the amount of contacts I made there right you're Hello, talking with some other person for an hour, right? You get pretty intimate with them, right? And so they just trust you right away.

Jimmy Purdy: You're like, wow, you're holding my neck and your arms and you're not going to get your beards in my mouth. Yeah. But it's like just doing that. And like, quit going to be like Jimmy Lee and quit going to super cuts. Go get a good haircut. Right. And like make connections at the barber shop, right? Like so simple things that cost you any money.

Jimmy Purdy: That just builds this network. And then these people refer you, right. And like spreads like fire. It's like the next time someone's in that barber chair, they remember you. And they're like, Hey, actually I got a guy that owns a shop. He comes in here once a week or once a month or. If you're Jimmy one, every two hours or however many times he gets his hair done.

Jimmy Purdy: But you get my point, like get out there and like be with the community. 

Jennifer Hulbert: Well, and then communicate that through social media and your marketing programs. So if you're sending out emails and you want to highlight something that you're doing in the community, so your customers know that you are involved and that you're supporting their local community as well, share that.

Jennifer Hulbert: Make that part of your marketing plan because that what we do, we, many of us hold it so tightly to our chest and not communicate it out, share your staff, share your success stories, share your wins share, you know, customers that are coming into you for the first time, getting pictures, you know, if you can get a thumbs up picture in, in front of someone's car, and then communicating that out into all of your marketing platforms. CRM, website, all your social media.

Gregg Rainville: It brings your shop to life almost, right? Like, like people think they know your staff, they know you just because yeah, a lot of people, most people spend what, two, three hours on Facebook a day, you know, and they keep scrolling through, they see your live videos. They see your pictures.

Gregg Rainville: They see your friendly faces. Like, like they, they want to go there and do business. 

Jennifer Hulbert: It makes you a person, so it makes you relatable. 

Jimmy Purdy: If you use it right, like radio has got a pretty bad rap, right? Because everyone wants to do a radio ad and then they expect this huge turnover. And it just doesn't work like that.

Jimmy Purdy: And so like me doing the radio show, I have people coming all the time. And they're like, I just feel like I know you, like I've never met you in my life. Right. Like, and it's like kind of a one sided relationship. They're like, Oh, you went here last weekend. You talked about, and that's what I do. I don't just make it all about the business.

Jimmy Purdy: I talk about what we did last week. And I talk about what we did last week and like, and just make it personal. And so they get to trust me, know me as a person. And I think that's kind of missed. And I think a lot of the big influencers, especially in the social media, that's what they do. They make it about them and not necessarily all about what they do.

Jimmy Purdy: Like educational content is great, but you're marketing to the technician. That knows how to fix his car. He's not gonna come to your shop . Right. 

Jennifer Hulbert: Yeah. Your radio show is marketing to that . 

Jimmy Purdy: Yeah. The radio. Yeah. I mean, it's a call in so they can call in if they've got problems with their vehicles, but I really try to make it more kind of layman's and kind of simple.

Jimmy Purdy: The podcast is really based on, you know, industry professionals and that's not really to market, you know, new clients to the shop. But I guess my point is I watch a lot of social media influencers and some of it's very. like educational technical content where I enjoy it. But I'm like, I'm probably not going to go to that shop.

Jimmy Purdy: Like that's not going to build my client list, but it feels like it's the right thing to do. Does that make sense? Like it's one of the big problems I have for a long time is creating content and marketing to other technicians and marketing to other like shop owners. Like, well, this isn't making any sense.

Jimmy Purdy: So who do I need to market to? And that was a big one that was it Jimmy Lee that had the dope marketing? It was definitely something with the Institute where I was looking through and like, Oh, I'm not marketing to the right person. 

Jimmy Purdy: I'm spending my 

Jimmy Purdy: money and I'm getting the right people in.

Jennifer Hulbert: You mentioned the avatar before. So figuring out who is your target customer? How many vehicles do they have? What's their income? What's their location away from the shop? How are you going to reach them? Where did they shop? How do they communicate? So figuring out some of that will help you target your campaigns.

Jennifer Hulbert: Do I need to email? Do I need to text? Do I need to mail and to who, what carrier routes, if you're going to be doing mail campaigns how often do they want to hear from me? And with CRM specifically, I see a lot of new shops coming in that have their reminders on and the appointment reminders, and they're asking for the reviews.

Jennifer Hulbert: And that's about it. So my first question is, okay, you have a 30 day reminder from a recommended service and then you don't communicate with them again for how long? So do you have an ongoing campaign that's targeting your whole database? And Jimmy, you mentioned this earlier that you hate to see those unsubscribes come in, if you're doing it too often, you're going to see those come in.

Jennifer Hulbert: But if you're doing it on a regular, maybe a monthly basis. That's not too close together, but you're still reaching your whole database. That's the important key is you need to stay in front of your customers 

Jimmy Purdy: and targeting the wrong clients. I mean, I just flat out say I've got the wrong clients come in and I'm just doing the wrong things, right?

Jimmy Purdy: I'm trying to get to the top pinnacle and I want to be, have this cool hip campaign, right? Like. And be able to do like a got milk campaign, right? Like, like Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein, like do this really hip thing. And it's like, I'm just so far away from that. Like I need to focus on who I'm supposed to be attracting and spend, spending all this money trying to build a brand and.

Jimmy Purdy: And you know, market to the wrong people. It's just, you got to take it in steps and kind of build that base layer and get a foundation built before you can start stacking on there. And then before you know it, I feel like you can kind of narrow it down and target exactly who it is. And then you can do targeted campaigns.

Jimmy Purdy: But I think for me, I mean, that's what I did. I wanted to go straight to targeted campaigns. Like I knew who I want coming in here. It was like, I still don't know. I still haven't figured it out. 

Jennifer Hulbert: Well, and then how did the customers want to be communicated with? 

Jennifer Hulbert: So. Is it mail? Is it text? Is it email? And one of the things you mentioned earlier, Jimmy, is it's weird for you to ask for an email. That's part of our incoming script. So it's name, phone number, address, email. 

Jimmy Purdy: And birthday. 

Jennifer Hulbert: Oh, we don't do birthday, but it's just that the normal feel that we ask and customers typically don't say no. If you just ask it that way. If you ask, well, Hey, I'd kind of want your email. So will you give it to me?

Jennifer Hulbert: Then you're going to get the nose 

Jimmy Purdy: the desperation, like Greg said, you can't mark it when you're desperate. I guarantee when you're busy and then you overpriced a job because you don't want to do it. And guess what? That's what they say. Yes. Every time. And you're like, I tried to price that out. 

Jimmy Purdy: I didn't want to do it.

Jimmy Purdy: That same job comes next month when you're not busy and you go a thousand dollars less. And then it's like, it's just a crazy thing. And like you said, people can smell it. Like they should know. 

Jennifer Hulbert: Well, and we talked a little bit about ROI. 

Gregg Rainville: What I was going to ask you, Jimmy, you're on the hot seat, I guess, of like, so when do things slow down for you coming up?

Gregg Rainville: Like this next, is it happening right now or is it happening in September? In a couple of weeks, you know, the data. 

Jimmy Purdy: Yeah, I'll probably see a slowdown in January. It's usually December for Christmas. And I think that's just standard. That's just like after Christmas, I think every industry in the world dies except for Amazon with all their return.

Jimmy Purdy: That's typically it. Yeah. 

Gregg Rainville: Are you planning right now, kind of what you're going to do for January? No. I'm going to put you in the hot seat with your coach. 

Jimmy Purdy: Yeah, right. And we'll talk about this tomorrow. I don't have to do it all the time. Like, Jennifer helped me. She's like, you need to do this. Right now, I'm focused on back to school.

Jimmy Purdy: So we have back to school flyers going out. And this is the first time we've targeted. To back to school. And so we're going to see how that works. And one of the things I've read was, you know, greatest is the enemy of great, right? And so you draw a line and you want to find like the greatest thing, like, what am I going to do?

Jimmy Purdy: What's the greatest thing I can do to get people in door, right? And then you miss all these great opportunities you can, right? So instead of like, you draw this line and you're just looking for this greatest thing, that's it. That's all I'm going to do instead of like, well, that could be a good idea. That could be a good idea.

Jimmy Purdy: And Jennifer doesn't like when I do this, but I do get a lot of ideas and like, but I want to throw everything at the wall and kind of see what sticks and they're all great ideas, but they're not the greatest, right? But you'll never know unless you kind of categorize them and start stacking them kind of like poker chips, right?

Jimmy Purdy: Like you're trying to like, well, that could be work. That could work. That works. So one of the time, one of the things this year is going to be targeting the back to school and see how that works for us in our area. Just like the fair time, maybe next year we'll try targeting the fair time again and see what happens there and just see if that works.

Jimmy Purdy: So I guess to your point of the slowdown we're looking for in January I don't really have a big game plan to get that moving. I already have like the basic stuff that I'll be working on getting a lot of the retention. That's going to be huge. I think getting new clients after Christmas time is going to be impossible, or it has been.

Jimmy Purdy: Like, our new customer count for the last three years has never ever gone up after Christmas, right? But we can target and do the CRM and reach out. to the people that we already have in our database and then work that way. 

Jennifer Hulbert: One of the key things that you said was our new customer count doesn't increase.

Jennifer Hulbert: That means you're tracking it. And that's important. So if you're not tracking the new customer and returning customers or your active customer lists, then you're not going to know if you're impacting that at all. And one of my coaches that I've had said, you may not completely make a poor month or a typical slow month, the best month of the year, but you're going to impact it and increase sales because of your marketing.

Jennifer Hulbert: So even if you can move the needle a little, then that, that's what we're looking for. 

Jimmy Purdy: Yeah. 

Jimmy Purdy: And sometimes, you know, marketing, I don't know who told me this, but your marketing budget could just be. Paying for cash flow, right? Like if you're not tracking how many return clients you're getting back in You're just paying for cash flow because the amount of money you're spending to get them in the door is just market to get new people in the door.

Jimmy Purdy: So it's like, it's just cashflow. Right. And that's great. When you're starting, like you have to do that. Like if you don't have cashflow, you don't have a business. Right. But over the years you start realizing, okay, well man, my retention rates down at like 60 percent right now, that's not good. And I'm in the process of that right now, the last two months, we've had a 10 percent drop from last year in retention.

Jimmy Purdy: Oh man, what are we going to do here? But it's not 20%, right? Like we're not, Based on new cars every month, I'm seeing the needle go the wrong way. And I'm like, okay, we got to work on retention. So what are we doing? We're doing a back to school postcard flyer for all of our existing clients. And we're going to spend all our money trying to get them back in the door instead of acquiring new.

Jimmy Purdy: Of course, you always got to get new. You always got to be constantly branding all always pushing it out there. But the focus right now is getting the clients that we already have in the debt database back in the door. 

James Harris: Yeah. And I think a big piece of that too, Jimmy is when you're looking at it, I know you said you don't want to throw stuff at the wall and see what works, right?

James Harris: But there, there can be a strategic way of doing that when you're using. Tools that allow you to track that data back and figure out what's actually working and see what dollars are bringing back with certain campaigns That's what you can reuse next year. That's what you can change next year if it didn't work I think that's a big piece to it right is making sure that when you're going into it You're really looking at analyzing what is working what's not and having a tangible way of grabbing that and seeing what I like doing 

Jimmy Purdy: Just to clarify, I do like throwing stuff at the wall.

Jimmy Purdy: So you would say, well, I know. Jennifer freaking hates it. And so does my wife. Like, stop coming up with all those ideas. I'm like, I'm telling you, one of these is going to be cold. 

Jennifer Hulbert: Well,  and when we're talking about retention rates, one of the things that we haven't talked about yet is the business model.

Jennifer Hulbert: So Jimmy, you are typically a transmission shop. where customers came to you for those large repairs and not for the maintenance services. Now you're doing tires and alignments. Now you're going to get into maintenance services. So that's part of the marketing plan as well is what is your business model and who do you need to retract attract?

Jimmy Purdy: Yeah. So, Stop stepping over to the dollar to pick up a dime, right? 

Jennifer Hulbert: Correct. 

Jimmy Purdy: But I really want Euro cars. Yeah, but you're not getting any Euro cars. Yeah. So just work on the cars that are, like, coming in. And that's what the classic cars are coming. I don't have to, they just come in organically.

Jimmy Purdy: I get a lot of classic cars and as soon as that word spreads, it's like, oh man, you can work on old cars? Yeah, it's not a problem. And I don't have to spend a dollar marketing towards it. And it's like, well, you know what? That's what's working. And now I got to figure out how to on the business side of it.

Jimmy Purdy: So aside from the marketing side, I got to make that make sense to make money.  But it's like, that's just easy. I had a going through some of my keywords and watching KPIs is another important one. So if you're spending money on Google ads, you better know what's working. Right. And so going through, I saw one of my blog posts for drive train really like took off my drive train because how many times have you looked through?

Jimmy Purdy: Like, what do people search when they're looking for auto repair? Like, what are they typing? What is it? Is it auto repair? Is it auto care? Is it maintenance? Like, what is it? All of a sudden drive train took off. So I just took it and put it on one of my KPIs. And boom, now I'm number one rated if someone searched drive train and it's just like, that costs me nothing other than just watching what was working and then just copy, cut, pasting.

Jimmy Purdy: And now it's on there and I'm ranked number one for drive train. And it's like, I didn't even know people look for that. I didn't even know that was a search term. 

Gregg Rainville: What I was going to ask, what, like what tools for looking at these KPIs, the key performance indicators like what tools do you use outside of your CRM, like, like are there.

Gregg Rainville: Are there any tools that you want to share with the audience? Maybe that you're using? I don't know if you're using like Google Analytics to look at this, but like, what are the tools that are great to have to like, to know what's working, what's not working besides CRM? 

Jennifer Hulbert: So if you're an institute client we have something called the dashboard that pulls in all kinds of data from your shop marketing system or shop management system, and we get all of that information.

Jennifer Hulbert: So. Gross profits, average RO, hours per RO hours for the technicians, and then we get all the marketing. So active customers, new customers, lost customers, we get attrition rates, and that's all pulled in from the management system if you are an institute client. Without that, I think you're pulling data manually from your management system unless CRM and you can pull that in.

Jimmy Purdy: It's a secret, Greg. It's a secret. It's Google analytics. Right. 

Gregg Rainville: It's called the dashboard. 

Jennifer Hulbert: For the Institute. Yes. 

Jimmy Purdy: If you have and we utilize that all the time being a client, right. But for what I was talking about with the keywords, looking through Google analytics having a marketing company that's working for you that actually shows you that stuff and sit down for a month.

Jimmy Purdy: And if you have a question, you can email them and they send you an updated. So I have another dashboard that's just for Google Analytics alone. And it goes through and it shows me all my KPIs. And I can go through and see what's working, what's not, where I'm ranking, where I'm not ranking, where I should be putting Google ads in.

Jimmy Purdy: Right? So one of the big ones was trying to get more Asian vehicles in, right? I want to get some Toyotas and Hondas. That was one of the things I started a couple of months ago to try to get more of those vehicles in because looking, that was one of our highest AROs was Toyota pickup trucks. It's like, people like to spend money on those things, right?

Jimmy Purdy: And Jeeps, but we already had a good thing with Jeep. So, we started doing a Google Ads campaign specifically for Toyota, Honda, and Subaru. That was it. That's all I want. That's all I want to spend my Google ads on. And that's all I'm going to do. Instead of saying, well, let's do Google ads for auto repair.

Jimmy Purdy: Okay. Good luck. You know what that CPC is going to be like, that's crazy, man. You want to compete for that? Like that's got to be organic. That's fishing in a big lake. Oh man. Tiny little fish. Yeah. 

Jennifer Hulbert: That goes back to your business model. So do those type of customers, do they shop and act differently? Is that your avatar or do you need to change your avatar and then be able to communicate the way that they're going to hear you?

Jennifer Hulbert: So when we say marketing, it's this whole big ball.

Jimmy Purdy: Yup. And then knowing which ones you should be for CRM, you should be targeting back. Right? Because if you're constantly having these problems with these certain clients and maybe you find a pattern that everyone that Drives a Volvo isn't someone you like dealing with then maybe not target to Volvos anymore Maybe get your CRM program to stop reaching out to those people I mean that's just what it is Like I everyone wants to make everybody happy But that doesn't make any money and that was like one of my big struggles too is like I want I just want to make Everyone happy.

Jimmy Purdy: So everyone that came through the door was like, yep. Come on in. Come on in. I'll help everybody And then I'm like, I'm not making any freaking money. What's going on here? And once I started realizing, I peel the layers back and start actually saying, okay, Toyota trucks make money. So I'll market towards Toyota trucks.

Jimmy Purdy: Then all of a sudden it's like, it makes sense. Like, yeah, I'm spending four or 5 percent on my marketing budget, but I'm making that hand over fist on ROI. So it's like, if you did that with a Volvo, you're probably not going to do it. Right. Or if you're a domestic shop and you're working on BMWs, you're probably not making the same kind of money target to what makes sense, you know, and it's always got to change.

Jennifer Hulbert: So monitoring that and then acting on that data is important. So knowing what that data is, where to find it and communicating with your marketing team. So a lot of people think that's internal, which typically falls on the shoulders of the owner, but STEER would be. Part of my marketing team, whoever is handling my website and my Google AdWords is part of my marketing team.

Jennifer Hulbert: So communicating with that team on a regular basis of these are the goals that we have set out for the year or the month or the quarter. This is what we think will work getting the opinions of that marketing team, because. They're the experts. STEER is the expert in the CRM. Whoever's handling the Google AdWords is that expert and getting their information and then coming up with a plan to lay it out, to do the best for the shop, monitor the results, make changes and continue to work forward.

Jimmy Purdy: Or you can just do a blind ly and just tilt up the wall, I guess. I don't know. 

Gregg Rainville: No. The the other thing is I'm sure, and I'm sure the dashboard has this, but I think understanding what your customer acquisition cost is. So like, like how much it is to get that Toyota truck through the door, like, like how much are you willing to spend Jimmy to get that, that Toyota truck through the door?

Gregg Rainville: I'm going to ask that as a question, $200? 

Jimmy Purdy: Just right, right to the point. 

Gregg Rainville: Yeah. 

Jimmy Purdy: Yeah. Put the knife to my neck. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you told me that's one of those cars that you want. You want to give me five minutes. I got to get all my stuff open here and look at it. Well, I mean, it just depends on the ARO, right?

Jimmy Purdy: So if our average repair orders is around 1500, then I just kind of averaged across the board. And if I look and see, okay, four trucks is number one and Toyota trucks is number two. Okay. Well maybe we should target more Toyota trucks. Right. And I think that, I think Jennifer, we had a conversation about that where Ford, Chevy, Dodge, people just look up auto repair.

Jimmy Purdy: They don't look up who fixes a Ford truck, who fixes a Dodge truck, who fixes a Chevy truck. Like they just say, who can fix my truck? Right. Like they don't. So, but Toyota, like I have a Toyota Tundra. Who can fix my Toyota Tundra? Who can fix my Toyota Tacoma? And so knowing a little bit of that. Yeah. Yeah.

Jimmy Purdy: It's like knowing a little bit of that. I'm like, okay, maybe I should spend a little money and target that and kind of see what happens. I don't have a lot of database. database driven, you know, behind me, I just that kind of makes sense. Let's see what happens. Right. And I just kind of roll that way, but it's not completely blind anymore anyway.

Jennifer Hulbert: Well, and then having that be part of your marketing budget. So we recommend between four and 6 percent of your annual sales should be towards your marketing budget. So what portion of that is that allocated between CRM, new customer attraction, your website, your. Any of your social media campaigns or any other marketing that you might do.

Jennifer Hulbert: So deciding how to break that up and what's going to be the most impactful. And unfortunately, sometimes you need to make an educated guess and throw some of that mud as long as it's an educated guess, right? 

Jimmy Purdy: I'm a diagnostician. I take all my best educated guess every day. 

James Harris: It's like that leash has got a little bit longer for you, Jimmy.

James Harris: You got a little freedom there now.

Jimmy Purdy: What about website? Like you talked about website and how many shops out there do not have a, you guys both go to 500 shops a year, right? 200 shops. How many of them don't have a website? 

Gregg Rainville: A lot of them have some sort of website. They think it's Facebook, their Facebook's their website. 

James Harris: I was about to say define website.

Gregg Rainville: Or they just have this like Wix website. And I'm seeing a lot, especially on the QuickLube side. And they seem really like proud of their website that their brother built for them. Or, you know, and it's nice but I don't think they understand like how important it is. 

Jennifer Hulbert: Well, there's a difference between having a website and then having a search engine optimized program. And again, that is part of your marketing plan. 

James Harris: Yeah. It even goes back to the pictures you have on your website too, right? You have a bunch of fake pictures on there of a shop that is not yours. And then someone shows up to your shop and it's got dirt floors and that's not what they saw in the picture.

James Harris: It's like, wait a minute. Where am I at? Am I at the right place? That's a part of building that relationship as well and retaining that customer from trust right away. 

Jimmy Purdy: Yeah, good point. Because that's like, how are they going to recommend you if that's the experience they got? They're not going to want to give that experience to someone that they know or love, right?

Jimmy Purdy: Like, they don't want that either. It's like, you go to the website, it's like, yeah, that dude I saw on the website is the same dude that's actually sitting at the office. That just builds trust like right away and it's just amazing to me how many people don't have a website or don't have an email And how that's just such a fun, but then they're spending ten thousand dollars a month on a billboard or a radio ad.

Jennifer Hulbert: Yes 

Jimmy Purdy: So, what do people do when they want to look you up? Well they will just go to my shop, they will, huh? Okay. 

Jennifer Hulbert: And then not tracking the results at all. 

Gregg Rainville: Yeah. And it's wild because we now live in a time where like scheduling is becoming really popular in the automotive repair space. I'm trying to break it into quick lube a little bit.

Gregg Rainville: It's a little. difficult with like first come first serve. But if you told me like three years ago that scheduling would be like a hot software, like I'd tell you a lion just because most of the shops I talked to them that I was visiting there like this is not a hair salon. This is not the dentist.

Gregg Rainville: Like it's really hard to book appointments. Like we don't know if the car is going to be here for 20 minutes or three days. But that's been a breakthrough. But That's the way people want to do business today. Like, like I talked to a shop the other day who's using online scheduling. And I was like, what made you make the switch?

Gregg Rainville: And they told me, they were like, I had a family or I had this family of vehicles. And the son brought his car to my competitor around the corner. And I asked him, I go, what are you doing? Bringing your car there? He goes, they had an online scheduler because he made it really easy for me to do business and book an appointment.

Gregg Rainville: And like, that's the way you need to start thinking, especially during these slow times of making it easy to do business with your repair shop. So it's that switch. 

Jimmy Purdy: Jennifer, you said monitoring too, right? Like tracking it. And that was another. The whole big thing that I was losing, right? Did you spend the money on a billboard or a radio ad and how do you know it's working, right?

Jimmy Purdy: Like the online scheduler, that's pretty easy. They make the online schedule, you know, they make the point and then they show up Oh, it's working. Cool. But like tracking the other stuff that was another one that I was missing out on too and being able to have like a QR code or if you're using like a CRM program, you know, it's working right away.

Jimmy Purdy: You send out the text and you immediately get the people in Yeah, the tracking phone numbers and all that stuff that like that gets kind of missed when you do these kind of off the wall marketing column campaigns, right? Like postcards. That's a tough one. Like, unless they come in with the postcard, then you don't know.

Jimmy Purdy: But it's another part of that process when they come in. Hey, how'd you hear about it? It's like crucial. How did you hear about us? Why are you here today? I know your cards broke, but like, why are you here though? Why did you come to me? 

Jennifer Hulbert: How did you hear about us?

Jimmy Purdy: Yes. And without knowing that, like, how do you know what is working and what's not working.

Gregg Rainville: I was going to, I was going to ask you, Jennifer, just like what kind of marketing is your favorite, like being a coach that's like. The most productive, but maybe the least expensive or maybe we'll say cost effective. What is your favorite 

Jennifer Hulbert: It's CRM.

Gregg Rainville: CRM. Okay. 

Jennifer Hulbert: Because again, your customers know and trust you already.

Jennifer Hulbert: They've already been to your shop and they've seen the stellar service that you're going to or should be providing. So that trust factor is pretty much already. already a given. And then a well qualified service advisor to deliver on the promises made. That's also key. So you can get the phone to ring all day long, but if that call isn't handled correctly, then that customer is not going to come in.

Jennifer Hulbert: So I do agree with CRM that's my go to, and that's going to have the biggest return on investment in my opinion. 

Gregg Rainville: And then what's your favorite for customer acquisition that you've seen work at your shop or for some of your clients? 

Jennifer Hulbert: Google AdWords and a well designed SEO website. So yes, my, you know, my cousin could have made my website and it looks absolutely fantastic, but is it doing its job to get customers to come in the door?

Jennifer Hulbert: That's a whole other type of website. And if you're not paying attention to the CRM, your Google Analytics, meeting with whoever your website provider is, and knowing that you know, you're getting the customer to come in the door. Recently I've had my website rewritten about five or six years ago and recently we started to see our organic searches really fall off.

Jennifer Hulbert: So my whole website, all 106 pages were indexed by Google, but now all 106 pages have new content to be re indexed. So knowing that and having a web company who understands that and can make the recommendations of, hey, these are falling off because we're paying attention to the data and we need to make some changes there.

Gregg Rainville: Excellent. No, this is great. I'm going to open up the chat now. So for anyone who's online right now, I know we probably have about 10 minutes left roughly. 

Jimmy Purdy: For the three of you listening right now, it's time for your questions.

Gregg Rainville: But if anyone has questions, please post them. We're more than happy to to give you, I can give you an educated. 

Jimmy Purdy: Yes. As an answer. So don't It would be an educated guess. I'm not the master, but I think learning and then just like you said, tracking and monitoring it and just constantly making changes.

Jimmy Purdy: Like the website's tough. Like it is so tough and it's a full time job. And I think a lot of us technician turned shop owner, we try to take on as much as we can, right? Like I can fix a car, I can fix anything, right? Like I can fix a sandwich. No problem. But then you start, you know, building the website and you're like, what am I doing this for?

Jimmy Purdy: Like, how much is my time worth? Right? Like the Dan Martel was a buyback your time, like figure out where you should be spending your time. And like building websites, not that you're, that's not what you should be doing. Right. And even with the CRM, like, Oh, I can make phone calls. I can text people.

Jimmy Purdy: And Greg, you brought that up. But what if I just, I can just cold call my clients. Okay. How long are you going to spend doing that? Like when you just have a campaign, you're just sending out automated texts and emails. And then maybe you can narrow it down and we do that at the shop We notice if we're not getting some feedback, we'll have a small percentage and it was okay So you guys I want you to call these five people and I want you to call these five people and that's it like we have a very select amount of people that we Go through and make sure like this is going to be worth the time to make that call to get them back in.

Jimmy Purdy: They spent 3, 000 last year and we haven't seen them in nine months. Let's see what's going on here, right? But without knowing the numbers and seeing that and having those programs in place, man, you're just trying to find a needle in a haystack. It is so much. It's amazing. 

Jennifer Hulbert: We do have a couple of questions and one of them is, are you using AI to generate content for your website?

Jennifer Hulbert: And I am not a website design SEO expert, but I have heard from the experts that we've worked with that using AI to generate content can actually hurt your rankings with Google. So I definitely do not recommend that unless you're having an expert tell you differently. And again, I want a disclaimer here that I am not an SEO expert.

Jennifer Hulbert: But working with a company who can create authentic content for your site is going to help your rankings with Google. 

Gregg Rainville: I feel like Google might be smart enough to know if it's AI content. 

Jennifer Hulbert: They are. From my understanding, 

Gregg Rainville: On that side, I'm not an expert. I'm more on the CRM side, but I would probably think that Google would know that the content being created isn't really human content.

Jimmy Purdy: I think it's got to be like a hybrid, right? Like you got to have some human like stuff in there because there's certain words and certain, what do they call it? phonetics that AI uses to script sentences that are very easy to pick up on. Like that's not how a human being speaks. I'm sorry, but it's all right. It's all factual, but it's not how a human being speaks.

Jimmy Purdy: I use AI a lot for, you know, Facebook posts. That's a big one. I haven't heard anything bad about using Facebook posts. So just boom, generate something on social media and do three posts a day. Facebook constantly. And then we've all seen it with the, with CRM. They're starting to use it to generate reviews for Google for the CRM programs.

Jimmy Purdy: Like, so I don't see anything wrong with that. I mean, I use it for emails all the time. I just make sure to read it. Like don't just post it. 

Jennifer Hulbert: So another question is there a silver bullet in marketing? My opinion is making a plan. So having a plan and following it, knowing who your target customer is, tracking the data, monitoring the data, meeting with your marketing team.

Jennifer Hulbert: Those in my opinions are silver bullets, but a specific campaign no I don't know of one that's just going to generate hundreds of customers to flock through your door. 

Jimmy Purdy: The Budweiser campaign, you know, frogs or maybe the got milk campaign. That was another good one. You know, one thing we didn't talk about was like doing like jingles.

Jimmy Purdy: And I don't know if that's going to be like the next thing for auto repair, but having some sort of audio cue. And I know there's another word for that, but you know, like everyone knows what HBO sounds like when the HBO thing comes on, the logo pops up and it's feel like the audio thing is like that really hits a lot of people and makes them remember you.

Jennifer Hulbert: Well that goes into branding. So how are you branding your business? And top of mind, 

Jimmy Purdy: I think that would probably be the closest thing to a silver bullet maybe is being, having a really solid brand. So you're always. Always thinking about you. It 

Gregg Rainville: Looks like someone's asking Jennifer to speak more a little bit about the Institute.

Gregg Rainville: So what the Institute does, I mean, obviously it sounds like you guys have this amazing dashboard, which I just learned about today. But and obviously the coaching side of things, like what else does the Institute offer, offer clients? And Jimmy, you could probably talk a little bit about it as well too.

Jennifer Hulbert: Sure. So we are an automotive shop owner advisor and management coaching group or company. So we have automotive shop owner groups similar to the 20 groups that you hear. So we're meeting in person with 15 to 20 people in a group and we're traveling around to the actual shops to do an evaluation.

Jennifer Hulbert: We have an advisor training group called the advisor program. We have a manager's program. We have an individual coaching program. And Cecil Bullard and Kent Bullard are the owners and they are a wealth of knowledge and sharing that knowledge with their staff and then communicating that out into every aspect of running an automotive repair.

Jimmy Purdy: It turns you from owning a job. To being a business owner. 

Jennifer Hulbert: Correct. 

Jimmy Purdy: Makes the difference. And I'm I've been two years now and we've taken our sales from, was it about 600,000 last year? And we're on track to break 1.2 this year. 

Jennifer Hulbert: Yep. Doubled in a year. 

Jimmy Purdy: Yeah. And not to mention the net, we actually have a net profit.

Jimmy Purdy: It's not huge, but we're working on that. But knowing that is what is important, right? Yes. Knowing what you're striving for and setting the goals and attaining the goals, and then having Jennifer hold you accountable because she will. You better do those things you said you were going to do.

Jennifer Hulbert: Absolutely. 

Gregg Rainville: There's an event coming up too. I think we can scroll it at the bottom or post it at the bottom. Yep, there we go. Look at that. 

Jennifer Hulbert: So we have the Institute Summit is going to be February 6th through the 8th, 2025. In Amelia Island, Florida. We have a great lineup of speakers coming in. We have all kinds of vendors coming in so you can learn more about the different products like STEER or a whole host of vendors coming in.

Jennifer Hulbert: This is the second one that I'll be participating in. Our first was in 2022, I believe. And it's just great to get all of these like minded people together like any industry event, the camaraderie that happens, the communication that happens, the ideas that flow. I'm just, I'm really excited to get to the Summit and it's in Florida.

Jennifer Hulbert: It is. And for me, that's important. I'm in upstate New York, so Florida, it's not going to be 30 below. 

Jimmy Purdy: It's important for everybody because we're going to Florida. We're in Miami. Greg knows. Good time, Greg. We're going to have a good time, man. 

Gregg Rainville: Ogden part two, but in Miami. Yes. Oh my God. Oh, can't wait. And then we're scrolling down below the the gearbox podcast on your favorite listening podcasts.

Gregg Rainville: Yeah. There's millions of podcasts, but you could find the gearbox podcasts, just do a simple search right on the app, 

Jimmy Purdy: lots of conversation, just like this with other shop owners across the whole nation. I go to different events. I talk to different shop owners, talk about their journey, talk about what's works for them and their shop.

Jimmy Purdy: If you're ever interested in being on it, you can find me on Facebook. I'd love to have anybody on. I like to hear the stories. There's so much we can learn from each other when we learn to collaborate. So, 

Jennifer Hulbert: Correct and I'm excited to be a part of this webinar with STEER. I think communicating this type of information out to the general public of people who just are learning how can I impact my business and what are the small tweaks that I can make.

Jennifer Hulbert: So I'm really excited to be here and happy to have been part of this team. 

Gregg Rainville: Yeah, this has been a great panel. I've learned a lot. I love, I knew Jimmy was kind of a wild child, but with, but it's good to know that Jennifer, you're there to keep them in control. But yeah, this is fantastic. With STEER.

Gregg Rainville: There are some new features coming out in the next few months. So we are doing a lot with Google. We have reserved with Google. We are doing a lot with scheduling, so doing some stuff on the customer acquisition side. I know we talk a lot about customer attention, but we are focusing a little bit more on the customer acquisition side and more to come with that.

Gregg Rainville: But again, I appreciate everyone's time and everyone joining the webinar today, I think we'll have part three in a couple of months. I'm looking forward to that with the Institute and I am looking forward to the event next year that hopefully. Me and James and we'll be attending again and find in the hotspot. Jimmy, we're going to go meet some locals and learn how to advertise our business. 

Jimmy Purdy: Social media marketing. One on one. We'll just have a class. And it's like, when's the class start at about eight 30 in the morning? No. Excellent. Cool guys. Well, thanks for having me. This has been fun.

Jennifer Hulbert: Yes.

Jimmy Purdy: I enjoy all your company. And I mean, I learned something every time I talked with. industry professionals like yourselves. So this is, this has been a great opportunity to be here. 

Jennifer Hulbert: Yes. Thank you again. It's been a lot of fun. 

James Harris: Awesome. Thanks y'all. I appreciate it.