From Storytelling to Brand Presence: How to Thrive in the Automotive Repair Industry with Chris Jones [E056]

Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - This is the aftermarket radio network.

Speaker 2 (00:00:10) - Well, Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Auto Repair Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Brian Walker, and our co-host, as usual, is Kim, and we are here today with Chris Jones, editor of Ratchet and Wrench magazine. Before we get into our podcast, I'd like to thank our sponsors, Repairpal for providing this episode. Repairpal will introduce your shop to new customers through Repairpal, the largest site for auto repair. Learn more at Repairpal. Forward slash shops. Well, hi, Chris. Thank you for being with us today.

Speaker 1 (00:00:42) - Well, hey, Brian, Great to be here.

Speaker 2 (00:00:44) - Yeah, we're excited to get to talk to you today and learn more about what you're doing over at Ratchet and Ranch and talk about some exciting things that y'all have coming up.

Speaker 1 (00:00:55) - Sounds good. Excited to talk to you about it. Yeah. Hey, was the first time that we met, was it at Apex and SEMA last year? Because we got together and had breakfast.

Speaker 1 (00:01:03) - Was that our first time meeting in person? I feel like it wasn't, but I'm not sure that was because you and I had kind of exchanged messages. Yeah. And then we decided, let's all have breakfast and talk together. And I'm like, Yeah, let's do it. So that was the first time we met in person. So social media does that, right? When you follow someone so heavily, you're like, Wait, have we met in real life yet? And you know what? You just reminded me of our instant message or direct messaging back and forth in Instagram. I think that we still owe each other a t shirt. I think that's how that all started. Brian probably doesn't even know.

Speaker 2 (00:01:38) - I have no idea.

Speaker 1 (00:01:39) - That's exactly what it was. You would. I had my ratchet wrench t shirt on. You commented on it, and then that's kind of where the relationship kicked off and then kind of progressed from there.

Speaker 2 (00:01:47) - And what you're saying is true because, you know, we have team members in various places throughout the United States and the majority of our team is here in Louisiana.

Speaker 2 (00:01:56) - But we have a team retreat once a year where we get together at the beach. And just this last one, we had one of our team members that was a they were a new hire that year. But I didn't even realize until we got there that I've never met that person face to face because, you know, technology makes the world so small now.

Speaker 1 (00:02:16) - It's fun. But it's interesting because you approach someone like at one of our industry events, I'm like, Wait, have we met before? Because I don't really know. But it's all right. Well, it's from social media that I feel like I obviously got to know you and you are this. I feel like my own perception of Chris Jones. When I first started seeing you on Social, in my mind, you'd been around the industry for a long time. And then from our breakfast together in Vegas, I'm like, Wait a minute, this guy hasn't been in the industry very long. So I feel like from social media, you're this well-rounded guy that's done a variety of things.

Speaker 1 (00:02:56) - I am very curious. What have you not done that you're like, I got to do this. This is something that's out there in the world. I want to get this done. Is there anything Wow, there's so much to do. Isn't it like life? There's so many things you can do, so many things you want to do. In my career, I don't know. I've done so much that I really liked doing. Like podcasting was like the crowning achievement, you know, years ago. I think it'd be kind of fun to do a YouTube show. I think that I see a lot of YouTubers, they have their shows and I'm like, Man, that'd be kind of fun to do that. I'm not in front of camera kind of guy, but I can learn to be. But I think that would be a lot of fun at some point to either that do that or do like, you know, like Facebook lives with people or just some sort of live interview, live interview segments.

Speaker 2 (00:03:38) - I'm going to turn my camera around, Chris, and those of you all who are watching online will get to see this. But we've got our studio over here and it's all like set up with the switchers and everything to where we could run a live show on YouTube or Facebook or whatever. And I mean, these days, as simple as just picking up your phone and going live. But I mean, comparatively speaking, I have nothing in that setup over there compared to what a television studio would. But I can sit here and switch between the different camera angles and run a live show with just my fingertips on the switcher. And it's just amazing what we can do now. So what you're talking about, it's not out of reach at all?

Speaker 1 (00:04:21) - No, not at all. And I'm always looking to grow my skill sets that are comparative like. So right now I do editing. Of course, podcasting and editing go hand in hand, YouTube and editing, but go hand in hand. And maybe like one day learning photography would all go with that.

Speaker 1 (00:04:34) - So I'm always trying to marry, like all my skill sets together, kind of my personal quest. One thing that I didn't tell you about this podcast, as you see, we're on video and you follow us on social, so you probably know that we're going to be pulling clips of this. So you're doing video and probably didn't realize it, but yeah, you're gonna be out there. You could totally do that for sure. And there's so many people in our industry already doing that kind of stuff that you can kind of dabble in it before you jump in yourself. And we've been talking about doing some Facebook Live. Things like that in our group. Maybe we need to pull you in there. Oh, so, yeah, no, I know it's a video is amazing. With all of that being said, for those that don't know, you have, like you said, this background of having done a lot of things. I don't want to bore people with a whole resume of, you know, I don't know about you.

Speaker 1 (00:05:29) - It drives me crazy when people are like, Hey, tell us about yourself. And it goes that way. So for fear of it coming off that way, I do want you to share with the audience what got you into the automotive industry because you don't have an automotive background. There's a lot of people that have come into the automotive space and don't have an automotive background. So what got you into this automotive industry? Obviously ratchet wrench, but you know, fill in the dots there. Yeah. So we were coming out of Covid. I was previously, you know, running an independent writing business where I was overseeing a couple of magazines. Some of the publishers were concerned about around two of Covid. You know, they weren't sure if there's going to be a round two and if advertisers were going to continue to pull their dollars out of the publications. And so for my benefit, I felt like I needed to probably just move into something more full time. And so I saw the ad for a magazine editor that married every single skill that I had, which is something that's rare to find.

Speaker 1 (00:06:24) - And so I applied for the for the position. And that's kind of how I got here. Had a couple of interviews and here we.

Speaker 2 (00:06:31) - Are, the automotive industry. It's just, you know, I find that it's just full of these salt of the earth people. It's one of those things that when you get into it, you kind of can't help but but love it. I'm curious, coming from outside of the industry into the industry, what what have been your thoughts and perceptions and everything as you've gotten more involved in it?

Speaker 1 (00:06:52) - On automotive? Yes, I think it's a very passionate industry. I mean, that's evident from the jump. Like, you know, once you get into it and when I went to Vision, that was the very first thing I went into, and that was three weeks or a month into me working the job, just seeing all the people and how much they cared about automotive, how much they cared about the customers, how much they cared about the people that were working for them.

Speaker 1 (00:07:13) - That was very apparent. So the passion was still remains there. I think the industry wants to grow. It wants to get more diverse. It wants to an industry that's about serving people on every level, all walks of life. It wants to give everybody the opportunity to have a great career and at the same time be a part of their community and really take a representative part of their community and serve their community. You see a lot of that with repair shop owners who are either founding non-profits, who are doing things for single mothers or people who are underserved. You see, you see it in some shops in their hiring practices. You know, they're trying to diversify. So I think that the industry wants to be very forward moving and I think that's a good thing. You talk about that and I was just texting with someone today literally who said something I have noticed about this industry is that there's a great community within it. And they ask me, how long has it been like that? And my response was, when Brian and I started our shop, we didn't know about that.

Speaker 1 (00:08:12) - And I refer to it as being on an island, right? Because I hear that from lots of shop owners all the time where they say, you know, I just felt like I was on this island by myself and just kind of having to figure it out all alone. When Brian and I were introduced to the industry as a whole, from going to one event is when we realized, wait a minute, there's life outside of our shop in this industry. There's people who care about one another who want to help and that sort of thing. So it makes me wonder. I know that I've had this conversation with others as well, but there are shop owners who either know that this world exists and they're choosing not to be involved in it. And then there are just the ones who have no idea. And I don't remember who we were talking about, who we were talking to just recently. We might have been on a podcast where someone was telling us that there was a shop owner that they were talking to who literally or they walked in and they walked into this shop and this guy, they were inviting him to an event and the shop owner was like, Are you kidding? I'm either going to die in here because it's going to kill me or I'm going to die because I can't leave.

Speaker 1 (00:09:19) - And I was like, Man, that is such a terrible place to be. And so I don't know how as an industry, we find those shop owners who are feeling that way and they're obviously their health is probably suffering. They're losing time with family and they just don't know. It's the ones that don't know that really break my heart to realize there's something right at your fingertips that if they just went to Facebook and did a search for auto repair and looked at groups, they'd find a ton of places to connect. So yeah, I kind of got off on a soapbox there. But it's good to hear that you found that when you came into this industry. Yeah, it's like the saying, you know, no man is an island. Like you have to find your people quickly when you're in a business, when you've started a business, you know, whether you're running a business, you need to find like minds as quickly as possible if you need coaching and need. Coaching and consulting. You got to find that quickly because systems and processes are the things that are going to free you.

Speaker 1 (00:10:14) - Ultimately, the other things are going to liberate you in business. If you don't have those, if you're in your own way, you're going to risk, you're going to risk your health, you're going to risk your your livelihood and everything around it.

Speaker 2 (00:10:24) - I love talking about sponsors of the podcast who have already worked with and who have used before. So today I'm super excited to talk to you about Repairpal, which, if you didn't know, will introduce your shop to new customers through Repairpal, the largest site for auto repair and through the recommendation of their partners like USAA, CarMax and Consumer Reports. Our shop was in a Repairpal certified network and it was great for getting new customers who were looking for more than just oil changes. The average Repairpal customer spends over $600 on their first visit. I loved it, especially because we all know that consumers still mistrust repair shops. But the millions of customers that visit Repairpal monthly, they trust Repairpal certified shops for their high quality and great service. And there's no fear about being overcharged.

Speaker 2 (00:11:12) - So we were able to just focus on the repair. I highly recommend you check them out. It's the way to grow your business. Go to repair shops, get one month of service free and save $150 off certification. So speaking of people of the industry, I mean, your job is essentially telling stories. What are some of those most powerful, impactful stories that you have experienced in this industry that you just love telling people?

Speaker 1 (00:11:41) - We've done a lot of really good stories. I think one of my favorite ones was last November we did Diversity story, and that was one of my favorite because I felt like it was one of the most candid that I'd done so far. We really talked about just the diversity of the industry and just, you know, where the industry's going and how far it still has to go. I thought that was one of the most powerful ones that we had done. I think last year, one of my favorite ones was the ratchet Wrench all star with John Kerr, just how far he had come, how a man can just take a vision and take a step towards that and then just run with it.

Speaker 1 (00:12:11) - I thought that was just a really inspiring story. And then probably the one with Tim Koski of Stellar Automotive in Minnesota, where coming through Covid, you know, he had to let all of his people go and realize that not that great of a leader. I've got to figure this out. And then he's rebuilt his entire company and it's absolutely amazing. So those are some of my favorite stories that I've done so far. I'm sure I'm probably missing 1 or 2 here or there, but those are really powerful stories that I like to tell.

Speaker 2 (00:12:37) - Well, one of the things that you find, the more that you talk to and interact with the people in the industry is that every one of them has a story. And those stories, they can really be amazing and inspiring. One of my favorite stories that I love to tell, and of course it makes sense with us being in marketing, but one of my favorite stories that I've read, I should say in Ratchet Wrench that I love to tell people about is Mikasa Automotive.

Speaker 2 (00:13:00) - The when they were in this tan metal building in the middle of an industrial area that people had been driving by, or people would always tell them, we've been driving by it for years and never noticed it. So they decided to do a makeover and they turned this just industrial building into this absolutely beautiful facility. And I love reading those stories and the stories that you'll tell through the publication because it gives inspiration to so many people. And I've I've shared that. And I don't know how many podcasts and in the articles that I've written of linked out to it because I think it's something people need to know. And all of those stories are stories that people can learn something from.

Speaker 1 (00:13:38) - Yeah, I don't know that you even know that. Chris. You know, not everybody tells you how often your work is being used, but Brian just mentioned that article, but we've referenced it in classes that we've taught. Put it up on the screen and are directing people because so many shops don't think about shop owners. I should say.

Speaker 1 (00:14:00) - Right shops aren't humans, but the shop owners often don't think about what the brand presence means and how people are driving by and looking at it. And that was an epic example of before and after and and just what updating the outside of their facility meant to customers driving by. I'll share that. My favorite story actually just came out recently. People that know us know that Brian and I are beach lovers, right? And I know there have been people who have asked us before, how do you do personalized marketing for all these automotive repair shops? Right? They're all just shops who fix cars like it's the same story over and over again. But it is absolutely not. Every shop has their own personal touch, their own company culture, their own feel, personality, all that stuff. And just a simple story that just came out that surprised me. It hit my inbox and I was like, What? I shared it with our whole team. It is a shop on the in the coastal areas in the northeast, I want to say in Connecticut, maybe, but it had this beautiful beach vibe and it's just so neat how shops can say, This is who we are, this is what we like.

Speaker 1 (00:15:17) - And you literally walk into the shop and it feels like this beach coastal cottage, you know, the one I'm talking about. I do. It's this guy right here. Oh, wow. Look at that. Right on my desk. So I don't know if you can see it, but yeah, that's it. There it is. Yeah. See, I didn't read it in the magazine. It came in the email. So that's what's great is it comes and I don't know that we've gotten that one yet. I need to Brian may be hogging it. Do you know that I had to go subscribe myself so that it came to me because Brian hogs the magazines. So anyways, I love that one. I have a question for you. Mostly out of my own dumb curiosity. I think I know what the job of an editor is, but I'm not completely sure. Like, I see you connecting with people all over the place. I see you at events, I see you doing a podcast to see you writing.

Speaker 1 (00:16:11) - Tell me more. Like what is your job at? So there's Ratchet and wrench, but it's endeavor business media, right? And there's other magazines like I know we connected one of our clients to the modern tire dealer, I think. Which falls under your umbrella as well. So what do you do there? So as an editor, I would say me personally, my number one responsibility is to cultivate relationships. So I'm always talking to people, whether it's on LinkedIn or Facebook or Instagram. But I'm always trying to meet shop owners. I'm always trying to meet people who are in the industry because invariably those are the people that will become my sources. It would become pipelines to great story ideas. They'll become people who have their ears to the ground and who know what's going on in the industry. So for for me, that's the number one thing, is making sure that I'm always cultivating good relationships with people who are in the industry. Beyond that, the next thing is, once I get to that point, it's just finding stories, you know, coming up with story ideas, things that are interesting to people, finding out what's what's interesting in the industry.

Speaker 1 (00:17:08) - What an editor does typically is towards the end of the year, we develop our editorial calendar, and our editorial calendar will give us pretty much the governing guidance for the entire year. Here's what we're going to write about each month. So each month we've got a series of stories that we're focused on. And it's I mean, it can be fluid. Sometimes we change those out depending on what's trending in the industry. If things change or whatever. But we develop our editorial calendar and then we write to that. So then we start looking for sources and people who would be great people to speak to as subject matter experts for each particular story we do, and then get the stories written. We use freelance writers for that and then assemble the magazine and deploy it. It's kind of a quick and dirty. I think I even connected you to a writer, didn't I? You did. And his his first story will be in our August issue. He did a very good job, too. Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (00:17:53) - Yeah, you're welcome. Brian probably doesn't even know about that. I do. Do you? All right? Very good. Well, so we talked just now about your job, right? And I love that you started out with the fact that it has to do with relationships and conferences and that sort of thing. You have a conference coming up that you're hosting. Yeah. Do you want to tell us about that? I do. I'm excited about it, too. It's the Restaurant Management Conference. It's September 20th through 23rd. We're going to be at the Hyatt Regency in Aurora, Colorado, this year. Last year we were in Texas, had a blast down there. And so we're looking to replicate that on the same level in Colorado. So it's a great opportunity for shop owners to actually come hang out with their peers, have peer based education. It's very intimate. We keep it small intentionally so that shop owners can have the opportunity to network with as many people as possible. And of course, we have our vendors there so they can actually work with potential service providers who can help improve their shop.

Speaker 1 (00:18:50) - But the emphasis there definitely is education and networking, the two biggies, and it's the management conference. So that's the focus there. That's why you said shop owners and managers and. Right? Yeah, shop owners. It can be the service advisors with them. It can be people who are future leaders, people that are grooming to become leaders in the shop. It can be their service managers. So anybody who is in the management role in a shop is invited to attend. You said small and intimate, which as a marketer in my mind means it's going to fill up. I think we had about 300 350. Okay. Is the size.

Speaker 2 (00:19:23) - That's a nice sized conference because it allows you to meet the people there. It allows you to create those relationships and the bigger conferences are great. But we found that those smaller conferences, we're able to create relationships in a very different way. Some of the larger ones can be overwhelming with the number of people there.

Speaker 1 (00:19:41) - Yeah, and we keep the class sizes to 50 to 60 minutes so that you have an opportunity to hear the speaker talk to the speaker after classes and have a little breathing room.

Speaker 1 (00:19:48) - Oh, well, that is refreshing. It's almost like a Ted talk. And you know, we're used to teaching for our classes, three hour classes, and they're great. You get you leave with a lot of information. But there is something refreshing about those shorter classes like that. I didn't realize that. Good to know.

Speaker 2 (00:20:07) - And Aurora, that's just right outside of Denver. So not a bad place to be in September.

Speaker 1 (00:20:11) - No, no, not at all.

Speaker 2 (00:20:13) - Beautiful, beautiful area.

Speaker 1 (00:20:15) - So I want to come back to something you said a few minutes ago with regard to your editorial calendar. We value that right, because we very often are looking ahead at marketing and we work with our clients. Same thing, kind of as you get closer to the end of the year. And I know specifically with our social media and I think our SEO team works together with that will lay out a tentative, year long look at what we're going to focus on for them. But being able to pivot is such an important, I don't know, important thing to leave in the tank.

Speaker 1 (00:20:49) - They're being able to adjust, like you said, to trends and and that sort of thing. So I can't imagine that the launch of ChatGPT and how it may have impacted your editorial calendar, you know, that was such a big thing that came kind of out of the blue. Did that impact either just including AI in that discussion? Like how did that impact your editorial calendar? How does does it impact you as writers? The magazine in general talked to us about how that played out for you. Talk about like the. Suffer the use of the technology on our end. Editorially, I guess either. Okay. So from an industry standpoint, we're trying to figure out, you know, who the best subject matter experts are to really pull in to talk about the use of ChatGPT in the industry, how it's going to affect and change the industry. So that's something that I'm actively working on right now, is trying to to ensure that up and figure out what are the best angles to discuss that within for shop owners.

Speaker 1 (00:21:50) - And so I've talked to my advisory board and they've given me some things that they were interested in. So we're trying to hunt those things down right now. From a editorial standpoint, we I really haven't used it a ton. I've used it personally just to explore and try it out. And it's I mean, I can definitely say that it's very astute for being a research tool. Like if I need to research things quickly and bring back results quickly, it works very well for that. It's very useful for creating really quick social posts in mass, so I can see its usefulness as a companion tool. As far as like your editorially speaking, I, of course I wouldn't write with it, but yeah, there's a companion piece. It definitely it has a lot of promise and a lot of upside, so it'll be interesting to see from an industry standard how ChatGPT affects shops and in terms of how they want to use. Yeah, that may be a second podcast that we do with you talk about all that.

Speaker 1 (00:22:37) - O'Brien has a lot of opinions about it. He's I see him getting ready to say something that I just want to say. I love how you called it a companion tool. That's a great way, I think, to look at it, because if people try to use it by itself without putting their human input into it, it can lead to just poor quality. And again, I think we could probably talk a whole nother podcast just about that. It's very akin to the quote unquote self-driving vehicle. There's a lot of bugs. It's not truly a self-driving vehicle, so to speak. And the same thing with ChatGPT. It's not truly a content creating mechanism yet kind of a recall tool, but it doesn't really put together usable content that even sounds remotely human.

Speaker 2 (00:23:21) - Most of the time. So speaking of writing, I would imagine that that writing and the ability to write is something that you're probably passionate about given your choice of career. I often tell our listeners that one of the most powerful things that you can learn how to do when it comes to marketing your business is to learn how to write.

Speaker 2 (00:23:40) - What are your thoughts on that? Oh, I 100% agree.

Speaker 1 (00:23:43) - Like, I think every business owners took a copywriting course hands down. I think every business owner really needs to sit down and learn how to communicate in a written format. 100%.

Speaker 2 (00:23:53) - Yeah. And it's something where you'll hear people say a lot of times you'll hear people say, I don't like to read, but you'll definitely hear them say, I don't like to write. But it is one of the most undervalued skills that you can possibly have as a shop owner. And I go all the way back to I think that one of the reasons why I write and enjoy writing is when I was a technician, I knew that my money was made with the pen. That was the most valuable tool that I had. And it came through giving very detailed descriptions of what I did because I was a Mercedes tech working in the Mercedes dealer, and there were codes there for every action that we took as a technician, every test that we did. So I would write these very detailed descriptions and I would be paid based off of the things that I wrote.

Speaker 2 (00:24:37) - And I made it a very easy job for the person who was submitting the warranty claims on our behalf. And that is something that led to me writing in this business. And I really I think that it is something that all the shop owners really should learn to do, that it is a incredibly valuable skill set and to not and I'm not going to get on a soapbox here, but to not lean into the easy way of doing things like with AI now, but to really show their own thought leadership through writing. And of course, everybody who listens to this podcast knows video also. But I just think it's an incredibly valuable skill.

Speaker 1 (00:25:15) - There's like you hit the nail on the head. If you're going to be a thought leader, you have to be able to articulate yourself on paper. I think it just gives you such a competitive edge. So do you have a tip? Like let's say that there's a shop owner listening and you guys have just inspired him or her to go write their first blog or whatever it might be, but they want to take one of those classes.

Speaker 1 (00:25:36) - Where would a shop owner go to get started with learning that? Do you have a recommendation for taking a copywriting course? Yeah. Like where do you go for that? I mean, I guess you can just google it. But yeah, I don't know that I have anywhere specific. I know Gary Halpern has written books on copywriting. He's kind of one of the forefront experts on copywriting. I would say like one of the things that I would tell people always just write like you talk, start that way, start very simply, write like you speak. And the thing is, you don't have to write like you don't have to be a stickler or be legalistic about it. You don't have to write with physical pen and paper. Microsoft Word. You hit the dictation button and just start talking to the software and just dictate directly into the software and then you can edit yourself. So I think just talk slowly, speak clearly and just articulate. And the software does a very good job of taking all your words and putting them together right on a page.

Speaker 1 (00:26:23) - And all you have to do is edit yourself.

Speaker 2 (00:26:25) - I just wrote it over. 6000 word piece on the most common mistakes that are made in auto repair shop marketing. And from the beginning, I kind of threw it out there that I'm going to throw the Webster's dictionary and the AP manual out the window and I'm just going to write this and be real and authentic. And it actually is one of my favorite pieces that I've written because I did exactly what you said. I wrote the way that I would talk, and Kim was laughing because I have a line in there. When I'm talking about something, I'm talking about something being a hot freaking mess. And I normally wouldn't include those kind of thoughts in my writing. But it was a very refreshing thing to be able to just write it exactly the way that I would have a conversation with a friend about it. Yeah, because.

Speaker 1 (00:27:08) - These guys have been in the industry ten, 20, 30 years. They have the head knowledge, they just can't get it from their down to paper.

Speaker 1 (00:27:14) - So yeah, just speak to the software because you are an expert. That blog was funny because it was supposed to be five. I assigned it to Brian. I was like, I want you to write a blog about the five marketing mistakes. And he did. But then he was like, You know what? We have a team of incredibly smart, brilliant people, and he threw it out there to them and ended up with 13 marketing mistakes. And I think that's why it ended up being such a long, practically a pillar. But in fact, we are going to turn that blog into a class and teach that. So it's good stuff and I think people get stymied by that. You don't have to spell or be good with grammar, just get it on paper. That's what editors are for. That's what I do. I clean up right. We don't have an editor in house here. So that's why Brian writes most of our blogs. But our team writes, I write, and I'm pretty positive that you can go click and read.

Speaker 1 (00:28:07) - And without knowing who wrote it, if people that follow us, they can probably say, Oh, Kim wrote that. Oh, Brian wrote that, and then get to the bottom and realize, Yep, that's exactly who it was. Because we do. We write the way we talk, which means I probably ramble on in some of my blogs.

Speaker 2 (00:28:22) - And that is one of the beautiful things about AI because I love playing devil's advocate with. I do see both sides of it. I think it's an amazing tool and I think it's a very dangerous tool. At the same time, if it gets out of hand or is used incorrectly. But you're talking about like that shop owner that may want to write something. And I think what what keeps a lot of the shop owners that I know from writing is they feel like they're not great at grammar and you know, those sorts of things, even spelling and they can produce a piece of content, like you say, where they're just dictating it and then they can take that piece of content, upload it into ChatGPT and have it rewrite it in a way where it will be grammatically correct and it won't have any spelling errors or anything in it.

Speaker 2 (00:29:06) - So I do think that it's an amazing tool. However, I do still think it would be better to just write it the way that you say it and put it out there for the world. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:29:14) - And just, you know, run it through grammarly or pro writing a one of those and that's which is also based ironically. But yes run is one of those tools. I was going to wrap this up by asking you, but I suspect maybe we just answered this question, which is with all of the articles you've written, the stories you've helped tell, all of that stuff, I was going to ask you, is there one major business lesson or tip or strategy or challenge you throw out there? And I feel like it would be learn to write, but I don't know. What would you say if I had to say, there's one thing, it's honor your processes? I think that's number one. I think sometimes we get fixated on chasing the goal, just set the goal and then put the processes under the processes and systems will get you to the goal focus, honing those fine tuning those every day and let that be the end of it.

Speaker 1 (00:30:03) - You probably just made Brian's heart skip a beat because if you don't know this, we are big EOS fans. We implemented EOS, which obviously is a big part of that and we just had our quarterly offsite EOS leadership meeting yesterday where we left with people that know EOS rocks or projects for the quarter. That has to do with really fine tuning our processes which we have in place. But we realized, whoa, wait a minute, actually, we have some holes to fill. So that's a great one. I love that.

Speaker 2 (00:30:36) - Well, Chris, it's been great having you on today. We appreciate you spending some time with us. And for folks who want to get in touch with you or who want to learn more about the ratchet wrench conference that is coming up, how would they do that?

Speaker 1 (00:30:49) - They can go to RW conference, reach out to to get the ratchet wrench conference and to reach me directly. You can go to ratchet Wrench right there. My email address is on the site and we can go from there.

Speaker 2 (00:31:00) - All right. Well, we'll put that information in the show notes. Thank you all listeners, again for listening to the Auto Repair Marketing Podcast. We are just one of five amazing podcasts that are on the aftermarket radio network. You can find all of those that Aftermarket Radio network. We hope that you'll listen in again next week. And until then, go fill those bays.

Speaker 3 (00:31:21) - You've been listening to the Auto Repair Marketing podcast with Kim and Brian Walker. Follow the. Podcast on your favorite listening app. Find their emails in the show notes and visit them at Shop Marketing Pros. Let Kim and Bryan know what you want discussed because they're all about advancing the aftermarket.