Gearbox Podcast

Jimmy Purdy [00:00:00]:
Welcome to the Gearbox Podcast, where we dive deep into the dynamic world of automotive repair and ownership. I'm your host, Jimmy Purdy, an experienced technician turned shop owner with a passion for sharing insights, stories and conversations with industry leaders. This is the Gearbox Podcast. Well, tell me, tell me a little about. I mean, I don't really know what exactly do you take care of like the Google Ads or what is exactly that as far as marketing is concerned that you kind of handle.

Christian Mosley [00:00:45]:
Yeah, so I kind of like a full, like the full process of lead generation. So, you know, the way I look at marketing is, you know, you have, if you have a 50% retention rate, like, you're never gonna, you're never gonna grow, right? So it's like we, I think growing up, you know, our retention rate was around 65, 70, 75%. It's like, that's a solid rate for like a growing economy. There's customers coming into the, you know, into the city, constantly moving in, moving out, people getting new cars, people, you know, and so it's like 70. It's like 70, 75%. You're, you're killing it. So it's like I do, you know, I started with social media. It was just, let's put up some posts and then it moved into reputation management.

Christian Mosley [00:01:37]:
Let's respond to reviews, let's generate reviews. And then that kind of evolved into like a local PPC or local SEO, you know, so your website SEO more and then for local, it's more particularly your GBP Google business profile. So kind of just like managing the whole digital presence and then you combine that with paid ads with Google or Meta can just run the whole thing.

Jimmy Purdy [00:02:07]:
Take a look at everything. It's funny you brought up retention because we were just talking about that. We had our, our monthly, you know, meeting with the team this evening and we were just talking about retention and how to.

Christian Mosley [00:02:20]:
Yeah.

Jimmy Purdy [00:02:21]:
And how to do that. And one of the things we did, so everything that every vehicle that came in, we would do an inspection, we would charge for. It was 99 bucks. It was actually 150 for a long time. We did a really, really in depth inspection. It was an hour before we even touched the car. And we kind of whittled that back down to 99. And then we got to the point and said, okay, hey, look, this is what we'll do.

Jimmy Purdy [00:02:38]:
You come in, it's 99 bucks. If you do any of the repairs that we find, we'll waive that.

Christian Mosley [00:02:44]:
Yeah, right.

Jimmy Purdy [00:02:45]:
And the advisors are like, we're going to What? And my coach is like, you're going to what? And everyone's like, you're going to, you're going to. It's. You're going to give free.

Christian Mosley [00:02:52]:
It's like, what are you doing?

Jimmy Purdy [00:02:53]:
Yeah, it's free. And I'm like, well, I looked at it from a marketing standpoint, right? And I'm like, our retention was like 38%. I'm like, yeah. I'm like, how do we fix this? Right? People just aren't coming back. And it's like, well, if they're coming in, having to spend money every time they come through the door, it's like, who wants to go back to that? Yeah, I don't care who you, how good you are, you know. So as of this is actually Mark's one year since we started doing the, the no cost inspection if, if any repairs, right? We've, we're at 56% retention now.

Christian Mosley [00:03:28]:
Okay.

Jimmy Purdy [00:03:29]:
Isn't that wild? And we, we're about a hundred cars a month that we roll through the shop. So $100 a pop, like that's a huge chunk of change, right? Like, yeah, that's massive. We've, our sales have grown. Like we went from 1 point, almost 1.1, to just over 1, almost 1.3 at the end of this year. So we grew. We got a higher retention rate, but we're discounting our service.

Christian Mosley [00:03:50]:
Yeah, that's all that matters.

Jimmy Purdy [00:03:51]:
Pretty interesting though, isn't it?

Christian Mosley [00:03:52]:
Like, that's all that matters.

Jimmy Purdy [00:03:54]:
Yeah.

Christian Mosley [00:03:54]:
And I mean, that's why I like to educate clients about lifetime value of a client. And you know, so I grew up in the quick lube industry, right. So, you know, my parents opened up a, you know, we're changing oil, we're doing inspections or changing or doing tire rotations all day long. And that was our business for the first 15 years. And then, you know, we, I graduated college and moved and then moved back into the business and it was like, came into this $500,000 repair edition that my brother and my father were building. And it's like, okay, like, so how do we do this business? And we've done, we're changing oil and we're, you know, we're doing 3,000 cars a month, like changing oil and doing inspections. Yeah, like 100 cars a day, no joke. And so we joined ATI and you know, back then it was, you know, chubby.

Christian Mosley [00:04:54]:
Still had it. This is, I think this was back in probably 2015, 2014, maybe 2013, back, you know, 10 years ago, roughly. And you know, Just, just doing like a multi point inspection. Our, our. Our ticket average doubled like overnight. Just doing, you know, simple like callbacks and some like we, we doubled our revenue with ATI over the first. First year. Now this is, it was our, our, our situation was difficult.

Christian Mosley [00:05:26]:
You know, 50, 60, 70, 80 oil changes coming through our oil change bays every single day. And then people have that. Their mind that like you're there for oil changes only. And we take our car for break somewhere else. Right. We take our car for the alternator starter somewhere else. And so we spent just. I mean still to this day that location has issues like converting like the mentality of a client from quick lube to full service auto repair.

Christian Mosley [00:05:56]:
But man, it's a whole different business. They're two different businesses.

Jimmy Purdy [00:06:02]:
Well, it seems like that's kind of a pain point for I think a lot of shops. And I've noticed a lot in the area that used to be specialized in one thing or another. Kind of like putting the big sign out front that they're full auto now. And I've noticed like the Lube and go or Jiffy Lube. Okay. Jiffy Lube is a national. We have a local Lube and Go which is like this basically. And I, I don't know why they.

Jimmy Purdy [00:06:24]:
It's like the exact same thing, but one's like locally owned and one's not. But anyway, they, they've been moving more into general auto repair as well. And they're trying to, you know, take on that, that kind of. And it's like, man, that just seems so because we went from transmission specialty to starting to market for full general auto repair. And that was probably four years ago, which I guess isn't very long in the grand scheme of things. But I still to this day, like everyone's like, oh, I didn't know you do anything else than transmission. It's like I was a transmission shop for two years.

Christian Mosley [00:06:54]:
Like, man, I've been just yeah. Face for years for four now.

Jimmy Purdy [00:06:59]:
Like twice as much time I've marketed as a general auditor than I did. But it's like you make that first impression and that's all that matters, right? It's all interesting, man. I just.

Christian Mosley [00:07:08]:
Yeah.

Jimmy Purdy [00:07:10]:
But I think.

Christian Mosley [00:07:12]:
And like the, not to interrupt but like the, the brand. So the brand of the business that my parents opened, it's called Kwikkar. So it's K W I K K A R. And so it's like this, this fast. Let's, let's go like let's, let's blow and go. Type of like language. So customers already being primed, this is like a fast, quick location. You know, we're not there for, to wait an hour and a half or.

Christian Mosley [00:07:36]:
No, this is a three hour old change at the dealership. Like you're, you're here for their 20 minute oil change, right?

Jimmy Purdy [00:07:41]:
So I think a lot of people struggle with that though. I hear that a lot. I hear it a lot more than I really anticipated because obviously we all think we're all in our own little bubble. And I'm like, these are just my personal problems because we were a transmission shop. But it seems like everybody has, they, a vehicle comes in for brakes or a vehicle comes in for whatever that ails them and then, and then before you know it, they're like, oh, I didn't know you do everything here, right? And it just seems like everybody deals with that. No matter if you started as just a general auto or not, they just assume, right. Like they're going to be specialized in something or another. And I think it's important to know with, like, with marketing, do you feel like targeting certain repairs trumps doing the broad net or do you think casting that broad net to try to bring everybody in?

Christian Mosley [00:08:29]:
You definitely want to cast a broad net just because there's, there's so many terms, there's so many things that, that you're going to miss if you don't. But you definitely can get more specific with it, right? Like you can get, you know, you've replaced the batteries and Teslas, right? Like Tesla battery replacement, passive rollblaze, you know, that kind of thing. Like you can get very specific with certain services. You know, for instance, if you hire like a Ford mechanic, someone that has, you know, dealership experience, then you can roll out some pages that's Ford Repair and City, right? So you can, you can, I think a good combination, good healthy combination of both is, is smart. So I have, I have a bunch of quick loop clients in the DFW area and what I tell them is like you guys aren't going to rank for auto repair. Like your, your Google business profile will not rank for auto repair. Your, your, your category is oil chain service. And that's what you should be trying to rank for.

Christian Mosley [00:09:34]:
They're money services or oil changes and state inspections all day long. But then you come back in through the back end like a PPC campaign for the auto repair part of it, if they have a mechanic. So it's just kind of a combination of both. You kind of have to utilize the resources that you have. You're a transmission shop, right? So your actual category is there's a transmission shop category, but if you want a general auto repair, you can still rank for that. It's just going to be. It's just going to be harder.

Jimmy Purdy [00:10:07]:
So, yeah, I've realized our transmission is very easy to rank for because no one wants to deal with it. So it's like, even though I don't want to necessarily market for that anymore because just the word of mouth alone is enough, I still keep that campaign going because it brings in new calls. Right. And it's easy. It's like a really cheap conversion because to rank number one for transmission in this area, there's like one other shop that's like even trying to compete, right? And it's like, so it's like nothing. What are your, what are your thoughts on those Google Ads and being kind of held ransom that way?

Christian Mosley [00:10:41]:
Right.

Jimmy Purdy [00:10:41]:
Like, a lot of thing I hear from a lot of marketing agencies is the more you run with Google Ads, the more they'll hold you ransom and your organic will never grow. And I see you smiling about that, so I feel like you got to. You have an opinion about it.

Christian Mosley [00:10:53]:
Well, I actually, I actually think it's kind of the opposite. I think if you're spending money with Google and there's, there's actually just talked to a marketer buddy about this today that by spending money with Google and spending ads with them, they actually end up ranking your organic higher because it's.

Jimmy Purdy [00:11:09]:
Like, that's interesting concept.

Christian Mosley [00:11:11]:
If it's you or the other guy and you're actually giving them money, you know, in another, another product, then who, what are they going to do? Like, you know, if, if, if you had an old change to give away and it's your guy that's bought five transmissions with you versus the guy you've never seen before, like, what are you.

Jimmy Purdy [00:11:26]:
Gonna probably, I guess it depends up to the point to when you stop spending, I guess that's the, the more important. So.

Christian Mosley [00:11:32]:
Yeah.

Jimmy Purdy [00:11:32]:
So then the moment you stop your, your, your Google Ads campaign, are you going to just tank your ratings now? Now is everything just going to be taken away?

Christian Mosley [00:11:41]:
No, no, no. It's definitely not that extreme. They might, they might favor you, but they're not gonna, they're not gonna take.

Jimmy Purdy [00:11:47]:
Well, it's like, it's like Yelp, right? Like, yep, Yelp loves to do that. Right? And we've all heard the horror stories of like holding your, your good reviews ransom and only posting the bad ones until you start paying and all that. And you just in the back of your mind, you're kind of wondering like, man, if I run like a thousand dollar a month Google Ads campaign for six months and I'm doing really well now, I need to type, I need to kind of go back a little bit, right? Because sometimes it's like I don't need any more cars, I don't need to spend any more money. But then you, you tailor it back a little bit. I want to get back into that in a second. But you start tailoring it back, then you're worried that your ratings are just going to drop.

Christian Mosley [00:12:18]:
Yeah.

Jimmy Purdy [00:12:19]:
So, yeah, I don't know.

Christian Mosley [00:12:21]:
It's, it's a balance. It's really just a balance.

Jimmy Purdy [00:12:24]:
But the balance, that's what I wanted to jump back to was, is stop marketing. When you get busy, do you feel like a lot of your clients have that problem? I know I did. Right. Like I got to the point where we were so busy because I was so understaffed that I just, I didn't market anymore. And then three months down the road I'm hurting because I'm like, where's all the cars?

Christian Mosley [00:12:42]:
Yeah, I mean it's, I think it's like a very, I think as a business owner you just get so caught up in the business that you forget to like, like what you're actually in. Right? Like you're inside of like a machine that can run with you or without you. Okay, that's, that's your, that's your, your opportunity, right? Like do you want to, you want to build the empire, have it run without you? You can go to vacation or you can start a second shop or do your pickleball habit. Like whatever it is, like if you work on the business, it can work, you know, it can work without you. Right? You set the standards, you hire, you train the team. Then, then I never, I never. I mean my dad killed himself in the business as, as most dads or business owners, entrepreneurs do, right? They absolutely kill themselves in the business. And I like to tell people, I'm like, I have like two versions of my father.

Christian Mosley [00:13:36]:
I have the pre, you know, the 10 year old, the 10 pre. 10 year old version of my father, like he was just a 9 to 5 guy. He had a, had a good job but you know, never thought about it at work, wasn't coming home extremely exhausted, didn't have to work on the weekends. And then post 10 years old they open, you know, we open our loop center and it's six days a week. And then we Had a car wash at one point, and then it became seven days a week. And it's like, at that point, like, if you're not building a strong team and you have strong management in place, like, it's gonna run your life. And so I think the joke is, our family joke growing up was like, every vacation we took, we would run into a customer. It doesn't matter if it was the Caribbean or the mountains somewhere.

Christian Mosley [00:14:21]:
Like, we would run into a customer everywhere. It was just like, we can't. We can't escape this business. And then I don't know what it is about managers, but they. They get the balls to quit their job when the. When the owner is on vacation. So a lot of our trips were interrupted with. With quit.

Christian Mosley [00:14:39]:
Quitting managers and things just, like, falling apart, like, as soon as you leave. Like, what the hell? Like, you thought you had things figured out. Oh, that's business.

Jimmy Purdy [00:14:47]:
Yeah, it is such a. I think a lot of people can relate to that, right? That whole lifestyle is. You know what. What it is too is you should be excited when you're running to, like, your clients and customers, right? Like, it should be something you're grateful for. And unfortunately, in those kinds of situations, you're not, because you're trying to escape it when you're. Instead of like, I don't know. We had a. We went to.

Jimmy Purdy [00:15:10]:
Where were we going? I think a trip to Ireland. And we were standing in line in LAX in an international terminal. Deep, right? And we. And we ended up running into a client and they were going to Barcelona or something like that. And it was like. It was just so. I'm like, really, like.

Christian Mosley [00:15:24]:
But.

Jimmy Purdy [00:15:25]:
But I. I mean, I love seeing this guy. Like, he's a great dude. He comes in, spends whatever, and like, he afforded our trip, right? And so I seen him. We sat there and hung out and. And, you know, shot the. For an hour while we were waiting in security. So it was just cool to see.

Jimmy Purdy [00:15:38]:
When you bring that up, that's what it reminded me of because it's like, I know a lot of time, especially in the early years, you try to avoid it. You see someone in the grocery store, right? Or something. Like, you go to the grocery store like, two towns over just to make sure you're not going to run into anybody. And it's like, you get to the point and it's kind of nice to, like, run into the people that help. You know, you're like, oh, hey, what's up, man? How you doing? Yeah, and you're not so worried about them saying, like, hey, so the last time I came in. Right, right, right.

Christian Mosley [00:16:01]:
Yeah, exactly. But, and then, I mean, if you have a business to be proud of, like, then those are the kind of conversations you don't need to worry about. Like, it's, you know, our, our philosophy was like, you know, we're never going to be perfect, but, like, our, our family owns this facility, and as long as we own this facility, we're always going to make it right.

Jimmy Purdy [00:16:19]:
Yeah.

Christian Mosley [00:16:20]:
So it's, you know, I think it's.

Jimmy Purdy [00:16:21]:
Like a, like a mental shift too. Right. Like, you tried to be too perfect in the beginning, and then so you take everything way too personally, and I think you just get to the point, like, you just understand that you're going to make mistakes, but, hey, I'm going to take care of it. Like, even if you ran into them, like, hey, the last time I came, I'm like, dude, thank you so much for letting me know. Like, that's really valuable to me and I appreciate you letting me know. Let me get you in, you know, on Monday. Get. Just bring it in.

Jimmy Purdy [00:16:43]:
Do you want any. Make an appointment? No, no, you just get it into me. Come ask for me on Monday and I'm going to make it right. Like. Yeah, it's just. It's just that mental shift of, like, not being so concerned that everything's just going to fall apart because you made one mistake.

Christian Mosley [00:16:55]:
Exactly. I mean, and I mean, even today, like, it's. If you know the name of somebody at a business, like, that's. That's wild. Like, when I grew up in the business, that was normal. Like, people would show up and talk to my dad and, like, their car would be parked out front and ready to go for, you know, an hour ago, and they're just still just chatting with my dad. It's like that's, that's just how he grew the business. It's just talking to people and just developing those relationships.

Christian Mosley [00:17:23]:
So it's like, as long as there's someone there that's like, here to handle the problems, then, you know, we're good.

Jimmy Purdy [00:17:31]:
Speaking of, I mean, consider. We're talking about marketing, and I think that's a valuable aspect of it. Do you think that networking aspect is kind of lost a little bit in this day and age of, like, the electronic this and the, and the feedbacks and the, and the, and the surveys you give people and the automated texts and all that? Do you think we're losing a little bit of that? Like, your dad had, where you just go out there, and you just spend 30 minutes talking to somebody.

Christian Mosley [00:17:54]:
I mean, yeah, for sure. We're definitely. I think it's, like, gone. Like, it's not coming back. I, like, I have this. I have this thing with my son. Like, you know, I try to limit the. Limit the iPad time, right? But it's like, he's never going to have the childhood that I had.

Christian Mosley [00:18:11]:
And, you know, it's like you have this nostalgia about, like, riding your bikes to your friend's house or, you know, whatever it was, but we just live in a different world now. So it's like you try to preserve what you can preserve, but then at the end of the day, like, it's. You know, I never had a. Like a $70 million mega computer in the 70s, like, in my. You know, in my pocket, you know, when I was 10. So it's like. It's insane.

Jimmy Purdy [00:18:37]:
So do you think that's, like, a big. Clients are still wanting that, though? Do you think when they. When they show up, like, the convenience of being able to approve something on your phone, right? Like, you can set the appointment, you can drop your car off, you don't have to talk, but you can pay over your phone, and then they leave the keys, and then you're gone. Right? I mean, that's convenient all, but do you think that's, like, a lost art where if they go to another shop and someone, like, comes up to them, it's like, hey, just come in. I need to shake your hand. Or. We don't do everything totally electronic. I need you to come in.

Jimmy Purdy [00:19:05]:
We need to have a conversation for 10 minutes before we vet you as a client. Right?

Christian Mosley [00:19:10]:
Here's this. Here's this clipboard. Please fill this out with a pen. And, like, what?

Jimmy Purdy [00:19:15]:
Yeah, that's a little extreme, but calm down. Like, calm down, calm down with the pencil and the pen.

Christian Mosley [00:19:21]:
Yeah. I mean, as. As. As. Unfortunately, like, it sounds like it's. We're. We're replacing, like, the human experience like, every step of the way. Like, with a.

Christian Mosley [00:19:31]:
With AI, you know, you're gonna. You're gonna be calling. You're gonna be calling places and not having to talk to a single person. They're gonna be able to handle, like, all your. I mean, I'm experimenting with some of that stuff now. You can't answer your phone calls. Like, then someone's gonna answer it. It's gonna be my little AI bot.

Christian Mosley [00:19:48]:
But someone's gonna answer your call. It's not gonna be your competitor, right? Like, so that's kind of where I Start usually is answering your phone calls. If you don't have a way to record your phone calls and audit them, then I wouldn't spend a dollar more on marketing until you do that.

Jimmy Purdy [00:20:12]:
That's an interesting thing too. I mean, I think it's probably missed a lot, right? Because even if you're spending money, how you know, how do you know it's being converted?

Christian Mosley [00:20:22]:
Yeah, I mean the, the and it's usually. I mean I can't tell you how many like because we were a busy shop so we had to have a cashier. Right. And so while the techs are working, the cashiers are cashing out customers. They're. They're doing customer service and they're answering the phone call. So you're having usually ideal. The least, the least.

Christian Mosley [00:20:44]:
The least expensive person in the facility. Like the least trained and the least cost to you as a business owner is like the. Basically the front of your business online. And you don't really. No one really thought about that in 08, 2012, you're not really thinking that this digital presence, all this funnels into this phone number and this is like this $8 an hour high school graduate who doesn't know shit about cars. You, you. So it's like how can you. How can you remove the friction, right? Like so your websites have like, you know, all the commonly frequently asked questions and all that starting hours are all over the place.

Christian Mosley [00:21:24]:
You know your address.

Jimmy Purdy [00:21:25]:
You're expecting people to actually read that shit too, right? Like the people just gonna call. Like I don't read that stuff.

Christian Mosley [00:21:31]:
Sure.

Jimmy Purdy [00:21:31]:
Where's the damn phone number? I just need to call somebody.

Christian Mosley [00:21:33]:
So when you do call then you need to be like, you need. Your team needs to be prepared to like not only say who you are. 2 Like yes, we can handle your problem. And whether you however how you want to answer that. That's. That's just needs to be the goal, right? Like you can actually solve my problem. And then three like get them booked into a time like right then it's so many of her. I just listen to recordings, you know, constantly.

Christian Mosley [00:22:00]:
And it's just like they do the first two. Right. Hey, how you doing? This is Christian. I'm with Such and such Automotive. You know, what can we do for you? Great. Yes, we can certainly take care of that. You know, we're open from eight to six. You know, whenever you're ready to come in, come see us.

Christian Mosley [00:22:17]:
Oh, okay, great. I'll see you soon. It's like, like no, like book them in, take down their Name, take down their number, maybe get their email, send them your. Your little online booking link, whatever, you know, whatever it is, auto apps or I know you use auto apps. It's like, just like that's, that's the process. Like that's. You're completing this cell, right? And you're taking their information down. And that person could be, they could be seeing Your, your little $10 off social media post about your oil change.

Christian Mosley [00:22:48]:
They could be googling break repair city location, right? And clicking on your link, or they could be clicking on your $6 CPC ad for whatever. Like, all those channels funnel down to whoever answers the phone. And so it's like that person needs the most training in the shop. Think about it.

Jimmy Purdy [00:23:12]:
Step one, make sure someone is there to at least answer the phone.

Christian Mosley [00:23:15]:
Step one, answer the phone.

Jimmy Purdy [00:23:16]:
So at least give them a little credit that the phone's actually being answered, right?

Christian Mosley [00:23:20]:
Yes.

Jimmy Purdy [00:23:20]:
Congratulations. You hired someone to actually answer the phone. Okay, now step two, let's get someone that's a little bit better.

Christian Mosley [00:23:27]:
Yes. But it's just like the constant, like, you know, Dave's Auto, it's like you're here banging in the, the back, and it's just like constant. Like nobody today wants to call up a shop and hear all that. Like, you know, the, the ratchet's going. It's just like, like you need a office environment. You need, you know, no one's yelling at the service advisor, where the hell am I? Parts like, you know, there's none of that. It's a. You're a professional business and you should treat.

Christian Mosley [00:23:56]:
If you want professional results, you should treat your customers that way.

Jimmy Purdy [00:24:00]:
So it's, it is pretty remarkable when I go, when I go through, listen to phone calls and, and when I answer the phone occasionally and how I can just, you know, and I have my mic set up, so I use this mic for my call center. Like, if I get a call, it rings through this mic to my head, my headset, and hey, hey, this is Jimmy Purdy with Shifting Gears Auto Repair. How can I help you? Just like that, right? And it just. Every time, it's just like a pause. Are you there? Oh, yeah, I just.

Christian Mosley [00:24:25]:
Yep.

Jimmy Purdy [00:24:26]:
You know, it's like I, I didn't expect this. Expect what? That's like, it just sounds so nice.

Christian Mosley [00:24:32]:
So it's just.

Jimmy Purdy [00:24:33]:
I haven't even said normal.

Christian Mosley [00:24:34]:
Like, this is, this is what I expected, but I didn't expect it.

Jimmy Purdy [00:24:37]:
Like, you know, and then, and then I set the timer. Right. So the one thing we're working on too is make sure you try to keep that phone call under 15 minutes, you know, preferably around 12. Like, but that's even a long time.

Christian Mosley [00:24:46]:
Yeah.

Jimmy Purdy [00:24:47]:
And just you try because sometimes these phone calls will go 20 minutes. And I'm, I'm looking at some of these phone calls and I'm like 20 minutes? What the hell's going on here? So obviously I don't want to set the expectation of like a four minute phone call. Like you get time like, and most of the time if I set it at 12, it usually ends at like 7 or 8. Like.

Christian Mosley [00:25:05]:
Yeah.

Jimmy Purdy [00:25:06]:
But if I, if I say, hey guys, I need you to guys get, be off the phone within four to, four to six minutes. Which I think is like a pretty typical time. It just seems rushed. So it's like, no, no, just set the stage like you got some time. And I've noticed most of mine will say around that 10 minute mark, but it just explained to them, hey, this is the process, this is what you do. And it's like, yeah man, you, you've just been really helpful. I really appreciate whether they come in or not, whether I booked that or not. It's just, it's always, I just really appreciate like you taking the time and like explaining things to me.

Jimmy Purdy [00:25:36]:
This is the first, the first shop I call where everyone actually explained to me exactly what was going to happen. I was like, wow. And that took me less than 10 minutes.

Christian Mosley [00:25:43]:
Right? And then they'll, they'll throw six, seven thousand dollars on new transmission and be your customer for life, hopefully.

Jimmy Purdy [00:25:49]:
And if, and it's one of those things like maybe if not today, now, but maybe later. Or know what? Maybe they got a friend because that'll stick in their mind. Like they just had a 10 minute conversation that was pleasant with something they thought that wasn't going to be. So like, you know what, I called the shop and they were like really nice. Maybe try them, I don't know. So it's things you never know. Like just like with the retention thing we talked to started the episode with, it's like those things are like, I never really thought, I just looked for my ROI, right? Like how do I make sure each dollar makes me $3? Like that was the goal. Because you read the books, right? And the people tell you like if you, you're spending a dollar, you need three, like no ifans or buts.

Jimmy Purdy [00:26:25]:
And at the end of the month make sure that you get your ROI back and you get your return on your investment. It's like there's so Much more intangible things that are going on that like, that really blinds people. And I, I just don't like that. I mean, I get it. When you start, you need to make sure, like it's tight, like so make sure you're getting your money back. But also like there's some intangibles there where you can kind of fold into it that like I don't even fully understand yet, but I'm getting aware of them.

Christian Mosley [00:26:53]:
Yeah, for sure.

Jimmy Purdy [00:26:54]:
Yeah. It's just wild. A lot of things that, especially when it comes to marketing, man, like, well.

Christian Mosley [00:27:00]:
And everybody has like the, like there's, it's. We have the shock we had. So we had. It was my parents shop, right. So we had it for 20 years and then my brother and I decided to start our own franchise while running our parents location. And so two miles down the road we. We purchased this other quick loop center. And it was this, you know, this, this branded, just whoever's auto repair shop.

Christian Mosley [00:27:34]:
So you know, we came up with our own brand logo, like rebranded it and everything, remodeled the facility. You know, it was doing like $350,000 a year. Like it was just this, A couple brothers just like working out of a shop. Right. And just the level that just the demographic difference from two miles down the road is, it was wild. Like the types of customers that we were seeing two miles north were completely different. And so it's like, yeah, like what could work in your shop could be completely different. Like it works in my shop.

Christian Mosley [00:28:08]:
It's just you have to, you have to take into account, you know, a lot of factors for sure.

Jimmy Purdy [00:28:13]:
Is it like trial and error, right? Where you just gotta, like, you gotta spend some money, you know? Yeah, right.

Christian Mosley [00:28:20]:
I'm so glad you said that. I'm so glad you said that. Like, yeah, like how many times have you talked to Eric about showing up late? Like, you know, you probably had that conversation five or six times. You think you can talk to like, you think you can do one everything one time and just work? Like, I think marketing is the same way. You could run this $10 off oil change thing on Facebook, but no one might click on it, right? But then you run something else that's the equivalent of $10 off. You know, maybe it's a free break check or whatever, you know, whatever it is. And it hits.

Jimmy Purdy [00:28:53]:
And just like you said, the guy, the county over, town over, you know, hey man, this is really working for me. Or on the other side of the nation, hey, we did this special and it really worked. And you try it, and it doesn't work. And to your point, like, how many times does your wife tell you to take the trash out before you actually take the trash out? Like.

Christian Mosley [00:29:08]:
Right. I think. I think the golden. I think the golden example for this in our industry is mailers.

Jimmy Purdy [00:29:15]:
So, you know, I want to talk about mailers. Yes.

Christian Mosley [00:29:18]:
Before we get into Facebook ads, before all that stuff came through, it was, well, how do we find your customers? Well, you just mail them something. So it's like, we did mailers for, I don't know, the first 10 or 15 years of our business. And I was like, first you have to actually track it. Okay. And so I think people don't put in the forethought of the effort to actually train their employees that when this piece of paper comes in, you're putting in tracking code, you know, OC10 or whatever it is. Right. To, like, see if this actually works. So, like, that's half of the battle, is just getting the conversion tracking to even work and your people to even.

Jimmy Purdy [00:29:57]:
That's a great point to do it.

Christian Mosley [00:29:59]:
To begin with, because how many coupons have you created? If you're anything like our business, we had a screen of, like, 30 different coupons of 30 different marketing campaigns over the years. And it's like, 5, 10, $3, this, that, and the other. And you're. You're a, like, sorry to say it, but you're an eight, $10 an hour cashier. You're just, like, $10 off. I'm clicking that one. Right. Like, there's no.

Christian Mosley [00:30:21]:
There was no, like, true. This is the actual coupon. So can you really get an ROI on that? It's hard. It's hard.

Jimmy Purdy [00:30:28]:
And then. And then you got the guys that spout off that. Oh, I tried mailers, and it never worked for us.

Christian Mosley [00:30:34]:
Sure, sure.

Jimmy Purdy [00:30:36]:
Then you ask them those difficult questions, and they're like, did I what? I just know that I didn't get busy.

Christian Mosley [00:30:42]:
Yeah. It's like this anecdotal. Like, this anecdotal evidence of, like, oh, that didn't work for me. Like, so it definitely doesn't work. It's like, okay, I had, like, 10.

Jimmy Purdy [00:30:51]:
More cars that month, so it was nothing. Like, what about the ones that sit on the counter for six months and they're, like, on the fridge? Right. Like, and the other thing is, like, putting a date. That was a big one that I learned was putting a date or an expiration date on your coupons.

Christian Mosley [00:31:02]:
Mm.

Jimmy Purdy [00:31:03]:
Do you find that to be. What's your kind of, like, Thought on that.

Christian Mosley [00:31:09]:
Sense of urgency is very powerful marketing tactic. So a lot of the Google Ads I create, I have like, you know, we have an offer. Right. But it's like today only. Well, it runs every day, but for today only. So it's just free beer tomorrow. Yeah, I mean you just, if it's anything that kind of create a sense of urgency in the customer, I think is works. Now we had a, like I said, we had a car wash location around the corner kind of.

Christian Mosley [00:31:40]:
So all of our old changes were getting free car washes. Well, those coupons, the reason you said expire, we had an expiration on those, but it was like a month or something. Right. Because like we want them to, to cross promote our other business, you know, within a relatively short amount of time. But then we had so many complaints of like, oh, this is out of whatever. It's been in the, it's been in my glove box for six months. Can you honor it? Can you honor it? It's like, okay, yeah, I mean, like you've spent the money. Like, I don' Want to say no.

Christian Mosley [00:32:06]:
Like, you are my customer. So. Yeah, I would say, I would say most things require a sense of urgency. But you know, some things are, I.

Jimmy Purdy [00:32:14]:
Wonder if there's nuances or certain repairs that, that would work better for that. Right? Where like you said with the brake service or the brake special, like you do like a, you know, or oil change special, even like most people like, doesn't mean, oh, it's a discount oil change. Even though I got it three weeks ago, I'm going to go back and do it now because it's a good deal. Like, I don't. It doesn't like work that way, right? No, no, it's like you got to hit the time and it's like you do the, you do the one day only oil change special. It's like, well, how many people does that need to hit to actually cross that threshold of like they're due for an oil service right now and they're looking and like, it just doesn't make sense. Right. Where you can like extend an oil change discount for like six months or a year.

Jimmy Purdy [00:32:55]:
That way you're capturing more people, you know.

Christian Mosley [00:32:57]:
Yeah.

Jimmy Purdy [00:32:58]:
It's interesting. Look at those kind of things.

Christian Mosley [00:33:00]:
Yeah, I was always like, you know, I can't if I want Chipotle, I can go, I can go get that every day. But can't really do that with an oil change. It wouldn't really make a lot of sense.

Jimmy Purdy [00:33:09]:
Like, wow, that's $20 off. I just got one yesterday.

Christian Mosley [00:33:12]:
But even if they gave you a free oil change every day, you still wouldn't want to go do that. Right, right, right.

Jimmy Purdy [00:33:16]:
With the time it takes.

Christian Mosley [00:33:18]:
Yeah.

Jimmy Purdy [00:33:18]:
With mailers. What's that?

Christian Mosley [00:33:20]:
Well, yeah, and then, and then to kind of bring it back full circle is like when you say people stop, stop advertising when it's busy. It's like, well, that's the whole reason you should not stop advertising is because when they see your stuff, they might not need it, but then the next time they see it, they've already seen the last two or three, you know, and then they'll buy it. Like, it's, there's all kinds of statistics about, you know, points of contact and how many times somebody needs to see your brand in order to interact with it. And it's, it's not one time, it's not once.

Jimmy Purdy [00:33:49]:
It's that over. It's that overwhelmed thing, right. Where you're just so overwhelmed, you're like, no more marketing. I don't need any more cars. I'm done. Like, and I think that's, that's more of a psychological mental shift than really like. But keep marketing because it's going to get slow again. I wanted to circle back to that marketing or the mailers.

Jimmy Purdy [00:34:08]:
What's your thought on using a company for that or doing it on your own through the postal service?

Christian Mosley [00:34:18]:
Well, I think now they're getting a lot more sophisticated with their lists. I think you used to just buy a zip code and that was it. And now they're able to, to get you better lists. So I guess it depends like if the company is able to give you like a, like a better demographic. Because when we used to do it back in the shops, it was these large blasts like across the whole city. And it was just, it wasn't very like sophisticated. Right. And now you can like target neighborhoods, you can target this, you can run multiple offers, you can split test this, you can split test that.

Christian Mosley [00:34:53]:
So it's a little more, you know what I would tell people is try like.

Jimmy Purdy [00:34:57]:
Right, yeah, try it.

Christian Mosley [00:34:59]:
But like, don't just try one campaign and stop and say it didn't work.

Jimmy Purdy [00:35:03]:
That's true.

Christian Mosley [00:35:04]:
You have to keep doing it. Like if you're, if your loss leader oil change thing didn't work, okay, then let's move up the ladder and let's go somewhere in the middle, like, keep going up the ladder. You know, you keep trying new things, right? Like you never. It's just, there's no silver bullet, really.

Jimmy Purdy [00:35:22]:
See what Works. The one thing I was looking at is actually going through my own demographics and knowing the town that you're in and being able to say, I know this neighborhood. Like, it's kind of like trick or treating when you're really young, right? Like, you know, the rich neighborhood, so you know where you get the good candy bars. So I was looking at mailers kind of the same way, right? Like, I know that neighborhood. I know the cars that are parked around that area, and those are the ones I like. I feel like a lot of the companies don't really go that deep, which I can't really expect them to. Right. So you look on the USPS has their, you know, you can kind of set up your own mailers.

Jimmy Purdy [00:35:54]:
Oh my. It just seems like a lot. Like it's a lot of work, you know, and it's like, well, I'll just pay a company to do it. But you kind of miss that nuanced personal touch that you can give to it. So, yeah, one of the things I was looking into, and it's like, again, like radio, like, everyone says radio doesn't work, man. We've had fantastic results with radio. But I conduct all my own commercials. So, like, who's doing the work, right? Like, who's doing the thing to make it work, right? Like, it just, it's, it's really disheartening to hear the negativity when it comes to marketing and the things that, that will never work.

Jimmy Purdy [00:36:28]:
That hasn't worked in years.

Christian Mosley [00:36:30]:
Yeah, it's just like the, like, I think the easy answer to all these questions are always like, it depends. Like, does that work? I don't know. It depends. It depends. Can you answer the phone? I don't know. It depends. Can your guy send them an appointment booking link to get them in? Like, I can send you, I could send you 10 leads tomorrow with the Google Ads if we have the budget. But can you actually answer all the calls and get them through the process?

Jimmy Purdy [00:36:55]:
And then can you tell. Can you tell me that they came from Google because you're asking, right?

Christian Mosley [00:37:00]:
Or, you know, we. I track all. Track all that. So it's like, it's, it's, it's just nice when you're able to see like, you know, they clicked on a break service ad. It cost them $5. Well, Jimmy answered the call, but in 30 seconds that he talked to them, he, you know, he failed to do XYZ. And so they just lost not only the $5 you spent on that, that call, but you lost the thousand dollar job that that could have done or whatever it is. So it's like you can, you, you can turn on.

Christian Mosley [00:37:35]:
You could do a $5,000 a day budget in advertising for a shop, but if they can't answer the phone and convert, then it's like, what's the point? So I always want, I always want to get the. I always, like, want the conversion metrics to kind of work first before you really turn on the faucet. And I mean, you kind of see that at shops kind of north of like a million dollars, they kind of have at least a basic level process down. You know, they're able to do a complete dbi. They're able to call customers back. They're able to, you know, they could. They do. They road test their vehicles.

Christian Mosley [00:38:11]:
You know, their comeback rates are extremely low. Like their Google reviews are 4.5 or higher. Like, there's a certain threshold of kind of results that they've been able to get to so far. And then you can just turn the faucet on and blow the place up because the systems are already there. And that's, that's. And that was the first thing, the actual first conversation we had with our ATI coach 10 years ago. He says, you do not need more cars. You have plenty of cars.

Christian Mosley [00:38:41]:
Says you need a better process. What the hell? What do you mean better process? We want to make more money. We need more cars. He goes, no, your ticket average is whatever it was back then. $300, 250 bucks. Yeah, yeah, you need a, you need a better process. Or like, you need to charge your. Your diags.

Christian Mosley [00:38:59]:
Like what? We have to charge for diags? We give those away. Well, yeah, like, well, do you want to, you know, so it's like, it's the whole, like, we do the things the way we do them because that's the only way we know how to do them. Problem versus, like, keeping an open mind and realizing that.

Jimmy Purdy [00:39:15]:
I remember my first free diet coupon when I first took over. I, I just, like, I remember that. I remember, you know, and we just, you know, hooked the scan tool up, check codes, checked identifix, whatever, and came up with like some sort of general idea. And then we were able to kind of like fold in, like the, the next steps to confirm the, the repair. Right. I remember the whole process and everything I wrote together. And I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, right? I was like, oh, I freaking figured it out. I'm a marketing genius.

Jimmy Purdy [00:39:42]:
Free diags. Everyone's gonna come flooding in, right? I Think it's interesting is like it kind of reverts back to that and it goes back to your, your comment about systems and like answering the phone and making sure all that. So now you get these bigger shops that are MSOs and they're getting back into like that free diag and the loss leader oil change stuff. Right. And it's really interesting to like not just like kick it to the curb and say, no, that doesn't work. There's no way that's. You guys are, you guys don't know what you're doing?

Christian Mosley [00:40:08]:
Like.

Jimmy Purdy [00:40:08]:
No, they know what they're doing. They're like multi million dollar MSOs, right? And so they're doing free diags, but they're able to track everything and they have the system set up to actually capitalize on everything and like these things work. But just like you said, you have to have that system put in place to monitor, track it and make sure at the end of the month you're not losing your ass. So it's really interesting when it comes to that stuff to see how it comes full circle. Right. It's not that it was a bad idea, you just sucked at implementing it. Right. That's the bottom line.

Christian Mosley [00:40:38]:
Exactly.

Jimmy Purdy [00:40:39]:
Most marketing ideas I think are pretty good because most people are pretty creative about it. They just don't have the systems or processes and they suck at implementing it. And then they lose their ass with it.

Christian Mosley [00:40:50]:
Exactly.

Jimmy Purdy [00:40:52]:
You got to be good.

Christian Mosley [00:40:54]:
And it's like I really enjoy like automating things and then I really am enjoying the AI revolution and kind of where that's taking us. And so it's like, what can I do as a, like the tech guy, the marketer that can eliminate like the human element, the human component of the mistakes that your shop is making. Right. And maybe they're not even mistakes, but it's like a shortcut. So for instance, you know, a customer calls from a Google Ad and instead of like you, Jimmy, from Shifting Gears, you know what, you know, oh, by the way, our locations at, you know, 1, 2, 3. You know what, like instead of all that having to tell the customer, you know, take down my address or you know, type this in, they're automatically getting like a notification of the shop, like as a contact card. Right? It's like shipping, gears, automotive, here's your address, whatever. And that's just from the moment you call the shop.

Christian Mosley [00:41:48]:
Right. So if you as a shop owner knows that this is a Google Ad, then you know that they've already received, you know, hey, Jimmy, like Yes, we can take care of that problem for you. Oh, by the way, you should have received a text that has, you know. Could you confirm with me that you received a text with our address? Oh, yeah, yeah. Great. Okay, perfect. That's our, that's our location. We're open from 8 to 5 today.

Christian Mosley [00:42:07]:
You know, you know, when, when can we get you in like a Google Maps link?

Jimmy Purdy [00:42:11]:
Huh?

Christian Mosley [00:42:12]:
Yeah, yeah, it just takes, like, takes resistance. I think I liked taking resistance out of the equation. The more resistance you take, it's like the more successful you're going to be. They call up and how many times do they say, is this a competitor? Right? So, hey, is this Jiffy Lube? Like, no, this isn't actually Jiffy Lube. However we are here is the opportunity for you to then say who you are, how long you've been in business, whatever, family owned, right? And so it's like, that's part of the training. It's like, okay, like Jimmy took 20 calls last, last week and he converted 18 of them to booked to a booked call, right? Like, and if you monitor stuff like that, then when you, then when you market, then when you actually hire the agency, then you're spending the $2,000 a month in Google Ads you're spending on the SEO you're doing. You know, you're throwing money at that. Then you know when they call the shop that you're going to handle that lead properly.

Jimmy Purdy [00:43:13]:
So yeah, if you're not tracking it, you would have no idea. Make sure the processes are in place to do it. Yeah, that'd be one of the things I've noticed. Takes a long time is on. The intake is getting the client's information. And I like that idea of having that Google Maps link sent, but I like it on the other side too, where, you know, and that's where like, like auto ops and like the online schedulers, you get that information, they type it in. So when you have the phone call, it's more to the brass tax, right? Like you, you already have their, the customer profile set up. They got all the print information.

Jimmy Purdy [00:43:49]:
Now you can just get down like, hey, what's going on with the car? Hey, you know. Oh, you live out there? Yeah, my mom lives out there, you know, by that area. You just like build that personal relationship. Instead of spending four or five minutes, like what lane was that?

Christian Mosley [00:44:02]:
Right?

Jimmy Purdy [00:44:03]:
4, 5, 6 or what'd you say? Like, and you're trying to get this address from someone and it takes like three to four minutes to just get their freaking address.

Christian Mosley [00:44:11]:
Yeah.

Jimmy Purdy [00:44:12]:
And their last name spelled and their phone number. Make sure they're good with texting. And you're okay with me.

Christian Mosley [00:44:17]:
Like, you know, dude, you have to eliminate all of that from the phone conversation.

Jimmy Purdy [00:44:21]:
Yes, yes. 100%. 100%. And even though it's part of a conversation that needs to be had, there's better things that you can talk about.

Christian Mosley [00:44:28]:
Better things to do with your time.

Jimmy Purdy [00:44:32]:
Number. Oh, let me go get it. Okay. And then you're waiting, like, well, it's outside of my parking lot. I'm going out. No, no, you don't need it. Like, don't worry about it. Like, I don't need you walking out to the street right now to get your license plate number off the car.

Christian Mosley [00:44:43]:
Right? Yeah. And then, like, it's. Then you. You risk. You could risk, like, alienating such a large pop. Like, any. Anybody over 60 or 70, right. Who hasn't had a phone in their hand their whole life.

Christian Mosley [00:44:59]:
Like, they're like, you can just listen to calls and know, like, the type of person. Oh, well, the app, like, there's just so much, like, you can hear, like, the angst in their voice when they're trying to figure out, like, where you're located. Oh, is that by the highway? Like, no, ma'am. Just open your phone. We've already sent you the address. Just click the link, and you're good to go. Like, that's all it should be, right? Eliminate. And then I think some of my clients here, when they don't have the opportunity to have to track that just to get that.

Christian Mosley [00:45:30]:
That text sent automatically, then they have techmetric open and they send, I think, like, a shop tour video. And, like, and as the first text, it's like, hey, man, like, you know, thanks for calling. I just sent you a. Our shop tour video to this. To your. Your phone number. You know, it's just a little bit about us, so. So you know where you're coming to, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Christian Mosley [00:45:50]:
And it's just like kind of like a welcome thing. That's. That's. That's kind of cool.

Jimmy Purdy [00:45:54]:
That is.

Christian Mosley [00:45:54]:
So. So when. When. When you have the opportunity to hang up the phone and call your 10 other competitors within five seconds, like, you have to convert them right then. Yeah, right then. Oh, yeah, get them on. Get them on the schedule. Get their name, like, get their.

Christian Mosley [00:46:09]:
Get their number and convert them. And then the. The people that are making the real. The real money in this industry, like, when that lead doesn't show up, they're calling them back, right? They're figuring out why. And I think that's, that's one thing that not many people do is call people back, is have this, this follow.

Jimmy Purdy [00:46:29]:
Up system, like two sides to that. One, one just not having the system of the process. And I think two is just, just writing them off, right? And I do it. I think I had two calls this week that I've or last week that I answered and they were just calling around for pricing. Like, sure, I need to, I need to replace the, I think a hybrid battery. I don't remember what it was. And I'm like, well, I mean why do you need a price on a hybrid battery, right? And I went through the whole thing and let's get you in. And I just want to let you know we're not the most, you know, we're not going to be the cheapest option.

Jimmy Purdy [00:47:03]:
And if, if that's what you're looking for, I got a phone number of someone you can call. He's a good friend of mine, he owns a shop, you know, in the next town over. And if you want his number, like that's going to be your cheapest option. And I would trust him with my own car if that's what you're looking for, right. And so I gave her that and it was like, but let me tell you about what we do and we go on the whole sales pitch and all that and got her profile and okay, I'll call you back if I want to make an appointment. And it was like at that point in time is like, do I push this conversion or is this going to be a drain on the shop? You know what I mean? To get down to the brass tax of it, like, is this, is this really my customer? Is it not my customer?

Christian Mosley [00:47:37]:
Right?

Jimmy Purdy [00:47:37]:
And that's where for me is like, so do I call this lead back or do I just move on? Right? I got a shop full, like, but I could always use one more. But then also like, do I need to really tie up the office with someone that's just going to eventually not go forward with anything? So that's a tough thing to try to figure out too on, you know, an eight minute phone call, like, yeah. And obviously I think I got to be more optimistic and just assume that we're going to, you know, it's going to be a sale at the end of the day or we're going to be able to help this lady out with the battery or vehicle. Or maybe it's not. Maybe has nothing to do with the hybrid battery. Like I still don't know exactly what's wrong with the damn car.

Christian Mosley [00:48:16]:
Yeah, well, Jimmy, that's why I challenge you to turn those 8 minute phone calls and 2 minute phone calls and just get the car in the shop.

Jimmy Purdy [00:48:23]:
Yeah, you're right.

Christian Mosley [00:48:25]:
Yeah, like, you're. You don't know until you see the car. Right? Like, you're right. Yeah, you can, you can. You can spend 10 minutes building a relationship all you want, but, you know, if you don't have the car in front of you, then that's a.

Jimmy Purdy [00:48:38]:
You know what? That's a good point, though. I mean, that is definitely one of the shifts that needs to happen moving forward. Right? As we get phone calls and we get busier, it's like you're coming in or you're not coming in, and then, and then we'll. And then we'll let the rest kind of the chips fall as they may at. At the end of the day. Right. Whatever happens, happens. I just feel like putting someone in an inconvenient position is.

Jimmy Purdy [00:48:59]:
Is what my, my instinct is or like what I feel right now is like getting someone in that's not gonna. Wants to buy into our process. And, and I think maybe I can relate to a lot of other owners that are listening right now and that thought of, like, well, I just, I want to make sure. I'm vetting this client to make sure when they come in, they get. We're on the same page. I don't want them showing up and then realizing we're someone that they didn't expect. Does that make sense?

Christian Mosley [00:49:22]:
Yeah.

Jimmy Purdy [00:49:23]:
So it's a tough thing, but, I mean, you're right. At the end of the day, you got to just convert it. You got to get them in. You got to wow with your service. And you got to understand that if they go anywhere else, they're going to get screwed over. So their only logical, safe choice is just to come to me.

Christian Mosley [00:49:39]:
Yeah.

Jimmy Purdy [00:49:40]:
Is that egotistical? Is that too much?

Christian Mosley [00:49:42]:
No, no, no. I mean, like, I mean, I think the best piece of marketing is probably your test drive. And what do I mean by that?

Jimmy Purdy [00:49:54]:
I was like, yeah, what do you mean by that?

Christian Mosley [00:49:56]:
Is you do a test drive and to eliminate comebacks. Right. So what if your process is to eliminate comebacks? That's your best marketing piece of advice is if, like I was. Okay, I'll just give you an example. We were. We're at the point where, you know, there's constant tech turnover. You know, general managers are leaving, managers are leaving, techs are leaving. You're Constantly bringing in new guys to kind of stabilize the place.

Christian Mosley [00:50:25]:
Right. I think we've all kind of been through certain periods of time where, you know, you've had technician turnover that really cost the shop a lot of money. But it's like, do. Should I spend time and money turning on all those faucets that we've been talking about for 50 minutes if my technician can't even, like, can't even push the car out on time? Right. Like, so they're having comebacks. So quality work essentially is kind of what I'm getting at. It's like you can throw money at the wall 20 different ways with marketing, but the biggest. The biggest thing is just put out a quality product.

Jimmy Purdy [00:51:04]:
That's true. Yeah.

Christian Mosley [00:51:05]:
And like you said, talk to people. This is Jimmy's place. This is Jimmy's business. You know, I know Jimmy's gonna take care of me kind of thing.

Jimmy Purdy [00:51:13]:
Right? Another lost art, maybe? No, I think, I think most got that point. I think, I think a lot of. A lot of shops, no matter where they are, what they're doing, I think they're. They're striving really hard to do that to a fault, I think, is what the issue is. Right. Like spend it. Like we have a QC process and we work on it all the time. And I spent way too much time on these vehicles.

Jimmy Purdy [00:51:33]:
You know, I'd have three people look at it before it left because I was so worried about, you know, like, so dialing that back. Right. And having maybe another set of hands or just making sure that only certain repairs. So only repairs with HPRO over three going to QC now. So it's like really just dividing and like, okay, those cars that come in for an oil, they don't need a qc. Like, yeah, if it comes back with greasy handprints, we're just having a communicate. We're just having a conversation with the tech. Like, bro, we don't do that here.

Jimmy Purdy [00:52:01]:
Right? Like, get your together, right?

Christian Mosley [00:52:04]:
There's. We buy you gloves for a reason. Come on.

Jimmy Purdy [00:52:06]:
Yeah, dude. Like, come on. It was an oil change. You shouldn't be screwing that up. Right? And so, yeah, that kind of stuff. And then knowing like, okay, which. Which repairs do we really need to check over? And a lot of them, if the wheel comes off, that needs an extra QC to make sure we're re torquing wheels and just writing that stuff down. Like, it's so much gray to be like, to walk in and be like, this is what we're doing now.

Jimmy Purdy [00:52:25]:
Like, no, that's. That's not going to work. It's too much.

Christian Mosley [00:52:29]:
There's nothing more humbling than running like a multimillion dollar business. And you're like thinking you got things figured out. And then like a Google review rolls in and it's like a greasy handprint on somebody's like, Ford that just rol hour ago. And you're like, oh, come on. You're like, man, we do everything right. And then this guy just leaves his handprint on this door just like, oh, it's a killer.

Jimmy Purdy [00:52:52]:
Come on, strangle somebody right now.

Christian Mosley [00:52:54]:
Come on. Like, it's not even anything about the car, like, working. It's just a cosmetic thing, but it's right. It's what they see, right? You're like, oh, yeah. How many people touched this car before the customer did that didn't see the handprint right Then that's a culture. That's a culture thing. Like, is there a culture of not my job? And you're in your inner company, man.

Jimmy Purdy [00:53:16]:
Yeah. That could go on for a long time to. That'll irk a lot of people because it happens all the time. Or the hats with the headliner, right? They hit the greasy thing. Headliner. And you write the stuff down. You have weekly meetings about it, and then it still goes out. For some reason.

Jimmy Purdy [00:53:31]:
You're like, what the hell's the matter with you guys?

Christian Mosley [00:53:34]:
Yeah. Or even just like, you know, if you're writing on the windshield, like your numbers or whatever for just stupid stuff like that. Like, you didn't wipe the windshield off before that. Like, it's just 99% of the repair is complete. And there's one little tiny thing. It's like it matters. It does not matter at all. But that's what the customer's looking at.

Christian Mosley [00:53:52]:
As soon as they get in their vehicle, they can see, you know.

Jimmy Purdy [00:53:54]:
Well, and the worst. And the thought that's worse than that is all the ones that the people don't say anything and they just don't come back because that'll come back.

Christian Mosley [00:54:00]:
Yeah.

Jimmy Purdy [00:54:01]:
Like, bless their heart for leaving me a review, to be honest. Thank you for like, letting me know. Because who knows how many. They're like, oh, I'm not going back there. They have greasy footprints all over my floor mat. Like, no one told me. Like, oh, I didn't want to be a bother. I just went somewhere else.

Jimmy Purdy [00:54:16]:
Like, oh, that's so much worse.

Christian Mosley [00:54:18]:
Exactly.

Jimmy Purdy [00:54:21]:
Well, getting down to the end of this, I want to ask you. So with your process. So you went through and evaluated our shop, which is Fantastic. You did. I mean, like we're saying before we jumped on here, it was like a very in depth and thorough video. I really appreciated that. Is that your general. Is that kind of how you start the process or how do you take over? What exactly could we expect if we decided to bring you on as a, as a marketing company?

Christian Mosley [00:54:48]:
Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing is just to have a conversation and I think, you know, that's what we did is just a, is just to figure out like, you know, if you're a $5 million shop, you've probably got most of the things that I offer figured out. Right. But if you're a half million dollar shop or a one and a half million dollar shop or even, you know, there's probably some, some things you can, we can improve on. So an audit, like I just like to do audits because it's, it's such like a tangible piece of evidence that a business owner, shop owner could look. And you're not really looking at your, your presence every day. Or maybe you do look at it every day. But um, you know, I think a guy the other day, like he had his old location was still on his website, but he transferred locations and it's just, just stuff like a fresh perspective. Looking at your digital presence is, you know, take it for.

Christian Mosley [00:55:40]:
It could be eye opening really. You know, some people think they have it all figured out and then you show them a little five minute video, you're like, well, there's like six things I would do right now that you could change, that could, could drive more business. And it's so yeah, I mean it's, it's just about having a conversation first to see if you know, you're even open to, if you're the type of business owner that's even open to like growing their shop to begin with. You know, instead of just like having a closed mindset. I've got it all figured out, like I don't need your help type of thing.

Jimmy Purdy [00:56:06]:
That's a good point.

Christian Mosley [00:56:08]:
And then just talk, you know. Are you doing this? No. Are you doing that? No. Okay, well, these are a couple opportunities I see. You know, reviews I think are probably number one. Like if you're a shop owner that has no way of generating reviews consistently number one and then responding to them, then that's like the number one thing you could probably do as a business owner. Generate them. Most CRMs nowadays do the generation for you, right? Like they're sending out the emails, they're sending out the text messages.

Christian Mosley [00:56:42]:
So if you don't have one, a CRM that's doing that for you, Like I would even suggest just get the CRM that can do that.

Jimmy Purdy [00:56:49]:
Right.

Christian Mosley [00:56:51]:
I mean, I can make you one, but there's other integrated features out there that are integrating with all these shop management systems that will do it for you. So it's like I, I have like a half, half my philosophies, like best practices that I've seen in the industry work for me as a, as a business owner when I used to have a shop, and then what's working now is like a, as a marketing agency. Where were we going?

Jimmy Purdy [00:57:23]:
The CRM.

Christian Mosley [00:57:24]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So generating reviews. If you do not have a way of generating consistent reviews for your shop, that is what I would, I would recommend fixing like immediately.

Jimmy Purdy [00:57:35]:
That was one of the things you brought up too, because I get, and I have a pretty good system about going through and checking my boxes and making sure we had like five reviews that I had let slip before I responded to him. Right. All five star, of course. But you know, what's. One thing's like I go. And if I get one, it's like I just wait till I get two or three and then I'll go. In that way I can like just respond at a time and chunk them out. I totally like, I was like, oh, I totally forgot I needed to do that.

Christian Mosley [00:58:01]:
Yeah, I think, I think it's. And I think what's interesting is, you know, everybody has different challenges in terms of like, if you're just a single shop owner, you're probably not getting a negative review every day. But if you're a shop owner of like eight locations, you're probably getting a negative review every day from one of your locations. So like sending, sending that review to like the, the person that needs it most so they can try to save the, save the customer, save the experience instead of like responding two weeks later because you never saw it type of thing. So it's just.

Jimmy Purdy [00:58:32]:
You talked about monitoring and tracking. Do you, you go through and you track the phone calls with your marketing or do you have like, is there packages or. Exactly. What could anyone expect if they decided to reach out to you?

Christian Mosley [00:58:44]:
Yeah, so as part of my packaging, you know, we have SEO packages, we have PPC packages and then we kind of like bundle it all, bundle it all together. And a part of that PPC package, both components have the kind of the auditing attached to it. So it looks like a phone tracking number and we're sticking it on our Google Ads or A phone tracking number. And we're sticking it on our Google business profile and it records all the phone calls that come into the business. And then we're auditing one by one, each one of those phone calls to make sure they kind of went through like a gated process. And a real quick gate could just be like a 1, 2, 3. Right. Hi, my name is.

Christian Mosley [00:59:25]:
Yes, we can solve your problem and then we can get you in at 2pm, right. Like you're following some type of process. And if you want to customize that process, and we can customize it, but you're here hitting the, you're hitting the things. Right. So you can kind of give them stats. First of all, Jimmy, the 100 phone calls you got last month, you know you only answered 90 of them. Right. So 10 of them went straight to voicemail.

Christian Mosley [00:59:53]:
Okay, that opens up another can of worms. You can do missed call, text back with voice, with voicemails. Right. And like immediately send the customer a text message saying you're going to call them right back. You can do AI receptionists, Right. That if Jimmy doesn't answer the phone in 20 seconds, then your AI bot picks up and answers the phone. Right. And then he's taking the message and sending it to whoever it needs to go to.

Christian Mosley [01:00:16]:
So custom tailored solutions for all shop sizes is essentially trying to find the.

Jimmy Purdy [01:00:23]:
Inefficiencies and finding a custom solution to fix it. Sure.

Christian Mosley [01:00:27]:
And they're all kind of like the same problems and the kind of, the same solutions. It's just like maybe you're tweaking things here or there. Right. So like everybody, everybody needs a review system. Like whether you're doing that through your CRM. No, if you don't do it through your CRM, then you need to have like the NFC cards, the little, little things up front to put on your, your cashier station, cashier stand. It's QR codes. Like with a, with a business card, you're stapling to the invoice, you know, whatever it is.

Christian Mosley [01:00:57]:
There's, there's 20 ways you could get Google reviews, but that is the most impactful thing for a business owner. Right now in local SEO is getting, getting consistent reviews, responding to them, and having like Jimmy replace my transmission, you know, like in whatever city you live in. Right. So having the city keyword, the service keyword would be like the perfect review.

Jimmy Purdy [01:01:24]:
The keyword stuffing. Yeah, yeah. And then keyword stuff for replies too.

Christian Mosley [01:01:29]:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. No, there's no problem fixing your transmission.

Jimmy Purdy [01:01:33]:
You know, like throw that transmission Problems in pass rules.

Christian Mosley [01:01:37]:
Yeah, yeah. And, and, and you can see that. You can see that show up. And the reason I say that you can see that show up. Now you could type in like break repair and then your city name, right? And I guarantee you one of the gbps that show up for the break for the brake shop, it'll, it'll have like a review snippet, right, that says, jimmy replaced my brakes last week and did such a great job. You know, that's, that's why it's important, because you have a review snippet that's, that's tailored to their keyword search. And then now it's going to show up on your GBP and your GBP is going to rank to be ranked higher.

Jimmy Purdy [01:02:13]:
So there's your golden nugget.

Christian Mosley [01:02:15]:
There's a doll. Reviews. Get, get more reviews.

Jimmy Purdy [01:02:19]:
Well, Mr. Christian, is it? Mosley. Christian Mosley. Nate, what's the name of the company or how can someone reach out to you if they're interested in.

Christian Mosley [01:02:28]:
Yeah, my. Yeah, my agency is automastery, so automastery.com has an appointment scheduling link to book with me or you can just find me on Facebook. Christian Moseley. Very active in a bunch of the auto repair groups, so I talk in there constantly and. Or you can just, you know, send me a DM.

Jimmy Purdy [01:02:46]:
So automastery.com slide into the DMS.

Christian Mosley [01:02:50]:
Slide into them.

Jimmy Purdy [01:02:52]:
I appreciate your time, man. Thank you very much.

Christian Mosley [01:02:55]:
Yeah, this is fun.