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Episode 229

Jim Sennett

AAA

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Jim Sennett is the manager of repair programs at AAA (American Automobile Association), where he oversees the Approved Auto Repair network of roughly 6,000 shops across the country, about 5,000 independents and 1,000 dealerships, along with the club’s emerging technologies work on EVs and hybrids. He came up through Goodyear, starting as a tire changer and working through alignment tech, service advisor, service manager, and store manager across two stints with the company. Between his Goodyear years and his current role he spent nearly a decade in law enforcement before returning to the industry.

Jim has been with AAA for 12 years and serves as Vice Chair of the ASE Education Foundation, which puts him at the center of how the industry is responding to the technician shortage in auto repair; both through the certification side and through the apprenticeship program AAA built with NAPA to bring new people into the trade.

EPISODE SPONSOR

This episode of the Gain Traction Podcast is sponsored by Cosmo Tires. Cosmo Tires offers a wide range of tire solutions designed for durability, reliability, and performance across multiple vehicle segments. Learn more at https://www.cosmotires.com

In this episode…

The technician shortage in auto repair stopped being an abstract talking point around 2022-2023, when AAA’s approved shops started telling Jim Sennett the same thing in different words: the tows keep coming, the waiting rooms keep filling up, and there’s nobody behind the bay door to do the work. AAA’s response was to stop waiting for the trade-school pipeline to fix itself and build a parallel one, partnering with NAPA on an apprenticeship program designed to take someone out of a grocery store, a fast-food job, or a closed-down factory and turn them into a working technician in 18 to 24 months.

Jim walks through the actual mechanics: $300 a year per person, free for shops already running NAPA, but built parts-supplier agnostic so O’Reilly, Advance, and AutoZone shops are not locked out. The program is self-paced and mentor-based inside the shop, and the apprentice finishes with four ASE certifications; brakes, steering and suspension, A/C, and electrical. He also gets into why the recruiting pitch itself is part of the problem. The trade is still being sold as the “Cooter from Dukes of Hazzard” job; greasy coveralls, wrench in hand, when the actual work is a laptop in one hand and a diagnostic tool in the other. The shortage closes faster when the marketing catches up to what the job has become.

The other thread worth following is Jim’s story about a Buffalo shop owner who was a few months from closing. Jim sat down with him, looked at the numbers, and made him do two things first: raise labor rates and raise parts margins. The shop is now operating out of its second, bigger location.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[01:14] Introducing Jim Sennett and his role at AAA

[02:45] Early career path from college into a general service technician role at Goodyear

[04:26] Overseeing AAA’s Approved Auto Repair program

[08:49] The three-decade partnership between AAA and NAPA

[09:40] Reframing the technician’s image in the modern trade

[10:36] Formative lessons from Goodyear’s management training

[13:28] Addressing the technician shortage through the AAA/NAPA apprenticeship

[17:30] Rescuing a Buffalo shop through disciplined pricing and margin strategy

[21:06] Leading with a firm, fair, and consistent standard

[24:35] The under-promise, over-deliver principle and the Five Guys case study

[26:48] Closing reflections and hometown conversation

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments:

“These men and women are professional people out there, you got a laptop in your hand now, you’re doing more work on a computer than you are turning wrenches.”
“You find the right person, the right personality for you, and we’ll give you a program, and we’ll make them into a technician in 18 months to two years.”
“Always be firm, fair and consistent every day.”
“I’m always a fan of under-promising and over-delivering.”
“If you can’t be your word, or you can’t have someone that believes in you, it kind of sets a bad foundation and we know what happens with bad foundations, the building tends to crumble.”

Action Steps:

Audit your labor rates and parts margins this week, raise both if the math says so.
Enroll one career-changer in the AAA/NAPA apprenticeship at $300 a year and assign a senior tech as mentor.
Rewrite your tech job postings to lead with diagnostics, scan tools, and EV work, not wrench-turning.
Pick one customer promise: timeline, price, or scope, and engineer the over delivery.
Join AAA’s Approved Auto Repair program to access the apprenticeship pricing and the nationwide warranty.

Transcript

00:00
Welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast, the official podcast for tire business. I am Mike Edge, your host and I have the privilege of interviewing the tire dealers, shop owners, counter sales reps, technicians, industry executives and other thought leaders of our industry. This episode is brought to you by Tread Partners. Tread Partners is the leading digital marketing agency that specializes in digital marketing for multi location tire and auto repair shops. Tread Partners works with clients that have hundreds of locations, down to five locations. Get a professional, unbiased opinion and let Tread Partners review what you’re doing. It starts with a simple conversation. To contact Tread Partners, visit treadpartners.com so let’s get started. Hey folks, Mike Edge here with the Gain Traction Podcast. I just want to make you aware we’ve got a great new sponsor, Cosmo Tires.

00:47
You can find out more about [email protected] they sell about every tire on the market. Here’s a short video about one of their products.

00:58
Slinging that brown mud kicker Mud kick up Never getting stuck Digging down deep while we cr.

01:11
Welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast, the official podcast for tire business. My guest today is Jim Sennett, manager of repair programs at AAA. Jim, welcome to the Gain Traction podcast.

01:22
Thanks to Dicks for having me on Mike. I appreciate it.

01:24
Yeah, I’m excited about our conversation. So you know, I ask everybody that’s a guest on here, where did you grow up and what was your first job? What did you do growing up?

01:36
So I grew up in the sunny state of Buffalo, New York. Right. I had a lot of things. Actually my very first job was at a grocery store that is no longer in business. But I started pushing carts and stocking shelves.

01:51
Nice. Did you ever have to. Because we’re old enough to remember this. Did you, did you ever have to sack groceries or anything for folks as well?

01:59
Oh yeah. When they pulled the belt up and you had to fill the, you know, paper and plastic or just paper or. Yep, we had to do. I definitely did that a lot too.

02:06
Now did you guys walk them out to the cars at that time? Do you remember those days too?

02:11
Sometimes, it depends. You know, usually elderly customers stuff put them in the car to take it out to them.

02:16
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that’s good. Those were the days of more customer service for sure. Definitely not. Not the self checkout, you know, because I can still remember. I know this sounds crazy, but I mean I. Because I don’t think of myself as this old, but I can still remember when my parents, when were young in the 70s and 80s, you’d pull up To a gas station. It wasn’t self serve. Somebody came out and filled your gas tank up for you.

02:39
Right. I remember going to gas station ask if they want a regular or unleaded too. Right.

02:45
All right, so transition from that. What did you do after your grocery store days?

02:50
You know, I went to college and I started to. No, I always tinker around with like lawnmowers and my bicycle. I probably took it apart 10 times and lawnmowers and we had a little riding lawnmower and I always tried to go faster so I could get the lawn done quicker. But so I did, you know, start tinkering yourself with that. But you know, I wish I would have went to like a traditional school where I learned how to do automotive. But I actually went and got a degree in criminal justice and I ended up working at a, a Goodyear tire and rubber store as a tire changer, slash oil change guy. They call them a general service technicians.

03:27
Nice.

03:28
That was my first real full time job.

03:31
Yeah, but so that’s where you got your feet wet and then you stayed in it a little while, if I remember right.

03:36
Yep. I worked for, I worked for Goodyear, two different stunts. So the first time I worked for him for five years I started this changing tires and stuff. And then I worked my way up. You know, I was alignment tech, used to have alignment specialist they called it. And I used to be able to do alignment front end parts. And then after that I, I actually hurt my hand out in the shop the one day and they had me, you know, because I had to be on modified work duty. They had me answering the phones and taking appointments. I was talking to customers. And the next thing you know, I didn’t go back in the back. I became a service advisor for them.

04:07
And I was working up front for a little while and then I became a service manager and then a store manager and went on from there.

04:17
That’s awesome. So as you progressed, you finally got to AAA. What did you do for AAA or what do you do for AAA?

04:26
So AAA as a club, as a, is a business made of a whole bunch of different clubs across different, the whole country. So I took those clubs and I work for AAA Inc. Which is the overall parent company of AAA. We have, we control all the standards and the rules and stuff that all the clubs that were in different states have to follow. So it’s kind of like we’re the federal government and all these little clubs are state governments and we have to make sure that they’re Doing what we’re doing for the brand and to keep, you know, AAA, the rules and regulations that we have put in place there and make sure they follow them. But I’ve been there for 12 years. I am the manager of all the repair programs and our emerging technologies.

05:07
So anything to do with our EVs, hybrids, you know, anything along those lines. We have some of our fleets now that are full electric vehicles in them. We have some that are fiber electric vehicles and same thing with our driver education cars. Right. They have some that are hybrid, some are full electric, some are regular. So, so when you speak of, when.

05:26
You speak of your fleets, you’re talking about AAA’s fleets that go out and do those Roadside assistance, Correct?

05:32
Correct.

05:33
Yeah. And then you’ve also got, I mean, I know you got members that, you know, like towing companies that are independent, but they’re AAA. What are they? Certified or what do you call those?

05:43
Exactly. So the AAA contractors do the towing. I run what we call the approved auto repair program for the entire country. We have 6,000 locations in the proved up that are certified in the approved auto repair business. And we have, I think there’s about 5,000 of those are independents and about a thousand of those are dealerships.

06:05
So if somebody were to want to get certified or be a contractor for AAA, is that protected by territory or do you guys kind of keep it? I mean, how do you guys regulate that? I guess we keep it open.

06:19
There’s no, there’s no hard steadfast rule. We keep it open. We don’t want one across the street from one right, like one right next door. But if there’s one that say it’s a mile away and it’s really good, they could be in the program. One that’s five miles away that they could be in the program as well.

06:33
Okay.

06:34
There were some standards that got to follow behind and they got to be, you know, certified and all the areas of repair that they do, they have to have, you know, great CSI scores, the right insurance, you know, a whole bunch of different things that we look at in there. You know, clean waiting rooms. You know, they have to have a whole bunch of stuff that we have in there as a checklist that they go through. But if anybody wants to be certified room and wants to learn more about it’[email protected] autorepair you can click on the link and it’ll send you to a link where they can fill out some information and we’ll get back to them and talk to them more about it.

07:07
That’s awesome because I think everybody thinks of them in the AAA way. We always think of, you know, you’re a member because you can get roadside assistance. I mean they’ve been, they were the kings of it before anybody else was doing it, you know, and I know a lot of people do some form of roadside assistance, but AAA still has a pretty broad program and still very reputable. That’s the nice thing about it. I mean, you pretty, I mean everybody feels pretty safe with a AAA program.

07:33
Yeah, we have, we’ve been doing this business for I think since 1901. So we got a couple years experience doing it. We had 66 million members across the country. We have 30 million road service calls a year. But like you said, we have more, right? We have travel, we have our discounts and rewards program. We have our driver education. We have a battery program where they come out and change the battery at your house for you or you can go buy a battery at an AAA’s location. You know, we have, you know, I think there’s 35,000 restaurants in our discounts and rewards where you get a discount on eating out at a store. You know, discount, it hurts. Rent a car, marry up.

08:09
You know, that’s amazing. You know what, you just touched on something. I’m an eater, like and I travel, but I’ve got to check that out more. I mean, I’m a member of Triple A, so it’s like. And I mean my wife is too, whatever. And. But I forget about those other discounts, like restaurants.

08:26
Yeah, it’s great. The restaurants, the hotels, the rental cars, Disney World tickets, Disney Atlantic. Right. All that stuff. You got to think about when you’re going to buy that stuff because we give some great deals, your next cruise, whatever it is. Right. So. But also getting your car fixed, right, where we give you a 10% discount at any of our approved auto repair locations, up to 75 bucks off. So when you go get your work done in your car, you can save $75.

08:49
That’s awesome. Well, a couple other things like you guys have. What’s your relationship with Napa? You were telling me about it the other day. So you guys.

08:59
So we have almost a 30 year relationship with Napa. We have a discounts or rewards program with them where if you’re a AAA member, you go on any Napa location, you get 10% off of whatever you purchase. We also have our AAA branded battery with Napa. So they’re the only sellers of our AAA battery, you can buy off the shelves. So if you want to be a do it yourself friend, you go out there and you want to replace the battery yourself, or you got a, a vintage car or a classic car, or you got something that you want to put a AAA battery in, and we have that available for you too. Or if you want to call us up, we’ll come out and we’ll bring the battery to you.

09:32
Or if you want to go to one of our approved auto repair locations, they can order battery and install the battery for you as well.

09:38
That’s awesome. So you’re also the vice chair of the ASE Education foundation, too. You’re really big on education, aren’t you?

09:48
I’m big on education. I’m big on advocating for the technician. Right. I think as this is revolved around where we come from, you know, the old greasy mechanic, like I’m going to date myself here, but Cooter from Dukes of Hazard. Right. Or the old greasy guy that’s underneath there that’s always fixing the car. And I think that image has changed over the years and advocating for that. And these guys are professional. These men and women are professional people out there. I mean, you got a laptop in your hand now. You’re doing more work on a computer than you are turning wrenches. And you’re, you know, you’re looking at these different systems from the infotainment systems to PCMs that are driving cars. I think it’s. That’s like a tech job now, so. And I think it’s always evolving and changing.

10:30
So being on top of that, being your skills honed, having your skills updated is always a good thing.

10:36
So you were involved also with Goodyear for a while. And tell us about that past relationship a little bit and how it’s helped you into the old. The whole AAA thing.

10:48
Yeah. Goodyear was a very good experience, right. Learning from becoming a technician to being a store manager. They give you a lot of tools, a lot of training. It was a really good program to get into. You know, once I got up front as a service advisor, I got into their management training program. And, you know, a year and A half later, 18 months later, I was ready to go. But they give you really good tools. They send you to a store manager school training, it’s two weeks long. You know, you get to do a whole bunch of different things. I learned a lot in that realm and how to be successful and what to work for. You know, back in the 90s when I started this job, we.

11:22
We had a book that really, you know, kind of made me think a lot about the business. And as were talking, it was called, you know, raving fans by Ken Blanchard and how to make your customers raving fans of what you want to do every day. And that stuff, you know, kind of resonated with me. Always want to make sure the customer’s happy, and then they’ll come back for more and more. Because, you know, as we all know in this business, I used to go into there and talk to the people and I knew more about their lives, their kids, or where they’re going to high school, college and stuff, and having that relationship in this business and fixing your cars. Right. And fixing them the first time. Right.

11:55
And fix them at an affordable price or, you know, I think those are all important things that you have to have in this business. For sure.

12:03
It’s interesting. I call it, you know, I guess put it in politer terms, but it’s the I give a crap attitude, you know, and it’s sometimes, you know, you pick up those employees and. And you just know when you found somebody like that and. And their heart always has to be in that. That place because it’s almost like something you can’t necessarily train, but you can hone it in. You know, certain people have just instincts to care about other people more. And I do think it resonates in our industry extremely well because they’re already coming in with a problem. But if you can lighten that load or like you said, know a little bit about them and ask about their family, etc. It just, I don’t know, makes the day a little bit better at least, right?

12:46
Yeah. They can get as a feeling of where they’re coming from. Right. What’s. What’s on their mind, where they’re doing. If the. They’re the car for a while, they’re, you know, it’s their family car. If it’s a car that they’re just, you know, trying to hold together so they can get afford a new one or whatever it is. I think learning those and asking those type of questions and talking to them and just having an open relationship with them, I think it’s really cool. And that’s how it worked for me. Like I told my bosses years ago, you know, it’s cool that says Goodyear on the side, but those people come there for me. They come there for Jim. You know, good years are secondary to them. They come because I give them good service.

13:18
I take care of Them, I treat them respect, and we get them a good price, and we get them out the door. You know, that.

13:25
That is 100% accurate. You know, another thing I want to talk about real quick, because you’re talking about. We talked about training. We talked about your background with Goodyear, but AAA’s apprentice program.

13:36
Yeah. So, you know, as everyone else knows, that there’s a technician shortage out there. There’s a trade shortage. Right. Whether you’re an electrician, you’re a plumber, you’re a bricklayer, or whatever it is, there’s a trade shortage out there. I think. You know, a couple years ago, probably back in, like, 2022, 2023, we came across, you know, a whole bunch of our shop owners coming to us and saying, I don’t have enough people. I love that you guys are sending me tools. The cars are breaking down, but I have customers already sitting there, and I have more customers on top of it. And we need some help. You know, we need some help getting technicians into our shops. So we worked with a partner, Napa, and we thought of about, hey, what’s the way we can.

14:15
We can do this and help these guys kind of build like a farm team. So you. We wanted to build the program so that if you find the right person, say they’re working at, you know, a grocery store or they’re working in fast food, or maybe they’re. They worked in a factory, and that factory closed down, and now they have to reskill themselves. We want to take you. You find the right person. That’s personality for you. And we’ll give you a program, and we’ll make them into a technician in 18 months to two years. You know, so.

14:42
So is this. Is this available to people that are like garages or, you know, shops that are now contractors with you guys? Are they able.

14:51
It’s available to all of our approved auto repair shops. Yeah.

14:54
Yeah.

14:54
So, I mean, that’s another.

14:56
That’s another reason to be connected with you guys. I mean, it’s something where they don’t have to reinvent the wheel per se.

15:01
No. And, like, if you have a. If you have a relationship with Napa already, we give the program free to you if you don’t have a relationship with Napa. And I kind of want to make it this way. I want to make it agnostic so that no matter what park supplier you’re with, if it’s O’Reilly’s or Advance or Autozone or whoever else that’s out there, you know, you could use this program and it’s $30 a month, you know, or $300 a year per person. So for $300 investment a year, you’re going to get a great program that’s been laid out and put through. And at the end of that program you also get four ases, which is really nice and it’s self paced. So if you’re a little faster learner, you get done quicker.

15:42
If you’re a slower learner and it takes you a little longer than two years, you can get there.

15:46
But it’s so basically a shop owner can pay this membership fee, they can send their person your course. I’m sure it’s all online, videos, etc.

15:55
Notes Online in person. And it’s also mentor based. So you have a mentor inside the shop that’s going to help you as we go through these learnings. So some of the learnings will be online, some of the learnings will be in person and some of the learnings will be, you know, on a mentor basis.

16:10
So what do you mean about 4 ASE, like certified?

16:15
When you’re done with this program, we’re going to have a good, you’ll be, you’ll have, you’ll be certified in 4ac. So they will have, you have enough information that you’ll be able to confidently take four ASE tests. So it’ll be brakes, steering and suspension, air conditioning and electrical.

16:32
That’s fantastic. And I mean the, I mean I don’t know for sure but its price seems like it’s awesome. Seems like it’s, I mean that seems like a really good price to be able to get all of that for your techs and what you want to do with them.

16:49
So if you’re part of a triple A approved auto repair program, that’s part of the deal, right? We want to bring value to that membership. With us with AAA, the apprenticeship program is one way we have it, we have rebate structures with, you know, Syntax, Universe, Mitchell, one Celera Identifix with Napa as a part supplier. So we have, we try to make this relationship that we have with you guys. It’s like a two way street. You know, there’s usually a fee involved to be a part of the program, but we also want to give you back enough stuff to that it kind offsets that fee.

17:22
Well, that’s awesome. Well, you guys have a great reputation out there. I always like to ask folks, do you that are guests on our show, do you have any stories that stand out to you about your work life?

17:36
Yeah, my time at Playbook has been, you know, 12 years. And I had about, you know, 12 and a half years at Goodyear, so it was pretty cool to go back and forth there. But, you know, I had a lot of great relationships with the people I had with AAA. I was especially around fixing cars and going around it. But I had one. One gentleman and that I worked with here in Buffalo, you know, and he was on the edge of closing his shop, right? He was. He was. He needed to get more cars in there, and AAA was a way to. To. To help them facilitate that they get some more cars in there. And then we started to talk. You know, first.

18:10
The first day I went out there, I met him, started talking to him, and, you know, I sat down and listened to him where he was at, where he was struggling. And having been in the tools I got from Goodyear from running stores, I was able to help him talk himself into, you know, staying open. And also just following, like, a regimen of where we are. We had to do, like, analysis of where his gross profit was, where his. His labor dollars were and where he wanted to be him and what was sustainable in there. And he never really had somebody sit down there. He was a technician that. That took over for a business from a guy he bought it from, but he really didn’t have the business sense behind it.

18:46
So showing him that business sense and where he’s at and to where he comes to, and I still talk to him to this day, to where he is now and how big his shop has grown. He’s moved out of his. I think he’s in a second location since he’s been there, and it’s. It’s going like gangbusters for him. And he really attributes that to me. And he also attributes that to AAA, which is, I think, two great, outstanding brands that we have.

19:09
That’s fantastic. That’s great. Did you notice, I’m always curious because I’ve heard this multiple times. Did you have to tell him to raise his labor rates?

19:17
Oh, yeah. First. First I’m gonna do. Tell him the labor rates. And then he had to get his. His parts margins up too, because they were too low. Everybody was a friend, right? Everyone got a discount. It’s like, well, you can’t do that and stay in business.

19:31
Well, and that’s that temptation. You know, you. You want to make somebody feel really good and. And then, you know, you. You do feel like you’re gonna. Maybe. I don’t know, tick somebody off or lose the sale or whatever. But it, you’ve gotta always sell that value. And it’s amazing to me how many of us undercut ourselves by always, you know, devaluing it through price and not. And always feeling like that’s the objection. And really it’s not, I mean most of the time it’s not at all.

20:01
No, I think there’s always going to be a value price in there. But I think you’re right. If I’m getting good service, I know it’s going to get fixed, right. I know I’m not going to have a problem going down the road, you know, being part of the program. You have to have a two year, 24,000 mile warranty, right. Guarantee on any parts or any labor in your shop. So I think that’s important to them, gives them a peace of mind so they know, you know, for the next two years I put a starter in there. So I don’t have to worry about it for two years, right. I don’t have to worry about not to go to the shop down the street that might only have a 90 day warranty or a one year warranty, right.

20:29
Where yeah, two years, 24,000 miles, I’ll bring it back. And if it’s done at an AAA’s Playbook for, we got a huge warranty program that’s nationwide, right. So if they buy a part from an AAA’s store and they put the part in our members car, they got a nationwide warranty now. So it’s almost like having a, a warranty through a Goodyear or a Bridgestone Firestone or a dealership where they’re all over the world, you know, instead of just having it at Mike’s garage, you know, he is at any auto care across the United States. So if they’re traveling to Florida to get out of the winter here in sunny Buffalo, they’re covered, you know, big deal.

21:03
Big deal for sure. On a personal level you got a quote, code, something you like to live by.

21:12
Yeah. So it’s a funny story, Mike. You know, I worked, I started this business and then I thought, you know, I wanted to get out of this business so I tried a new profession. I went into law enforcement for almost a decade and before I came back. And from that experience it taught me a couple different things. But the one major thing it taught me was to be, always, be firm, fair and consistent every day. Right. Like if you’re fair, it works in regular life and your life with your kids, which are Wife with your friends, right? If you’re always firm, you’re fair, and you’re consistent, I think it’s. It’s always a good thing to have a model like that.

21:46
Well, it immediately builds trust because everybody knows where Jim stands. You know what I mean? It’s not like they even have to ask you where you. Where you stand on something they’re already going to know. I think of my dad in that way. You told me that fair, firm, fair and consistent. And my dad’s one of those people that came to mind because he raised seven of us and five boys in particular. And I mean, I did it sometimes when I look back on things, but I’m like, man, he was always firm, fair and consistent. I mean, I think that’s what made us respect him so much.

22:18
He never, you know, and I think if you take that out into the work world, you take that out into, you know, the garage environment and with people that work for you, they want to stick around with somebody like that because they know what to expect.

22:33
And you’re not talking about two sides of your mouth, right? If you’re going to do something, you got to follow through on it. And I think that’s the biggest thing. The follow through there is the best. Is the best thing you could possibly do in life, right. If you say you’re going to do something and try your darndest and hardest to get there and do that. Because if. If you can’t be your word or you can’t have someone that believes in you because you’re going to do it kind of, you know, kind of sets a bad foundation. We know what happens with band foundations. The building tends to crumble, Right?

23:02
Oh, it’s amazing. You know, at my age now, I can look back on different job experiences and realize who was a. A good manager or a good, you know, superior to me and look back on it with gratitude, more so than I maybe did Dan, because I had another experience that I can compare it to, you know, and you got those growth experiences and you realize, dude, that guy was a rotten egg. I mean, you know, or, you know, he never was. He never could keep his word or something like that. And, you know, it’s just. It’s interesting. And then you got these other guys that you may work for and you realize. And that guy was solid to me all the time. He, you know, I may have not agreed with him all the time, but he was always fair.

23:39
Yeah, I found that experience too. I found, like, I had managers that I worked with, that I really liked, but their work ethic wasn’t that great. Right. And there’s some guys that I didn’t like, but I learned the most for them because they made me look at something differently. Right. Or they made me. They challenged me to figure out how I can get onto a level with them, that we can all work together. Right. So well.

23:59
And you found out in a professional way you could count on them. You know, like, if you were dealing with a customer and they told you they were going to have something for you, by golly, they’re going to do it. They were going to get it done.

24:10
Yeah, that’s important.

24:11
You know, the worst thing to do is to represent something and. And you know, you’re leaning on some. Somebody else’s support to, you know, fulfill your end. But you got to have the part piece, whatever it is, and you’re telling the customer out here, yeah, I’m going to have it for you by the end of the day. And then you find out somebody didn’t make a phone call or somebody didn’t get it ordered or whatever. And it’s just. You. Just drives you crazy. Yeah.

24:35
I’m always a fan of, you know, under promising and over delivering. Right. Like, you know, it took. It could take me two days. But if you get it done in one day, you’re a champion, right? You’re a hero. But if you tell them, if you got, hey, it’s gonna take me two days to get it done. Cause that’s where it looks like. But you get it done earlier, you’re great. Right? Or give him a dollar amount that says, hey, we’ll try and get this fixed or try to save something. And we get it fixed under that money, you know, it’s. I think that’s the best way.

24:59
It’s interesting you bring that up. I literally just saw this about a week or two ago, but have you seen that? It’s like a. I don’t know. It’s. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but it’s a marketing guy or maybe he’s a business leader or something, but he’s talking about perception, and he’s talking about how companies go out into the world with their brand. And one of them. Five guys. Five guys has a good product. They got a good hamburger, and they got great French fries. And some people perceive them to be expensive. But the difference is when you go and you order your fries, you know how they. They fill up the bottom of your bag with fries. You always they’re charging you for those, but they make you feel like you’re getting just hundreds of bonus fries.

25:40
You know what I mean? And it’s. It’s like. Because if you order the small, I mean, I can’t eat even the small when the whole bag’s full. You know what I mean? It’s like, it’s. It’s just a. It’s. And they were talking about how that perception is so valuable to them. What they’ve created with that brand is that everybody that goes in there knows they’re. They’re getting bonus French fries, you know, and it’s that. It’s that over or under promise, over deliver mentality. They. They don’t tell you they’re charging a form, in a sense, but, you know, they’re not losing money on them. But the idea is, it’s the perception of what you’re getting, right?

26:16
I think you can look at a bunch of stuff that way, too. And, you know, the white AAA memberships, right? 70 Bucks a year, you get, you know, four free toes a year. And then you get all the stuff that we forget about, right? We all forget about the hotels and the restaurants and all the extra discounts. We want to always, you know, over deliver to anything we can do to make that worthwhile for that membership and for you guys to. To get the value out of it.

26:41
That’s awesome. Now. It is. It’s a great value. It’s a great program. I’m glad to have discussed it today. One last question, because you’re from Buffalo, New York, let’s talk about food real quick.

26:54
Yeah. I got to tell you know, being from Buffalo, New York, if I don’t say I love chicken wings. You know, it’s funny. You go all around the country, and I know it’s only because I’m a Buffalonian. You know, on the menu, you can tell when you’re out of Buffalo because they’ll put down Buffalo wings, but when you’re in Buffalo, it’s just wings, right? And if you are severely. And I mean severely judged, if you pull out a thing of ranch over a thing of blue cheese, in Buffalo, New York, you got to eat your chicken wings of blue cheese. If you pull up, they are gonna look good.

27:26
Man, I can’t. I can’t do it. I mean, me and blue cheese just do not click. It’s too strong for me. I mean, I get it. I like the tradition that you guys have, but I’m a ranch guy, man. I just can’t. I can’t do the blue cheese. That’s funny though. You know, it’s interesting because I love using and I don’t know if it’s still common up there, but they claim it on their bottle. And I was going to ask you this. Frank’s Red Hot sauce, that they say they were the original hot sauce for Buffalo chicken wings.

28:02
If you get Buffalo wings and you get chicken wings from Buffalo, if they don’t come with Frank’s saying from Buffalo, because that’s what they use, there’s no doubt about it. There’s stuff you’ll get. You know, all these other pizzerias are on here. Do you know, a whole bunch of different kind of different flavors. But if you get just a hot, medium or mild chicken wing, you’re getting there with Frank’s.

28:22
That’s good to know. Well, I, I’m a big fan of Frank’s. I like hot sauces. I mean, and I’m talking about a common one. You know, something that you can pick up everywhere or you see it at a lot of different restaurants or whatever. And I like Tabasco, but I kind of got burned out on it for some reason. Frank’s Red Hot Sauce is just. Is my go to. But I did not know up until recently that they were the original Buffalo chicken wing hot sauce as well.

28:49
Yeah, it’s all over here. I mean, so that if there’s like three schools of thought and who started the chicken wing and you know, Frank and Teresa’s anchor bar, you know, they’re someone out one night and they came back and they wanted his mom to pick up to make him something after they went out with his friends drinking and partying all night. And they, she had these, the chicken parts left over and she started frying the wings and the legs up. And next thing you know, that was the birth of the chicken wing. But there’s so many different stories out there. But you would think that’s the one that’s most widely accepted is that one from Frank and Teresa’s anchor bar. That’s the original home of the original chicken wing.

29:22
Well, we’ll go with it on the Gain Traction podcast. That’s the official narrative. Hey, Jim, thanks for being part of the podcast. This has been fun.

29:30
Thank you. And thank you for having me on. I appreciate it and I look forward to, you know, doing some stuff in the future with you guys too.

29:36
Great deal to our listeners out there. Thank you for being part of the podcast. You know, we love you. We’ll see you next time. On Gain Traction Podcast hey folks, Mike Edge here with the Gain Traction Podcast. Real quick we get a lot of people ask us, they know Gain Traction. But who? Who’s Tread Partners? Well, Tread Partners is our parent company and they’re a marketing agency dedicated strictly to tire and automotive repair shops. Anywhere from five locations all the way up to hundreds of locations in primarily one field that is always a pain for most people is paid search or PPC or Google Ads. We see enormous amount of waste in it and we see inefficient spend in it. If you want to know if you’re doing well or not, give us a call. We’ll help you. We’ll audit your account.

30:19
We’ll look under the hood and tell you if you’re doing things the right way or the wrong way and help you optimize that spend. You can reach me and I’ll direct you in the right [email protected] or feel free to go to treadpartners.com the website. To all our listeners, thank you for being part of the Gain Traction Podcast. We are grateful for you. If you’d like to find more podcasts like this, please Visit Gain Traction podcast.com if you’d like to make a guest recommendation, please email me@mike treadpartners.com this episode has been powered by Tread Partners, the leader in digital marketing for multi location tire and auto repair shops. To learn more about Tread Partners, visit treadpartners.com.

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1 In this episode…

2 Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

3 Resources mentioned in this episode:

4 Quotable Moments:

5 Action Steps: