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Episode 224

Adam Dixon

Urbs Garage

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This Episode is Sponsored by:

Adam Dixon is the Director of Operations at Urbs Garage, a multi-location auto repair business serving the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky markets. He built his career from the ground up as a technician before moving into leadership, where he developed and implemented scalable systems that drive consistent performance across locations. His hands-on experience across dealerships, independent shops, and multi-store operations gives him a practical, execution-first perspective on what actually works in the bay.

Today, Adam is known for turning underperforming locations into high-revenue operations by focusing on process, speed, and accountability. His approach to strategies to grow an auto repair shop centers on operational discipline rather than marketing spend, proving that growth is built through execution, not theory.

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…

Most shops don’t stall because they lack ideas. They stall because execution breaks under pressure.

Revenue leaks out in the space between inspection, communication, and approval. Cars sit too long before being checked. Customers wait too long to hear back. Decisions get pushed later into the day, and with that delay comes hesitation, lost trust, and missed sales. The industry continues to push marketing and expansion as the solution, yet the real constraint lives inside the shop’s daily workflow.

This episode shifts the focus back to what actually drives growth; speed creates confidence, clarity increases approvals, and consistency compounds results. The operators who scale are not chasing tactics, they are controlling the flow of work, removing friction, and building systems that perform every single day.

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

[01:15 ] Introduction of Adam Dixon and Urbs Garage

[01:31] Early interest in fixing things and technical curiosity

[07:15] Transition from dealership environment to independent shop

[09:52] Learning operational processes and identifying inefficiencies

[13:05] Attempted business acquisition and corporate transition

[14:28] Joining Urbs Garage and stepping into leadership

[17:54] Importance of mindset and saying yes to customers

[19:08] Marketing strategy differences across locations

[20:17] Rebuilding trust in underperforming shop locations

[21:27] Managing and optimizing digital marketing spend

[24:09] Customer attrition and need for consistent acquisition

[25:12] Speed to sale and importance of fast vehicle inspection

[27:15] Personal philosophy on accountability and follow-through

[28:37] Personal interests and hobbies outside the business

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments:

“Just changing processes, just how they did things.”
“You have to say yes.”
“Plant the seed of confidence in the customer that they’re always going to call Urbs Garage when they have a problem.”
“You’ve got to get the car checked out really fast.”
“You don’t want to have the customer have the doubt that they’re going to get the car back today.”

Action Steps:

Audit your check-in-to-diagnosis time. Set a standard that every vehicle gets inspected within the first hour to eliminate hesitation and increase approval rates.
Train your team to present findings early in the day. Speed to communication directly impacts close rate and customer confidence.
Standardize your workflow across all locations. Consistent processes create predictable outcomes and are foundational to effective strategies to grow an auto repair shop.
Shift your focus from lead generation to conversion efficiency. Increasing approval rates on existing car count drives faster revenue growth than adding new traffic.
Build a “say yes” culture at the front counter. Confidence at first contact sets the tone for the entire customer experience and drives repeat business.

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 Adam Dixon, Director of operations for IRV’s garage with four locations in the Cincinnati area, which includes northern Kentucky. Adam, welcome to the Gain Direction podcast.

01:26
Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it.

01:28
Yeah, I’m excited about our conversation, but for the sake of the audience and everyone listening, tell us a little bit about yourself. Did you grow up in Cincinnati?

01:37
I grew up in Hebron and Burlington area. That’s in Northern Kentucky, just across the river from Cincinnati. Yeah, I mean I, I kind of always kind of strive to be a technician. You know, as I growing up as a kid, you know, I always just like to understand how things work and, you know, tear things apart. To actually see what’s going on inside of is always a mystery to me, you know. So, yeah, I mean, and that’s where I kind of got into the business was just wanting to know, wanting to learn, wanting to fix things.

02:09
That’s awesome. Well, you had to be given that. I always think that the folks like yourself, they were given the opportunity maybe through parents or relatives or somebody around them that don’t be afraid to tear it apart and try to put it back together again or somebody gave you some comfort zone there, right?

02:26
Yeah, yeah. I think I frustrated my parents a lot with the things that I did tear apart. You know, my mom always tells a story about her coming home one day and I’m sitting on the kitchen table. I was Barely big enough to hold a screwdriver. And I had her electric can opener tore to pieces all over the kitchen table.

02:41
Oh, my gosh. You did start young.

02:45
Yes, yes.

02:46
Hey, what’s this for? Yeah, hey, this looks like this fits. That’s funny. So as you grew up, high school and then after high school, what kind of jobs did you have?

02:59
So I had a lot, a lot of jobs throughout school. And you know, I even started, I started pretty young. So I think my first job was I was setting trap. Doing clay pigeons at a gun club.

03:10
Nice.

03:11
I was about 12 years old, started doing that. So we had to pack the boxes down to the houses. You know, the houses are kind of buried down on the ground. Climbed down there and it was always. It seems like my memories always go back to winter because you were always freezing your butt off and you couldn’t wear gloves because you had to handle every one of those clay pigeons and set them down on the thrower. And that’s. My memory is just frozen hands all the time.

03:35
That’s a fond memory then, huh? You knew you didn’t want to do that forever, right?

03:40
No, definitely not.

03:42
You know, there is something about, that’s just something about, you know, certain forms of manual labor that it’s one of those things where when you did it when you were young, you knew when you were young that this one’s getting crossed off the list. I know I don’t want to be here in 10 years or whatever, but those are great experiences. Then how did you get to the automotive world? Because you told me you started out as a tech just like many people have in this industry.

04:13
Yeah, you know, I would say probably about. I don’t know, I was probably 14, 15 years old and really started taking an interest in cars. It always rode four wheelers. And of course, you know, if we had a four wheeler in the garage, there was always something wrong with it. So I always had to fix it so I could go ride, you know, and all my friends would bring their four wheelers down too, and we would get them back rolling. We would break something, we would fix it and get back on and just always, you know, I love doing that. It was not just the riding part of it, but it was the fixing part of it too. And being able to, you know, not have to depend on somebody else to be able to do that.

04:46
You know, mom and dad are at work all summer long and we want to ride all day long and can’t call dad to come fix it in the middle of the day. We just gotta go out. So.

04:54
Well, there’s a sense of accomplishment when you don’t have to call dad too.

04:58
For sure, for sure.

04:59
And I mean, I know it takes a little time, but once you get to that kind of point, you’re like, I got this.

05:04
Yeah.

05:05
Yeah.

05:06
So then it’s just. It spun into bigger things. And it was then, okay, well, I wanna, I want a race car too. So I ended up buying a little Mustang too, with a Chevy 350 in it and did some drag racing. And that was fun, but I wanted a little more excitement. And, you know, throughout that, it was not just working on my own cars, but, you know, the different jobs that I had. I had worked at a landscape company doing that for a little bit in the summer just to make some extra money. And they would always want me to work on their stuff because I knew how to do it right. They would break and it’s like, okay, we got to get this thing going. So, you know, then when I.

05:41
When I got out of high school, where I was getting ready to get out of high school, well, in high school even, I started doing some auto body stuff in high school. So I went to V school for auto body and just wanted to learn more. Just wanted to keep learning about cars. Like, you know, it really struck a nerve with me. Like, I just want to know more. And the auto body thing was fun. I. I feel very accomplished by being able to take a car that was totaled, cut the quarters off of it, put doors on it, and pull the paint booth, paint it, and it comes out looking like a brand new car. Like, that was pretty awesome. But I just still had that thirst. I still wanted more. I wanted to know more about cars.

06:14
Yeah, because during that process, you would get into some electrical problems that’s like, I just don’t know how to do that. I want to know how to do that. I don’t want to have to rely on somebody else to fix that car for me. I want to be able to do everything, you know. So I went through the Ford Asset program, got sponsored by a local Ford dealership. It’s. It’s essentially you go to work for 10 weeks, you go to school for 10 weeks and back and forth. And then in that same process, you’re also going to a university. Ours was a University of Cincinnati. I went to. So taking college courses and taking the. The I guess you would call a V school type courses through the Ford Asset program and then also working it was. It was a tough.

06:50
It was a tough two years there. And in the process of that, you know, my. Got. My current wife, my wife that now was my girlfriend back then, got her pregnant and we ended up having a kid, you know, my senior year in high school. So.

07:03
Wow.

07:03
Trying to raise a kid, trying to work job, trying to do side jobs to be able to pay the bills. Like, it was a. It was a tough two years. I don’t think I slept much.

07:10
And you. You had to grow up fast. You had to grow up fast.

07:13
Grow up very fast.

07:14
Oh, yeah, for sure. So how did you get to Herbs?

07:19
So through the. Through the Ford Asset program. I worked for dealerships for, I guess it was about five years. I worked at some four dealerships and trans. You know, I just. I just got tired of the dealership environment. I. I didn’t like how they treated people. I felt like they just. Their. Their customers were meal tickets to them is what it felt like to me. It just felt like they were taking advantage of them. And at the time, I just. I had a lot of friends and family that wanted me to work on their cars. And it’s like, I don’t have enough time in the evenings to work on all of your cars. Like, you’re gonna have to bring enough to the shop.

07:50
And they would give me some stories about how they just felt like they were getting taken advantage of, you know, and it’s like, this leaves a bad taste in your mouth, and I gotta carry that around. Those are my good friends, my family, like, I just don’t like that.

08:02
It’s interesting that you had that experience as a. As a young man and then you. But not only that, but you, I mean, you immediately recognized it, you know, I mean, you. You’re giving the same vibe that a lot of people had. You know, going to a manufacturer, a car dealership, service shop. I mean, a lot of people have that same vibe.

08:22
Yeah, yeah. And I didn’t like it right away, and I knew it. And I was like, man, I just. And I really like Fords, and I always wanted to work on Fords. And I was a Ford. I was almost. Or I was right there. I think I had like one more class or something to be a Ford Master Tech when I was, you know, after about five years of being there. And it was just like, man, I just need to find something different. I just. This isn’t it. I want to see what else is out there. And one of my dad’s friends owned a shop he Just started a shop recently and it was Steel’s hometown tire in Burlington. And John Steele, the owner, you know, he gave me the opportunity to come work for him.

08:58
And I took a big pay cut to go to an independent shop from a dealer. And it was just because it was just to stand on my morals and my principles is like, I just, I need to find a place that’s a better fit for me. Yeah. And I ended up there for 16 years, you know, 16 years working for him. And you know, when I came on board, it was a little bit rough, you know, because I had my processes of the dealership on, like how I like to do things. And his independent tire shop was totally different. You know, they just, they did things different. Yeah, he didn’t have electronic ros. Everything was handwritten. And it was the. He throw you the keys that hit you in the chest and he’s like, yeah, dude, put a set of four tires on.

09:37
It’s like, which tires? All that stack over there. I’m like, I can see how this can go sideways.

09:44
Yeah, well, so would that leave? I mean, what did you learn? What did you learn through that process of being there 16 years?

09:52
Oh, learned a ton. And, and you know, I, I developed a lot of the things that I use nowadays and it’s like not having processes I could see were big problems there. So I started developing some processes for him. I became the de facto diagnostic tech. And you know, ultimately he really wasn’t comfortable with selling some of the stuff that I was diagnosing and trying to give him the information on what to sell. And ultimately he would hand the ticket back to me. He’s like, man, I just don’t even know what to tell the customer here. You can go ahead and build the ticket, you can go ahead and call them and you can sell it and then you order the parts and you just handle your own stuff. Adam.

10:31
And I’m like, okay, so essentially I got a two bay shop over here next to his shop that I’m kind of running myself and just doing my own thing on all my diagnostic. And then he just collects the payment on it when the customer’s coming to pick it up. So.

10:43
Wow.

10:46
It worked very well for a few years. And then he bought a second store. And when he bought the second store, it was, it really wasn’t a standalone store when he first bought it. It was like an extension of our other, our Varmain’s shop. And it was about my, it was about a mile away and it had more room. It had taller ceilings, bigger lifts. Yeah, Did a lot of engine jobs down there. But unfortunately, some of the guys that we had just, they couldn’t get the car done right. And they would have to bring it up to me or I would have to go down there and verify what was going on and fix it before we gave it back to the customer.

11:22
So it kind of transitioned to, okay, Adam, well, you’re going to go down there and start working now, and we’re just going to open up a waiting room in a front office and I’ll find a service advisor for you to come down and help you, and we’ll just turn this into a second store. So.

11:34
Wow.

11:35
That. That happened pretty quick. And then, you know, throughout that period, I kind of transitioned to, you know, coaching people and developing a whole off road program at that store. And we started doing wheels, tires, lift kits, truck accessories, started building custom trucks. I did a lot of that stuff. That was, that was a good learning experience. And I kind of looked at it from like a marketing standpoint of what can I put out on the market to help drive more business in during our slow times? Because we had that business model that was just. It was up and down, you know, and you’re kind of riding the waves and it’s like, what can I do to fill in the gaps?

12:12
And it’s like I could do a lot of Facebook, marketing, Instagram, things like that, where I could build these custom trucks and take some cool pictures of them and post them. And it brought more customers in and built our customer base up quite a bit.

12:24
So that’s very cool.

12:25
Learned a lot off of that. And then he decided he wanted to branch off into mowers, and we started doing commercial mowers too. And then we opened up a third store that was an outdoor power equipment sh. Shop. I remember he was in Florida the night before were going to open it up, and I was there till midnight working on the showroom, getting it all ready. So it was like I was taking it on. It was. It was my baby. So kind of transitioned to being like the I. My title was the general manager of all three stores there for a period of time and selling mowers and just doing a little bit of everything. So it was, yeah. To say I learned a lot. Yeah, I definitely learned a lot.

13:00
Oh, yeah, you were given the keys to the kingdom, basically. So how. How did it. How did the transition to herbs?

13:08
So I was trying to buy that business from John and ultimately it just didn’t work out. We, we just couldn’t come to agreement on numbers and things.

13:17
Was he trying to retire at that point?

13:19
He was, he, I don’t think he was quite ready to retire, but he knew that I was ready to do something and he was trying to present me with the, you know, the opportunity to do it. And it just wasn’t working. So an opportunity popped up for me to go work for a big corporate company. Tracking and Modal. They wanted to grow the road service program and Tracking and Modal owns chassis, intermodal chassis, they lease all across the country and they wanted to develop a road service program across the country. And so they brought me on to grow that. They were only indianapolis and Cincinnati when I came on board and I was there for about a year and eight months total. And in that time we grew it to, went to Houston, Los Angeles, Chicago and Harrisburg Penns and then also Indian Cincinnati.

14:08
Wow, you really got that thing out there. Yeah.

14:11
And then we also opened up an in person or a shop inside of the warehouse where we did recap tires. We actually opened up a full service shop there and put in multiple lifts and had commercial vehicles in there were working on as well.

14:23
Dang, that’s awesome. Well, and so then when, what was your next step to get to Herbs?

14:28
So Track, unfortunately track sold and in the process of them selling, you know, it’s a, it was owned by a hedge fund or whatever you want to call it. Private equity. Yeah. And, and the previous owners were build it up, put some money into it and the owners that had bought it were into a strip it down and consolidated. So I, you know, when they, when they were looking at the sale, obviously I was skeptical about what was going on and I started looking, you know, just in case and when the thing started falling into place with, you know, they wanted to put me under being managed by somebody else and they wanted to take me and make me like a national salesperson. And I’m like, that’s not me, guys, you know. Yeah.

15:12
And ultimately I, I, I was looking for the door, you know, and trying to figure out my next steps. And my snap on tool guy funny enough called me one day and he said Ryan Hillenbrand is looking at buying store number two. I said, he said I think you two need to get together. I was like, cool, that’s awesome. I said he’s passed me his number and we’ll set something up. So me And Ryan sat down. It was in the middle of COVID All the stores in Kentucky or all the businesses in Kentucky restaurants, everything was shut down. So we’re just a hop skipping and jump away from Lawrenceburg, Indiana. And it was like the week that Indiana actually opened everything up.

15:49
We went over there and sat down at a restaurant indiana and hammered out, you know, it was in November, right around Thanksgiving, and we hammered out details of what were planning on doing. And I came on board in February of 2021, and we took over store number two in March of 2021.

16:08
That’s fabulous. So you’re on your fifth anniversary then.

16:11
Yeah. Yep.

16:12
Congratulations.

16:13
Thank you.

16:15
So did you automatically. I mean, it just put you in charge of operations because obviously you’re really good at processes, and obviously you learned what it’s like to have processes, not have processes. And you. You’ve seen to. I mean, that seems to be your knack in. In the form of management.

16:32
Yeah. So Ryan, with being a shop fixed coach, the big thing that I guess they’re really coaching people on is to outrun your overhead. And the way they typically teach you how to run your overhead is to keep growing. Right. You keep growing, you keep adding staff, you keep adding stores. So his intent was to add multiple stores. So when were talking about this is like, Adam, I want you to come on, I want you to develop this store into all the processes that. How we want all of our stores to run. And then we’re going to continue looking at adding store and storage store.

17:02
So the intent was, when I went into the Erlanger store, was to get it running the way that it should start developing a manager to take it over so that we could go and buy store number three and then go and buy store number four and so on. So I. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the staff, you know, spending a lot of time on the people trying to see who was gonna. Who was gonna be able to do the thing. And in February, before we took over, that store did $40,000. And in March, the first month of us taking over with the same staff, we did a hundred thousand dollars in revenue.

17:35
Fantastic.

17:37
Just changing processes, just how they did things, you know. And now, you know, was almost five years later, that store is doing about $200,000 a month.

17:46
Congratulations. That’s fantastic.

17:48
Yeah. And it’s. It’s a fair. It’s a fairly small store, I mean, typically running about four technicians out of that store.

17:54
Yeah. But process tells you everything. So, you know, for all the listeners out there. What do you. I don’t know how I want to phrase this question, but what do you think the most important process is? Maybe that’s the question.

18:07
I say it’s more of a mindset thing, and it’s the mindset of say yes.

18:12
Okay.

18:12
You have to say yes. If you don’t say yes when the customer calls, I go somewhere else.

18:18
Interesting. I agree. I mean, because your line of work is to solve problems, right?

18:22
Yes.

18:24
And if you can’t, and if you can’t solve that problem, then you’re no longer a solution.

18:30
Yeah. We have to plant the seed of confidence in the customer that they’re always going to call Herb’s Garage when they have a problem. Yeah.

18:37
How do you guys do in the tire business? I mean, I know it’s part of your name, but is that a. Is that a big leader for you?

18:42
It’s not, you know, and I wish we would push it. Push it a little bit more, but to be honest with you, we do so much business on all the. All the type of repairs. It’s hard to really focus on just tires. But we do have. Our store number four in Finneytown was previously a Michael Tire. And that. That neighborhood still knows, you know, that’s where you go to get your tires.

19:04
Yeah.

19:04
Store still does quite a few tires.

19:08
What do you guys do in regards to marketing? And do you market every store the same?

19:12
We don’t. So the two Kentucky stores, well established. Our car count is solid in those stores. We’ve actually started to go backwards on car count because we’re starting to dial in our customer base. We’re seeing our aro is going up dramatically. We’ve built trust in those areas with our customers. We don’t need to carpet mom with marketing. We do a lot of electronic or digital marketing, a lot of Google stuff in the Kentucky area. Now in the two Cincinnati stores, those are our two newest stores. Store number three was a completely shutdown building for a period of time. So it was essentially a new startup. We had to market a lot to get customers come into that store. The Finneytown store number four, it was a Michael Tire, but it was shut down for a short period of time.

20:00
And I would say probably the last year they were in operations, they were a skeleton of what they used to be.

20:05
It’s amazing, isn’t it, that when you shut down a store, the perception it gives to the location and then that creates the necessity of the heavy lift all over again.

20:16
For sure.

20:17
Yeah.

20:18
You’ve really Got to build trust in your customers. The store number three, the Monfor store, man, it just, in talking to all the customers, talking to the employees that we’ve hired that live in that area, you know, they. They all give us the same feedback, is like, that building just has a bad reputation. That building’s like a black eye. So we’ve really got to build trust in customers. Yeah.

20:38
It’s so interesting. I’m going. I’m trying to think of the gentleman’s name that was on the. The podcast a few months back. I think it was A.J. Neely. But he. He talked about how he was so confident he could overcome certain locations by buying, you know, less expensive operations and then take them over. And he goes, and, boy, did I learn a lesson. Like, you know, once. Once it’s got a black eye, I mean, it just has that black eye, and it’s hard to elevate it out of that. I mean, there’s, like you said, it’s got a contaminated something. Like it’s this contaminated location spot because whatever they did to the folks, you know, bad service, lies, whatever you want to call it. Yeah. And it’s hard to overcome that.

21:19
Even though the whole building’s been painted and it’s all new and everything, it’s still. You’re still in the same business. So. Yeah, that’s. That’s interesting. On the marketing side, I’m curious, do you. Do you find that, like digital marketing, for instance, do you find that you’re able to zero in easier for the types of clients that you want? Because, I mean, in a. In a sense, you get to. I mean, you get to buy the keywords you want. Right. So you. You don’t waste money on other areas. I guess.

21:50
So. Ryan, Ryan Holmbrand, the owner of the business, he has a marketing degree, so he’s. He’s very good at marketing. Now, we used to source it all out, but here, recently, he. I say in the past couple years, he’s really kind of dialed in how we market. Getting better at just subbing out the individual types of things. And then he himself is. Is paying close attention to the reporting and getting penetration reports. Constantly reading those, looking at where we need to market heavier or where we need to dial back and not waste the money on it. But then you can spend a lot of money in marketing and you can get a lot, not a lot from it, so you really have to pay attention to it.

22:28
Oh, man, it’s. It’s almost. It’s. It’s almost. It’s almost gut wrenching and heart stopping. Our parent company that owns Gain Traction, sometimes we look under the hood of folks and this is just strictly paid search, like you’re just doing, you’re buying your Google words and stuff like that. It can look brutal sometimes and you make these assumptions that hey, this is a big group, they’re smart group, they probably got everything figured out. And then you realize, you know, we’ve run into organizations where they’re spending $18,000 extra a month in their Google spend that they didn’t even have to spend. I mean, it’s like wasted money. It’s money that, it’s just inefficient. It’s like, but you know, they’ve been told, hey, you need to buy this or. And they don’t realize that. You know, I say this as a warning to everybody.

23:18
Google’s motivation is to get clicks, that Google’s motivation is to get you to spend money and broaden your, you know, your expense with them. So they’re not, they don’t, they don’t necessarily teach you how to optimize your spend. And, and that’s the frustrating thing because you know, a lot of people get into it and they just take things for granted. And this is what I thought I had to do. Well, you do have to do it, but there’s an optimum way of doing it. And if you don’t know it gets costly. So you guys are in a good spot. Then obviously having, you know, Ryan with some knowledge that at least can, nowhere is. And I think it’s important too to know where you don’t have to spend money.

23:58
Like you’re talking about the other two stores in Kentucky, they’re seasoned, you know your customer base. You probably got a good retention marketing plan with them. All those things add up.

24:10
Yeah, but you’re always looking to constantly grow too. So you always want to be replacing, you know, the customers that fall off because you’re always going to have some customers that fall off.

24:19
What is the rule in the industry? From what I understand the rule in the industry, from what I’ve read is you really have about a 15% attrition rate of loss every year. Because I mean this is out of your control. People move, they buy new vehicles, et cetera. So if you think of it over course of two years, if you’re not doing anything to attract the new customer, in two years you’ve lost 30% of your, what you perceive to be your base. You know, that’s a Pretty big mark.

24:46
Yeah. Then I’ve heard different numbers and from what I understand is most people are looking for about a 30% new customer bill is what you’re looking for.

24:56
Yeah, I would agree. Well, let’s talk about processes. I like this discussion with you. So the next, in the next, like, step of things, what would you consider important? First of all, you said it was mindset.

25:12
Yeah, yeah, the mindset of, you know, making sure that the customer just has absolutely no doubt that we’re going to be able to get their car looked at as fast as possible and, you know, speed to sail, you’ve got to get the car checked out really fast and you’ve got to get a presenter to the customer as fast as you can, you know, and making our technicians really buy into that and having them understand the need of getting it checked out, getting it presented to the customer right away, that builds confidence in the customers thinking that, you know, if they get the car in at 8 o’ clock in the morning and you call them at 9 with everything that needs to be done on their car, the likelihood that they’re going to buy is much higher than if you call them at 3 o’ clock in the afternoon.

25:51
That, that one point right there, I’m going to tell you, I’ve been doing this podcast for four and a half years. I don’t know if I’ve had anybody say it the way you just said it there. And I don’t know if anybody said it as their number two process point, like get it checked out immediately. Get, get the customer information immediately. Because like you said. Yeah, if you’re calling them. Because honestly, I mean, my mindset just in growing up and everything, you know, if I take my car to the shop and these are people I know, I’ve known my whole life, if I take it at 8, I might not hear from them until noon.

26:24
Yeah, that’s not acceptable.

26:26
It’s rough.

26:27
Yeah.

26:27
Because I mean, it’s. I, I don’t know how to plan for it, you know, and I don’t know when my wife’s gonna, if it’s her car, you know, do I have to pick up who do I have to move here? You know what I mean?

26:38
Excuse me.

26:39
That’s, that’s, and that’s powerful. I think that’s important. I think that was a good nugget. I always like to get a good nugget out of my podcast guest. And I think that one’s a, a great one for people to listen to and take to heart.

26:52
You don’t want to have the customer have the doubt that they’re going to get the car back today. Yeah, they want to at least think that, okay, there’s a chance I’m going to get my car back today. So I’m going to say, yeah, go ahead and fix it. And then you can get into the weeds of, well, maybe we have to wait on parts, so maybe it won’t be done today. But we don’t know that until, you know, until we dive a little deeper into it. But, yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s crucial.

27:15
What’s a. On a personal level, what’s a mantra quote that you live by?

27:21
There’s lots of them that I have used over the years and there’s lots of them that I’ve been told, like by my dad. You know, one that he always told me is, never do anything half ass. You know, that’s what, that’s one that kind of sticks with me. But I would tell you the one that I kind of live by is always do what you say you’re going to do. That’s, that’s the one thing that frustrates me more than anything about other people is like, if they continually tell me they’re going to do this, they’re going to do that, and then they never follow through on it. That drives me crazy. And I don’t want people to have that perception of me. Like, if I tell you I’m going to do it.

27:53
Yeah, that’s a great way to be. I had one of my mentors, he was very good at telling people no. And the reason he did is because he said, I always wanted to tell people if I was going to do something, I’m going to do it. And they knew I was going to do it. But if I told you no, then I didn’t have to worry about it. And I knew I didn’t have time or had my reasons, whatever the reasons were. But it was a clear, you know, and it can seem callous at the same time, but I knew some of his closest friends and they always had genuinely great respect for him because his yes meant yes and his no meant no.

28:27
And.

28:28
Yeah, that’s awesome. I think that’s a great one. Well, I know people are always curious about my guests and I always think it’s a great way to get to know people, but I always like to ask them a question like this, but what do you do for a hobby?

28:40
So I do quite a few things. Like not as much as I used to obviously because I’m starting to get a little bit older and the kids are getting older. I still coach a little bit of baseball with my youngest son. But I would say that the big thing that you know always like going into the weekend, something I’m always looking forward to other than the, the baseball stuff and is dirt late model racing. You know, I, I, I used to dabble in it myself. I used to race a little bit. I spent about 10 years or so racing and I just, I still love it. I still have got a lot of friends that do it and I still follow em. I watch the Lucas Oil, I watch World Outlaws racing.

29:16
Starting to get into some more sprint car stuff nowadays, you know and it’s kind of in my blood. My family was always into cars and racing and my dad’s stepdad actually used to own some Indy cars back in the day, so. Nice. He was a huge Indiana sprint car guy. He traveled all around Indiana following the sprint cars.

29:34
That’s cool. So do you actually, are you racing or are you just part of a team now?

29:39
Not anymore, no. I just kind of follow them. Yeah, I watch them and I still know a lot of the guys that do it and stuff but yeah, not involved with it anymore. I still have, I still have lots of door panels and stuff hanging in my barn and some pictures. I think there’s a picture back there me of one of my races that I won. Yeah.

29:58
So that’s awesome.

30:00
Still got a passion for it. I just it with the kids. I got five kids so they keep me busy and my wife pretty much laid down the law. She’s like, yeah, I don’t think you’re going to be able to do this anymore.

30:11
Well, it is funny because you both and I, we’ve got 10 between us then, so I’ve got my five but mine are finally I’ve, I’ve got my last one’s a senior in high school. So things are loosening up per se in regards to going to events or whatever. But it is interesting how you know, a dad does put his life on hold, a mom does too. But I’m just saying, you know those hobbies that you had at one time or whatever, it’s kind of like they get put on a shelf for. Yeah, pretty indefinite period until you can like, you know, and then by the time you want to do it again you’re too old or whatever, but you still may want to be like you be staying, stay in Vava. Just going back to the races or whatever and that’s cool though.

30:50
I’m glad you. I’m glad you get to do that. Well, I gotta tell you, Adam, I’m glad we met. I’m glad you came on the podcast and you’ve given us some good nuggets.

30:59
Yeah, yeah. Greatly appreciate it. It was fun.

31:01
Yeah, we’ll have you back sometime.

31:03
All right. That’d be awesome.

31:05
All right. Hey, to all our listeners out there, thank you for being part of the podcast. You know we love you. Come back and see us. 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. And 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.

31:45
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 to 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: