147 - Ballet Shoes to Bay Floors: How Julia Reynolds Streamlined a Small Shop for Big Results

147 - Ballet Shoes to Bay Floors: How Julia Reynolds Streamlined a Small Shop for Big Results September 16, 2025 - 00:33:39

 

Show Summary:

What happens when a former professional ballerina trades the stage for a service bay? Julia Reynolds, General Manager at RDS Automotive Service (GA), shares how she rose from apprentice to operations lead—building a transparent, commission-free culture and turning processes into profit. In this episode, Julia breaks down the exact systems her 5-person team uses to communicate faster, sell smarter, and deliver dealer-level trust with indie-shop heart. If you’re wrestling with volume, deferred work follow-ups, parts sourcing chaos, or going paperless, you’ll steal playbook-ready ideas you can implement this week.

 

Host(s):

Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development

 

Guest(s):

Julia Reynolds, General Manager of RDS Automotive Service

 

Show Highlights:

[00:00:34] - From ballet to bays: Julia pivots careers after an ankle injury, earns ASEs, starts at Ford in 2020, and joins RDS in August 2021.

[00:03:16] - Ground-up growth: She begins as an apprentice, sweeps floors, learns under master tech Paul O’Brien, then shifts to the front after a wrist injury.

[00:05:10] - Small shop, tight crew: A five-person, commission-free team feels like family and collaboration beats push-pull leadership.

[00:06:17] - INTJ ops brain: Templates, spreadsheets, and standardized parts lists make complex jobs faster and cleaner.

[00:08:59] - DVI is the crown jewel: AutoServe1 + Protractor + AutoOps boost transparency with photos/video/audio and easy online booking.

[00:11:30] - Paperless vision: Tablets in-bay and one-platform communication would cut walk-time and raise tech efficiency.

[00:15:33] - Parts in one pane: Consolidating with tools like Nexpart/PartsTech would simplify VIN-driven estimates and ordering.

[00:17:06] - Volume bottleneck: Local zoning and neighborhood shifts reduce car count, so marketing and deferred-work follow-up are mission-critical.

[00:23:04] - New audience, new work: Target late-20s/early-30s enthusiasts who want upgrades (not just maintenance) to grow revenue.

[00:26:50] - Leveling up: Prioritize electrical diagnostics training, dealer-level programming, and evaluating all-in-one shop software on the Windows 11 refresh.

 

In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry? Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode.

 

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Episode Transcript Disclaimer
This transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com.

 

Episode Transcript:

Jimmy Lea: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, or goodnight, depending on when and where you're joining us from. My name is Jimmy Lea. I am with the Institute and this is the Leading Edge podcast. Joining me today is Julia Reynolds. She is the general manager for RDS Automotive out of Georgia. So excited to have you here with me, Julia, how the heck are you?

Julia Reynolds: I'm doing great. It's great to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Jimmy Lea: Well, good. Thank you. Thank you. And I want to jump right into this and ask you about your journey into the automotive aftermarket. What did that look like for you?

Julia Reynolds: So it's, it almost sounds like a lie when I say it out loud, I promise you a hand on a Bible.

Julia Reynolds: It is real. I was a professional ballet dancer. I ended up breaking an ankle and retiring at about 2021. I taught for a bit after that. I. Essentially, I had a couple of jobs here and there. I worked with Shutterfly for a bit. Worked with Lifetouch, had a, you know, great group of people there.

Julia Reynolds: Very supportive still of my career change today. When I was deciding kind of what I wanted to do next with my life, I remembered growing up in. Essentially we had a service station that had a equipment shop underneath, and my happiest memories growing up were being in the shop with my grandfather and my uncles and my dad and my brother, you know, whether I was watching them or because I had little hands, you know, reach in here and twist that because, you know, I'm a girl.

Julia Reynolds: Our hands fit in places that a lot of burly guys hands don't. Oh, that's so

Jimmy Lea: true.

Julia Reynolds: And it just, when I thought back on all those memories, I was like, I. It doesn't feel like work. And I had also restored vintage, like I had a Nissan Dotson two 80 or not a two 80. My brother had a two 80, I had a 300.

Julia Reynolds: And then my brother also has a fair lady as well. So we kind of grew up in the restoration game with that just for fun, you know, kind of a bonding project with our dad. And yeah, I took the leap went and got my a SC certifications. I started out at Ford. Went through all of the Ford School Ford training back in 2020, and then I started here at RDS in August of 21.

Jimmy Lea: Nice. Congratulations. So you just ashad yourself sha Oh, I'm saying the wrong word.

Julia Reynolds: No, you got it. It's Shae

Jimmy Lea: Ade. You're away from ballerina into, the front desk. Oh, congratulations. A professional ballet. Thank you. I was not a professional ballroom dancer, but I was a ballroom dancer through high school and college.

Julia Reynolds: That's awesome. That's how I met my husband.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, really? Ballroom

Julia Reynolds: dancer? Yeah.

Jimmy Lea: Oh my word. Congratulations.

Julia Reynolds: Specifically like West Coast. West coast swing and blues dancing.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love West Coast. West Coast. It's so much fun. Yep. Yep. So much fun. All right, so, back to your you went from ballerina into the automotive into Ford, ended up at RDS, right?

Jimmy Lea: It sounds like outta school, you went right into RDS, is that correct?

Julia Reynolds: Correct. Correct.

Jimmy Lea: Okay.

Jimmy Lea: Did you go straight into management with RDS or did you start on the front counter? What, how did that work out?

Julia Reynolds: I started as an apprentice. I mean, I started from the bottom and worked my way up. When I came to RDS, like I said, I was fresh out of Ford School.

Julia Reynolds: And I just said if you take a chance on me, I promise I'll work as hard as I need to prove myself. I know I'm a girl in this industry and it is not normal for a. You know, 27-year-old female to walk into a shop looking for a job. So, you know, I paid my dues, I swept the floors, I put the tools away.

Julia Reynolds: I got to apprentice under our master technician, Paul O'Brien. He is incredible. One of, in my opinion, one of the best Toyota mechanics in the city of Atlanta. So I got to spend two years with. And then after that I ended up having an injury with my wrist. I tore the cartilage here, so I was in a cast and it's kind of hard to work on cars in a cast.

Julia Reynolds: So that's when I started learning more about how the front runs and how we, you know, do bookkeeping and all that good stuff. So my boss kind of. He and I swapped. So he took my position on the floor as soon as my apprenticeship was over, and then I kind of started learning the backend until my brother came on board with us from Subaru, and now he's our service manager.

Julia Reynolds: So he handles all of the customer facing interactions and then I handle all the backend.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, interesting. So he went from teching with Subaru to service advising here with RDS.

Julia Reynolds: Correct.

Jimmy Lea: Oh my goodness. And so you're running everything behind the scenes and he's running everything front of counter.

Jimmy Lea: Oh my gosh. That's phenomenal. So what's one of the things that you love the most about leading this team you've got at RDS?

Julia Reynolds: With RDS? I know it's kind of a taboo thing to say that work feels like a family, but as a very small shop. Yeah. We do feel like a family. I mean, there's only five of us, the owner, his wife, my brother, me and our master tech.

Julia Reynolds: That's it. So, you know, it's a very small operation and I love that we all can come together, we can troubleshoot and problem solve and feed off one another. And when it comes to leading it, it doesn't even really. Feel like I'm having to push or pull or, you know, make things happen. It's really a collaborative effort and I'm so thankful to work with such an amazing team.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, that, that is so cool. And it's cool that you've got a small team. So it's, I'm not gonna say it's easier because it's also difficult. It has its own challenges. Yes, working with the technicians and the service advisors. So how, what would you describe as your management style in communicating between your technicians and your brother as the advisor?

Jimmy Lea: How do you work that?

Julia Reynolds: So. Personality wise, I'm a an INTJ, so I'm very logic oriented. I like to problem solve and you know, streamline processes and things like that. So I try to take as much of my experience as a tech because I do still work on the floor and say, okay, if we are doing this job, why don't we come together?

Julia Reynolds: We're gonna make a couple of spreadsheets. So if we're gonna sell a. A timing change up, we're gonna make a sheet. So we kind of have a template. We know we need X, Y, Z for parts and things like that. And I think having that, like I said, collaborative effort has really helped a lot in that regard.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love that.

Jimmy Lea: I love that. I love that, that you have analyzed your personality as well, so that you know and understand your your Yeah, you gotta perfect mind. Have you also done the personality test for everybody else in the shop as well?

Julia Reynolds: I have. I have. My brother is also an INTJ and I believe that Paul is an Ian tj.

Julia Reynolds: So we're very similar and it kind of gives that good Yan Yin and yang kind of. Feeling.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. That's great. That's great that you've gone delved into that realm of understanding personalities because it's, it helps in the communication. It helps in Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Julia Reynolds: And knowing where your strong suits are and where your weaknesses are for your management style does make a huge difference in how successful you and your team can be.

Jimmy Lea: Oh totally agree. So where do you feel most confident as a leader of RDS?

Julia Reynolds: Can you elaborate just a little bit?

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So as a manager, you've, you're a general manager. Where are you the most confident in a position of leadership?

Julia Reynolds: I would say I'm the most confident when it comes to operations.

Julia Reynolds: That, so when I worked with Life Touch and Shutterfly, I was in operations, you know, a lead team lead, that kind of thing. So I got very used to, you know, here is. What we have to do day to day, here are all the steps we need to take to make x, y, z happen. So I would say when it comes to things like streamlining our parts houses, you know, we're gonna use these three systems, you know, choosing our shop management softwares adding things like Ds to our routines.

Julia Reynolds: I think that's kind of my strong suit of vetting programs like that and implementing as much as I can with the most cost, effectiveness and highest. ROI. To get customers involved. We've started using a full like photo, video, audio DVI system, and that has, it's been incredible. The customer feedback has been awesome.

Julia Reynolds: It really brings up that transparency. Especially because we're a commission free shop. We are not like most, so we are not flat rate.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, wow. Wow. Okay. So everybody's So it's a high trust

Julia Reynolds: environment. High trust environment.

Jimmy Lea: Nice. I love it. And what DVI program are you doing?

Julia Reynolds: So we use autos Serve one and we're paired with protractor right now.

Julia Reynolds: We may be changing protractor with via Windows 11 rollout and kind of see what we're doing from there. Sure. And then we use Auto Ops for all our scheduling.

Jimmy Lea: Nice. Very cool. Yeah. Phenomenal. All phenomenal programs. They're very strong in the industry. That's very cool. Yeah. On the flip side of this where you're strong in the operations side, where do you feel that there are areas that you're still developing as a leader or as a manager?

Julia Reynolds: I think for me personally, as a manager, this has been a different, kind of a different ball game just due to the industry itself. Being a young female, working with a bunch of males that are far older and more experienced than I am, I think I struggle with my confidence in saying, Hey, this is what I think we need to do, or how we need to do it, because, I mean, they've got 40 years of experience on me, and of course I want their input, but it is tough to kind of get out of my own head and say, this is your position and you're allowed to say what you think.

Julia Reynolds: So I would say just confidence in that side is probably one of the things I struggle with the most.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, hey sister, we all do. We all do. You gotta be comfortable in your own skin and standing up for yourself and your thoughts. 'cause you've got great experience, they've got great experience, you've got great experience as well.

Jimmy Lea: Let's bring them together and have the best of both worlds.

Julia Reynolds: Absolutely.

Jimmy Lea: I love that. If you could change one thing about, oh thing I hate thing, if you could change one aspect about your team's efficiency or communication, what would it be?

Julia Reynolds: If it were up to me, I would love it if we could go paperless.

Jimmy Lea: Yes,

Julia Reynolds: I would love if we could go paperless.

Jimmy Lea: Would you have technicians on their phone, technicians on a tablet, or technicians on a computer?

Julia Reynolds: So as of right now, we use tablets just for the DVI system so that we can get the, you know, pictures, video, audio.

Julia Reynolds: But there is a way, I think if we were to change shop management software, where we could use everything through one platform on the tablet. I think that would increase, not necessarily just sales, but just efficiency of communication. You know, every time you take 30 seconds to walk across the shop to talk to your service advisor, you do that 14 times a day.

Julia Reynolds: That adds up really quickly when your, you know, tech costs per minute is a dollar 65. Oh yeah. So, you know, once you do the math on how. How much it actually takes to keep the lights on and keep your text paid. That effectiveness, the less you move, the better you are. So if we could go paperless and work off tablets in our bays and have that direct line like, Hey, this estimate is ready, or This inspection is done, this inspection was sent, we got approval on this, parts are ordered.

Julia Reynolds: You know, if we could get that, you know, wham, bam, that would be really, I think, my goal. But that's where I want us to get to.

Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah, you, and you're exactly right. When you focus on the operations, the process procedures, like you're talking about, you said it doesn't necessarily increase sales. But it does.

Jimmy Lea: It is exactly tied in together. The more efficient you are, the more you have that process procedure down, the more business you can bring in. Therefore the sales go up. I mean,

Julia Reynolds: absolutely. And it gives the service advisor more time to prepare that estimate to go over it and, you know. Have more time to explain to the customer.

Julia Reynolds: We try, like I said, to be very transparent and if they wanna know how a system works, we'll tell them. If they don't care, that's totally fine. We're not gonna give you information you don't want. But if we did have, you know, a bit more efficiency in that department, I think we could have more time to say, okay, so here's how a water pump actually works.

Julia Reynolds: And explain that cooling system to them. 'cause people in my generation, you know, between like 25 to 38 or so. Some of us grew up with fix it dads and some didn't. So as much as we can inform them, I want that to be a part of the process and that trust building with our clientele.

Jimmy Lea: It's so true. It's so true.

Jimmy Lea: And you've got that operations mind. My wife has that operations mind as well and here she was with the company. They were 48 weeks behind in processing claims. Goodness. It is. Yes, my goodness is correct. It was really far behind. She dug in and within a very short amount of time.

Jimmy Lea: I don't know exactly what the amount of time is, but it's short, like. A few months, let's call it three months. She had it completely turned around where they were processing claims within 31 days, 32 days.

Julia Reynolds: That's incredible.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. They went from being a $30 million a year company to a 40 or $50 million a year company in, in, in a flash.

Jimmy Lea: And was it because the sales guys were selling more? Well, kind of, but it was because they were able to process it better, quicker, faster, easier. They had more ability to take throughput. Exactly. To your point. So let's dive into some of this operational systems, process, procedures. Yeah. What do you think that you have implemented into your shop that is running really well as far as process, procedure or operation?

Julia Reynolds: I think the addition of. Well first the addition of auto serve one number one, that DVI system, not only does it cloud save all of the information from each inspection, the customer gets an email and texts that they get to keep forever. And then if they ever do need a copy of it, we have a backup.

Julia Reynolds: And then also including auto ops with that. So both of those integrate with protractor. All the data carries over. But now you can book from our Google business page. You don't have to worry about calling us. You can just tap a button, pick your time slot. You want breaks, you wanna describe something, you know, you just check off a few boxes and you're good to go.

Julia Reynolds: I love it. Good. I would say the next thing that I wanna implement would be, I'm considering next part if we are to change shop management software so that we're not clicking through individual browser tabs to order parts, because copying and pasting that vin into four different parts houses.

Julia Reynolds: You know, that takes time. And when you're building a big estimate and one part sauce has part of it, and one part sauce has, you know, three pieces of it, it gets very tedious. And then you end up like my desk with paper. Paper. But you're gonna miss on

Jimmy Lea: paper. Yeah. You're gonna miss something. So using a program like,

Julia Reynolds: yeah, using a program like next part, you've got one window and it says, okay, out of the 25 parts houses you've selected in your area, it's available here, and here.

Julia Reynolds: And then you can build your estimate directly from all of those and order it in one invoice, which that's our next goal.

Jimmy Lea: Beautiful. I'm not familiar with next part, but I am familiar with Parts Tech.

Julia Reynolds: Very similar.

Jimmy Lea: It sounds very similar. Very

Julia Reynolds: similar,

Jimmy Lea: yeah. Very cool. So, I love that, that you've implemented a DVI and that's your, one of your crown jewels.

Jimmy Lea: I, I, that's my baby. Yeah. Right. Oh, because a customer can see it worn, torn fray, broken leaking, seeping. Yeah. You can see that. Especially when you circle it, you put air clip, customers can see that. So, and

Julia Reynolds: we get that red, yellow, green, just like a dealer.

Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. Oh, well, red, yellow, green is inherent.

Jimmy Lea: We all understand green means go. We're good. Yellow means, hey, caution. You gotta be aware. And red says safety. You've got to fix it now. So where do you see are some of the bottlenecks in the current workflow or communication or customer service? What are some of those bottlenecks that you've identified?

Julia Reynolds: Our biggest bottleneck right now has been volume in our area. There's a lot of different like zoning issues and stuff happening around us and it's taken things like, you know, they've torn down apartment complexes that were right next to us, that were a ton of our customers. There's several neighborhoods around us that, you know, people are either aging out and not driving anymore 'cause they've retired.

Julia Reynolds: And we also live in Atlanta, so if your commute's only four miles. We're lucky to see you twice a year. Yeah. So I think our biggest bottleneck right now is marketing just within our own, you know, marketing to our own clients. They're fantastic. We have an amazing, you know, book of business. Our customers are fantastic people.

Julia Reynolds: But it's getting new volume in getting that name out. And, you know, aside from just word of mouth.

Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. Well, and it's interesting you mentioned marketing. We just completed a marketing intensive, a marketing workshop at the institute.

Julia Reynolds: Oh,

Jimmy Lea: we brought together, yeah. It was a small, intimate group.

Jimmy Lea: There was about 50 of us vendors and participants, and we had, it was a two and a half day speeches talking about marketing, what you can do, what you can implement. Then it was hands-on, planning out the marketing calendar. Yeah, it was really good. So next year when we do it, that's

Julia Reynolds: fantastic.

Jimmy Lea: You make sure you sign up for it.

Jimmy Lea: I'll be

Julia Reynolds: there. Yeah, that sounds great.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. That would help you. So when they demoed the apartment complex, what did they put up in place?

Julia Reynolds: So it started to be a housing development, and then I believe it either bought or went bankrupt. I'm not quite sure. It changed hands. And it sat for a little over a year before someone picked it up.

Jimmy Lea: Oh my. Okay. So

Julia Reynolds: there, and like I said, all of the zoning changes like where we are, you can't open a new auto shop.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. You're

Julia Reynolds: if you're not, yeah. If you're not existing, no new ones can pop up anywhere inside, you know, our particular overlay district. Yeah. Like I said, it's just been kind of tough because businesses have been moving around.

Julia Reynolds: You know, some of the clients like fleet truck contracts and stuff that we had, they're no longer here. They've moved to somewhere else. Just because they needed someone that had more bays and at this point, if we were to move, we would have to move outside of the city. We can't just move to another building easily.

Julia Reynolds: So that's been kind of a struggle, just like I said, for getting volume in.

Jimmy Lea: That's tough. That's tough. The good news is you're grandfathered and you're staying there. Yes. You're gonna be there. Absolutely. If you stand, if you need to grow just at another location, don't be yes.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah,

Julia Reynolds: absolutely. And we have, we just celebrated our 25th almond, well, we'll be 26 next year anniversary. We've been open since 1999. Same owner. And we have been in this building since 2003, I believe.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. Congratulations. That's very cool. Thanks. And does the owner own the building or are you guys leasing the building or do you know what That's

Julia Reynolds: We've leased this one.

Julia Reynolds: We at first only leased the front half, and now we have one, two, well, we have four lifts and then we have two flat bases.

Jimmy Lea: Nice. Okay. And for the amount of technicians you've got, that's perfect. That's perfect. The

Julia Reynolds: three

Jimmy Lea: on the floor. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So are there any reoccurring issues that it's eating up your time right now that shouldn't

Julia Reynolds: That's a good question. I would say. The things that take up my time the most that we haven't quite nailed down a procedure on is following up with deferred work. We do have some automated things that go out through Carfax and stuff like that, but getting that report pulled, finding that time in the week, especially with myself working on the floor still and making sure those calls go out every Friday, that is definitely something that it gets done, but it's kind of stressful.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah, it's kind of stressful. Look into ops. I think they have some great programs in there for the decline services that you can set up an automatic three month, six month, nine month reminder.

Julia Reynolds: Oh, I only, right now, I have it set up to remind them if they go to schedule, but I haven't looked at sending additional Sue there.

Julia Reynolds: Thank you for that.

Jimmy Lea: You're welcome.

Julia Reynolds: I appreciate that.

Jimmy Lea: So if if some of these small problems were left unaddressed, what would. Be the big headache that you could see six months from now.

Julia Reynolds: I think the big headache if we weren't to address issues like this, again, it would go back to volume. I think we would see a bottleneck in people coming in, especially new clients.

Julia Reynolds: Like I said, we have a fantastic clientele. Our word of mouth like referrals are through the roof. I mean, we probably get, I would say, two to three a week from somebody saying, Hey go to RDS, check 'em out. But you know, when we see on that intake form, you know, Google next door, Yelp, or whatever it is, we don't see that quite as often.

Julia Reynolds: So I think if we were to leave. Things like following up on deferred work and you know, the marketing side of things unaddressed for a while. I think we would definitely see A decline in profit.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We gotta get that deferred work dialed in pretty quick.

Julia Reynolds: Absolutely.

Jimmy Lea: And I think with a phone call, you got it.

Jimmy Lea: You got it taken care of. So what's the vision for RDS automotive services over the next year? What's the focus?

Julia Reynolds: The focus over the next year is to, like I said, because of a lot of our customers have retired and aged out. We're trying to get car enthusiasts in. We want the, you know, those caffeine and octane guys who, you know, they want the killer be oil pan on their Subaru.

Julia Reynolds: Not 'cause they need it, but because they want it. You know, trying to get that group involved with us, because right now our goal is to take your daily driver and make it the same way as it was the day you bought it. But living in a city like Atlanta where people have super short commutes, there's not a whole lot of wiggle room there for us to grow.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah.

Julia Reynolds: So getting that next generation in, you know. The late twenties, early thirties. And then, you know, the teens, like the customers that have retired, we want their nieces and nephews and grandkids. We want them coming in.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. You want those video gamers that are willing to buy new skins for their video.

Jimmy Lea: Absolutely. And here they're driving a Subaru, you just want them to upgrade those bar parts, bits. Yeah. Yeah. They've got the money, put the

Julia Reynolds: fancy stuff on.

Jimmy Lea: Let's do it.

Jimmy Lea: I love it. I love it. So if you had. Let's see. If you had a trusted partner to help you remove one challenge from your plate, what would that challenge be?

Jimmy Lea: And who would it be that would help to remove it?

Julia Reynolds: If I could magically have someone who just answered the phone and did our inventory? I think that would be, if we had an actual CSR, I think that would be very helpful.

Jimmy Lea: Interesting. Interesting. You say that there's some AI phone systems right now that are very interesting.

Julia Reynolds: Okay.

Jimmy Lea: There's a company called Voice Controller talk to William Fairbank. Inbound communication. I talked to David Boyd. Yeah. I've got a couple of other people that you, I can turn you on to. And what's interesting about these AI systems is that they'll answer the phone, they'll even schedule the appointment, and if it becomes too complex of a conversation, they'll say, Hey, you know what?

Jimmy Lea: Hold on a second. Do you want me to connect you with Julia? Oh, okay. Let me see if she's available. Oh, you know what? She's, maybe you're not available. She's not available right now. Do you wanna leave a message and I'll make sure she calls you back here in the next hour or two, or Definitely today, by the end of the day.

Julia Reynolds: Right.

Jimmy Lea: So it, it's quite interesting what they can do with these AI systems.

Julia Reynolds: Huh? I'll look into that.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah, definitely

Julia Reynolds: look into that.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. A lot of fun. We did

Julia Reynolds: receive, we had a virtual receptionist for a bit to, you know, like a phone tree. We had some mixed reviews on that.

Jimmy Lea: Yes. Some of our

Julia Reynolds: customers loved it.

Julia Reynolds: Some did not.

Jimmy Lea: Well, and what's interesting, I call a lot of shops and it'll say, press one to speak to a human. And what they're doing is cutting out all those robo calls.

Julia Reynolds: I was just gonna say that's a big problem that we have is just, you know, you pick it up and it's either just a click or there's no one there, or it's a bot automated call.

Julia Reynolds: You know, when you have that option to press one, AIS can't do that.

Jimmy Lea: Correct. Correct. All right. So last question for you here as we land this plane is there any more training or systems or coaching that's around you or around your team that you would like to implement over the next year?

Julia Reynolds: I definitely want us to continue.

Julia Reynolds: At least for the technicians, including myself on the floor, you know, always trying to continue our education. When it comes to electrical diagnostics, cars are becoming more and more like iPads on wheels every day. So we wanna make sure we know how to use those breakout boxes. We know how to troubleshoot all those teeny tiny electrical problems.

Julia Reynolds: You know, getting RDS to the point where we could reflash head units and, you know, do that dealer level software programming, I think would be super vital. I'm trying to think if there's anything else when it comes to like growing the team or implementation. I think it will be interesting to see what happens with our shop management software once Windows 11 comes out.

Julia Reynolds: Because we will need to be getting new computers, new equipment, you know, all that good stuff. So I think. Once we consolidate, not only will it help us financially, but I think it'll make a lot of things more streamlined if we can find a shop management software that, you know, you can use something like next part, or, I, I'm so sorry, I forgot the name of the one that you mentioned.

Jimmy Lea: Parts tech.

Julia Reynolds: Parts tech. You know, that has that all in the same window so that you're not going from one screen to one screen to look at parts and write an estimate. Just put it all in at once. All goes and gets ordered on the same ro Yeah. You know, and there's a few out there that even include the credit processing, which would be great.

Julia Reynolds: Right now we use a third party for credit processing, for financing, you know, all of that. So using a shop management software that is an all-in-one would help us, like I said, both financially and I think just as a team and communication, working with the customers and ease of use for everyone.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Are you using 360 payments?

Julia Reynolds: We are not, we're actually using Flex Buy at the moment.

Jimmy Lea: Okay. I don't know Flex Buy, but I know that 360 payments is part of the family of Protractor Auto Server. It is on shop wear. You know, they work so they've got a really good seamless program and they've also got a program right now where your clients could finance through them.

Jimmy Lea: Okay, so a credit card. You don't have to use the credit card. They get approved for finance.

Julia Reynolds: Right.

Jimmy Lea: So yeah, check out. That is definitely something look

Julia Reynolds: into,

Jimmy Lea: yeah.

Julia Reynolds: Yeah. Flex by, they're, we don't. Really push it too hard because they're, they do have very high interest rates if you miss that six month window.

Julia Reynolds: You know, and I never want my customers to have to alter their gr grocery budget to fix their car or, you know, pay off a loan, that kind of thing. So we try to be very careful with who we present that to.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah. Well, and that's also the beauty of it is here's a huge bill, $5,000. I don't have $5,000 today.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, but you know what? You can finance it and pay a thousand bucks a month over the next five months. And it's same as cash.

Julia Reynolds: Exactly.

Jimmy Lea: Bingo. All right. I'm sold. Or maybe it's eight 50 a month. I don't know the path on that, but, right. Yeah, man that it's beau it's a beautiful option for those that can implement it.

Jimmy Lea: And it keeps them safe on the road.

Julia Reynolds: For sure. And that's, I mean, we always go by the, would I put my spouse or my parent in this vehicle? And that's our gold standard. You know, would I put my husband in it? Would I put my mom or my dad in it? And if the answer is no, then we gotta address these problems and get 'em fixed so that you, the precious car goes, stays safe on the road.

Jimmy Lea: Totally agree. Totally agree. All right, Julia, last and final question.

Jimmy Lea: What is your future? What are you going to do in this industry?

Julia Reynolds: I would love to have my own shop at some point. I think on my cover letter when I applied here, it said I either wanted to be a crew chief or chief mechanic for a Formula One team or own my own shop.

Julia Reynolds: Awesome. If I could get into, that's awesome. If anybody knows how to get in touch with Max for staff and let me know I'd love to work for him. Oh yeah. Actually I like Liz Hamilton a little more, but no, I think I would love to own my own shop. I just it, it's a very comfortable environment and feeling, and this is the first job I've ever had where it just feels like home.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. Well, I think you've got a bright future in the industry. I think you've going in the right direction, and there is a unique opportunity right now that if you keep your eyes open, just keep looking out there, you're gonna find it. You are gonna find that opportunity to. Yeah, there's a lot of old 72-year-old, 80-year-old dudes out there that are like, I'm ready, I'm done.

Jimmy Lea: Here's keys. Have fun.

Julia Reynolds: Do the thing.

Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. And you grab a hold of that. You implement everything. New technology, you triple that business overnight. It seems like overnight. It's probably in the first year. Right. You just take it to next levels. It's never even been before.

Julia Reynolds: yeah.

Jimmy Lea: Keep your eyes open, Julia, and I'm fairly certain that you and your brother will be able to find something that's just awesome and amazing.

Julia Reynolds: I appreciate that. Thank you.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Well, thank you Julia. I appreciate your time today and course look forward to talking to you.

Julia Reynolds: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Jimmy Lea: Are you going to ASTA in, in Raleigh, North Carolina next week?

Julia Reynolds: No.

Jimmy Lea: 25th through the 28th, there's a trade show conference, tech training service advisor training, management training, marketing training, owner training.

Jimmy Lea: It's in Raleigh a STA Expo. Look it up.

Julia Reynolds: Yeah, absolutely. I think I can make that happen.

Jimmy Lea: That would be awesome. It's really good. You get in there, get into classes.

Julia Reynolds: Yeah. Are y'all, I'm assuming the institute will be there.

Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah. Yeah. We'll be there,

Julia Reynolds: absolutely.

Jimmy Lea: I'll be flying in on Wednesday and then out on Sunday.

Jimmy Lea: And we've got classes that we're teaching every day about service advisor training, communication, overcoming objections, selling. Without conflict, how to overcome conflict, how to communicate front to back. I love that training, marketing, training what's next? Training. Talking about the private equity that's coming in, buying up all these little shops to amalgamate and then they sell it to, right?

Jimmy Lea: All the PE. This is an opportunity that you have as well. So there's a lot of stuff happening in this industry over the next five years. We got this unique window. That's gonna happen here for us. Yeah. I'm super excited. I'd love to see you in Raleigh.

Julia Reynolds: No, that'd be great. That'd be awesome.

Jimmy Lea: All right, Julia, thank you very much.