121 - An Educated Customer Makes Better Decisions

121 - An Educated Customer Makes Better Decisions
May 14th, 2025 - 00:57:32

 

Show Summary:

In this episode, Jimmy Lea hosts Craig O'Neill from Auto Flow and Mike Simard from Simard Automotive in Fairbanks, Alaska. They discuss the journey of building successful auto repair shops, the importance of transparency with customers, and the transformative impact of Digital Vehicle Inspections (DVIs). Mike shares his story of growing from a single 24x32-foot shop to seven locations by focusing on customer education, transparent inspections, and integrity in service. Craig emphasizes the role of proper communication and the need for inspection consistency. Together, they explore the evolution of shop processes, the benefits of digitization, and the future of the automotive repair industry, highlighting the importance of leadership, team development, and a strong company culture.

 

Host(s):

Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development

 

Guest(s):

Craig O’Neill, VP of Training of AutoFlow

Mike Simard, owner of Simard Automotive

 

Episode Highlights:

[00:02:22] - The Origin of Simard Automotive: Mike recounts his journey to Alaska in 1995, starting with a small shop built by hand and growing one customer at a time with a focus on transparency and communication.

[00:06:35] - Building Trust Through Inspections: Mike emphasizes that customer trust was earned through transparency, education, and clear communication—elements that became foundational to his business growth.

[00:19:57] - Transitioning to Digital Vehicle Inspections: Mike explains how moving from paper to digital inspections enhanced trust, customer understanding, and streamlined operations.

[00:23:06] - Accountability with Digital Inspections: Craig discusses how DVIs improve accountability and transparency, making it easier for technicians and advisors to communicate vehicle needs effectively.

[00:34:02] - Setting Standards in Lube Shops: Mike details his experience acquiring lube and tire shops and the challenge of introducing structured inspection processes to improve service quality.

[00:42:16] - Hiring for Values, Not Just Skills: Mike shares his strategy for scaling ARD Auto by focusing on hiring individuals aligned with company values, which drives better customer service and shop culture.

[00:49:22] - Growing People to Grow the Company: Mike outlines his vision for ARD Auto's future, emphasizing people development, structured onboarding, and leadership growth.

[00:53:51] - Industry Ambassadors and Communication: Craig and Mike discuss the need to change the perception of the auto repair industry, positioning technicians as skilled professionals and improving communication skills across the board.

[00:42:16] - Leadership and Accountability: Mike talks about the importance of empowering technicians and advisors to make responsible decisions and own their roles in the shop.

[00:54:11] - Key Takeaways for Shop Owners: Mike emphasizes that successful shops focus on transparency, integrity, and proper communication, backed by effective training and leadership.

 

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 evening, good afternoon, or good night, depending on when and where you're joining us from. Today is a beautiful day outside. It's absolutely gorgeous. So excited to be here with you today, my friends, as we have this phenomenal discussion with two rock stars of the automotive aftermarket.

Jimmy Lea: We, we are gonna have a great conversation. And I'm excited for this conversation 'cause we first, we're gonna start by talking to, well, first buy, no, we're just gonna bring 'em both in at the same time. My guests today are. Craig O'Neill from Auto Flow. Thank you Craig for being here with us as we have this phenomenal discretion.

Craig O’Neill: Oh, thanks Jimmy. Glad to be here.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And how many days did we work together at the same company?

Craig O’Neill: I don't remember how many days. It was like three months. It was, yeah, three weeks.

Jimmy Lea: It's one of the two. Oh man.

Craig O’Neill: Been following you around though.

Jimmy Lea: Hey, we got a good thing going, brother.

Craig O’Neill: I appreciate our relationship, my friend.

Jimmy Lea: Absolutely. And joining as well with us is Mr. Mike Ard from ARD Auto up in Fairbanks, Alaska. You're very close here to the other Fairbanks of Alaska that just chimed in as well. Good morning, frontline Mike. Glad you're here, brother. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Nice. Now, how is I heard a story that must be told.

Jimmy Lea: And it is. How did you Craig meet Mike? Or is it Mike? How did you meet Craig?

Mike Simard: Oh boy. We made a production together. About feeding cars with baby bottles.

Craig O’Neill: Yeah. There was a baby bottle involved. A large one larger than this water bottle. But is that the Institute Summit 2023, your inaugural summit And we won Summit.

Craig O’Neill: Yeah. And we won.

Mike Simard: We won. We told the story and the story told the truth and we kicked butt. So we told the best story that day.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Oh, I love it. I love it. That is so cool. That is so cool's. One of those really good

Craig O’Neill: team building projects too. You just meet cool people in that time and that was fun to be a part of that.

Jimmy Lea: Yep. Yep. Very cool. We had a phenomenal institute, summit in 25 here earlier in February. Phenomenal, very successful. Many shops were there, had many great inspirational presentations. Beautiful. That was awesome as well. It's a good spots

Craig O’Neill: at a good time of year. I always appreciate those trips that bring me to Florida around that February threshold there.

Jimmy Lea: Right.

Jimmy Lea: We'll have to.

Craig O’Neill: I know Michael doesn't mind. I've only seen him that's dark from Alaska, but every time I've seen him it's been in Florida.

Mike Simard: That's right. Every time.

Jimmy Lea: That's awesome. Well, and our, we ha we are in the depths of planning our 27 so news to be coming soon. Gonna be on Alaska this time?

Craig O’Neill: No, not in February. That'd be fun.

Jimmy Lea: Alaska in February I think. Not I've done that once before.

Craig O’Neill: No, dog sled team building exercise would be pretty

Mike Simard: That's right. We could make it fun. We could feed the dogs with the baby bottles and and echo. That's right.

Jimmy Lea: In fact I think we were at the finish line, the hotel, the conference, the trade show was at or near the finish line for some sort of a dog race.

Jimmy Lea: I don't know if it was a Iditarod or not, but it was a dog race and there were a plethora of sleds and dogs and it was very cool.

Mike Simard: Yep. Very cool. Anytime. You're welcome. In February and January, especially those times of year, we need some extra comfort and friends in Alaska.

Jimmy Lea: Hey, bingo. Well, there you go.

Jimmy Lea: So my next trip up to Alaska will be in February yet again. There you go. Mike I'd love to talk about your story and your shops and your success and your journey. So really I want to take us all back to the beginning because we've got a lot of friends, a lot of fellow shop owners that are in the first stages of their business, and there's always these great stories of these successful shops, and what is it that they're doing today?

Jimmy Lea: Take us back. Take us back. For the guy who just started his shop a month ago, a quarter ago six months ago, a year ago, what did you do when you started? What did your shop look like? What was that facility? What was what did you do? How did you get started?

Mike Simard: Well, my story started in 95 when I drove up here.

Mike Simard: Always knew what I wanted to do, so I was blessed with, I was blessed with that. And so it's good to know what you want to do and what you like to do, and I always like to figure out hard problems and try to make a connection with a customer or someone else in that particular case. And so when I got here two years later, I started the company and we expanded and it grew, but it really started with.

Mike Simard: One customer at a time. So we built a 24 by 32 square foot shop ourself, and we just literally started with one customer at a time. In asking for referrals, trying to do a good job. It was a lot of hard work. So I always say Michael Jordan didn't come out of his mother's womb with a basketball in his hand shooting, shooting like he did, right?

Mike Simard: So it took a lot of time. Success doesn't happen overnight. And success is. You know, in, in it's only perceived a certain way and the struggles it takes to get there is difficult. But I do remember the most important part of learning how to start a business and have customers, right, that want to come back is it really started with transparency and started with communication.

Mike Simard: Realizing that customers don't like to be sold. They like to be empowered and educated to make good decisions. So, that's kind of where we started and we kind of grew from there into seven locations that we have now.

Jimmy Lea: Okay, so I yeah. Just so many questions for you right now, at this moment.

Jimmy Lea: First of all, 97, 95 to 97, that's two years. What were you doing for two years that you finally built the building and launched the business? What was that two years consisted of?

Mike Simard: Well, started a family got married in 99 as well. So there was a lot of activity. It was very busy at that time.

Mike Simard: And really just kind of getting established in Alaska. Okay. So I worked heavy duty for about a year.

Jimmy Lea: You were wrenching, heavy duty?

Mike Simard: Oh yeah, full on, full wrench. Call me a wrench. Still a wrench at heart. So yeah, I fixed cars in my own little shop. But before I did that, I worked a dealership for about a year.

Mike Simard: I worked heavy duty. I even worked I remember to buy my wife her wedding ring. Saved up for two weeks, working out in zebu, which if you don't know where that is, you can't drive there, you can only fly there. It's a village out there below Nome or around Nome. And on the west coast, Alaska.

Mike Simard: And I worked on a drill rig. I. So I fixed everything and anything that was put in front of me, build dozer, tranny, I mean, just stretched myself beyond, made a ton of mistakes. I pulled a couple of transmissions out, an engine or two that I messed up. So one of the things I can tell you the way I learned.

Mike Simard: The hard way. The hard way.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. The busted knuckle way. The Fort Knox way

Mike Simard: hard, Knox way. Very tough. I can definitely empathize with anybody. Starting a business. Just started a business struggling. And I will tell you something. If you want to run a business and grow, get used to hitting the ceiling often.

Mike Simard: Oh yeah. Hitting the ceiling often, meaning you, you reach your capacity. You run into a roadblock. It's not for everybody. No, but those are the times when you look back on your life. The biggest struggles you have is where you learn the most. It just doesn't feel good at the time.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, it doesn't.

Jimmy Lea: It doesn't. And speaking of transmissions as you know, Craig is also a wrench from a transmission shop. Craig tell, I don't even, Mike, I don't even know if you know this story of Craig being called out of class.

Craig O’Neill: Oh yeah. Yeah. My first class that I ever took in management training versus being a technician.

Craig O’Neill: Yeah. With Bob Greenwood at the time. And that was I remember just this being, this, I learned hard too. Michigan, Alaska have some hard, I think Alaska has a degree notch. Higher than that for sure. Roughness.

Mike Simard: Yeah.

Craig O’Neill: Man. Cold day in February, Michigan. I was sitting in Bob Greenwood's class. He asked that question, what's your job?

Craig O’Neill: And I had the smart Alec answer that any technician in a room of management trainers would probably say is that I fix cars. Proud answer, right? Bob got in my face, he told me what I'll never forget, and I often share, no. Your job, your professional responsibility is to make sure the vehicle's safe, reliable, and efficient.

Craig O’Neill: That's your job. How can you do that unless you inspect every vehicle that comes into your bay? Amen. Finally busted my mind wide open on how I approached everything. 'cause otherwise I was proud to do the transmission fix, do the big stuff, make customer happy by make transmission go good now. And that's not all there is to it.

Craig O’Neill: It might go good, but it may not stop. Yeah, we would that we weren't a general repair shop. We were happy in those days sending everything to everybody else. But as everyone knows in the transmission industry, that evolved yeah, well evolved really everyone else started doing replacement units and that became a real challenge for us.

Craig O’Neill: We had to that Oh, for sure.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah, for sure. Make it go. So, so to Craig, to you're inspecting every vehicle. Mike, when you started you spoke about how when the cars came in, you inspected the vehicles and this was important for you because an educated client, an educated customer, makes better decisions.

Jimmy Lea: What was your process in the beginning?

Mike Simard: So, you know, the, what I wanna impress upon what I learned I guess, is going through a lot of different trial and errors is that, you know, the more and more you talk to customers and you fix their cars and you really try to see what they want. 'cause what they really want is they want to be treated fairly.

Mike Simard: They wanted to be treated with dignity, they wanna be treated. They don't wanna be talked down to. We always, for example, really tried hard, and my wife made sure of this, that like, if we can help serve the customers the single mom a woman that comes in, like anybody, it doesn't matter. I always say, if it's your grandma, it's the president, it's the pope.

Mike Simard: It doesn't matter. Treat them the same. Yeah, like treat them the same, treat 'em with respect and don't talk down to people. Guys pretty much always think they know what they're doing and they'll tell you what's wrong, their car and women won't. So there's different types of people that you need to talk to, but the information remains the same.

Mike Simard: So the first aspect is what's the information that the customer needs, and then how do we communicate that? And so as I went through that process, you know, originally it was. Well, when you're doing it yourself and you're the one guy, and I'm sure a lot of people listening to this is one guy, one gal, right?

Mike Simard: Doing it themself. You're maybe fixing the car. You're running service. I've been that person. You know, Craig might have been that person. It's tough. So you just do things. So, you know, if you're talking about scaling. It's tough to be the center of attention doing things, but that's really where you learn, that's where you cut your teeth.

Mike Simard: That's where you learn how to shoot 10,000 hoops while everybody else is parting. Like, that's how you become a master. You miss 9,000 of the 10,000 shots. So in that process, every time you look at the car, if you make a mistake, maybe they went down the road and it was making a noise that you didn't catch.

Mike Simard: One of the things that differentiated us, and I believe the brand. And it's difficult to retain this type of thing as you scale is to retain that quality. So it's like, I came in for this, the customer came in for X. Okay. What they think they want? Okay. But really, and it has to be done with integrity.

Mike Simard: See, this is the, this is where are your values of that shop? But you really want to help them see what they need. Yeah. Now you can be manipulative with that. So you have to be careful. So where are your foundations, your principles and values? Who's working for you? Are they following them? Do you have a process?

Mike Simard: That all came later. Okay. But it's usually win later.

Jimmy Lea: Win later. Well, from starting, 'cause you were the, you were it, you were the brain in the start. Right? Which is typical. Was most typical. Yeah. And then you expanded, you hired more technicians, and then you discovered, oh my gosh, I've gotta have policies, procedures here.

Jimmy Lea: So they do it the way I did it. So when did you implement some of these policies, procedures?

Mike Simard: So it started, I remember the day that you know, the institute RLO recruited me and I said, no, I remember exactly where I was in the shop and that, that saying no to getting coaching and learning from my peers cost me a lot of hard ache and sleepless nights and time and money.

Mike Simard: And because you're learning it all on your own. So it's always good if you can when you think you can't afford it to be, if you're not around better people or coaches or training and you don't think you can afford it, well, you can't afford not to. I learned that. I think that was I can't remember what year, but just say it's 25, 26 years ago.

Mike Simard: Well, two years later I woke up and we had been working on some things. So one of the things we always do, just to kinda answer your question is we got together often. We talked about what's working, what's not, what's going right, what's not, what can we do better? The customer went down the road and maybe they had a new squeak they didn't have before.

Mike Simard: How could we have made that better? If we could have so inspecting the car, having, what are we inspecting? Like, what should we do? How long should it take? What should our test drive route be? We started working on those things, having lunch every week and listening to people around us, the people doing the work.

Mike Simard: I was in the middle of them. So when we talked about something that happened, we all knew. So we can go right into problem solving moments. Let's try this week. So it's very important to get your team engaged in collaborating what you're doing, especially if you're rolling out a new inspection program, you're trying to create more transparency.

Mike Simard: Just get your team engaged. Because if they don't believe in it, right, they're not gonna want to do it. Their behavior never lies, so it's easier to do that. Then we met the RLO, which is now the institute. And when I got into those groups then I realized, oh everybody else is like me. We all have unique strengths and weaknesses.

Mike Simard: We're all learning. And then things begin to accelerate because I didn't have to make it up with my team. We could just ask. And some of those things came easier.

Jimmy Lea: Oh yeah, that, that peer to peer, when you're able to have those collaborative discussions, that might be something that Craig's already experienced and you're like, oh my gosh, this is new.

Jimmy Lea: This is huge. This, I can't even get through this. And Craig's like. Nah, that's just Tuesday, man. We got this.

Craig O’Neill: Yeah. I see a lot of the same behaviors across the nation. And I always look at Alaska too, and I, it surprised me like Michael, like you, you have to have seen multiple times, like in that environment.

Craig O’Neill: There's some big distances. Some of 'em can't be traversed by vehicles, but even the ones that can, it's. Seems to me the RAM ramifications of failure have some really dire consequences in that environment. So a vehicle that could see a breakdown there, it seems like anyone that would be inspecting a vehicle understands that and would be totally bought in all the time to doing a very thorough inspection.

Craig O’Neill: Educating the customer on what they actually do need that isn't always natural, is it?

Mike Simard: No. So one of the, I think the hardest thing is of being a leader is bridging the gap between the vision and reality, you know? You know, without the vision that people shall perish. So that's a very important thing.

Mike Simard: Well, there's also a matter of you can cast a vision, but you also have to walk the talk. Yeah. So there's a, you know, and I'm tend to be more visionary, and in the beginning I was more tactical. So as I've grown. You know, the distance between the vision and the tactical gets greater.

Mike Simard: It's, you know, again, having good transparent systems good inspection processes that can go out helps. But to your point Craig, you can do an inspection. So just last week we were talking about measuring DVI, so just saying just this is one of the things we're gonna know. In our fast paced lube shops, we have two different models.

Mike Simard: We have lube shops, we have three of those. Lube and tire fast paced. Yeah. Different type of customer expectation for their experience. Totally. Okay. And we have comprehensive, and we always excel at the comprehensive, so I know that well. So bringing in inspection process to those that you would think would know what you're saying about Alaska in particular, about how you could literally die at 50 bull.

Mike Simard: If your car launches off a snowbank and no one sees you for hours, you could die. Trapped in your car, die. So if you hit the brakes around a corner doesn't work, you inspected it, someone's gonna probably call you. So it's important that that we teach that vision early. You're 'cause a lot of people just come to start a job.

Mike Simard: Hopefully

Mike Simard: they find a career. Hopefully they see the vision. So you have to connect that with their, bla their brain and figure out what is their belief. So if their belief is this is important 'cause my grandma could be in every single car I'm inspecting.

Mike Simard: Yeah.

Mike Simard: And I care about grandma, hopefully like grandma, right?

Mike Simard: Yeah. Then I'm gonna treat it the way you said to keep grandma safe. And that's a challenge today with the younger generation. It's just a challenge with the workforce today. We have a passion for the industry, so we're not just here fix cars. We're not just here for that. We're here to provide solutions and transparency, change the face of the automotive industry, not just in Alaska, but working with our peers, our friend friendly shops and the country and the world.

Mike Simard: Like how do we do better on the planet while we're here?

Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it and I love that you're educating your customer, educating the client. This is what your vehicle needs. This is what your vehicle's telling me it needs. I know you came in for a leaking radiator, but your vehicle's also telling me you need all new hoses.

Jimmy Lea: You need brakes, you need a brake flush. You need new pads and rotors. There. There an educated customer is much more intelligent. So at what point did you go from a let's say a paper inspection? 'cause it sounds like you were paper inspection from the very beginning. Day one. When did you go to a. A digital vehicle inspection?

Mike Simard: Good question. 'cause I think being in part of the group process, we saw a similar thing that I bet you some people are going through and I'd love to talk about this for a minute. So from the, it was so we started the newer shop in 99. And so we had more technicians and so there was more things going on all at the same time.

Mike Simard: So we had to get something on paper and it was a paper inspection. So I love technology. It's, it was harder back then. But we used to scan in the inspections. I think cell phones were coming along, but they were like the big blocky things, right? So, and then we'd email 'em. So scan 'em and email 'em and then go over it.

Mike Simard: But it was like one page. I still miss it actually. 'cause it's really easy to teach because if you get an auto flow inspection it's all on a tablet, which most of us familiar. Right. But you get one page you can scroll. But the cool thing about one page of teaching a new person is like, this is everything we do on a 30 point or a cursory or a complimentary inspection.

Mike Simard: And you can use it as a teaching tool. It's like, this is the overview of the vehicle. 'cause they're looking at a vehicle and they don't know it and it's like, well, where's the strut?

Mike Simard: So you have to start somewhere. And paper inspections were thing, so we, because of our training and our collaboration and the good people we had.

Mike Simard: To help build the company where it is. We said we gotta have a better way to communicate to them, but we really focused on, and this is one thing that I think people need to, like, if they think like just an inspection, digital inspection program, alone's gonna fix all this form. The real problem I see is like, do you already try to educate your customers?

Mike Simard: Yeah. Do you already try to pop every hood? And in loop shops is harder, I can tell you that. Do you already try to teach your technicians to always tell the truth, right? And make sure that information is being delivered to the advisor in an appropriate way that's efficient. Where the tech, the advisors don't have to go talk to them every time where you sell something doesn't need, like are you already working on that or not?

Mike Simard: Now a digital inspection platform will help. Okay. But if you're an owner that's just trying to implement it to fix other issues, like inspections aren't good under the hood, like the physical work still has to be done. You can't hire a robot to do that. You can't have AI do that. It requires somebody with the values that your shop has to bring that information into the system, into back then it was paper then it went to digital and it just, digital just made it easier.

Mike Simard: But our average roll was already good. That's the thing. Our average O is already good. Now, a lot of times I believe people will sell you this or that. And the other thing training, it should. There's some things that you should get an ROI inspection program. You should get an ROI. It will help your average O.

Mike Simard: But it won't do it for you.

Craig O’Neill: Correct. Yes. It's a human engaged process. I find it so funny, and I ran into, I run into this all the time, especially with quick lube places places that have that speed of service mentality, which is necessary for that part of the market. They find that they are up against a clock.

Craig O’Neill: They feel like they're up against a clock. They feel like that paper sheet like Michael was describing, has that one page. They move through that so much faster is the feedback that a lot of technicians initially will give. And I find that really strange 'cause I've seen the results on those paper inspections and I've observed them being completed before and a lot of times you don't see a technician going around the car.

Craig O’Neill: You see a check, check. You've heard the term pencil whipping inspections, right? The accountability that comes from A DVI basically is sures that there is some accountability of the inspection actually occurring and an actually occurring inspection. Would take longer than a non actually occurring inspection.

Craig O’Neill: We ran into that with a shop that we're working with right now that's a tire store, and his observation was brilliant. It's like, yes, we've been doing the paper inspections and theoretically you could say that the DVI takes longer on the digital platform versus the paper, but I. They're more thorough and they know that accountability is there.

Craig O’Neill: So I guess I would ask you on this, Michael, did you see an accountability piece enter once you were digital that was not able to be achieved before?

Mike Simard: So, yeah definitely it made it a lot easier, so we worked really hard to make sure back then and if you're a single store shop owner now it's easier, especially when you're in the center and it provides a way like paper provides a way to.

Mike Simard: Okay, this is outlined on a piece of paper. This is the menu. This is what we're looking

Craig O’Neill: at.

Mike Simard: Yeah. The standard over

Craig O’Neill: there. Yeah. You gotta have it documented.

Mike Simard: Yeah. And you can teach it from digital, from the start. Like a lot of people grew up in the digital world. Like I, I drove to Alaska and when the cell phone, we didn't dare pick up the cell phone bag because we didn not know how much it was costing someone else.

Mike Simard: That was Sure. We had the CB radio, so that's the day. Sure. That I grew up in chops. Wow. Okay. Back with O OTC 4,000, Atari six, you know, Ataris and Commodore 64 TRS eighties. Anybody old enough to know what those names are? That's the world I grew up. So paper was a thing. Yeah. So you can still do this today, right off the bat.

Mike Simard: You don't have to go to paper and then go to that. But it did make it a lot easier because a lot of people are wired this way today to pick up the tablet. And start inspect the car. Now the transparency is like pictures, like huge pictures. Auto flow helps you see the history. It sees the history of the work orders, like having that information.

Mike Simard: One of the biggest challenges I think, that create a sense of mistrust in the industry that we have is the lack of transparency. But if anybody understood what a service advisor and a technician has to what kind of data they have to simulate. At the speed, their brains can process it. Like a really good advisor, for example, has to take all the information from the tech, sniff out mistakes or in different texts, have different strengths and see different things they might miss.

Mike Simard: Oil leak every time. Okay. That's important. That's leaking over the manifold. So do we have a picture? Who's holding that team for accountable for that. So it helps with accountability when you have those pictures. But they have to assimilate all the data. What was the history? What's the TSPs, you know, what's the service intervals like?

Mike Simard: How am I gonna present this to the customer in a way that's digestible? Now if you're thinking about it from that way versus here's my paycheck, right? We all need, we all work for paycheck. I mean, we just get that outta the way. So that's why we're here today. We do this for a paycheck. Yeah.

Mike Simard: Hopefully we learn as we get older, I think we lose hair. We go great. We like, I gotta do more than just work for paycheck. I gotta actually satisfied with the career. Yeah. But the transparency in a digital inspection, like with auto folks helps. Super because. You have work order history, and you have pictures that brings a lot of transparency and accountability to the process.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah, I, and I think Jonathan's saying it very well there, that it breaks down the barriers. It breaks down the barriers with the clients so that they are more educated. They are able to see their vehicle. Now they can see what a strut is because you're showing it to 'em and they can see that it's seeping.

Jimmy Lea: They understand seeping. Leaking. Yeah,

Craig O’Neill: for sure. And but here's the thing, like we all know even like, like he's talking about the old technology. I love that. Oh, 99, early 2000 internet is in its infancy. What did we do? We had people come into the shop in many cases to show them things. Where in Michigan we have to give them their old parts back.

Craig O’Neill: It's one of the things, you know, so show the old stuff when they're done. It's a nice show and sell at that point. But this is the show and sell. And what I observed is a lot of the technicians really are like career technicians. They enjoy showing off their knowledge. They like it. Yeah. I've been the technician, I've been the transmission guy.

Craig O’Neill: Ego driven to an extent. When you do the complicated thing, it makes you feel really good. I'll tell you what, some of our better builders were the ones that could engage the customers that we brought in. And so yeah, this transmission's all part of the bench. Here's the problem, you know, they loved it and it was the easiest thing in the world once the customer saw it all apart.

Craig O’Neill: Saw the complexity of the thing. They understood the value of what it was that we were trying to communicate to them, and that person who understood the value, it was a quick and easy signature on what we offered. I loved it, and that's what the DVI can do without having the customer have to come into the shop.

Craig O’Neill: Absolutely.

Jimmy Lea: That's cool and I'm glad that you were educating those customers from the very beginning, even if it was across the CB radio. Hilarious. Okay, that's cool. Life Stop. Publisher

Craig O’Neill: made little like printouts for people back in the day and I took pictures with a old early digital camera, loaded them onto the computer and Oh my goodness.

Craig O’Neill: That was interesting though. 'cause I gave him a few pages of stuff, that kind of thing could be useful and was still a. What we would call a delighter today, something that other shops are not doing, and that's still where DVI is. And Michael, I guess like in your market especially, I'm curious on this too.

Craig O’Neill: I know it's farther apart. Even people are, your neighbors might be pretty good ways away, but it still stands out in your market, right? So you're talking about like digital inspections and Yeah. When they get that

Mike Simard: presentation. Well, here's what I've learned by buying a different set of shops, and I don't know if you wanna go into this, but I think a lot of, like, we have a lot of great shops in Fairbanks and they're a pretty tight knit group. And we wanna keep it that way. So I think a lot of 'em, and we share information together have a pretty good inspection process and are familiar with this technology. It's easier to get.

Mike Simard: It's easy to call one of us and we'll talk and help them for short. But here's what's interesting. Buying into the tire and lube business, I don't know why and who left them behind, but they, I tell you what, they're not all in the times as far as where we are today. I feel like these are CB radio days.

Mike Simard: Oh my gosh. So I bought these shops and is inspection even happening?

Mike Simard: No.

Mike Simard: Maybe not. I mean, it wasn't, the answer was no.

Mike Simard: Yeah,

Mike Simard: right. If it fell on your head, then the part was needed to replaced. But, and tire shops the same way, and I get it. Everybody has their niche, so some of, some people have their niche.

Mike Simard: But my challenge was this. It's like I know how run comprehensive, I don't wanna mess up the experience for the lube shop, but it's like we can do a little bit better, just a little bit. And it's better than most in that space as far as tire and lube. And people actually really appreciate if you present it in the right way.

Mike Simard: Yes. Again, what's the motive and intent behind the person presenting? Like that's important. So important. And it's something that has to be taught. Today's generation, customer service. And again, you're here for a paycheck. Okay, we got that. Good. You want to grow in a company? Yeah. Great. We want you to too.

Mike Simard: Now here's how you do it. Serve them well, tell them the truth. Show and tell the inspection. And the, that process is different. I'll be honest with you. We're still struggling the other day. For example short example of how to implement something like, I like to measure. I'm a DDIs profile.

Mike Simard: I like to measure towards a goal. Rally behind a goal. Let's celebrate when we get there and then guess what? The next mountain, we're already ready. I, if you don't know where it is, I can point. So we're going, but let's get some milestones down. So in the lube shops, we're still like, when I bought these lube shops, $110, 110 to 115 average row, we charge a hundred dollars for oil change.

Mike Simard: What's the value? It's Alaska prices, right? Not much selling, right?

Mike Simard: No, it's, yeah. Now we're up 1 92 10, which is probably, I'm more a little worried it's going too high, which we're in a comprehensive stores, we're eight to 1200. Okay, sure. So there's the difference of good quality inspections over time with a different model.

Mike Simard: Now when the customer comes in we want to not just sell 'em 'cause we want to get to average up. I mean, that's the idea. What is the right things that they need today? Is their car breathing clean air? Is the wheel gonna fall off? Yes. Are the brakes grinding? Like if the brakes are gonna grind and the caliper's gonna go and the rotor's gonna go, now it's cost you more money.

Mike Simard: So the goal is through this transparency of process through inspections and presentation, which is abbreviated. So that's our challenge is to make sure we present the information every time. So the other day we were measuring at 90 something percent dbis and presentations. Well, they started looking and this is one of my busiest stores in Anchorage Tire Shop, where it was 95% tires when I bought it.

Mike Simard: We've got a picture of a bumper. So they were getting their bonus on completions.

Mike Simard: Oh no. It was a bit of

Mike Simard: a bumper to get the completion rate. So obviously, but what I'm point trying to point out is, you know when you said, Hey Mike, you've been successful. It's like success really is every day I wake up, we choose to serve each other and help each other succeed.

Mike Simard: That's where success starts and ends every day. 'cause you can get up tomorrow and be like, I'm gonna go. Fishing all day and let my team do that. So we always have to be vigilant to make sure because of the transparent ability process and the abilities to look with auto flow and say, Hey, let's take a gander of those pictures.

Mike Simard: We got a picture of a bumper. So then we realized, oh, we're measured for completion. We're driving that performance under stress. They're probably not presenting the bumper to sell. Nope. So guess what? I said, what can we measure now? Which it's not quality, so it's more important to get it right.

Mike Simard: Honest, transparent. Talk to the customer, it's quality over quantity. So that's gonna be the battle in any shop if you're busy, especially lube shops that are trying to do something from not inspecting cars to get to profitability, which is raising your average roll, but using a great platform in auto flow, for example.

Mike Simard: Just one of the great platforms, it keeps up very well. Has a lot of great tools to do that.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, that's good. You know, you've gotta inspect what you expect. I've seen pictures of bumpers. I've seen pictures of shoes. I've seen pictures of toolboxes and it just goes to the point of the proper PR training will produce the proper results that you're looking for.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. But if they don't understand the reason why they're gonna take pictures of their shoes and the cat, and the dog and the bumper and it's accountability

Craig O’Neill: still important. Especially for consistency, like Jonathan just mentioned in the chat it can be a struggle to get technicians to do inspections consistently.

Craig O’Neill: And when I approach things for my role with auto flow has always been on training and adoption, first and foremost, get inspections going. Just get them going, get the baseline skills going in place, that pictures are being taken. Great. We have progress right then that service advisors take it. Take the results, build an estimate, and deliver the inspection to the customer.

Craig O’Neill: And you would think that doing the inspection is the thing that most shops have a struggle with. It is not. It is actually the advisors taking it and doing something with it. And that is almost every single shop that is new to the technology. And so really. That first line of defense for accountability and consistency has to begin with that service advisor.

Craig O’Neill: Understanding the reason you do the inspections in the first place. Receive them, do something with it. And if they don't see the results outta the inspections from the tech, they've gotta work with guys like Michael. Be the advocate. Don't wait for Michael to come in and swoop in and help with the accountability.

Craig O’Neill: Be that first layer of accountability, and that requires empowering your service advisors with that responsibility. Takes 'em. Ownership of it, and that's when changes really start to take place. They own it. They will make sure it happens.

Jimmy Lea: Yep. We call that the 300% rule. Oh, yes. Every car gets inspected, every recommendation gets estimated, and every DVI estimate gets shown to the customer.

Jimmy Lea: You do those three things. If your customers would be better educated and respond so much better to your shop and to your recommendations, they become lifelong customers for sure.

Craig O’Neill: But it's an advisor thing, and I'm sure you've ran into this too, Michael. You have a great team. I've enjoyed talking with several of those guys and they seem to get it like really good, especially the guys in your Quick loops who are, were a little bit newer I think to the DVI process at the time.

Craig O’Neill: But once they started to see that it isn't actually just for sales. It's also covering their butts.

Mike Simard: Things

Craig O’Neill: that bite us all the time in the industry. That's sort of, these aha moments start to come in. I, and once they have those, that's why just getting pictures, sending them, having the experience with the customer is so important for me as a first step is really, once you've self-actualized in that you start to see the results, those quick wins that gets the buy-in from the team more than anything else.

Mike Simard: And having a champion too. So as you mentioned, it's a struggle to get his guys doing inspections. Here's the thing, as you guys stated, if the advisors know anything with it, you know, the most thing that's gonna frustrate the tech back to one of your guys' points earlier Yeah. Is if you don't present all their hard work, you underhood for 10 hours and you know you got the best job in the back done.

Mike Simard: The advisor's like, yep, car's done. And then you give 'em an indifferent experience and take their money. It becomes transactional and they don't present any of the inspection items. Like you can put your own dot in here. And so that's really frustrating. That's why the text. It's a lot of techs are a bit quirky and they're bit like, like, like just technical minded, wanting to fix everything.

Mike Simard: Yep. Yeah.

Mike Simard: But something happens when they come. A lot of 'em, when they come in front of a customer and they're so proud to present what they've got. So first thing is, I would say have talk to someone that knows. Get training for the guy that said it's tough, meet every week. Let's go over this.

Mike Simard: Like, you're not letting up. Let's go over this. Yeah. But are you measuring? So there's a 300% rule. All those things were measurable. Okay, in the beginning we did, we paid for some inspections. So here's a couple tools. You know, if your pay plans are fighting against the behavior you want, look at your pay plans.

Mike Simard: Are you rewarding the right behavior? So for example, I just told you an example of a mistake. A bit of a mistake is we spiff for completion. We didn't fiff for goodness.

Mike Simard: So, so guess what? Continuous evolution of life

Craig O’Neill: till the day I die. So we gotta look at the benchmark score. Gotta look at that.

Craig O’Neill: AutoFlow with you, Michael. We'll set up that benchmark score rating system so you can see the score on each one. I knew you help with that. See

Mike Simard: we were gonna call you and say, we've gotta fix this thing now. But at least we got every car inspected. Just 20% aren't as good. Now the other thing we shifted is we put some of those guys on and gals in performance.

Mike Simard: So the performance, and there's a team performance component of soon to be quality because we actually talked about this meeting this week. Now instead of completion, how about doing it right every time? Yes. And yes. Some techs need, you know, in the beginning we actually paid like 0.2 for an inspection.

Mike Simard: That's a good way to start. Now the way we did it was this, if we pray for inspection. Technician. This is more the comprehensive model. We own it. We'll do whatever we want and give it to anybody we want. Yeah. That there may not like that. Now at our shop, we do an inspection. Our average tickets are 3.5 hours.

Mike Simard: Right. So you might, the fastest text I know said, give me every darn oil change you've got. I'll do every darn inspection. I do it real. They do it the same way every time. Yeah. Okay. Because you can sell the pants off it in a way that the customer, again, honest sales. Okay, so that particular type tech we're like, don't pay me for the inspection, just give me as many as you can because there's gonna be 3.4 hours for every job versus that 1.1 you're giving me now where if I give a tech 0.2 or 0.1, I might give it to another tech.

Mike Simard: Yeah.

Mike Simard: Okay. But they're like, no, you sell work here. So I want it all. It's like, okay, so can we take the 10 minutes or whatever it takes at your shop to do an inspection, create transparency and trust. The more we do that, the more they come back, the more our jobs are secure and you know, there's a little bit of satisfaction.

Mike Simard: Go home at night saying, I kept you safe at home. It's 50 below. Yeah, I gotta get my grandma outta dialysis. Okay. In Anchorage. Six hours drive in the middle of the night. And I, it's one of my fun stories. It's like if your grandma was going to dialysis at 50 below and you wouldn't go to Anchorage for that, by the way, but just the story, you wanna make it and not die.

Craig O’Neill: Yeah.

Jimmy Lea: No, nobody wants to die.

Mike Simard: Well,

Craig O’Neill: it's

Mike Simard: a sense of purpose

Craig O’Neill: that goes into this, and you've look Alaska. I understand you guys have turnover issues just like anybody else, but you also have to compete with the fact that coming to Alaska is hard and expensive. I just did a podcast with some missionary friends of mine that are going to be coming down there over in Kenai, little south of you, and they have to spend twice as much time gaining support.

Craig O’Neill: To go into a mission in Alaska, not because they'll make money or anything. It's twice as expensive to live there at all. And that's, it's just a harder place. You guys have to deal with so many things, and when you have people that understand that there's a sense of duty and purpose behind this, it takes away some of the money element for a motivator.

Craig O’Neill: I don't. I'm I once my needs are met. Once you have a decent lifestyle, the money motivation starts to diminish. You need to have fulfillment in what you're doing. And for me, that was a big aha thing. Once I started doing inspection in the shop, I felt like I had a true sense of purpose behind the activity that I'm doing isn't just for that paycheck like you were holding up earlier, Michael and the young generation, gen Z, millennials, they all cite having a sense of purpose, like a mission, a purpose.

Craig O’Neill: Is key to their satisfaction in even coming into the industry and working with you in the first place. I guess I would be curious too, if you've been successful, Michael, and in the interview process of saying, Hey, this is something that we do here and here's why do they clinging onto that? Why I.

Mike Simard: So that is again, one of the challenges of scaling.

Mike Simard: So we wanna find people that have the same values as us. 'cause it's really hard to if mommy and daddy didn't teach it, they didn't have a good upbringing and a lot of us didn't. Okay. And you should definitely treat everybody with fairness. But some of those behaviors are not necessarily gonna change.

Mike Simard: So find someone with those values that, that you uphold, that'll make life a lot easier. And I get stuck a lot of times in thinking I can change that.

Mike Simard: And

Mike Simard: so starting with that, and then really starting out with, in the interview process, through the onboarding, which we're really working to strengthen now this is who we are and this is who we want to be, and this is where we're going.

Mike Simard: So what's the vision and who we are as a people. This is how we handle mistakes. We learn from 'em. Like they don't create an environment that you can't make mistakes. Like tell me if you forgot the DVI, let's figure out what it is. That's in the way. If you've got a team, that's not the behavior and actions aren't what you want.

Mike Simard: We've gotta go into belief. This actually came from the institute, mind blowing. I got this right up here. Steps to accountability. Oh, right. From Jessica? Yes. And it's like belief, like we kind of knew it, but it's like she put words to it. It's like, ah, well your behavior's telling me what you told me yesterday isn't probably what you really believe.

Mike Simard: So if they're not doing it, okay, and if you gotta start with their paycheck, start there. Sure. Some people have to start there when you're barely making rent, so they gotta be empathetic with what their situation is. Okay? Don't forget about that, but tie this. Goodness to, Hey, you know, we can all do well here if we're transparent.

Mike Simard: Let's use these tools. What's in the way? Continuously every week, this guy's not gonna let up. Or maybe the team spiffed on a program of quality inspections. And, I mean, just because a lot of us have been this while I guarantee the customer are like, ah, more trustworthy. 'cause they're more transparent.

Mike Simard: I feel like I made the decision and then get shoved down my throat when I usually go to a shop. And I feel like these people care. And as a matter of fact, I couldn't do it all 'cause I couldn't buy groceries this week. But I found out what I needed to do and I can do those other things later and they said I'll be okay and I feel like I can trust the guy that used to be a training builder that came to the front selling, starting serving

Craig O’Neill: up AutoFlow.

Craig O’Neill: Dude, you mentioned something though. 'cause Dr. Jessica Kriegel was at the recent Institute Summit down there in Jacksonville, Florida. So for the audience listening that couldn't be at that summit, Carm Capto did do an interview with her. It's on Remarkable Results Radio. It's his episode number 1 0 3 5.

Craig O’Neill: And you can get a sense for if she has this three steps to real employee buy-in. Guys, you bring the guest at those summits I that some of the. Best speaking above the

Mike Simard: line and below the line, thinking like, I use that every day. I have a whiteboard and I have a big line. Yes.

Craig O’Neill: Me and Brandon joke on that.

Craig O’Neill: One of my teammates here at Auto, Brandon Che and we, it was, oh, that's below the line, man. You wanna go below the line more? Yeah, let's do it for a minute. You know, it's just a dude, Jeff. Check it out. Jimmy. I gotta give you guys, if they don't

Mike Simard: know, it's just meaning we focus on solutions, what we can do, or we focus on everything we can't do.

Mike Simard: That's a very common thing in our world, in our shops. So I can't do an inspection 'cause of this. Let's write it down. Let's go through one at a time. Let's start talking about what we can do. And that's above the line. So,

Craig O’Neill: so good. It is, it's always beliefs. Their beliefs, you have to get to the core of it with their conversations that they don't believe that doing a DVI is vital for the safety and wellbeing of your clients.

Craig O’Neill: So that's something you can absolutely address. Yeah. Otherwise, you're just gonna be trying to tell 'em to do something they don't believe in. Amen. Yeah.

Jimmy Lea: Thank you. Thank you for the shout outs there for Jessica Kriegel and good for pointing out that Remarkable Results podcast. I didn't even think that had come out yet.

Jimmy Lea: I thought it was still in the works of being edited. So that one recent, that was phenomenal. Yeah. Yeah, everybody needs to listen to that one. And then also Dan Clark. Dan Clark was a phenomenal presenter. Did a phenomenal job. And then Ross Bernstein. Was Carm able to interview Ross Bernstein? I was on there.

Jimmy Lea: Look,

Craig O’Neill: that's a great question. People that are interested in it, the institute sponsors remarkable results. They sponsor my podcast, speak Up, effective Communication. I really appreciate that and these are really great ways. I'm gonna post a link for the Jessica Kriegel conversation in the comments for our audience here.

Mike Simard: She's a great LinkedIn learning module. I found where her content was, so that's magic right there. Some of my people took it like, oh my gosh, I can't believe no one's taught me this and I'm 60. Like, oh wow.

Jimmy Lea: So LinkedIn

Mike Simard: learning.

Jimmy Lea: Love it. Love it. Check that out. Let's look down the road here a little bit here.

Jimmy Lea: The vision ahead you, you talked about hiring for the. The core hiring for the vision for the the core of who the person is rather than their skills or skillset. As we look down the road and we're exploring more, what's the future of some art?

Mike Simard: Well, the current theme is we're gonna grow the people to grow the company.

Mike Simard: So the very first thing we gotta do, 'cause we hit another ceiling. We went from two to four to seven in like 18 months. And it was a lot of growth starting with me. So, everything from all our processes that customers used to leadership finance, I mean, those are all difficult things.

Mike Simard: It's easier when you're running one or two shops, so there's a huge growth curve and you've gotta be willing to pay the price. I mean, when you're in it, you're in it, you can't go back. And when you have people to serve and lead, there's no going back. You are the one that's gotta be there to serve and help them whether you're feeling like it or not.

Mike Simard: Yeah. So what we're doing now is building, consistent onboarding programs. We have A-A-A-L-M-S or a platform called WAY Book, which is all our internal processes. We call, I call it 90 things in 90 days. I like to make acronyms, by the way. It's fun, but 90 things in 90 days. Like what is the experience of a new employee?

Mike Simard: Because we found out we're not training them on everything, giving them all the tools they need to in the lube shops and the comprehensive models. So if we grow them there. And we're actually working with Michael Smith on something we've been talking about for years. Anybody that's been in the leadership intensive, like we want to take it beyond that.

Mike Simard: So I always say this, if you want to be an astronaut, and this was before we even thought we might get to Mars, okay? If you want to be an astronaut, do really well what you're doing. Make the money you need to make. Let's try to find a team. You know, we have multiple teams that, you know, find some satisfaction in your team of being transparent to customers making a good living.

Mike Simard: 'cause you could do that in this industry Now. And if you wanna go to school to work on Mars Rovers or be an attorney or something like ultimately this company, I hope it serves that purpose, even outside the company. Even if you don't wanna stay, some people leave because they don't like where they work.

Mike Simard: Okay? That retention's huge. But some people wanna do something else and maybe they haven't found what that is. So honestly, if this company could serve the purpose, because our purpose is serving the community by empowering team members, customers, and stakeholders. Anybody involved with anybody we touch at any time of day or night we want to enrich their lives and help them reach their highest potential.

Mike Simard: So it just happens. You know, the car is a vehicle to get to soccer, to get to dialysis, to get to training, to be an astronaut, which we don't have that training here yet, but let's help you get there to where you know your God-given purpose is found. You know, not everybody knows what that is, believes in that, but why were you on the planet?

Mike Simard: Everybody has a purpose. I believe that. 'cause it's strong in me. So whatever it is, you believe you're important and you're part of society and you're here for a reason. You're different, you're unique. Let's work together. Love it. It's gonna be messy to go further and higher and help each other grow.

Mike Simard: So, did I answer your question there? I can't remember what it was.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. That was extraordinary. Yeah, for sure. Beautiful. For sure. Beautiful. Well said. I've got a a bonus magic wand question that I want to ask. If anybody in the audience has questions of Mike or of Craig, go ahead and type those into the comments bubble.

Jimmy Lea: My I have a magic wand question for you, Mike, and then I've got a couple of rapid fire questions that I just wanna throw at you, and whatever comes off the top of your mind. That's the answer. Don't think too hard about it. Just give it quick responses. So my magic wand question is if you could change one thing in the automotive repair industry today, what would you change?

Mike Simard: What I would change would be the narrative that I grew up in with the picture. And I don't know if anybody's seen this, but when I was in the guidance counselor's office, there was a picture of a greasy mechanic that was kind of looking dumb. And there was a college graduate. And that mindset, political, I don't know where it came from, is that the blue collars, the people that were all of a sudden essential during covid all of a sudden were essential.

Mike Simard: Anybody that's been welding and beaten their knuckles or serving customers for years knew we were essential because the firetruck doesn't run. The ambulance don't go, the doctor don't get to work. Now, I got kids in college. God one's gonna be a doctor and one wants to be a lawyer, like they have to go to college.

Mike Simard: If one wants to do brain surgery, he better freaking go to college. Understand. But my son's torn 'cause it's like I want to fix people, but I like to fix cars. So I'm like, okay, either way to be excellent at either one, it's gonna be hard. You're gonna pay a price to master that. So I would change the narrative.

Mike Simard: Whatever happened with the narrative, kinda like the food pyramid. Somebody messed up.

Mike Simard: Yeah.

Mike Simard: Someone messed up with the narrative about the fact that there's a lot of smart people in this industry and it downright just irritates the heck outta me that a lot of us already had challenges in broken homes or whatever.

Mike Simard: It's like, and then we come to this industry and you're not as good as someone's certificate. It's like we all matter, and the people in this industry are awesome and I mean, I bring apprenticeship and make a lot more money than my kids make. If they just stopped at four years without the debt. Yeah. So it's a great industry and that's what my heart is wanting to do is help other shops and help the mindset and it would've changed that a long time ago.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Help with the, help the public to know that our industry is awesome and amazing people in it work it Awesome. Amazing, great opportunity. Yeah. Craig, final question for you. Exactly the same magic wand. What would you change in our industry to make it better?

Craig O’Neill: I would put a strong emphasis on communication skills, my friend strong.

Craig O’Neill: I would get everybody involved in Toastmasters and focusing on those core communication skills. I think it's going to be absolutely critical in this AI era that we are propelling ourselves into. The better we are, interpersonal communication, connecting and making real, authentic relationships. You will be successful in any environment, and I think that now is the time to really emphasize it.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. Both. Your suggestions, both magic wands are very similar. I. In communication and changing the public's image of our industry. So industry

Craig O’Neill: ambassadors, right? That's what we should strive to become. And there you go. That really takes really not a lot, just your perspective.

Craig O’Neill: Shift a little bit. Little leaf. Good communication. Yep,

Jimmy Lea: Yep. Okay. Lightning rounds. Mike, you ready? Let's go. Biggest eyeopener after implementing DVI.

Mike Simard: Bus. Biggest eye-opener is that customers felt more engaged in the process and that they can actually see more clearly. The green, red and yellow is a mind blowing thing.

Mike Simard: It's just immediate understanding for the customer, and then it pictures create transparency. So I did not expect that coming from paper to the digital. Of that, that, that was huge to build trust.

Jimmy Lea: Nice. Most surprising benefit of improving your shop flow.

Mike Simard: Productivity increases when everybody's working efficiently.

Mike Simard: And productivity is the amount of time that the technician actually rents on a car. And so you gotta keep them on the car and that's a challenge in a lot of shops, so that's huge.

Jimmy Lea: Love it. Love it. Favorite feature in your current system?

Mike Simard: Well, in AutoFlow, one of the favorite features I love to see is the histories at their fingertips.

Mike Simard: So if the transmission fluid was flushed 30,000 ago, you know, the clutches were already slipping and burnt. When I recommended, again, I'm mindful of knowing that the transmission was flushed, so they may have a problem. So I'm gonna. As a technician, I'm gonna write that story a little differently for the advisor to not, oh, you just did that.

Mike Simard: And then there's a trust potential. Trust breakdown because of the data simulation. So the way AutoFlow presents the information is huge to create transparency.

Jimmy Lea: Love it. Love it. Last and final one thing. Every shop owner should stop. Doing today.

Mike Simard: Stop micro imagining managing and empowering your people and figure out where their belief really is.

Mike Simard: It's a hard one to do. Once you find out where their belief is, you can build upon the right things to get them to go where they want to go. So, you know, leadership is the art of getting others to do what you want them to do. Because they wanna do it.

Craig O’Neill: Yes.

Mike Simard: Yes. Totally agree.

Jimmy Lea: That's awesome. Thank you very much, Mike.

Jimmy Lea: Thank you, Craig. Really appreciate this discussion we've had today. Lots of questions coming in from the audience. Those that were not answered here live, we'll put 'em into the follow up email along with a copy of this recording. Of course it goes to Facebook and LinkedIn, not LinkedIn. It goes to Facebook and YouTube immediately.

Jimmy Lea: And it's there. It's up. It's on. It's ready to go. Rock and roll baby.

Mike Simard: Let's do it again and answer their questions some other time. We can certainly go do that.

Jimmy Lea: Yep. We can circle back. Well, thank you very much. You guys summit in

Craig O’Neill: Alaska? No,

Jimmy Lea: no. What's that?

Craig O’Neill: Summit in Alaska?

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Summit in Alaska. That's a great Amen.

Jimmy Lea: Suggestion for a summer event. Yes, we could do that. That would be awesome. We'd have to go during the salmon season. It'd be fun. Let's go. Nice. Nice. All right with that, thank you very much. You guys have a great day and appreciate y'all. We'll talk to you again soon,

Mike Simard: friends. Thank you. Wonderful.