101 - Collaboration Over Competition: Building Strong Business Partnerships with Shop Owners Tim & Johanna

101 - Collaboration Over Competition: Building Strong Business Partnerships with Shop Owners Tim & Johanna

August 21st, 2024 - 01:02:25

 

Show Summary:

An insightful podcast by Juliana Sih, founder of Crescendo, a Leadership and Life coaching company dedicated to empowering individuals to achieve happiness, financial success, and fulfilling relationships.

In this session, Juliana will guide you through the essential strategies for building and maintaining successful business partnerships as well as discovering how to resolve conflicts with ease, create a unified vision that drives success, and foster trust within your partnerships.

Juliana’s holistic approach, combined with her passion for coaching, will empower you to take actionable steps toward a more harmonious and productive business relationship.

We are excited to feature shop owners Tim Chakarian and Johanna Reichert in a live Q&A segment, where they will share their experiences of working together in the business. They’ll discuss the unique challenges and rewards of navigating a professional and personal partnership, offering practical advice on maintaining a healthy work-life balance.

Key Takeaways:

• Effective Conflict Resolution: Master the art of active listening to make conflict resolution straightforward and manageable.
• The Importance of Goals and Vision: Learn how to ignite success by crafting clear goals, uniting your team with a shared vision, and implementing effective systems.
• Building Trust: Gain strategies to build and strengthen trust within your business partnerships and with employees.

Whether you’re running a business with a spouse or managing partnerships within your company, this podcast will provide you with the tools and insights needed to foster collaboration over competition.

 

Host(s):

Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development

 

Guest(s):

Juliana Sih, founder of Crescendo

Tim Chakarian and Johanna Reichert, Bimmer PhD Motorsports

 

Episode Highlights:

[00:03:30] - Juliana kicks off with an interactive exercise to uncover each participant’s mindset around leadership, success, and change.

[00:07:10] - Johanna shares how she went from delivering mail to co-owning a thriving BMW repair shop with Tim.

[00:10:53] - Tim confesses how his ego resisted training until one class added $5K to their bank and changed their mindset forever.

[00:13:27] - Johanna reflects on the challenge of finding management training early on and how it's crucial to building a strong shop culture.

[00:17:20] - The couple explains how they bring in their manager as a neutral third party to mediate disagreements and gain new perspectives.

[00:21:27] - Juliana breaks down conflict styles (fight, flight, or freeze) and explains how active listening can de-escalate high-stress situations.

[00:28:13] - Johanna discusses the emotional work behind resolving conflict by owning your part and seeking connection instead of blame.

[00:31:04] - Tim shares how vulnerability and empathy became game-changers for him as a mechanic and business owner.

[00:36:14] - The couple reveals how shared tools like the Actionizer and group coaching keep their goals aligned and growth intentional.

[00:50:20] - Juliana outlines how trust can be broken, and rebuilt, through transparency, consistency, and small, daily promises.

 

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.

 

👉 Unlock the full experience - watch the full webinar on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39WLF6tV6P4

Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this!

 

Links & Resources: 

• Want to learn more? Click Here
• Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here
• See The Institute's events list: Click Here
• Want access to our online classes? Click Here

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Jimmy Lea: My name is Jimmy Lee. I am with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence, and we are here to just really make sure that we're working well with our business partners and we're not going to jail, but what does that mean? Well, that means that we really don't want to kill them. No, definitely. We don't want to kill them.

Jimmy Lea: My name is Jimmy Lee. I'm here with the Institute and super excited to have with me today as our panelist, Juliana C. Juliana is a licensed. Marriage, family therapist, and she is a coach. We also have joining us Tim and Johanna from Bimmer's PhD. So, come up on camera, you guys. It's so good to see you.

Jimmy Lea: Glad that you're here with us. Cameras are working. You know, technology is great when it works. And when it doesn't, oh my goodness, does the blood pressure go up? Tim and Johanna, thank you. Good to see you. Good morning. 

Johanna Reichert: Thank you for having us. 

Tim Chakarian: Morning. 

Johanna Reichert: Nice. 

Jimmy Lea: All right. And Juliana. Hey, rock on. And this is Juliana.

Jimmy Lea: See we, she and I have done a few webinars together once upon a time when we were at. Kukui, Julianna and I was at Kukui, Julianna joined for a couple of webinars, as did Tim and Johanna. So, phenomenal. Glad to get the band back together again. And with that, I'm Julianna, you are on for screen share.

Jimmy Lea: So go ahead and if you would to introduce yourself, you're muted at the moment. 

Juliana Sih: Yes. I'm so excited to be here. I'm just going to move a slide. I'm, you know, we're talking today about collaboration over competition, building strong business partnerships. So if you're here, I just want to acknowledge you for being here for taking time out of your busy day to learn something new.

Juliana Sih: There must be some intention for you to want to be. So I just really want to acknowledge you for taking time out of your busy day to be here. So we got quite a bit going on. And I want to quickly introduce myself before we go into that. My name is Juliana. I'm a leadership coach and I'm passionate about this topic because I want to help my clients have better relationships, make more money and be happier.

Juliana Sih: And I do that through the vehicle of coaching. I've been doing this for about five years now, full time. And then I did it as a side hustle for two years before that. Before we get started, I just want to go over some quick housekeeping items. I want you to have a pen and paper available. So if you don't have a pen and paper available, take 10 seconds to go and get a pen and paper.

Juliana Sih: We're going to do a little bit of writing. We're going to do an exercise. This webinar is going to be interactive. My hope is that you get as much as you can out of it, you learn something new about yourself, and you have something strategic and tactical for you to take on today to make your relationships better.

Juliana Sih: If you can keep your video on and keep interacting in the Q and A I would love if you could avoid multitasking. I know it's so easy to be on your window, on your phone at the same time, but I really want you to get the most out of what our webinar today. So please avoid multitasking. At any point, if you have some questions, go ahead and put it into the Q and a box.

Juliana Sih: And Jimmy will kind of lead that portion to get all the questions answered. All right. So we're going to dive right into exercise. I thought initially we had checks, check Chat boxes available. Well, we don't. So I'm going to have you write down on your piece of paper. We're going to go through a quick exercise.

Juliana Sih: It's going to be a fill in the blank. And I want you to write down the first word or phrase that comes to your mind. And it's important that you're honest. And it's absolutely necessary for you to be honest so that we can go in deeper into understanding yourself. All right, ready? We're going to fill in the blank with leadership is.

Juliana Sih: Write down the first word that comes to mind. Leadership is. Success is.

Juliana Sih: Success is.

Juliana Sih: My employees are.

Juliana Sih: My employees are.

Juliana Sih: As a leader, I am.

Juliana Sih: As a leader, I am.

Juliana Sih: Last one is, my relationship to change is. My relationship to change is...

Juliana Sih: so now what I want you to do is I want you to take a quick look at your paper and I want you to underline the word that you want more of. So let's say that what you shared on your paper is leadership is fun. So I want you to underline that word because you want more of that in your life. And then I want you to circle the word that you want to do, improve on. Let's say my, my relationship to change is it's hard and you don't want it to be hard anymore. So I want you to circle that word. And the reason why I had you do this exercise is because this is our frame or context. Our mindset, the way that we view life, our truth tape is the narrative that we say talk about in our head over and over again, that becomes our truth.

Juliana Sih: And what we don't realize is that we have the power to rewrite our truth tapes. So I want you to take a look at the word that you circle, and I want you to start thinking about ways that you can. Rewrite your truth tape because after all the way that we see the world, that is under our control and we can change that narrative to be more empowering and to help us to move forward and be better people.

Juliana Sih: All right, we're going to move into, I'm going to have to go back to Jimmy now so he can. Do a little intro again.

Jimmy Lea: Nice. Nice. So excited for that size. Juliana. Thank you. And I was writing so frantically and I was thinking as you were asking the questions and trying to write it down as fast as I could. That was a good exercise. Joining us today is. Tim and Johanna, they are the owners and the operators of Bimmer's PhD.

Jimmy Lea: So you guys can come up on camera. They they have been working together for quite some time and successfully. I'm sure that there have been moments where Maybe Johanna wanted to fire Tim, and I'm sure there are moments where Tim might have wanted to fire Johanna and that's gonna happen that's gonna happen in any business relationship and even in a Personal relationship.

Johanna Reichert: I don't have control over the video. 

Jimmy Lea: You don't well, let's ask you to start the video. How about that? Perfect. Did that work? , you know, it's great. Technology works . So we got that going. So what's the history here, Tim and Johanna? How is it that you guys came together and started Bimmers PhD?

Jimmy Lea: Where what's the, a little bit of the backstory? Go for it. 

Johanna Reichert: Yeah. Well, Tim was a BMW Master Tech at the dealership. And I was a mail lady, actually. I used to deliver mail. And we got together, and within about, it was right when he was thinking about opening up his own shop, because he was kind of tired of how the dealership treated, A, employees, and B, their customers.

Johanna Reichert: And so he thought, I think I can do a better job at this, and take care of customers better than the dealership can, so. He was apparently looking for a shop when we first started dating and I told him, Hey, that's a worthy idea. Let's go ahead and do it. And so I told him, you focus on the shop. I'll focus on the house.

Johanna Reichert: And he opened up the shop all on his own. He would order parts and close the shop and go pick up parts and come back. And then he would. work on the car and then he closed the shop and go pick up the customer and bring him back and so it was all a one man show all on him and then maybe about six months after we'd gotten together we realized that I could probably work at the shop and I didn't have to work at the post office anymore so I quit my job at the post office and I started working with him in the shop kind of doing the admin and the office work and P& Ls and things along those lines.

Johanna Reichert: I mean I did backup service advising and things along those lines too but that's not My forte. So yeah, I kind of do the back end and Tim ran the shop and was service advising and we've just kind of grown it over the last 15 years. We have a staff of nine right now. So there's Tim and myself and we have a service manager and a backup service advisor.

Johanna Reichert: We have two technicians and one apprentice, two, two, two regular technicians and two apprentice technicians and one porter. 

Jimmy Lea: Wow, that's phenomenal. That's awesome. So, I need to go back here to the beginning again. Here, six months in, Tim's working, the shop, open, close, open, close. You're still dating, is this right?

Jimmy Lea: Yes. And you quit with the post office and came into the shop and you're still dating. At what point did you guys get married? And this was like, this is the real deal, boys. It took about five years. 

Tim Chakarian: From the beginning that we were going to be together, but let me add a little clarifying story.

Tim Chakarian: So we love their bike riding and spending outdoors and going camping together. So still working at the post office and every opportunity she has, she comes in visits, but. A one man show. I mean, like you ever seen the guy that's like doing the drums and the guitar and the harmonica, that was me. So, it was a breath of fresh air when she came to help me, but you know, her very first phone call, she like choked on the phone call and today she teaches how to do phone calls.

Tim Chakarian: So we, we didn't know Jack, Jimmy, we didn't know anything. So I was a, I can figure it out better mindset. from, you know, the 1800 square foot shop and the one lift that there was in the one office that there was. So, anyways, Johanna got her dirt bike riding. She bashed her knees, got some stitches, and so she got to not go to work to the post office.

Tim Chakarian: And I was like, well, why don't you come in and help me out? And that's when we quickly realized, you know, we're great partners, you know, we love each other, but we, there's a little bit of compatibility issues. She's like, you don't know what you're doing when it comes to the office work. And I was egotistical.

Tim Chakarian: Mechanic who said, I know what I'm doing. I've been doing this a long period of time and we quickly figured out if we don't get some help, we're doomed. So, we were, but at that point we're buying parts from WorldPAC. So there was a group meeting. So Johanna said, why don't we go to those, one of these trainings?

Tim Chakarian: And I said, trainings, I know everything. I don't need to go to training. I could probably be the instructor myself. Oh, we went to one of these trainings and quickly realized we don't know jack and we implemented what we thought. All right. If we try this is going to make money. And within our 1st month, we had 5, 000 extra dollars in the bank.

Tim Chakarian: So we quickly learned that. Hey, we got we got to get with somebody that knows how to do this so that we can learn this process because we need more than just to go to this training event. And that's when we started picking up coaching. And I think that's been the biggest game changer for that big gap in the story of how we started as a one man or two man, husband and wife team to hiring somebody that seeing things from a bird's eye view that said, you really should do this.

Tim Chakarian: And being able to understand how we transition our personality to I should do this, even if I don't want to. And in Juliana's words, she put coaching to me is coaching is something doing things that you need to do that you don't want to do. And I think that's the strength that we drive off each other's quickly learning to understood like we don't know this stuff.

Tim Chakarian: So we need to get somebody to train us and hold us accountable. And then from there, we've kind of progressed it to how do we hold each other accountable and not rip each other's heads off because we're not always going to agree that we don't agree. We don't always agree. 

Jimmy Lea: No. Yeah, that's right. Well, and I'll tell you what's interesting.

Jimmy Lea: And Johanna classic situation here that I've seen in the industry, when a husband and wife are working together and the wife sees that there's an opportunity for training the females. are very much. Yes, we need training. Yes, we need coaching. Yes, we need direction. Yes, we need to do this.

Jimmy Lea: And we the men, the egotistical testosterone driven men that think we know everything are the ones that are saying no. I already got this figured out. I'm so glad that you got in there into coaching and training. I'm so glad to see that Training paid off so quickly a 5, 000 bump. You were able to see that immediate which is awesome.

Johanna Reichert: I tricked him. I said, let's go travel. There's a class they can go. We can go take some training and make it fun. So we can do traveling and we can also get some training at the same time. And he's like, That sounds cool. So you got a little bit of everything in at once and that put back. Love it. 

Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it.

Jimmy Lea: I love it. . Johanna, a question for you in, in getting this coaching and training, I, you know, we you see, oh, how do I ask this question? In the training that you guys received it was mainly focused on the business. Right. At what point did you see a say, okay, now we need to focus on us as a partnership.

Johanna Reichert: That's actually a good question. You want to go for it. So I feel that it's, you know, you can find service advisor training, you can find. technical training for your technicians. It's actually not very easy at least, you know, five years ago, 10 years ago to find management training. You know, how do you become a manager?

Johanna Reichert: How do you work with people? How do you create a good culture in your shop? How do you create a team that loves working for you and that they're loyal to you because they love coming in to work for you? And if another shop offers them a job because they know that you train really good technicians and they want that.

Johanna Reichert: Those people aren't going to be like, oh cool, they're going to offer me more money, like they like working here because you've created a culture and an atmosphere where they get along with everybody else and they want to be there. And I was, I remember thinking like it's hard, you know, it's not easy.

Johanna Reichert: If you don't know how to manage people, how are you going to figure out how to do it? So I just remember feeling like I wish that there was more of that. And I really do feel like within the last three or four years that, that you know, there that's been more. It's come around where it's like, Hey, these people need training.

Johanna Reichert: They need to know what they're doing when it comes to working on their business and not working in their business. And that's been super helpful. And I really am appreciative that has come around. Cause it didn't exist, you know, 10, 15 years ago. I think that's something to add to. 

Tim Chakarian: No, I think that's the bottom line.

Tim Chakarian: It is, you know, getting a good coaching program was the key for us. Once, once we got in with the Institute and we realized what are those process steps that we need to change. That's when the quick results come and the slow results come when. We the owners have to fix us before we can fix the shop, right?

Tim Chakarian: And you know today I can tell you fix the owner fix the shop means so much more to me than in the very beginning It was like are you saying that I'm broken? Yeah. Yeah, I was 

Jimmy Lea: Yes, in fact, we are saying you're broken and but and that's the interesting thing is you don't know what you don't know You didn't know that you were operating broken But it's always 

Johanna Reichert: improvement.

Johanna Reichert: We probably still are. 

Jimmy Lea: Absolutely. That is a nonstop everyday battle and relationship. We choose to be together. We choose to work together. As opposed to allowing some conflict or some problem rip us apart. We choose to work together to overcome all the obstacles, no matter what those obstacles are.

Jimmy Lea: We choose to be together and that's a choice to take. So I have a question for the both of you. When there is conflict in the business, how do you resolve that conflict in the business? 

Tim Chakarian: You ever seen Homer Simpson grab Bart? No, I'm just kidding. 

Johanna Reichert: Should I 

Johanna Reichert: be strangling first? You know, we actually have a good team with our manager, too.

Johanna Reichert: One thing I noticed is when Tim and I do have you know, a difference of opinion we'll pull our manager in and say, Hey, you know, this is what's going on. This is our thought process. We'd like to get like a third opinion and kind of see. What you think. And he's actually pretty good, like, you'd think, oh, he thinks more like one person, or he thinks more like the other person.

Johanna Reichert: He's actually a pretty, pretty good melding of, he's just calm, and he kind of looks at things from different points of view, and sometimes he'll agree with what I say, and sometimes he'll agree with what Tim says. It's never like a, oh, I know if we pull Kevin in, I'm gonna get my way. You know what I mean?

Johanna Reichert: It's he always pulls a fresh perspective in because he's the one, you know, managing the shop. He's the one that's seeing what's going on and the every day to day. And we're, you know, we're in our offices trying to run it and look on the business. So he's more in it. So he offers a fresh perspective.

Johanna Reichert: So if we feel that we can't come to an agreement on something, or we just can't see eye to eye on something, it's, we always like to get a fresh perspective from somebody that we trust and who we also know, you know, has the best interests of the business at heart too. And that helps quite a lot. 

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Oh, I love that.

Jimmy Lea: That's awesome. That's amazing. 

Tim Chakarian: And in turn, 

Tim Chakarian: what that does is it helps us see it from a different point of view, right? Because I think as what I was going to comment on, that is sometimes husband and wife are like, no, we got to do it my way. There's this like unsaid domestic battle of, I have to win the argument.

Tim Chakarian: In the very beginning, and this is the insight that I would tell you now, how did the manager come into play is the question you're going to ask in the very beginning. It was like bringing this up to our coach, right? Whether it's your business coach or your life coach. Hey, how do you help me deal with this situation?

Tim Chakarian: And they help you utilize those tools in the very beginning. Secondly, you start practicing those tools on each other, but we suck, right? So, and my apprentice technician, how many times I got to remind him, use the magnetic socket, put the extension. Why? Because if you try to put the bolt in with your finger, you're going to fail.

Tim Chakarian: I don't want them to fail just like the coach doesn't want us to fail. So we start muscle memory, those tools and the things that we had, and when it doesn't work with each other. Now that we've got, you know, that we've built ourselves a good culture in the shop where we have the respect of our manager, it's hey, can you help us resolve this?

Tim Chakarian: Or what would be your take on it? Because ultimately we're going to visionary it, right? We're going to process it, right? But who has to do it? Them. So if we have their why or how they see it, it changes our viewpoint as to, okay, well, I definitely want the success of the team. So that's not what I wanted to do.

Tim Chakarian: I thought I was going to win the argument, but for the sake of going home, happy and sleeping in my own bed with my wife. Let's go ahead and do this for the collective of the team, and now that's that little bit of maybe I'm not always right mindset that comes up, whether that's on her part, Kevin's part, it helps level the playing field so that it's win for everybody.

Tim Chakarian: And I think that's the key factor is when you get that leadership maturity, you understand I have to make this win for everybody in order for me to get what I want. And then you will get a fulfillment. It just won't be the expectation that you might've had going into it. 

Jimmy Lea: True. And I love that you have this third party.

Jimmy Lea: Kevin, that is able to come in as your manager, as a sounding board. Have you ever had a situation where Johanna, you had this idea, Tim, you had this idea and here you present them both to Kevin and Kevin's like, well, did you guys even consider this idea? 

Johanna Reichert: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Oh, yeah! That's the one thing I love about getting the outside perspective.

Johanna Reichert: I mean, we've worked with Giuliana before as well, and sometimes I would talk to her about, like, something that was frustrating me. And she's like, well, what about this? And I was like, huh. Like, I literally Never would have thought of that. Ever. I would have never ever thought of that in a million years. So, that's what I love about talking to people, especially people who are trained to do that kind of stuff.

Johanna Reichert: Juliana's amazing because she's a life coach. We have Jennifer Holbert who is our gear performance group facilitator. If we have, if, you know, if we go to Kevin and maybe Kevin doesn't have the answer that we need or maybe we need a little bit more insight. Jennifer's always a text away, and she's also amazing, especially when it comes to business advice and things along those lines, so we have a good network and it's, you know, always surround yourself with people who are smarter than you, better at your job than you, because, you know, you're always going to be able to network with those people and learn from them and get advice from them.

Johanna Reichert: And sometimes it's literally something you're like, mind blown. I would have never thought of that. I didn't even think it was an option. And yet it's so simple. It's so simple. You just never would have thought of it. 

Jimmy Lea: It's so true. It's so true. It's great to have that coach. That can give you the guidance because that is all also with Julianna and Julianna.

Jimmy Lea: If you're here, this is where Julianna has trained and taught and researched and developed and worked with. She has these skills, these tools to help couples to help business partners to come together. And when there is conflict to work through that. 

Juliana Sih: Yes. Yes. And that's exactly what we're going to be diving into.

Juliana Sih: Some of the things that Tim already shared are going to be things that I'm going to be talking about. So I love that. But conflict is, you know, a clash of interest values or needs between individuals or groups that often result in disagreement, struggle, and tension. And people don't often know how to deal with conflict because it gets really uncomfortable.

Juliana Sih: First of all, you know, we're in a state, a heightened state of fight or flight. Literally the same parts of the brain that are activated when you're being chased by a cheetah are the same parts of the brain that are activated when you're in a conflict. So imagine being chased by a cheetah and trying to talk it through, right?

Juliana Sih: No wonder we say things we don't mean. We say sometimes our ugly self comes out. Or some of us might just freeze and not say nothing. And some of us might actually just like flee the scene, right? Like, I can't talk about this now. I got to go. So we all have a different conflict style. So it's important to identify your conflict style.

Juliana Sih: You know, are you a fight? Are you gonna die on that Hill? Are you a freeze and you just clam up and you're not even listening to the person you're in your head overthinking, or are you like the person that leaves? Figure out what your conflict style is like. I think that's really important. And I'll share a quick yeah.

Juliana Sih: And I'll share a quick story about when I was in college back in the day, I was trying to take this class that I didn't have the prereq for, right. And some of my classmates were getting exceptions and getting exceptions to get into that class. So I emailed my counselor and I was like, Hey, this seems unfair.

Juliana Sih: Why am I not getting into this class? And he sent me an explanation that I needed one or two more classes that they had taken that I didn't. And I was not happy about that. So I emailed his boss and I sent him an email, a not so nice email saying like things, why I felt like entitled to get into that class.

Juliana Sih: And I felt pretty good after I sent the send button, I felt pretty good. I was like, these are good points. He's going to let me into the class. Few days go by. I don't hear anything. Another few days go by. I don't hear anything. And that's when I realized. That's when it dawned on me that I did not handle this conflict well.

Juliana Sih: I was trying to fight and compete against that counselor versus trying to collaborate with him. And that was the day that I learned that, like, it's really important for me to take a step back, not be in my fight or flight mode, in order to resolve something peacefully and in a way that works for both of us.

Juliana Sih: I personally believe that listening is an antidote to conflict. And there's a difference between listening and active listening. Okay. Active. They're just two different things. If you're thinking about the next thing to say, that is not listening. If you are thinking about your to do list while someone else is talking, that is not listening.

Juliana Sih: Active listening is about being intentional, engaged with the other person, fully concentrating on the speaker. You're giving them their full attention. You're working to understand what the other person is saying, and you're also noticing what they're not saying. You're providing feedback, you're engaging with the conversation, you're paraphrasing and summarizing.

Juliana Sih: And you're also paying attention to their body language, eye contact, and showing attentiveness that you're paying attention. One of the fastest way to deescalate a conflict is to move into the mode of active listening and stop being in your head and be with the other person. Active listening is not looking at your phone while someone else is talking.

Juliana Sih: Some other quick effective strategies that Tim already touched on was create a win, right? When you're in a conflict, try to find a solution that is a win for both parties, because then you're not going to be competing against each other. Right. Cause if it's a win lose, someone's going to lose and they're not going to be happy about that.

Juliana Sih: So create a win. Another important thing is to like, learn to manage your emotions because after all, we cannot control other people, but we can control our emotions. So understand your conflict style and start to work to reinvent it, right? Like that true tape, rewrite that true tape agree on the action steps.

Juliana Sih: So you don't leave conflict up in the air agree on the next action steps. And I think the most underutilized thing that sometimes what Tim mentioned about the ego is we forget that we got to be willing to forgive and let go because after all, there is a way to clean up, right? Clean up on aisle seven.

Juliana Sih: We have to be able to clean up if we make a mess. And it couldn't be as simple as, I'm sorry I messed up. What I can own about how it went is this. And I know it's tough because our ego doesn't want to admit that it's wrong. But it, you know, our soul and our heart, we want to reconnect back with the person when we have conflict, we don't want to leave it up in the air, especially not if it's our business partner.

Juliana Sih: And there is almost always something that you can own. There are two sides to the story and you can take ownership for how it went. So I have a little. Practice for y'all to take on. Let's put this into action. Let's practice some active listening. Today, pick someone in your life that you want to practice active listening with.

Juliana Sih: I want you to practice focusing on them, pay attention to them. Notice what they're doing or not doing. I want you to. Be engaged with the conversation, summarize and paraphrase what they're saying. Ask clarifying questions. People say things that don't make sense. They need the other person to ask questions about it.

Juliana Sih: And then notice if they're making eye contact. Notice if they're fidgeting or notice if they feel, look really comfortable. So take on that practice for two weeks and I guarantee you it'll transform the relationships that you have in your life with that active listening skill. All right, back to you, Jimmy and Tim and Johanna.

Jimmy Lea: So, Tim and Johanna, what do you guys do for active listening? How do you resolve conflict between the two of you? What is your active listening? What does that look like for you guys? 

Johanna Reichert: I think it does, it takes a conscientious effort to stop the thoughts that are going on in your head of what am I going to say next to what he's saying right now and just really What's his point of view?

Johanna Reichert: How's he feeling? I'm a pretty empathetic person. So it's actually a little bit easier for me to just kind I always will put myself in the other person's shoes and wonder like, you know, if I was them, how would I feel? And it's usually, you know, not great. And then I don't want to make people feel that way.

Johanna Reichert: So, you know, it's a conscientious effort. You have to kind of stop yourself in your tracks of what you're used to doing. And Like Juliana said, like you just got to be an active listener. You have to, I think one of the big things really with everybody is just what are you going to say next? You know this, what he's telling me that I did this, and this, but I need to defend myself and I need to say, but this is why I did that.

Johanna Reichert: And this is why I did that. And well, you did this, but that doesn't get anybody anywhere. It just creates more conflict. And then you'll find that if you just take a step back and be like, okay, you know, if I did this. If I was him and he did this to me, whatever, if this was done to me, how would I feel?

Johanna Reichert: It's like, okay, you know, I feel pretty crappy. I wouldn't like to feel that way. So, I can see why he feels the way he feels about my actions or lack thereof. And so, it's easier to kind of take a step back, listen to it, and then, you know, once you, I've noticed a lot, it's like, Usually there's two sides to a conflict, obviously, right?

Johanna Reichert: You know, you say something, they say something. It's kind of crappy on both parts, even though one may be a little bit more copable. After you're like, oh, you know what, I didn't mean to make you feel that way, I apologize, I totally see why, what you're, where you're coming from, and I'm gonna make a conscientious effort in the future to think before I act, or think before I speak, and not repeat this action.

Johanna Reichert: And then you'll get I'm sorry too, you know, I shouldn't have said this and I agreed and everybody you feel you both feel connected and you feel the same And it's Gianna said it's a win. So you're not sitting there like it's my fault I feel like crap now because I'm the one that did everything and you were right and I was wrong Because they don't want you to feel that way either you know if you really have a good relationship and a strong relationship, they're gonna be like I love the fact that they admitted they were wrong.

Johanna Reichert: I love the fact that they, you know, said sorry to me. And you know what? I had something to do with this too. What was my part and what can I do to make it better and to also communicate with them that, hey, let's work together so that this all ends up being a win for everybody. 

Jimmy Lea: Oh, yeah, for sure. For sure.

Jimmy Lea: Yeah, being able to take a walk in somebody else's shoes for a mile or 2 or 3 to understand their point of view and their perspective goes a long way. 

Tim Chakarian: That's hard to do for a mechanic to me, because we're always trying to get to the root cause. I'm being honest with you looking at, like. You know, my growth from being the, what do you need, let me fix this right now mechanic to understanding that empathy because I don't have that empathy and that's a quality that I yearn for, but I think the part of it that took a challenge, and I would probably challenge other mechanics and leaders to start with this is start with vulnerability.

Tim Chakarian: You know, and I think changing the conversation, it's easy to say, you made me feel right one, two, but we've got three more of these bullets pointing right back at us, or as you know, I've had to change and go, okay, cool. Well, those conversations that I started with ended with more explosion. Now the conversation is okay.

Tim Chakarian: I listened. I heard what you're saying. And oftentimes, usually you miss a word or two, like right last week. I think it was even earlier this week. She said, Okay. I did that already and in my mindset, I was going to do that because I was pretty sure that she didn't do that and I heard her talking about it.

Tim Chakarian: But I missed that I already word so I found myself doing what she's doing and now we became counter counterproductive So I think the point that I want to drive home is I've had to change and being vulnerable and for leaders Oh my god, we're not vulnerable that shows you're weak and you don't know.

Tim Chakarian: Yeah, I don't know I don't have the answer and that starts with my wife that starts with my manager and it goes all the way down to my Text they come up to me in the middle of a job. I don't have the answer right now Look at work towards it together, but being vulnerable and saying, I'm not sure let's figure it out together gives the other person their ability to kind of just drop their guard and go, okay, cool, we can come back to this and it's organized and set in a time frame versus a fire putter outer, you know, a scenario where you've got something that you're handling that you're not in the correct mind frame for.

Tim Chakarian: Again, we could go down the scheduling path talking about that, but handling that at the right time and making sure that you leave the other person feeling empowered, right? I want to make sure that you feel, when you leave, you feel like I did the best I could to help you with your situation. So you're inclined to come back and ask me for help again.

Tim Chakarian: And that goes all the way down to your clients, your customers, your family members. It works all the way around. And if it wasn't for the people around us that helped you see that with patience, at least with me, I wouldn't be here today. So that's a very good point that I find myself constantly working on and failing on too, but you know, work in progress, 

Tim Chakarian: right?

Johanna Reichert: Failing forward. 

Jimmy Lea: It always is. It always is. And Tim, thank you for being vulnerable in this situation. It's not always easy, man, and I understand that, and I'm with you. I am working actively to develop more empathy, and it's something that I'm working on. Tim, it's great to hear that I'm not alone. I'm glad that you're working on it as well.

Jimmy Lea: Brother, that's awesome. Thank you. So, question for both of you then. Also, I'm going to steer a little bit different direction here. When we talk about the business goals, And your vision of where you want to go. How do you align your business goals to be in line with your vision together as partners?

Jimmy Lea: Because maybe one wants to go another way. One wants to go another way. How do you align your goals to be with your vision together? 

Tim Chakarian: Actionizer. 

Johanna Reichert: Yeah, that's, that helps. And that's the to-do list. Yeah. Right. So I feel that the training that we do it together. You know, very rarely, there was one time when our service advisor, our manager, was out on paternity leave.

Johanna Reichert: And so we didn't really have anybody who could run the shop. So one of our meetings, Tim had to go alone up to Seattle, and I stayed here to kind of help run the shop with the backup service advisor. And that was one of the only times where. He went up and got the training and I didn't and it actually felt really weird for both of us because he was pretty much ahead of the game.

Johanna Reichert: He got all the, you know, in person training and going over everything that we were doing and the things that we were working on in the group. You can definitely feel the difference when you're not together doing it, because when we're together, it's like, okay, you know, you get an assignment, look at your actionizer, what are your goals, what are the things you're working towards, how are you doing on it, and then we both sit down and look at it, and okay, you know, this is what we're working on, have we gotten some headway on this, or what steps do we need to take in order to get there Tim's a little bit more brave when it comes to things than I am, you know, he like, From like five ten years ago, he's been wanting to be a multi shop owner.

Johanna Reichert: And I'm like, oh my gosh, it's hard enough running one shop and being on top of everything with one shop. Why would I want to do it with two or three or four or five? So he kind of sometimes has to drag me with my heels on the ground up into those things. But, you know, I'll come around. But he's kind of the visionary and I'm kind of the one that sits in the back and it's like, well, you know, you gotta think about this rationally and what's going on.

Johanna Reichert: But we corroborate we do it together. So. You know, I help him to not make too rash of decisions when it's not when it's not a good time. And he helps me to kind of make rash decisions when it's the right time. So, we just work together at it. And, you know, I feel that the training and the group effort doing it all together, that really helps to keep us in line.

Johanna Reichert: And then you just have to set the time. And that's really hard. I mean, it's actually something that we find to be difficult. Because you know, you live with each other. You work with each other, you sometimes we drive with each other, sometimes we don't. 'cause you just need that 45 minutes away from each other, every, you know, every day.

Johanna Reichert: So it's like when you get home, do you wanna sit down and work on the goals of the shop? Sometimes it's like, no, I don't wanna talk about the shop. I just want to like cook dinner and or relax for a minute. And he's usually very, we gotta talk about this, we gotta talk about this. So, you know, it's kind of finding a, an even ground.

Johanna Reichert: Finding the time to do it and making sure that you stick to it. He's a little bit better and more consistent with it than I am, but he helps me out, which is once again, it's a good thing because we need, we're opposites and you need somebody to help you out where you're deficient and vice versa. 

Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love that.

Jimmy Lea: That's amazing. That's amazing. 

Tim Chakarian: I don't know how to follow up on that, man? That was all in a nutshell, but it's the groups. I think if I could add one thing. For those that don't know we're in a groups program with the institute and that means you're within 12 other 15 shop owners and we meet and we hold each other accountable and I think that's the key behind it is people look at coaching like, Oh, somebody's going to tell me what to do.

Tim Chakarian: No, I tell this other person, Hey Johanna, I need help with this and can you help me with this? Can we sit down and collaborate with it? So in that group setting, we've learned to use a page that we call the Actionizer and it has goals. For the company and then personal goals and I'll tell you my personal goals are like I had to add categories to the personal goals.

Tim Chakarian: So what that did is when I first seen that it helped get all my ADHD ideas out of my head and on paper and then now we can discuss them and say, is that our goal? Yeah. And on that goal list, this year we hit, we bought our first house. This year we hit, we bought our property of 15 years we've been renting.

Tim Chakarian: So if you put goals in front of you and you work towards that and you talk about it, whether you want to talk about it, whether you don't want to talk about it, it puts the vision in front of you. And I've learned to be more and more process driven, which helps you go, okay. How do we get to where we need to be?

Tim Chakarian: And I think working with Juliana and past before that has been the clutch. Cool. I got an explosion of emotions. I don't like, how do I change that? Well, I changed my relationship with my emotion. I don't like this anger that I feel. How do I change that relationship? I got to either take time away or go.

Tim Chakarian: These are the steps that I'm going to do like we did. And these are the things that I'm not going to do. So when I hit those, I go, damn it, that's that I didn't want to do. Let me go back to what I was doing because I wrote it down. It's real to me. And when you got an accountability partner, I wouldn't be a good partner if I just said, yeah, whatever you want to do, because that doesn't lead to the end goal of.

Tim Chakarian: Doing what's hard right doing what's hard I'm, sure joey i was gonna go back. So i'll just shut up and let her do her deal 

Juliana Sih: No, I think you're hitting the nail on the head tim I mean, it's so important to have goals and to know the direction that you're going especially in business partnerships and I think oftentimes we talk a lot about goals people talk about goals vision values, but they're actually Quite distinct, but they get all moshed up.

Juliana Sih: So a vision is the bigger picture. The thing that you're working towards, it's designed to motivate and guide over an extended period of time. And the vision is also meant to motivate your employees as well. And it could affect how you interact with your customers. Goals are a little bit smaller. They're clear.

Juliana Sih: Clearly defined in focus. There's typically a deadline or a timeframe around it for you to achieve it. And the values is the thing, the guiding principles that you make decisions with and create the goals and vision with. So I'm going to give you, I mean, Tim shared an example of the values of a goal, but I'm going to share a little personal story about when I was in my mid twenties, I started dating this hot nerdy scientist and on paper, he sounded great.

Juliana Sih: He sounded great. Except for the fact that inside, I knew that we didn't really want the same things. We didn't really talk about our goals, right? I was looking more for a monogamous relationship, long term, maybe lead to marriage. At least I wanted that possibility to be in place. And for him, I don't think he knew what he wanted.

Juliana Sih: He didn't know what he wanted. So we never talked about it also. Like sometimes we're too afraid to talk about the things that we want because they might not align with the other person, but I spent five years with this person when I probably should have broken up with them three, you know, after two years.

Juliana Sih: So although the relationship was still great, we, our visions and our values did not align. We were not on the same page about what we wanted. And that, so imagine that in a business partnership. Right. Tim wants five shops. Johanna is like, I'm good with one, but if they didn't communicate about that, then their actions would be different on a daily basis, but they do communicate about that.

Juliana Sih: So that is like the very important piece. So if you're a shop owner, make sure you have a guiding North star that everyone in the company knows, including your employees, make sure you have a target or a goal that is specific. And you want to create these for your employees as well, because that's going to help motivate them.

Juliana Sih: You know, if your employee wants. Let's say they want to manage people and they don't communicate that to you, or you don't know about that. You're never going to put them into a manager position because maybe they're so such a good tech, or let's say your employee wants a raise, but you don't ever specify what they need to do to get that raise.

Juliana Sih: So it's a co creation between the shop owner and the employees to make sure that there's a target that they're working towards that is specific. So that helps to motivate them. So every day that they come in, they're excited and doing their best job. And then you want to make sure that you communicate.

Juliana Sih: And over communicate your goals your vision and your values as well. So the values will help shape how you pursue the goals and uphold the vision. And I think in my relationship, when I didn't have the vision and the goals in place, I wasn't in integrity with my values. Also, I did things that did not withhold, like did not uphold my values.

Juliana Sih: And I tolerated things that were. That were not part of my value. And once you kind of have a vision and goal in place, then you can create some really clear communication protocols, right? Like having those standard operating procedures. It's hard to create standard operating procedures in a business. If you don't have a vision or a goal for the company.

Juliana Sih: So. And this is important when conflict arises, right? Let's say one of your employees is not doing so great, or they had to leave. What are you going to do? You have a protocol in place for that. Figure out the best way to, you need to have communication protocols, such as knowing how you're going to communicate to people.

Juliana Sih: Are you going to email, text them, have a verbal conversation. So all these things can be created when you make your goals and your vision put into place. So I'm going to turn it back to Jimmy and Johanna now for our next section. Oh, go ahead. 

Jimmy Lea: No, this is really good because I have a situation here. I'm going to throw out at Johanna and Tim.

Jimmy Lea: Fictitious. This is fake. This is not real. And, but, and it goes right in with what we're talking about. If Tim was to come home and say, Hey, Johanna, I just bought our second and third shop. Yay! Tim's all excited because it's going after his vision. And if they hadn't had conversations, Johanna's thinking, What in the gitch?

Jimmy Lea: No, right. I mean, that would be a bad situation. So totally fake. I understand Tim and Johanna, what do you do in your relationship that helps with the transparency and transparency? Did I say that right? The transparency with your relationship and to develop trust in that relationship that you're both on the same page.

Jimmy Lea: What do you do 

Jimmy Lea: Meetings? 

Tim Chakarian: Yeah, monthly meetings, but mainly the financial meeting. I think going over, you know, where understanding this money that we moved. Where did it go? Did we end up with profit? How much of it ended up for us? Did that go in the goal set that we had? 

Johanna Reichert: Doing your numbers every month.

Johanna Reichert: Well, I mean, that's step one. You need to be doing your numbers. But there's so many shop owners that don't. Which, I mean, I get it. Most people are like, Hey I'm a mechanic. I know how to work on cars. I think I can do this. And you very well could. But you also need to make sure that you stay on top of things.

Johanna Reichert: And if you're deficient in an area, That's totally fine. Find somebody who's not deficient in that area. So, find a bookkeeper, find an accountant find somebody who's able to handle that part. Because if you go month in, month out, and you literally have no idea how much money you've made, or you have no idea what your margins are.

Johanna Reichert: Yeah. I mean, most people think, Okay, I just I just had this big job. I just sold 3, 000. I have 3, 000 in my pocket. But part of that's sales tax, part of that paid for the parts, part of that paid for your technician, and then, you know, you have rent on your building, and you have electricity, and you have, and it's like, dude, but they think, well, I've got 3, 000 in my bank now, so I'm good for the next week or two you, some, so, there are so many shop owners that do that.

Johanna Reichert: And it's really scary. I can't even imagine running a business like that. It would be nerve wracking constantly. So, not only having a monthly meeting, but to have something to have a monthly meeting about. We do our P& Ls every single month. I try to have them done by the 10th, but the 15th at the latest.

Johanna Reichert: In the groups, they hold us accountable. We have to have our numbers turned in by the 20th. So that we all go over it and we're all on the same page, and if anybody needs help, they reach out to other people and they get help. So that's one thing that, that's key with that. But also, I think just, you know, you if you don't have a trusting relationship, and you know, I, you know, I don't lie to him, and he doesn't lie to me.

Johanna Reichert: You know, I'm not counting white lies. Everybody lies. But, you know what I mean when it comes to the important stuff? You know, you, if you know that the person's gonna tell you what you need to find, what you need to hear Tim's really good at that. So, I think that we have a pretty good Understanding that we don't keep things from each other.

Johanna Reichert: We're on the up and up about things when I make mistakes, I let him know I make mistakes because it's going to be easier to discuss it and be forefront about it than it is to for him to find out and go, did this happen? And it's like gulp. You know, you don't want to be in those kinds of situations.

Johanna Reichert: So I think that we're pretty good at that too. And that's a tremendous help. 

Tim Chakarian: And if you follow that thought to an end, Jimmy, you know, if I come home with three shops, At the end of the year, am I still going to have those three shops? Do I have the commitment of my team and my spouse to be able to progressively accomplish my goal?

Tim Chakarian: Or did I just fly off the handle and, you know, that's the equivalent of you can use another scenario as a Ferrari. Anybody can afford to go out and buy the Ferrari, but are you going to park it on the street in your apartment? You know, what did your mate say? Can you afford the tires and the mate?

Tim Chakarian: Can I afford to follow through on this decision that I made? And do I have the support of my mate? Because If you don't, you know, you're going to have a rudder that goes this way, but you're going to have another jet that goes this way. And then the jet never gets off the ground. You got all these people making decisions, right?

Tim Chakarian: So I think talking about it on a regular basis, having a good financial analysis of is this real, you know, like Joliana talked about the goal, setting smart goals, right? Measurable goals, realistic goals, attainable goals that we can say. a hundred percent, and that's what the actualizer does when we get to our goal.

Tim Chakarian: I put a full green, 100%. I pat myself on the back. I pat her on the back and I say, yeah, I did this. Okay, cool. What's next? And sometimes, believe it or not, it comes up month after month. We still, I still have to fix the lights. The techs are still telling me that now one more light is out, so I'm not perfect, you know, any more than she's perfect.

Tim Chakarian: But just to get lights fixed in a shop, there has to be a plan, there has to be a budget, and these are the things having these constant conversations, putting these small little Processes and steps in front of us not only helps us, but it sets a really good example for our staff because when we're not here, they go, oh, when they weren't here, this is when they were here.

Tim Chakarian: This is what they expected us to do versus oftentimes what I'm talking to other shop owners when the cats away, the mice will play and we don't want that. I want to set a good example. So my staff knows. You know, Kevin's growth spurt is, or Kevin's growth plan is to become the manager and run the shop 100 percent independent of Tim and Johanna.

Tim Chakarian: When that occurs, then, only then, can we put ourselves in a position where we're not part of the hamster wheel and we can now go open a shop 2, 3, whatever the scenario may be. But the collaboration is there and I really want to elaborate on collaboration because this hit me on a drive in one morning, I was listening to John Maxwell book and he was talking about the difference between cooperation and collaboration.

Tim Chakarian: And that you're smiling because we've had this conversation before. Cooperation is everybody does what I want, we're all happy. Collaboration is she doesn't agree with how I want it and now we have to figure out how to make this work for everybody and that is so much easier because everybody laughs when I say this, but you know, as a D mechanic personality, I'm easy to get along with as long as I get my way.

Tim Chakarian: But that doesn't work in the long run. And that's the bottom line is that may be short term, but it's not sustainable. And when you think of a business or when you buy a property, you don't do it for five years. This is a long term infinite game that you're going to plan and do something with this wealth of an empire that you built with your partner, in my case.

Tim Chakarian: And, you know, I wish that for the best. I wish that for other shop owners, it's definitely challenging working with your spouse. But I think the reward of it, like Johanna said, how are you going to find another person that's going to trust you, that you can turn the entire finances of your empire on over with and have them give you a good report.

Tim Chakarian: It's challenging, but when you do, you have this amazing relationship that you run a business, raise kids, raise a family. and still go home to watch the sunset with your mate, you know, and hopefully we'll be in business 50 years and be married 50 years and, you know, be sitting around like the old couples.

Tim Chakarian: And that has a lot to do with the people that got us here, the network, the Institute, Giuliana Jimmy, yourself, and all of the other people that we surrounded ourselves in. So it's a day to day work in progress. And like one coach told me nonstop ever growing improvement. 

Jimmy Lea: Always. And I'm looking forward to those races on the front porch in our rocking chairs.

Tim Chakarian: Amen. 

Jimmy Lea: Amen. We're going to do it. So you talk about cooperation, collaboration, and I totally agree. That's been some long conversations we've had, which is awesome. What about trust, Juliana? If we talk about trust in a relationship, is there a way to build trust? Because maybe relationships don't start with that trust level.

Jimmy Lea: It's all, do what I say, do what I say, do what I say. How can we build trust in relationships? 

Juliana Sih: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think we underestimate that the ability that we have to build trust. So trust is assured reliance on the character ability, strength, or truth of someone or something. I believe you can gift trust, right?

Juliana Sih: It's not necessarily transaction, but it's also conflict complicated. And not only is there trust with others, but there's also trust within yourself. So if. Trust can affect your confidence, your integrity, and how you show up in the world. And often time, trust is kind of complicated too because you don't necessarily know that you broke trust with someone, right?

Juliana Sih: Right? It's like death by a thousand cuts. Sometimes we just don't know. Maybe it seems minor. They got over it and they're like, oh, okay. Like, we're all good now. You know, I'll share a quick story about when I broke trust, not only with myself, but also with my coworkers. This is a little bit embarrassing, but I'm going to share it anyway.

Juliana Sih: So I went on vacation, but I didn't tell my boss. And this was pre pre coaching when I had my own business and I went on vacation without telling my boss. I was naive and I thought I could like work remote and I was going to Burning Man. It was just like a lie that I told myself that I could work at Burning Man cause it was just not going to happen.

Juliana Sih: So I lied to my boss about where I was going and I lied also to myself that I could, would be able to work. And. You know, the first few days were terrible. It was like eating me inside that I had told this lie. Eventually I was able to get out of it. And like, I had fun at the event, but you know, when I had to go into work that Monday or Tuesday, whatever it was, I had my tail between my legs and I knew that I had effed up.

Juliana Sih: And What I had to do was I had to rebuild trust. I had to a, admit to all my mistakes because that was going to help me to trust myself. But B, I had to also do a really good job at my work project managing. I was excellent with my clients. I was a transparent in my communication and I was able to rebuild that because after all, there are a ton of different ways that we can break confidential, like break trust, right?

Juliana Sih: Beach of confidentiality. Someone tells you something in secret and you go tell it to someone else. That breaks trust, or you're dishonest, or you don't follow through on something. Like you say, you're going to do something you don't follow through or you're inconsistent. But just as just as much as it's easy to break trust, it's also just as easy to build trust.

Juliana Sih: And. Building trust can look many different ways. It can be owning up to your mistakes. It can be being consistent, showing up, like saying what you say, you're going to do something and you do it. That's the way that you start to build trust again. Build a positive relationship. Maybe you actually have a conversation around how you want your relationship to look like.

Juliana Sih: Things that I know for sure build trust is transparent communication, openly share information. I love what Tim and Johanna said about they constantly communicate. They're open about it. They're honest. Don't sugarcoat. Don't sugarcoat. You're only lying to yourself or the other person. You only sugarcoat because you're trying to protect yourself.

Juliana Sih: Or the other person and neither of them that really work integrity and consistency or keep your promises. And it can be small promises, but keep your promises a to yourself, right? Because that creates confidence. If you don't keep your promises to yourself, that starts to erode you, you trusting yourself and your abilities.

Juliana Sih: The last thing is just respect and recognition and knowledge. Thank your partner, let them know they're doing a good job. And always address their concerns thoughtfully. So I have a little practice before we all take, another little practice before we all take off. Pick one person in your life that you want to build trust for.

Juliana Sih: And for the next two weeks, you're going to create small promises with them. And you're going to follow through. They could be simple like, Oh honey, I'll email that difficult client. And then go do it. Or, you know, I'll take care of this at the shop and then go do it and then practice being honest, diplomatic and tactful, especially if there's conflict and start to build that trust in two weeks.

Juliana Sih: If you just do these simple things, your transit your relationship will be transformed. And if you're looking for a little bit more transformation, I'm offering all our participants 30 minutes of a complimentary coaching session so we can dive into your partnership and to get a little bit more specific about what you're looking for.

Juliana Sih: Jimmy, I have a closing quote before we go into questions. Should I go into that? 

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. Go into your quote, closing quote. But before you do that, you know, I do have a question for you with the QR code, if you want to bring that back up, is this just for married couples or is this also available for business partners?

Juliana Sih: Both. Both. 

Jimmy Lea: Okay. 

Juliana Sih: Or maybe even people that are thinking about getting a business partner. That's a great time to also think about getting a coach is even before you're in a business partner. What do I want in my business partner? What conditions must be met before I even say yes to this person?

Juliana Sih: What do I actually need in a business partner? 

Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Oh, that's extraordinary. Yeah. Oh, that's wonderful. Yeah. Let's go into the quote. And then I do have a question for Tim and Johanna. 

Juliana Sih: All right. Great. I just have a little closing quote from Henry Ford about, you know, coming together as a beginning, keeping together as progress and working together is success.

Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love that. Yeah, let's go for the success for sure. So this question is from the audience Selena Solana says, Hey, Tim and Johanna, did you seek leadership coaching like Julianne offers or did you learn more of it along the way? 

Johanna Reichert: Yeah we definitely went looking for, like I said when I felt that there wasn't really a lot of management kind of coaching or how to be a good leader to deal with your people and kind of understand what they're going through, etc.

Johanna Reichert: We spoke to our personal business coach at the time, and he actually knew Juliana. And he said, I think I, I have somebody who might be able to help you out with that, and he introduced us to Juliana, and we actually did start working with her on that, because I, like I said, I felt like that it was a, an area that was lacking anywhere that I had looked, and so, I do feel that actually has improved more even expanding beyond Juliana it's helpful to get the life coaching that she offers and then also working with different different people.

Johanna Reichert: Groups, they have training groups. They have different things to offer now for management and how to be a good manager. 

Tim Chakarian: Yeah, and I want to elaborate on that. That's different than your business coach, right? Your business coach focuses on you, your process, your business and how to get there. We wanted to focus a little bit more first together, how do we help our relationship and understand that and in our meetings, we discovered.

Tim Chakarian: We kind of have to separate this a little bit. There's a whole different learning that I need that I got to have a little bit of time with Juliana. And I understood, to me, that came really quickly. What do I need to do? How do I do it? How to get it done? And the progress in the beginning was slow. But once I got it, it was like, okay, cool, I ran with that, right?

Tim Chakarian: And then Johanna continued to meet with Juliana a lot more on a weekly basis. And I think that really helped. The point I'm getting at is it helps you individually. This is your life coach to help you focus on things that are you and you only. And hopefully that's in the direction of your partner. And if that aligns with what's going on in your group program or your coaching program, even better, it's like socks and shoes that fit together.

Tim Chakarian: And then you got those awesome laces that just say, I'm Jimmy Lee and I love, I mean, it's just, it becomes a perfect package together. So if you're doing business, if you're not doing business coaching. Get there. If you're doing business coaching and want to try life coaching it's life changing. And I think that's why they call it life coaching.

Tim Chakarian: I've since moved on from it, but I gotta tell you, Juliana, all of the tools and the things that you've taught me, I use, if not day to day, weekly. And some of the ones I don't use often, I remind myself when I step in it to go, Damn, that was that thing I wasn't gonna work on. But, you know, work in progress, right?

Tim Chakarian: It's the whole network behind us from Juliana, from the business coaches to David Cousa to Cecil to Jennifer, everybody, even coaches that are, don't know that they had an impact on us. You know, Aaron Woods, I'm going to call you out on that one. It's the, all of the stuff that the people that you're around that helped you go, this is the little things that you should be working on constantly hearing those.

Tim Chakarian: Helps bring those to fruition. And you look back and you're like, wow, I can't believe we've accomplished so much in 15 years. 

Jimmy Lea: Yeah, that's super cool, man. Thank you for sharing. I appreciate that Juliana you want to bring back up your qr code. I want to give you a big shout out Thank you for all of your time your effort your energy your thoughts and I tim I man I agree with you.

Jimmy Lea: Let's work on us. Let's work on our relationships. Let's work on the business Because that'll get us in the right direction down the right road and have the right vision for getting there So anybody that's watching this Scan the QR code. This will get you on to Juliana's calendar. Pick a time that's convenient for you.

Jimmy Lea: Her calendar is there available for you to have a meeting. And Juliana, thank you for offering this to everybody who's listening. That, that is so powerful. Thank you very much. 

Juliana Sih: Yes. Thank you for having me. 

Tim Chakarian: Listen, take advantage of the 30 minutes. 

Jimmy Lea: The 30 minutes will go very quickly. You'll be surprised at how quick it goes and how much you get out of it.

Jimmy Lea: And you just want more and more. So, thank you. My name is Jimmy Lee with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence. Thank you to Tim. Thank you, Johanna. Thank you, Juliana. You guys are awesome. We'll see you guys again soon.