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Shop Talk Her Way is where former shop owner and coach JeanAnn Saint Grace opens up the books on what it really takes to run a profitable, sustainable, and well-balanced auto repair business.
With decades of experience in bookkeeping, operations, and leadership, JeanAnn brings an honest, no-fluff approach to shop management — all from a woman’s perspective. From financial systems and staffing to communication and culture, she shares insights that help shop owners (and especially women in the industry) take control, build better businesses, and enjoy the ride.
Whether you’re turning wrenches, balancing the books, or scaling to your next location, you’ll find encouragement, strategy, and a healthy dose of “you’ve got this” in every episode.
Shop Talk Her Way is an AutoFix Auto Shop Coaching production — helping shops thrive, her way.
Thanks to WorldPac and the WorldPac Training Institute (WTI) for sponsoring Shop Talk Her Way. Visit worldpac.com for the latest in auto parts distribution and wtitraining.com to explore training programs that can take your career to the next level.
[00:00:00] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Get a piece of paper with 12 squares on it for every month. Figure out what you're gonna do every month and call it good. You could do a month in, like in December, like the end of thank- you know, Thanksgiving, Christmas. Maybe our marketing campaign is we love our customers. We're so thankful for you.
[00:00:17] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Whatever it looks like, appreciate them. Show them that they mean something to you. We don't always have to be selling. We actually should never be selling. We should be informing. We should be engaging. We should be serving. We should never be selling.
[00:00:38] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Do you have a marketing plan?
[00:00:41] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Hi, this is JeanAnn SaintGrace with Shop Talk Her Way, and I'm here to talk to you this week about seasonal marketing. I have done a previous episode about marketing in general, and I encourage you, if you need help with just day in, day out marketing, I recommend you go back, um, and listen to that episode 'cause there's a lot of good stuff mixed into that.
[00:01:02] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Some of it I'll repeat today because I wanna kinda cover the basics and then talk about how are we going a little farther. So when we talk about marketing, marketing is honestly any interaction that you have with your customer base, whether you're sending them an email, sending them a text message, greeting them on the phone, greeting them as they walk in the door.
[00:01:25] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Every interaction that you have with your customer is a marketing opportunity. It's an opportunity to show them how much we value them. It's an opportunity to maybe share with them services that they don't know that we recommend. It's an opportunity to, um, show them the value that we add, whether we have added loaner vehicles or shuttle service or you're upgrading your DVI process.
[00:01:51] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Whatever that looks like, it's an opportunity to show them what your company is all about. And if you've been listening, you know that your first, your first part of your business, your most important part of your business is customer service, so always keeping that in mind. It's awesome if we've got, you know, thank you bags or first customer packages or little, um, swag bags or little knick-knacks that we can share with them, key chains, mugs.
[00:02:23] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Any of that stuff, of course, adds to your marketing process, but in the very basics and the stuff that's for free other than what you pay your team, you're gonna really be focused on that customer service. So how do we look at, like, a marketing calendar? Do you have a marketing calendar? What is a marketing calendar?
[00:02:47] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So what I encourage clients to do is to create a calendar for the year, you know, month by month, and think about what can we really focus on for those months. So for example, as we get into like April, May, you know, we wanna maybe run air conditioning specials or focus on air conditioning. Maybe, um, the one extra question we ask everybody that comes through the door is, "How's your air conditioning worked?
[00:03:16] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Have you had your cabin air filter replaced lately?" Um, when we look at national campaigns, we think about, um, like in October there's both Breaks for Breasts and, um, Munro does, uh, Shocktober. So those are, those are things that we can really like add in and, and find value and find marketing partners in those kind of bigger, um, bigger Campaigns.
[00:03:46] JeanAnn SaintGrace: But what I'm really talking about is, like, in-house, quote unquote, special focus, extra marketing, adding value, customer education, whatever that looks like. So for example, using that example of, you know, it's April, May, the weather's starting to improve, people are gonna start using their air conditioners, um, more, right?
[00:04:10] JeanAnn SaintGrace: They may have kept their heaters on all this time, and now they're gonna switch to air conditioning. Now what? So, you know, I know the modern systems use some of the air conditioning components during the heating season so that they don't go bad, which is awesome, right? That's benefit for the customer.
[00:04:27] JeanAnn SaintGrace: But the cooling process, do all the buttons work, um, how's the fan, how's your cabin air filter, all those things. So we can, we can bring this all into light, and we don't even necessarily have to run a special. We don't have to give a discount. It's not about discounting. It's about marketing. It's about education.
[00:04:48] JeanAnn SaintGrace: It's about adding value. So we could have a nice little flyer, uh, on the counter that says something like, "Hey, it's air conditioning season. Have... How's your AC working? When was the last time you replaced your cabin air filter?" It's a conversation starter. It's an opportunity to say to the customer, "Hey, how's this system on your vehicle?"
[00:05:10] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So if you go through the calendar and you kind of think about that, especially if... This works especially if you're in a moderate climate where you have actually four seasons. I'm in Texas. It could freeze today or it could be 105. Welcome to Texas. But it's still something to think about. It still gets it into their consciousness.
[00:05:30] JeanAnn SaintGrace: They start to think, oh hey, yeah, maybe there's a funny noise, or yeah, I don't even know what you're talking about about a cabin air filter. So, so you have to work with what you've got in your area. If, um, you're close to a lake and it's boating season and half of your customers tow their, you know, use a tow vehicle for their boats and it's not their everyday driver, "Hey, have you had your pickup looked at to get ready for fishing season or hunting season or whatever it might be?"
[00:05:59] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So, so really look at, like, what's your local climate? Like, what have we got going on? Something that I kind of think is universal is start of school. So you could do a campaign, for example, of y- first time driver Is your first time driver starting school this year? So, you know, y- you could go so far as to have a nice little workshop where you have 15 to 20, uh, parents and, and kids come in, and you show them how to check the oil, how to check their tire pressures, um, what to look for if there's a problem.
[00:06:34] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You know, let them know that if your... "Hey, if your parent's not available, we're your second call. Like, if you call mom or dad and they can't help you, don't, don't be shy to call us or stop in. We're here to help you." And two things: gives the kids something, an invitation, right? You've invited them in. It also gives them an expert to lean on if they have a problem.
[00:06:58] JeanAnn SaintGrace: It also creates your next generation of customers, so there's win, win, win, right? And I'll... I'm gonna tell you, perfect honesty, I was put in a vehicle without any of that education, right? My, my dad just kind of assumed that for me being around the trucks and being around cars all the time, I had just magically absorbed how to check my oil or how to check my tire pressures.
[00:07:24] JeanAnn SaintGrace: I honestly knew how to put gas in it, right, and start it and go. So I was in college when I f- he said, "Well, haven't you been checking the oil?" And I was like Uh, h- show me how to do that, right? 'Cause he just assumed I knew. So again, we can't make assumptions. But it's also a great idea to invite them in. So if you wanna do something, you know, it's relatively inexpensive to do, ask your team to ask.
[00:07:54] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Heavy on ask. You know, ask your team if they would be willing to give up a Saturday morning or an evening, um, pay them of course, and, and do a, a, a nice community outreach where we invite, you know, do a social media campaign or some emails or, or texts or something asking people, "Would you like to sign your new driver up for this c- this workshop?"
[00:08:17] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And sometimes too, you know, some kids aren't really free about asking questions of their parents. So being in front of somebody who's an expert and who isn't their parent, that might be way more beneficial to them than their dad or their mom showing them. So you're doing, again, doing cus- uh, community service, helping an individual out, and then also generating new customers.
[00:08:41] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You could do this as fancy or as bare bones as you want, right? Have three or four cars staged, have your technicians and your service advisor there. Everybody grab a group of kids, show them a certain thing on, you know, vehicles on the ground, then lift a couple vehicles and let 'em see the underneath. How many kids have never seen the underneath of a vehicle?
[00:09:03] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Oh, that's what my tire does? Why is that important? Where are my brakes? Right? It opens up a lot of questions. And you could go so far as to make this, like, an event, and have a food truck show up, and have the local animal rescue show up, and do a little fair for the community. Or like I said, it could just be the bare bones.
[00:09:24] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We're gonna spend two hours answering questions, showing people what this is and how to do it, and how to safely maintain their cars. What's the important of oil changes? How do we do it? What's involved? All of those things. So, so you can make this your own. And, um, you know, I've got a client who's amazing at hospitality, and she just loves putting these events together, and they're magical, right?
[00:09:49] JeanAnn SaintGrace: She just has a knack for that. If you don't have the knack for that, don't force it Just offer the service. Just everybody put their best foot forward. Share the knowledge that you are so good at sharing that you have, you know, innately in yourselves and, and put it on display. You know, it's a great way for your customers who may never get into the bays to meet your technicians, to meet other people in the shop that they might otherwise not meet 'cause all they, the only person they see is your service advisor.
[00:10:20] JeanAnn SaintGrace: It humanizes your business as well. It's, you know, not the, the magical veil between the customer and the technician. This is one time when we can remove that and really let them get to know your team. So, so something like that, right? As big or small or you want, but now's a great time. You could run, um, you know, if you've got college kids in, you know, kids are going off to college right now.
[00:10:44] JeanAnn SaintGrace: If they've already got their college sweatshirts, you know, bring your, bring your college student in, take a picture, and at the end of the, the month or whatever, we're gonna do a drawing for a free oil change. Um, you know, again, getting the kids in, meeting you, letting them know, hey, you've got another resource beside your parent.
[00:11:04] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Um- Showing the parents that you care. Um, you could even get into your local high school. You know, instead of doing it on site at the shop, if you can go to the local high school and do a- an automotive safety demonstration or something like that, that's another way to add value and add marketing. Um, but this is something, you know, if, if you're watching this right now in real time, then it's August and, you know, school's coming up.
[00:11:34] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Like some of... some schools are starting to go back into sch- into, um, into attendance right now. So, you know, college kids are getting ready to go off to college. Are you sending your college kids away for the first time in a car? Um, another good reason. Hey, it's time to get their oil changed, do an extra special safety check, make sure there's nothing lurking underneath there that, that a 200 or 300-mile trip might show rather than them just driving back and forth to school.
[00:12:01] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So, so now's a great time to jump on that. If we're going into winter, for those of you that are in really snowy climates and people have their, their two sets of tires where you put snow tires on half the year and half not, you know, hey, it's time for your tire swap. Um, the... it, it's this much, but if we add another service to it, then maybe we give you a 10% discount on the tire swap.
[00:12:26] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Um, do you store tires? Um, you know, what, what do you do about h- you know, what's your deal for tires? It's also a great time if you're swapping out tires to look at their r- their all-weather tires, their regular, you know, better weather season tires, and be like, "Hey, you know, when you replace these, you, you probably need new tires.
[00:12:49] JeanAnn SaintGrace: These are 10 years old," or, "They're weather-checked," or, "They're wearing funny." It's a great time to look at alignment. It's a great time to, um, check the brakes 'cause you've got the tires off, so you can get a good complete brake inspection. Now, should we be looking at brakes a- almost every time we do an oil change?
[00:13:05] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Absolutely. But this gives you another opportunity. Somebody that might change their oil all the time, but they don't want to have to take their tires on and off, and they bring it to you for that. Like, we're gonna have customers who, who slice and dice the services that we get from us. So, you know, what can we do right now that's pertinent to the customer where we can offer a l- uh, an extra special service, or we can offer a little bit of a discount?
[00:13:33] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Uh, 'cause I'm, I'm not a big fan of discounts. We haven't had that conversation yet, but it's probably coming. You know, we don't have to give the farm away. We can give them a small discount, um, that we can control, right? Um, so, so look at the season. Look at what's happening around you. Um, you know, if you have a big cruise night or something like that, um, that happens every year, then, then set up a potluck, set up a parking lot party, uh, set up a watch party.
[00:14:06] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You know, if you're on the parade route or the, the cruise route, set up a time to be in line for that and, and tell everybody, "Hey, bring your, your lawn chairs. We'll sit on the sidewalk. We'll have some food. We'll do the thing, and it'll be a great time." Another great time to be part of the community, if there's somebody in your area that does a poker run, you know, get in there and make sure you're one of the stops.
[00:14:31] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You know, have a nice little swag bag. It's, it's-- it doesn't have to be rocket science, and it doesn't have to be high dollar. It just has to be thoughtful and timely and add value. So, so just, just relax your thinking. Think about what you can do. Look at what other people are doing. Watch, um, you know, look at, at auto shops that are outside your market.
[00:14:57] JeanAnn SaintGrace: With the advantage of, um, the internet, of course, you know, some of these, these shops that have great videos online, their, their Facebook game and Instagram game is tight. You know, follow them. See what they're doing. Follow along. And when I talk about a campaign, it can be something as simple as using ChatGPT to give you four themed, um, Facebook posts or Instagram posts with, uh, you know, give me a blurb about the importance of checking your air conditioning system or the importance of your cabin air filter, or, you know, what's the best thing to look at when your tires are being rotated?
[00:15:35] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Why do we service our cooling systems? You know, right at the start of the summer or right at the beginning of the winter, we service cooling systems for two different reasons, right? One is for heat protection, the other's for freeze protection. Is it... Has it been serviced? I could probably argue that cooling systems are probably the one of the more neglected systems on the vehicle 'cause we're not checking.
[00:15:55] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We're not watching the maintenance schedules. So throwing it in their ear of like, "Hey, when was the last time you had your cooling system serviced? It's either gonna get hot, hot, or it's gonna get cold, cold," and coolant is pertinent to that conversation. So the more we share, the more we get out there, the more we can help.
[00:16:13] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And with these, with the AIs, I mean, I am not like... I'm not throwing my hat in the I love AI thing. But at the same time, it is a time saver, and if you're not a creative person, where getting onto Canva and creating your own fancy flyers and graphics and all of that- You can get on chat, give them your brand colors, give them your, uh, logo, and ask it to make you four air conditioning system-themed graphics, four blurbs to go with it.
[00:16:48] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Now you've got your Facebook posts or your Instagram posts. It, it'll take 20 minutes I bet, all said, all done. And then with the way, um, you know, Facebook's set up now, you can just schedule, you know, do it the first Monday of the month, schedule them out. One goes out a week. And so... and you gotta be just a little bit ahead, right?
[00:17:08] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You gotta be thinking about a month ahead so that they get out in time because of the games they play with the algorithm. The other place you're gonna wanna focus is throwing stuff up on your Google My Business page. Um, I'd ask everybody who's listening to raise their hand and tell me, uh, that you own and have control of and are actively using your Google My Business page.
[00:17:30] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Raised hands? Raised hands. Um, but it's so... and I'm joking, but it's true. Like, getting, getting into the algorithm with Google is huge, especially if you're in a big market where there's a lot of competition. You know, getting yourself up those, those search listings is important, and you can use these seasonal graphics and add them as photos.
[00:17:56] JeanAnn SaintGrace: All the information's there. They've got name, address, phone number, and what are we doing this month. Um, you can have somebody in your shop take a little video, post it to YouTube, and then feed it out through your, um, socials. The, the dirty little secret about Google, and most people know this, is YouTube owns Google.
[00:18:17] JeanAnn SaintGrace: If you create a short or a short video to put on YouTube and then link back to it, every time that link gets hit, it's, it's activating the Google algorithm. It's getting it to talk to, and giving it food to munch on, and it's telling the algorithm, "Hey, there's buzz about Joe's Auto Supply or sh- or Shirley's Auto Repair."
[00:18:42] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You know, there's, there... It, it feeds the monster, and the more feed you give it, the better results you're gonna get. The other dirty little secret is that if you're interacting with Google three to five times a week, you raise up in the algorithm. So how... What's an interaction? It's a Google... answering a Google review, putting up photos, putting up products, posting YouTube videos.
[00:19:06] JeanAnn SaintGrace: That's all you gotta do. So in, like, an hour a week, you can sit down and do three to five of those. You're good to go. You're done And it doesn't have to be fancy. It can be short and simple. You can use chat to build some things. You wanna be careful about repetitive information though, because Google will ding you for that.
[00:19:27] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You don't wanna post the same information on Instagram, on Facebook, and to your Google page. You wanna shift it up a little bit. So like I said, use chat. Say, "I need three 100-word blurbs about air conditioning systems for Joe's Auto Repair." Done. Three things that you can copy and paste that have slightly different wording but have the same message and use the same graphic It's easy.
[00:19:57] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So, you know, use your tools. That's... You know, once you got... You could even sit down once a year and sit down and do this, right? If you decide that at the 1st of January you're gonna go through your marketing calendar, create all your graphics, create all your content, and then as they're... as it comes up once a month, then you, you mete it out on your socials.
[00:20:19] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You pu- post it to your Google page. Um, it rewards you for that consistency. You don't wanna sit down on January 1st and put everything up for the year. You want every week to do three to five interactions with your Google My Business page, and then every amount of traffic that comes after that just keeps feeding the algorithm.
[00:20:39] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So, so be... U- use the tools that are at your disposal. In bigger markets where maybe you've got 20 shops in a five-mile radius, getting to the top of that Google listing is really, really important, being in the top three or the first page. You know, people generally don't scroll past. So be aware of that. Um, if you need help with marketing, again, let me know.
[00:21:03] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We'll find a time to talk, give you some ideas, put you in, in contact with some suppliers, with some vendors that can maybe help you with that. But this is, this is stuff you can do yourself. Or if you've got a teenager that you wanna throw a couple hundred bucks, or if you wanna find a, a virtual assistant, there's all kinds of ways to get this done that doesn't add to the heavy load that the shop owner's already carrying.
[00:21:27] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And you might tell me, "JeanAnn, I don't have the time." Well, bless your little heart. I promise, if you don't make time for marketing, you're not gonna grow your customer base. Natural attrition is anywhere from 10 to 20%. You're gonna have people move. You're gonna have people pass away. You're gonna have people who buy a different car brand and, and aren't...
[00:21:47] JeanAnn SaintGrace: They, they don't think you service that, so they go somewhere else. We've gotta keep touching those people. We've gotta get them following us. They've gotta be, you know, somebody that we can touch. Another great way to get your name out there or to get into people's consciousness is to cross-market. So say you have a local coffee shop that you just absolutely love.
[00:22:09] JeanAnn SaintGrace: They love you. Everybody's in love with each other. See if they'll put some of your cards on their counter or a QR code or, you know, if, if you guys can swap some, some gift cards. You know, maybe, um If they spend $100 with you, they get a $5 discount on a cup of coffee or a free coffee. You know, maybe you've got some little cards that you can share.
[00:22:32] JeanAnn SaintGrace: A local restaurant where you can cross market. And then you can cross in your, in your socials, you tag not only yourself, but this other company. You know, so Joe's, Joe's Garage is working with Kim's Coffee, and we cross market. So you've, you put your name in there, you tag Kim's Coffee, talk about, you know, what's the con- what's the connection between cars and coffee You know, make it up.
[00:23:00] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Talk to chat. Get a, get a, a punchy little thing going with it. Um, you can, you can be creative, make it time manage- uh, time- the time being manageable, and you can make it all fun, okay? It doesn't have to be serious. A lot of us are so serious about our businesses. I am guilty of this. Um, my sense of humor is a little dark and warped, so I gotta be careful about my humor.
[00:23:29] JeanAnn SaintGrace: But, you know, we can lighten it up. If you've got a, a shop dog, you know, uh, chat can take a picture of your dog and make it a cartoon and then use it across all these cute little pictures, right? Um, you can use your, your, your horse or your chicken or whatever. Maybe you've got a chinchilla, I don't know.
[00:23:48] JeanAnn SaintGrace: But you can create these cute little characters that then you can carry across your marketing and, and use chat to make the graphics. You know, s- my h- Sparky the Horse says, "It's time to service your cooling system." You know, whee, whatever you know? Um, make it fun. Make it cute. People love little kids and animals, and I don't advocate putting your little kids out there, so if you've got animals or just pick one out.
[00:24:16] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Change it up. Make it kind of a game. Like, what's the next thing that, that you can use? Maybe for the summer it's a chicken. Maybe for the fall it's a pig. Maybe you've got a bear for the winter. You know, whatever it is, people get kinda tied into that stuff. It, it, it's, it's shocking to me what people get excited about.
[00:24:36] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And if you've got something cool and fun that's always kind of a surprise or an Easter egg, you know, people look for that stuff. You know, where's, where's the, the chicken hidden in your, your latest graphic? If you find it, you go in a drawing for, um, you know, a free oil change or something like that. Make it fun.
[00:24:56] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Make it interactive. Um, it's gotten so easy now to put, um, surveys in your s- in your social posts. You know, what's your favorite car color? You know, red, white, or blue for July? Um, you know, are you a, an SUV, a pickup, or a sedan? Like, what's your favorite car? Um, if you had to, you know, marry one, um, kick one out, and date one, what would they be?
[00:25:24] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Like, what would your, your ideal garage look like? Um, make it fun. Make it interactive. Get them involved because every interaction cements their relationship to you And, and your marketing game, for lack of a better term, your marketing process is a constant level of dating. You might have the most loyal customers, you've still gotta be good to them.
[00:25:48] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You've got... You can't, it can't be like a marriage where, you know, you date, you put your best foot forward, and then you get married and all of a sudden there's dirty clothes on the floor. Like, you can't ever let the dirty clothes hit the floor with your customer and, and relationship. You've always gotta put the best foot forward.
[00:26:05] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And so there's, there's so many excellent tools that we have now that are so much more valuable and, and priced so low that it's, it's almost amazing to me what we can do. And, you know, what might have taken you hours and hours and hours or a whole day to do even two years ago, now you can do in less than an hour.
[00:26:34] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Um, I was playing with chat, having it make some graphics for me over the weekend, and it literally took it five minutes to make some really nice original graphics that I can brand and, and immediately share on social media. And then it'll help me write the blurbs to go with it. And y- you, you can't make this stuff up.
[00:26:56] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And same thing, if you, if you need to outsource this, if you need to find a fractional digital assistant or something like that, or like you said, you've got a teenager in the house, or a niece or a nephew, or a friend of a friend who's got a, a kid who loves doing this stuff Pay them. Pay 'em 50 or 100 bucks for a couple hours of their time every month, and, and let them do it, and, and then give it to you so you can put it through all your socials.
[00:27:25] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You know? It's, it, it doesn't have to be difficult. It can be easy, it can be light, it can be fun. But, but making sure that we're out there in our communities, in the socials, making friends and influencing people, to use a cliche, um, it's important. It's not something that we can ignore. If we're not doing any marketing at all like this, we're not attracting new people to us.
[00:27:53] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And, and the more we can reach out... You know, I, when I was a kid, one of my favorite things about Christmas was that on Christmas Eve, the local, uh, parts/auto shop had a parking lot b- um, um, potluck. And so, you know, everybody was welcome. Everybody brought something. They had, like, sodas, and, and the kids, we, we all played in the parking lot.
[00:28:18] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Everybody talked. You could make it a cruise night where everybody do a show and shine. Like, it, it just built community. It was just fun, and super family-oriented. Didn't cost anything, right? It absolutely didn't cost anything. But, you know, 50 years later, 45 to 50 years later, I remember Sweet's service, and they're etched in my memory.
[00:28:42] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And I was a little kid when they stopped doing that. I was 10 or 12 when they quit, but that's a memory that I have that's living with me, right? And if I still lived in the same town, and if they were still there, I would still want to go to Sweet's just for that reason. So these are the things that last.
[00:28:59] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And think about, you know, me as a little kid being that impressionable, if I needed a shop or if I needed a part, they would be my first stop because I have all these memories and emotional attachments to it. So imagine being that person who takes a teenager and takes them in and says, "Oh, this is how you check your oil, and this is what your tires should look like, and this is what you should be looking for.
[00:29:20] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Or if your car makes, stop, starts making a noise and you don't know what to do and you can't get ahold of your parents, call us." How impressionable is that? You've, you've created an emotional bond with this person, and, and God forbid they need something, you know, they end up in an emergency and you're the person there to help them, then that, that emotional bond continues, and you're building out this relationship.
[00:29:44] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We have to remember, we are not in the business of, of working on cars. We're in the business of servic- serving people and being there for our people. And so that is, that's an emotional bond. It's an emotional builder. You know, uh, and I, I don't want you guys to think I'm bragging when I say I can't tell you And I could even get really emotional about it just thinking about it right now that in December of 2015 when we were selling our business and I had to say goodbye to all those people How, how many tears were shed on both sides, you know?
[00:30:21] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And how many of them said, you know, "What are we gonna do without you?" And as much as I know there's a shop down the street, there's a shop around the corner, it's not... It wasn't me. And I still talk to those people, and they still have that nostalgia. We still have that bond. So if you can build a bond with your people like this and, and open the doors to them, invite them in, invite them to ask questions.
[00:30:45] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So many people are afraid to ask questions 'cause they don't wanna look dumb, or they don't wanna think that you've got them at an advantage. Building that relationship, making them comfortable, whatever that looks like, education, service, community, okay? And then just, you know, make it fun. And you can do it year over year.
[00:31:04] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Like fresh graphics. Don't recycle your graphics. You know, fresh graphics every year. Um, assuming that chat hasn't taken over the world by next year, then you can just tell it, "Hey, remember last year we did this, this, this? I'd like to freshen those, revamp them, but with the same message." Done. 30, 50 seconds, an h- a couple minutes, whatever it is, it's way faster than we can do it by hand.
[00:31:28] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So build out, you know, get, get a piece of paper with 12 squares on it for every month. Figure out what you're gonna do every month, and call it good. You could do a month in like in December, like the end of than- you know, Thanksgiving, Christmas. Maybe our marketing campaign is, "We love our customers. We're so thankful for you.
[00:31:49] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You know, come in for a bag of cookies," or, you know, "Everybody who's a repeat customer gets a 10% discount on whatever." You know, send out some little gift cards with your Christmas cards. Whatever it looks like, appreciate them. Show them that they mean something to you. We don't always have to be selling.
[00:32:08] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We're, we, we actually should never be selling. We should be informing. We should be engaging. We should be serving. We should never be selling. If we have to sell, we're probably doing something wrong. So thank you for listening. I really appreciate you guys. Remember, every piece of your communication with your, um, customers is marketing.
[00:32:30] JeanAnn SaintGrace: From the minute you first answer the phone till the last, the last communication ever, you should always be marketing with them. You should always be thanking them, sharing information with them, educating them, helping them, going the extra mile for them so that they know that they mean something to you.
[00:32:50] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And that kind of falls into our new sponsor, which is AutoFix Auto Shop Coaching, and that's the company that I coach for. We are a very focused group. We are here to help you at whatever stage your shop is at. If you're a startup and you need the basics and a foundation, we can do that If you're a fairly mature chop- mature shop, but you need some help with certain things like marketing or your bookkeeping or your pricing or your profit margins, we can do that.
[00:33:24] JeanAnn SaintGrace: If you're a very mature shop and you've got... You're an owner who's looking for a succession plan, we can walk you through succession. We ha- we have the breadth of experience within our team to walk you through whatever stage your shop is in, and we also have the ability to dial in exactly what you need for your shop right now.
[00:33:45] JeanAnn SaintGrace: There's no agendas. There's nothing to sell. You sign up for monthly coaching at an agreed price. We f- we focus in on what you need, and we go for as long as you want. There's no contracts. It's just a handshake deal of, "Right now, I want coaching. This is the price," and that's what we do until something changes.
[00:34:05] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Okay? Very simple. All you've got to do is reach out either to me or through the website, and we'll get you a discovery call, figure out what you need, get you signed up, and get coaching. Um, so again, that's Auto Shop... I'm sorry. AutoFix Auto Shop Coaching, and, um, all the contacts are in the show notes. So please reach out if you have any questions.
[00:34:28] JeanAnn SaintGrace: If you're looking for coaching, if you're looking to switch, or if you just have a few questions and wanna kind of figure out if you need a coach or not, we're here to help all the time, every day, whenever you need us. So thank you again to AutoFix Auto Shop Coaching for, um, sponsoring the podcast for me.
[00:34:48] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So once again, this is JeanAnn SaintGrace. Go out there, love your people till it's weird, make your shop your way, and I'll see you on the next episode. Thank you so much.