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Confessions of a Shop Owner is hosted by Mike Allen, a third-generation shop owner, perpetual pot-stirrer, and brutally honest opinion sharer. In this weekly podcast, Mike shares his missteps so you don’t have to repeat them. Along the way, he chats with other industry personalities who’ve messed up, too, pulling back the curtain on the realities of running an independent auto repair shop. But this podcast isn’t just about Mike’s journey. It’s about confronting the divisive and questionable tactics many shop owners and managers use. Mike is here to stir the pot and address the painful truths while offering a way forward. Together, we’ll tackle the frustrations, shake things up, and help create a better future for the auto repair industry.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (0:00 - 0:22)
Who's scheduling their oil change three months out in advance? We don't do that. Our lives don't work like that.
It's like, hey, oil change light came on. Get your oil change. Brakes are grinding.
I need you now. And so how can you become that person that they automatically think of? We have people that'll come in and be like, man, I was scrolling on TikTok and I realized you guys are down the street and I'm so freaking excited.
[Intro] (0:24 - 0:55)
The following program features a bunch of doofuses talking about the automotive aftermarket. The stuff we or our guests may say do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of our peers, our sponsors, or any other associations we may have. There may be some spicy language in this show, so if you get your feelings hurt easily, you should probably just move along.
So without further ado, here's your host, Mike Allen with Confessions of a Shop Owner presented by Techmetric. Simply the best software ever made.
[Mike Allen] (0:56 - 1:43)
Okay, so we're recording this at like 10, 15 in the morning. So rather than having my standard glass of whiskey and or adult beverage of my preference, I do have the Lord's Preferred Chicken as my caffeine delivery device this morning. I've already finished all of my tea, so they have the most chewable ice in the world.
And so I apologize in advance if I'm chewing ice during our conversation. I'm neurotic, I can't help it. It also drives my wife crazy.
We were just talking about my wife as a dentist and the fact that I chew ice constantly. I'm surprised she hasn't murdered me yet for that, but we'll get there in a little while. So how are you?
I am fabulous. How are you today? I'm doing okay, I'm doing okay.
Now you're popping a beer. I heard that. That was a Coors Light sound.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (1:44 - 1:47)
It's a soda water. We're at soda water time.
[Mike Allen] (1:49 - 2:12)
I don't know, it sounded distinctly like a bush light. All right, so Stacia Ashbach from, I'm sorry? Stacia.
Oh my God. Before we started recording for our listeners, I asked how to appropriately pronounce your last name and didn't specify the first name. So forever, you're Stacia in my mind now.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (2:12 - 2:13)
That's it.
[Mike Allen] (2:16 - 3:01)
Ashbach Auto in Middleton, Wisconsin. You are, what's the cliche? Girl boss, mom boss.
I don't know where to put that there, but you've got an incredible auto repair shop in Wisconsin. You're a mom of five. You've got your own podcast that our listeners should check out.
It's Driven for More. It's available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, wherever you consume your content. But I love talking to people in our industry who have our same experiences.
And I feel like you and I could talk a lot because not only do we both have auto repair shop grief that we can share, but we have media and podcasting grief that we can share as well, right?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (3:02 - 3:03)
100%.
[Mike Allen] (3:03 - 3:13)
I do have, real quick, I have lots of tangential questions because my brain's like a cat chasing a laser. The whiteboard in the background, what all do you have written back there?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (3:15 - 3:34)
That's my brain dump. That's my weekly brain dump. Let's see.
It's a lot of leadership, probably too much fluff that people will think. Biggest one, you didn't choose what happens to you, but you get to choose what happens next. So I was going on an anti-victim brain dump.
[Mike Allen] (3:34 - 3:39)
I support that. You can't choose how people act towards you, but you can choose how you respond to them, right?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (3:40 - 3:48)
You're going to learn that from all the feedback you get from content and podcasts as well. You just have to level yourself.
[Mike Allen] (3:48 - 6:44)
Yeah. I only go into the comment section when I want to be amused or when I want to stir the shit around a little bit because I'm a bit of a pot stirrer. But to that end, we have a company-wide meeting every second Tuesday of the month.
We all gather up at the Confessions of a Conviction at a shop owner lounge, the second floor of one of the shops that have turned it into like a lounge and recording studio and whatnot. And one of the things that I put on the agenda for next Tuesday's meeting, one of our core values, our core values are be nice, be accountable, tell the truth, have fun, and be thankful, right? And however you feel about core values and corporate mumbo jumbo, that kind of thing, I really believe in each of those core values.
And the be nice one, we have the public version and then the internal version in parentheses. And it's be nice, in parentheses, don't be a dick, right? So in an industry full of dudes who tend to be a little bit gruff and rough around the edges, sometimes we choose to communicate in a way that can come across really gruff and really rude almost.
And everybody thinks that way, or a lot of people think that way. But what we don't realize is that even if I can take that negative kind of hostile communication style, nine days out of 10, what if on the 10th day, I'm having a really crappy situation that's affecting me and my mentality and somebody comes over the top rope like that, I could be taken the wrong way and then it could escalate and then you could just get out of hand, right? Or it could hurt feelings and cause mopiness or whininess or whatever else that might be there, right?
And negatively impact my performance for the rest of the day. And when one link in the chain is weakened for the day, then the whole chain is weakened for the day, right? Yep.
That's something that we're gonna be talking about next Tuesday night is, look guys, I want you to be conscious about communicating with one another the way that you would want a loved one communicated with, not the way that you wanna be communicated with because you might say, well, you can talk to me that way, I don't care, right? Until the day that you do care. Yeah.
But think about your spouse, your child, your parent, how would you want them communicated with? And that's how you should communicate with those around you. Because my dad's analogy was, if you ever go out on the lake or if you boat much, you know, there are no wake zones where you slow down because you don't wanna leave the big waves behind.
He called it an emotional wake. When you're going across the lake at high speed, you're leaving these giant waves behind you that have major impacts on the others around you if you're not thoughtful. So you should be thoughtful about the wake that you leave behind you.
And as leaders in our business, ours is the biggest wake more often than not, right?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (6:45 - 6:45)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (6:45 - 7:14)
We'll come through and what might be a minor comment to us causes big waves. Or taking the time to just walk through and say hey to everybody and check in on everybody, how you doing, how's your day? To us, that's 30 seconds, but to them that makes them feel heard and seen potentially and it is valuable.
So think about your emotional wake for better or for worse. Sorry, that was quite the tangent based off of asking about your whiteboard.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (7:14 - 7:37)
No, I love it and it's straight on the point. I always tell all of my staff that if anyone gives you a response of over a five, it has nothing to do with you and it has something to do with them and their external experiences of what's going on. And so even if it's a coworker, if it's a customer, anything, you just have to realize and take yourself out of that situation and make sure that you're the grounded person when you're talking to anyone.
[Mike Allen] (7:39 - 7:50)
Okay, so I wanna get in the Wayback Machine and go back to when Ashbach Automotive started and your involvement and how you get to where you are today. Can you kind of give me the history of your shop?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (7:51 - 9:09)
We'll do a quick rundown. My husband started the business, Josh, in 2009, young, ambitious, 24-year-old and just knew that he could do better. Aren't all the 24-year-olds like that?
I love it. He had quit his job, moved everything to his parents' shed and started on a lease for a shop and two days later, that shed burned down. To the ground, everything gone.
So he spent about two weeks licking his wounds at the bar and then he's like, well, I mean, I'm a technician at heart so I just gotta do what I gotta do and just set off and did it. So it was everything on his own. In 2009, we didn't meet until 2016.
So he had seven years of the shop prior to us meeting and it was really just him, head to the floor, grind, do everything from starting off as a technician like most shops, service advising, bringing on a couple of employees and then when I came into the business in 2017, in 2016, it had just crested a million in sales and it was to the point that he's like, okay, this is a lot. I was working as an executive assistant at a financial office and we had met on Tinder, of course, love it.
[Mike Allen] (9:10 - 9:11)
True love.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (9:11 - 10:03)
True love. I told him, I'm like, that is the best swipe right you've ever done in your life, bud. We met, he had a son, I had two kids and we just hit it off.
And I was working as an executive assistant and I was helping him here and there, marketing some of these client things that are going on and then I started part-time at the shop January 2017 and then by September 2017, I came on full-time and we expanded from seven days to 11 and the rest is kind of history from there. In 2020, I had two more kids, 2021, he actually stepped out of the business. He's like, you know, I'm gonna go figure out my next venture.
So now he plays in the woods with toys all day long.
[Mike Allen] (10:04 - 10:14)
You know what, I wonder if I can get Amanda to come take over the business, make it way better, pay me to leave. I think that would be great.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (10:15 - 10:32)
It's a win. So we went from a million and we're at a $3 million shop now. So, and yeah, he stepped out, I believe it was September 2020 or 2021 and started a land management company and just went from there and just kind of taken it off.
[Mike Allen] (10:33 - 10:37)
So you went from seven days to 11. Did you do that by moving or by adding on to the building you had?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (10:38 - 10:44)
We have a goofy puzzle piece. We have seven bays in one building and we have four in a building behind us.
[Mike Allen] (10:44 - 10:49)
Did you build another shed or did you lease another portion of the property?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (10:49 - 10:53)
Yep, leased another portion of a property and just took it over.
[Mike Allen] (10:54 - 10:56)
So do you have the goal of trying to buy the property one day?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (10:57 - 11:14)
No. We'll move eventually. It's a great location.
Our next door neighbor is a gentleman's club. It's, you know, it makes it a great landmark of where we're located. Everyone knows.
We're right next to the topless bar. We sure are.
[Mike Allen] (11:15 - 11:21)
I would hope that they don't have a lunch buffet because you don't want your crew going over there for lunch.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (11:21 - 11:22)
Thank God.
[Mike Allen] (11:25 - 11:34)
Now you could sell, you could rent extra overflow parking to the club for evening hours, right? Because I mean, the parking lot double use. What could possibly go wrong?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (11:35 - 11:37)
Nothing. Nothing can go wrong.
[Mike Allen] (11:40 - 12:12)
You know what? I respect those individuals' hustles. They got to do what they got to do, but I'm probably not going to try to overlap anything to do with my business with that.
No. So you took over the business effect. You married, joined the business, took a bigger role in the business, business grew, you took over management of the business, you kicked out your husband, and now you're breaking records and mom of five at this point.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (12:12 - 12:12)
Yep.
[Mike Allen] (12:13 - 12:18)
You know what you should do? You should start a podcast because in all your free time.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (12:18 - 12:20)
There's so much free time. Why not?
[Mike Allen] (12:21 - 12:22)
How does that work?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (12:24 - 13:35)
You know, I've had months that I take a break and I take a sabbatical. So I won't lie and say that it's easy. As you know, you have to dedicate time to doing it as well as figure out, okay, what am I going to speak about that's going to be helpful for others?
I'm not just going to talk to talk. I want to help people. That's the whole point.
Isn't that why we're all in the automotive business is to help people, right? So figuring out how am I going to give back? There's different perspectives.
I constantly hear, how do you do it with five kids, 10 more kids at work, and make it all work. Like a daycare sometimes. Always.
They're great though. I love my staff. I love my kids.
And I want to figure out a way that I can give back and make sure that people don't feel stuck. I had my first daughter when I, my oldest daughter, when I was 17. And I never want people to feel stuck.
I mean, I had every reason, every reason to just go down the path of being a loser. And I was like, it's just not going to happen. I don't have that.
And I don't want people to be like, you know, I was a teenage mom. So now I have this, this, and this. Like you can have every excuse in the world, but you can do it.
And I'm foolproof that you can do it. Anything you put your mind to.
[Mike Allen] (13:36 - 14:47)
I've found that women in our industry, at least the ones that I've had the pleasure of getting to hang with are some of the most no excuses, just get shit done people I've ever met. You know, Automotive Service and Tire Alliance is a trade association that I've been involved in with for years. And we host ASTA Expo in Raleigh last weekend of September coming right up.
But currently the president of the association and the vice president are both women and they're badasses and they suffer no fools and they suffer no excuses, especially and even more so of other women. I think they are less sensitive to the woe is me story that sometime you'll see out there. And I think maybe they have to be because it's such a historically male dominated industry that they've got to be tough as nails to thrive and succeed.
I don't know. What do you think in that front?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (14:48 - 16:17)
Number one, we're badasses because we're in the automotive industry. Come on. I completely agree.
You have to be, especially when you're getting started, you have to be tough. You have to be able to handle the, and a lot of us, I've been in the industry now, it'll be 10 years coming up here. In the 10 years ago is a completely different automotive field than it is now.
And even 10 years before that and 10 years before that, it just continually, it's getting better and much more receptive to women being in the industry that every shop that I know, they want a woman somewhere in their business. And so how can you attract women to come there without them feeling judged, attacked? How do you do that?
And it's difficult. And that's one of my goals is how can I make it so that it's easier? It's less, there's less of a, what?
Less of a struggle to get women in the industry and see that, hey, it's actually a really rewarding industry. It may not have been 10 years ago, but we sure as hell are going to do everything in our power to make it become that way. And 100%, there's no excuses.
I mean, we've heard as shop owners, we hear every single thing in the book. And as women, you can hear it too, that I'm not gonna be treated right, this, that, and the other and it's like, how can we remove that stigma?
[Mike Allen] (16:20 - 16:24)
Do you have any other women in the business right now beyond yourself? I don't.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (16:24 - 16:26)
I did, I don't.
[Mike Allen] (16:26 - 17:21)
Yeah, I understand. They come and go sometimes, right? Just like anybody else.
I've had women in and out of the business over the years. My longest tenured employee is our office manager and bookkeeper. She's been with us for 21 years, but she's not frontline, right?
She works from home primarily. She comes for our Tuesday night meeting. She comes for Christmas party, that kind of stuff.
But I've had a couple women in the shop over the years and I've had several women on the counter over the years. And I mean, they're tougher and they work harder because they have to, it seems like. So anyway, I do have, how long have you been doing Driven for more?
I'm on your Spotify page right now because I'm lazy and I was looking for episode numbering, but you don't have episode numbering and counting is hard.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (17:22 - 17:27)
It's like 30. I think there's 30 episodes. I believe I started in July of last year.
[Mike Allen] (17:27 - 17:48)
Okay, all right. And it looks like it's 15 to 30 minutes depending upon the conversation. So it's a good commute length, right?
Easy to listen to in the car. Do you have a common theme that you tend to touch on for most episodes or is it a pretty wide ranging conversation?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (17:48 - 18:07)
A lot of leadership. Leadership and how to just figure out life, figure out your schedule. It is most pushed towards people that have children.
I've got five of them. You have four, right? Yeah, three.
You have three, okay. So, I mean, you're considered four for your wife, right?
[Mike Allen] (18:08 - 18:57)
Yeah, I am child number four for her. I am much more of a drag on the household support mechanism than I am a supporting role myself, so. It happens.
There's no doubt. I would say that I go out and play with the kids more than I am the authoritarian that's bad. Like my daughter wants to go to the go-kart track.
Well, she's in karting camp this week right now. So she wants to stay at the track after pickup and get in some extra sessions tonight. And I was like, I got to record tonight, baby.
I'm sorry. So yeah, track time is always good. Okay, so 30, 40 episodes in, do you feel like it's been a good rewarding experience for you?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (18:57 - 19:42)
I do. I'm starting to hear more feedback that, hey, this was really beneficial. I love hearing your brain as you say, it's a cat chasing a laser.
I always just consider myself a squirrel on crack that we just need to move everywhere all the time. But it's just really interesting to see and figure out that I can assist people and help them in the way that my brain processes things to really enjoy my life. Because I truly do.
And everyone has the same 20. My big thing is everyone has the same 24 hours in the day. I have the same 24 hours that you do, that Elon Musk has.
Everyone, we've all got the same 24. And how do you make the most out of those 24 hours? In what?
Cocaine. Yeah, that's it.
[Mike Allen] (19:43 - 20:30)
That way I don't need to sleep for as many of them either. So it's key. So here's the big thing that I wanna try to suss out from you a little bit.
Something that you've just explosive growth in your social media presence with your business. I just pulled up your Facebook, your company Facebook page, and it's A-E-S-C-H-B-A-C-H. So Ashbach Automotive LLC is the name of the Facebook page.
62,000 followers. I haven't pulled up TikTok or Instagram or anything like that because I'm old and I don't know how to use new social media stuff. But I think I've got like 2000 on my company page.
So that is remarkable. How did you do that?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (20:31 - 20:33)
A lot of hard work.
[Mike Allen] (20:34 - 20:39)
Lame. Lame. It wasn't- I just wanna pay a bunch of Russian bots to follow my page.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (20:39 - 20:55)
I took a video and it blew up. No, it wasn't that easy. I'm young.
At least I hope I look. For those of you that are watching on video, I hope I look young and youthful. That's my goal.
My kids are starting to tell me I'm getting old.
[Mike Allen] (20:55 - 20:58)
I can't believe that you've got five kids at 27. It's amazing.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (20:58 - 22:19)
You know, I am 31. So- Perfect, perfect. It's nice.
We're set here. And it was all self-taught. As I said, I had my oldest daughter when I was 17.
I didn't go to college. And what more could you figure out? We're obviously- I'm in the generation, the end of millennial, that we love social media.
And the phone is amazing. And so as looking, doing different things, getting involved in the shop, my forward thought is always what's in the future? What's going on?
How are you going to get more clients and facilitate having five children and letting them enjoy their life? Because as you know, children are very expensive. And that was my driving force of, how do I get more clients in the door?
And I think of direct mail. And I'm so sorry, I just am not a direct mail person. Like I do direct mail, but like for me as a consumer, I don't look at it.
And so I'm like, where can we attract people? I don't listen to radio. I pay for Sirius XM.
My mail goes on my passenger floor in my car. So I'm like, what's the next thing? And it's like, okay, it's social media.
And I'm like, you know, I've got the ability to communicate. I know what looks nice. Let's just do it.
Let's just full send.
[Mike Allen] (22:19 - 23:14)
I would say that the only junk mail I look at is junk mail from other auto repair businesses. So I can see what coupons they're doing. All the other ones get thrown away.
So when I look at your social media page and I scroll your page, it reminds me of a local business to me. And when I think about, he changed his social media marketing within the last six months. And so I think what he's doing is he's copying you, which is okay.
Because I think, you know who I'm talking about. And I'm not saying this to say that he's doing something bad. I mean, it's not like you're in competing markets.
Thomas Andrews or yeah, from CDT. Same thing like the microphone on the end of a wrench and the kind of first person asking silly questions for silly content very much. Did you teach him how to do that?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (23:15 - 23:17)
I've never spoken to him. Never.
[Mike Allen] (23:17 - 23:17)
Really?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (23:18 - 23:40)
Never talked to him. I believe they follow us on one of our platforms. So obviously I know that they see our content.
And then we're obviously both part of the same coaching company. I'm sure he's seen it. And I mean, my guess is so because Meta, so Facebook and Instagram here at Mike is 96 million views year to date.
[Mike Allen] (23:43 - 23:43)
That's pretty amazing.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (23:43 - 23:45)
So we're almost at a hundred million. So I'm like, yes.
[Mike Allen] (23:47 - 23:57)
Let me ask you this for a business. Like you're getting a social media check every month for your page, right?
[Mike Allen] (23:58 - 24:13)
Cause I was thinking, I thought that was for individual only, but now the podcast gets a check every month. So I would assume that an auto repair business would too. So what do you do with that six or $700 check?
You go next door to the club and make it rain.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (24:13 - 24:43)
We make it rain. We take 10% of whatever our monetization is and we throw it into Kitty. So that's for the shop Kitty towards tools the technicians want.
Cool. So they keep building up the Kitty for, I think there's probably like five different wishlist items on there, all a couple thousand dollars. And we figure out what they'd like, what they'd enjoy, especially because they're the ones that take a significant amount of our content.
[Mike Allen] (24:46 - 24:48)
Which social media platform monetizes the best?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (24:50 - 24:50)
TikTok.
[Mike Allen] (24:51 - 24:54)
Really? And is it close or is it not even?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (24:55 - 25:15)
No, we don't. So we don't get any kind of a payout from Instagram. They don't pay for anything.
If someone were to join like a subscription, which we don't offer, we would be able to get some kind of a pay, but yes, completely lame. I believe, I think it's like 46 million of our meta views are from Instagram and we didn't get a dime from any of it. That sucks.
And then Facebook.
[Mike Allen] (25:15 - 25:17)
Yeah, you get 90,000 followers on Instagram.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (25:18 - 25:35)
Yeah. Wow. That's awesome.
I think our highest, and we have videos go viral probably like every other week now that is just in viral of over a million. I think this last week's at like 4 million views, I think on TikTok for that one.
[Mike Allen] (25:37 - 25:49)
That's awesome. So again, find their website and then their website, the top banner has all their social links, but you post the same content across all platforms, right? For the most part.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (25:50 - 26:03)
We do a little bit more on YouTube. You'll find some long form content on there. Not a ton of long form content, but now we're starting to add a little bit more to YouTube that we don't actually put on our other platforms.
I gotcha.
[Mike Allen] (26:06 - 26:08)
And TikTok's even better than YouTube for monetization?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (26:09 - 26:14)
Yes. So we only just got approved on YouTube. So we haven't gotten a dime from that yet.
[Mike Allen] (26:14 - 26:19)
Okay. How many followers or subscribers do you have to have to get monetized on YouTube?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (26:20 - 26:21)
I believe 5,000.
[Mike Allen] (26:22 - 26:22)
Okay.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (26:22 - 26:34)
Is what YouTube is, but then you also have to have a certain amount of views in the last 60 days. So I believe it has to be like 5,000 subscribers and 5 million views in 60 days. Interesting.
[Mike Allen] (26:35 - 26:36)
Trying to get my learn on.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (26:37 - 26:39)
You want to be in the right pennies.
[Mike Allen] (26:40 - 26:49)
I know, right? So how frequently do you want to post on social media? Is it every day?
Is it five times a week? What's your goal?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (26:50 - 27:25)
For another automotive shop, my thought process is three times a week. Okay. Three times a week is that happy medium.
It's not crazy overwhelming. You could possibly do it yourself. I don't recommend that for any shop owner though, because all of us have 10 different fires we're putting out at any point in time.
When I started the social media journey, I brought on an intern, local college. We're a college town, we're in Madison. And I just reached out to the university, posted an internship, and that's how we got started.
Or started from me being completely overwhelmed and I'm like, I need some help.
[Mike Allen] (27:27 - 27:30)
How much did you pay said intern? Or was it a free internship?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (27:31 - 27:36)
Said intern started at 20 to an hour. Oh, that's pretty good.
[Mike Allen] (27:36 - 27:37)
Yeah. It's like hiring a GS.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (27:37 - 27:38)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (27:38 - 27:40)
So when they probably didn't work 40 hours a week, right?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (27:41 - 28:07)
No, he was, I feel like he started around that 15 to 20 hours a week is where it was. And then when I was looking to bring on, we've now transitioned, that was two years ago. We've now transitioned that as of June, when we brought that position on full time.
And when I posted that job in a weekend, so just, I believe I posted it Friday at like 11 and I shut it off Sunday on Indeed. I had 86 applications.
[Mike Allen] (28:07 - 28:26)
Yeah. Jobs like that are crazy. So, I mean, every kid that applies for a job like that, and I shouldn't say kid, cause they're adults.
Every young adult that applies for a job like that is gonna already be much more social media savvy than the large majority of shop owners in America, right?
[Mike Allen] (28:26 - 28:33)
How do you identify the one that's the right one for your content? How do you teach them what you're trying to create?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (28:33 - 28:35)
I'm a big hire on vibes person.
[Mike Allen] (28:37 - 28:39)
Very technical, very exact.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (28:40 - 30:13)
Very exact. We, I work so heavily with the marketing because I really enjoy it. And I'm very specific on what we're looking for, what we want.
I put in probably of my own per month, I would say 20 hours a month is heavily into the brainstorming behind a lot of our content that I'll talk directly with our marketing. And so it has to be someone that I mesh with. We have to have some kind of connectivity.
And I'm so lucky with the people that I've had join my team. My last guy, not my current one, but my one before that, I did go, we definitely meshed on a personality level, but not crazy. And I went off of his skills.
He did content for a living and he just wanted to be around a cool place. He wanted to learn some business and make some, be around some friends because doing content is when you're a solo, solopreneur or anything, it's really lonely. His friends are down in Texas and Arizona and these places.
And he's like, I've got friends up here, but they just don't understand. And he's like, I'm also like not doing anything during the day because I spend 20 hours doing social media for myself, but that other 20 hours, I kind of feel like a loser. And so he came on board and that was amazing.
Now he's at like a million followers on, I think TikTok and another million on Instagram. So now he's making actual money doing that.
[Mike Allen] (30:13 - 30:22)
How many followers do you think a content creator needs to have before that can be their full-time source of income? I guess it depends on how much they want, right?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (30:22 - 30:53)
It depends on how much you want, what's your lifestyle. And I also, I really think it depends on the niche that you're in and how much brand deals pay. Obviously a lot of those can be lucrative.
I'm sure as you do too, you probably get free stuff sent to you often that you get free stuff, but free stuff doesn't pay. I mean, you can offer, we had a- It's cool, but yeah. It doesn't pay.
We had Timu message us like six times in the last week. They're just determined. And I'm like, I'm sorry, no.
[Mike Allen] (30:54 - 31:12)
I've heard that you can get really high quality diesel fuel injectors from Timu. We had a, it was an internal joke within the podcast in some early episodes about using Timu diesel parts to increase your profit margins, so credible margins.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (31:13 - 31:35)
Squishies, I'll buy the squishies off Timu guys, but I can't do that. Sticking with your guns on it. Our biggest brand deal that we've gotten was 5,000 now, which is awesome.
And it's helpful, but it all depends on what are the deliverables someone's asking? What are all of the things that you have to do?
[Mike Allen] (31:38 - 32:52)
So, I have been hesitant to invest much time or energy into social media marketing for my auto repair business. Because with very few exceptions and few outliers, I didn't know anyone who was getting a return on investment in that capacity. Because, I mean, if you scroll your social media feed and you follow 1,000 shops around the country, when a holiday comes along, you're gonna see the exact same image 75 times on your scroll because they're using the same canned marketing setup, right?
As opposed to unique, organic, specifically created for them content. So obviously, you're having success and have had great success with unique content that you create in-house, that connects with the people around you. At what point in that growth curve from where you were when you hired your first intern to 60 plus thousand followers, did you start to get, excuse me, did you start to get the phone ringing or new customers walking in the door saying that they found you on social media?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (32:55 - 34:03)
Almost immediate. Really? Almost immediate, to be honest.
It was more of a branding focus. And that's how I view social media, is branding. No matter what, you have to be top of mind for the right person at the right time.
Automotive repair is a reactive. It's not proactive. Who's scheduling their oil change three months out in advance?
We don't do that. Our lives don't work like that. It's like, hey, oil change light came on.
Get your oil change. Brakes are grinding. I need you now.
And so how can you become that person that they automatically think of? And life's changed now. I mean, you don't have as loyalties as what you may have in the past.
And so if someone sees another shop, they're like, oh, that looks pretty. That looks nice. They look busy.
Let's go check it out. But if you're consistently staying top of mind posting on social media, you may gain that loyalty. You may gain that.
And that's something that we've seen huge that now as we're much further into it, we have people that'll come in and be like, man, I was scrolling on TikTok and I realized you guys are down the street and I'm so freaking excited to come see you.
[Mike Allen] (34:04 - 34:20)
So early on, it feels like you've probably got enough momentum now that you don't have to do this and correct me if I'm wrong. But early on, did you geofence the neighborhoods around or do any targeted or boosted ads or was it all just post and let it go organically?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (34:21 - 35:58)
All of our videos post and let it go organically. Not saying we don't run ads. We actually run ads more now than we used to.
We don't boost any of our videos, but if we run ads, they're ones that you can't see because you're not in our area, but those are targeted around our shop for those ads that will go off. But you can see in the profiles of how many of your views are from ads and how many are from elsewise. And so I believe our ads are minuscule in comparison, but I want them to be because those are targeted more.
But when someone clicks on an ad now, especially in auto shop, we still fight that stigma of the 90s shops that were nasty and greasy and slimy. And it's like people are going to look at your ad. They'll be like, okay, this is a great deal.
But especially as we're coming in with these younger generations, they're going to click on the profile and wanna see more. And if they see your ad on Facebook, that's like, hey, we got a $60 oil change special. And then they click on your profile from that and they see there's nothing on there.
It's like, okay, I don't have as much trust for this person. Why spend $500 on meta ads when someone clicks on it and they've automatically lost trust because you don't post anything. Whereas you can post some videos, you can post photos, real things, not these stock images and actually gain some traction.
That's the hardest thing I see with other shops that they'll post pictures of a tire or pictures of like a belt. And it's like, do you stop and look at that? Like, I don't, I don't look at any of that stuff.
Why is your consumer going to?
[Mike Allen] (35:59 - 36:02)
How many eggs did you crack on the hood of that F-150 for that video?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (36:02 - 36:04)
Three, only three.
[Mike Allen] (36:08 - 36:14)
I'm just over here scrolling your pages while we're talking. It looks like you enjoyed it.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (36:14 - 36:18)
It was a lot of fun. We do some fun ones.
[Mike Allen] (36:19 - 36:24)
And then you had to wash scrambled eggs out of your parking lot in front of the shop.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (36:24 - 36:51)
They were there for two weeks. Gross. I kept scrubbing it and I kept just seeing like an orange, like a yellowish layer.
And I'm like, how is this not disappearing? It was wild. We do, you know, we do different things.
And as you know, as some of our social media is too, it's not necessarily rage baiting, but we definitely know some of our stuff is going to cause some controversy.
[Mike Allen] (36:52 - 36:56)
Engagement baiting works, man. It doesn't have to be rage, it just has to be engagement.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (36:56 - 37:02)
Engagement. So cracking an egg on a car, it sent some people into a tailspin. That's for sure.
[Mike Allen] (37:03 - 38:10)
You're going to damage the paint. Oh my God. I'll tell you what I found for better, for worse.
There's multiple types of engagement baiting that gets a lot of reaction. When I say something a little bit obtuse or something is edited to make me sound a little bit ignorant or wrong, or maybe I'm just wrong, right? People love to tell you what an idiot you are and how wrong you are and how you don't know what you're talking about.
And that's fine. And so you get a lot of comments and a fair amount of engagement and it gets shown to more people because of the engagement, right? But if you say something spicy about some other party or group that other people will be able to agree with and say, yes.
So it's like, if I say something spicy about service advisors, technicians all share it and comment. So then it grows much more rapidly. And I'm like, okay, let's rage bait service advisors so the technicians will share it.
Now let's rage bait technicians so the service advisors will share it. And now everybody just piles on when I'm a dumb ass and it's proven to be pretty fun.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (38:12 - 38:13)
You just have to have faith in.
[Mike Allen] (38:14 - 38:57)
Yeah. Well, I just turn off comments. I just, my buddy Brian, he co-hosts a fair number of episodes with me.
And he says that, by definition, half of people are below average intelligence and almost all of them are in the comment section. it just kind of is what it is. so if we have a listener to the show today and they're intrigued by what you've been able to build and do in your business, obviously they can go listen to your podcast to learn more about kind of your mentality and your thought process in that.
And again, that's Driven For More with Stacia Ashbach. Stacia.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (38:58 - 39:00)
You're literally almost there.
[Mike Allen] (39:02 - 39:14)
It's the Southern in me. I just, I don't know how to talk good. How would you recommend they get started along that journey with their businesses' social media pages and growing them?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (39:15 - 41:21)
Start the page, number one. There's so much give back. I mean, obviously you're doing this, Mike, and I do what I do to give back to the community and to help others grow.
It's all, you know, when we're, I feel it's the trades in general. It isn't just automotive. We want to grow the trades.
And we all, it's community over competition. You know, it may sound cliche, but I feel that all of us truly feel that for those of us that are in these positions. And don't, you know, don't ever feel, immediately you said, hey, we've got someone in our neck of the woods filming videos.
And you hadn't even said it. And I'm like, I love that. Please do take our ideas because I want to build up the automotive industry no matter where we are.
And do, look at our content. See what you can do. You can put your positive spin on it, but you just have to get it started and then realize that there are so many people that have the similar mindsets that we do that are giving free content information on YouTube, on Instagram, on TikTok, that you can search up marketing for small businesses, marketing for automotive repair shops, taking videos for auto repair shops.
You know, there's just so many people in the industries, industry that we can do these things with. And obviously use the vendors that you work with as resources. Techmetric, obviously you've got their shirt on here.
They have that Under the Lift series. That's fantastic. You're able to view those episodes.
You're able to see what do some of these people do? What are some interesting things? And just gain knowledge from everywhere.
You know, there's plenty of automotive podcasts out there. You know, it's not just yours. It's not just mine.
There's so many that we can get information and continue to grow your knowledge base and just find all the free information that you can and reliance on those vendors. Ask them, hey, what do I do? If you're using, you know, I should probably know the name of it.
If you're using some of these different ones like Optimize Social Media and Detect Auto, all those things, talk to those people. They're freaking smart. You already use them.
Reach out to them and be like, dude, I think I wanna start doing videos. Do you have any advice for me? People are gonna give you advice who want to continue to grow the industry.
[Mike Allen] (41:22 - 42:51)
Well, I've got, they're kind of new to the scene, but I've got a company of 47 consultants and they are actually coming out in two weeks and they're gonna spend two days at the shops doing some long form video content and kind of telling the story of the different characters in the shop. And my buddy, Greg Buckley in Delaware has been using them for a while to huge success. And it's just, you know, put a stool in the middle of the bay and have them sit down and just tell their story.
And I think people love hearing the story of other humans that they can relate to, you know, and the ups and the downs and the goods and the bads. And it humanizes us as well. Like in our big shop, we've got a whole wall that is just profiles for everybody on the team and pictures of them and their family and their hobbies and their pets and their project cars and all that kind of stuff.
We are not just the evil guys that tell you the bad news about what's wrong with your car. We're fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and moms and dads, right? And anything you can do to be more relatable to your community and your customer base is gonna be a good thing over time.
So I'm throwing my hat in the ring trying to get real about social media for the shops starting this month. So- Love it.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (42:51 - 44:14)
I think the big thing that with you saying that is that the increased AI, you know, we all talk about it. We all love it. We're all playing with Claude.
We're all playing with chat GPT and we're trying to figure out what's the newest, best thing, how can we optimize? How can we remove some of these different mindless tasks? The more we're doing that, the more we're actually losing trust with our client base.
And we're not even realizing that. You know, you become more robotic and that's why becoming more human is going to absolutely take over 2020, the rest of 2026 and 2027. I don't know about you, I'm sick of seeing those AI drafted, like used AI and it's all the same like bubbly picture on Facebook.
And I'm like, garbage, garbage. We want creativity. We want to see people be humans.
We wanna see people make mistakes because we wanna realize we're not all freaking robots and to see that this is a human place. I'm gonna do business with humans. I don't wanna go to the shop and check in on a tablet.
I don't wanna do self-checkout. Who likes to go to Target and Walmart and do self-checkout? I'm like, y'all are getting paid to do this.
Please check out my stuff. It's how can we become more human and show that? And automotive shops are amazing because we're all just like little reality TV shows with all of our broken puzzle pieces that all just fit together.
[Mike Allen] (44:14 - 44:18)
We are, all of us, our own little island of misfit toys.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (44:18 - 44:18)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (44:18 - 44:31)
And if I walk into a shop and it seems like everybody has 100% got their shit together, I'm worried that it's the lizard people because we're all screwed up in our own little ways. That's how we ended up in this industry.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (44:32 - 44:43)
We're all a little broken. I say this in interviews that you have to be slightly broken to work for me and you gotta be weird. I got a guy with a pet pig, man.
You gotta be slightly weird.
[Mike Allen] (44:44 - 44:47)
Pigs make great pets until they get too damn big.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (44:48 - 44:50)
It's like 250 pound pig.
[Mike Allen] (44:50 - 44:53)
Yeah, okay. It's time for the pig to go away. It's time for the pig to be bacon.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (44:54 - 44:55)
It's time for the pig to be bacon.
[Mike Allen] (44:56 - 45:27)
Yeah. I have one last question and then I'll let you go. I really appreciate the time and I wanna be respectful of your time.
We've talked about automotive specific podcasting a little bit on and off and you said that there are a bunch of them out there and if you're a listener and you don't know all of them out there, then do a little searching. There's 10 or more now that are regularly releasing content that is specific to our industry. Of all of them, not counting your show, not counting Confessions, obviously, which one do you think is the shittiest?
[Stacia Aeschbach] (45:29 - 46:03)
What? No. Nope, nope, I can't.
I cannot. There are certain that are not going to catch my interest and we will leave that be. If you do not have the rough and the...
You gotta have fun. You have to have some freaking fun. And if you don't have the personality, I'm sorry, I'm not for everyone and everyone's not for me.
And I think we're okay with that, but not everyone feels that way.
[Mike Allen] (46:03 - 46:16)
It's okay. So you heard it here first, folks. The Driven For More podcast especially dislikes changing the industry podcast and thinks that Lucas and David are idiots.
[Stacia Aeschbach] (46:17 - 46:18)
You're such a dick.
[Mike Allen] (46:20 - 47:02)
This is the perfect way to end it. I love it. Thanks for listening to Confessions of a Shop Owner where we lay it all out.
The good, the bad, and sometimes the super messed up. I'm your host, Mike Allen here to remind you that even the pros screw it up sometimes. So why not laugh a little bit, learn a little bit and maybe have another drink.
You got a confession of your own or a topic you'd like me to cover or do you just want to let me know what an idiot I am? Email mikeatconfessionsofashopowner.com or call and leave a message. The number is 704-CONFESS.
That's 704-266-3377. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe or follow. Join us on this crazy journey that is shop ownership.
I'll see you on the next episode.