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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.
Mike Allen [00:00:00]:
You need to charge more, you need to hire more technicians, you need to add more lifts, you need to something,
Ashley Butler [00:00:04]:
say your business more.
Mike Allen [00:00:06]:
So many people find a way to say no. Oh, it drives me crazy. Oh, yeah, yeah. Your brakes are grinding. Yeah, I can help you with that. We got a lot going on right now, but if you drop it off with me tomorrow, I can look at it and.
Ashley Butler [00:00:19]:
No, no, no.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:00:20]:
Right now it's not that hard to look at it. Lock the car and in an ideal world, you get the car there. Now you show the customer, they say yes, you get them home, right? Then you buy time on the back end.
Mike Allen [00:00:33]:
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.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:01:09]:
I'm a fan girl. Right now. I am a Confessions of a Shop owner on the way to work, running errands. Yeah. And then I text my dad and I'm like, see, this is a good practice run.
Mike Allen [00:01:25]:
Yeah.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:01:26]:
But since your show aired. Yeah. I send it in the morning to the group, chat with my dad, my brother when I listen to episodes. Yeah.
Ashley Butler [00:01:34]:
Nice.
Mike Allen [00:01:34]:
I'm so sorry. If that's what you consider to be good content.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:01:37]:
No, it's great. It's relatable. But you get knowledge out of it. So. See, so I messaged him and I said, hey, I'll be there. Let's record. And then that's how we all got.
Ashley Butler [00:01:50]:
Nice. See you open indoors.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:01:52]:
So the answer is no if you don't ask.
Ashley Butler [00:01:54]:
Close mouths never get fit.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:01:56]:
Yeah, exactly.
Ashley Butler [00:01:56]:
There you go.
Mike Allen [00:01:57]:
So I was looking at with Tanika, there are recording schedules for this and one, I love Tanika. We're good friends. And she's. I'm the immediate past president of the automotive service, entire alliance, and she's the current vice president. And then Mimby Dowd is the current president. So two really powerful, dynamic women in the industry that are taking over that trade association and pulling it out of the ditch that I ran it into. Right. And now I got you two guys here who are operating incredible businesses yourself.
Mike Allen [00:02:30]:
And tomorrow I'm talking with. I'm just gonna pull it up. I don't wanna. I don't wanna get it wrong. Oh, my. I got old man eyes now, so I have to zoom in on everything. Don't get old. It's a trap.
Ashley Butler [00:02:46]:
Better than the alternative.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:02:47]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:02:47]:
Yeah, that's fair enough. Jesse Jackson from Mango Automotive. Okay, so I guess they've gone from one to eight stores in, like, three years. And she's got seven kids. Oh, my.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:02:57]:
And so seven children and eight stores.
Ashley Butler [00:02:59]:
That's what I mean.
Mike Allen [00:03:00]:
Yeah. So she's got 15 kids.
Ashley Butler [00:03:01]:
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Including the employees, at a minimum.
Mike Allen [00:03:07]:
I do reference the shops to babysitting sometimes.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:03:11]:
All the time.
Mike Allen [00:03:12]:
So there's just so many widely variable personalities that you have to deal with, right? Yeah, I think so. I've been trying to read up on you guys a little bit. I very rarely do any show prep, but usually I know folks a little bit. Right. And so I kind of feel a connection with you just because we're both dad's kid who are in the shop, and I've got three stores, but I think my three stores together are probably roughly the size of your store. Y' all got a big shop you like? I aspire to be like you. Actually, like, you are a baller. So I want to just take a quick minute and just.
Mike Allen [00:03:48]:
Can I. You know what? I got to back up. I always do this. I always just start talking, and we never do introductions. So actually introduce yourself.
Ashley Butler [00:03:56]:
My name is Ashley Butler, Tampa native. I am in love with the automotive space. It has provided me so many opportunities in my lifetime to open up doors for others, and I'm just. I'm excited to be here and share my experience and hope that it can be of value to other people.
Mike Allen [00:04:16]:
Awesome. Awesome. And you're all. You're all over Florida, though, right?
Ashley Butler [00:04:20]:
West central Florida.
Mike Allen [00:04:21]:
Okay. How many stories?
Ashley Butler [00:04:23]:
14 locations in five counties.
Mike Allen [00:04:25]:
Okay.
Ashley Butler [00:04:26]:
So I can get to them all within an hour and 40 minutes. Like, if I leave my house, I can go to the furthest one and then drop back and, you know, I can pretty much do them in one day. I don't try to, though.
Mike Allen [00:04:36]:
How often do you touch each store?
Ashley Butler [00:04:38]:
Every quarter.
Mike Allen [00:04:39]:
Okay. Is your day to day work life at a corporate office? Do you work from home or do you work in the stores every day?
Ashley Butler [00:04:46]:
Usually I work from my residential office. Mondays, Wednesdays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, shop visits. Fridays usually, like, board meetings. I know one Thursday morning out of every month, I have the chamber board meeting, but most of my other board meetings are on Fridays. I usually leave Fridays open for, you know, community networking, being where I need to be, being in spaces or show up at a shop and hang out with the team. Yeah, yeah.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:05:13]:
Surprise visits.
Ashley Butler [00:05:15]:
Yeah, yeah, you gotta pull up. AJ says, hey, you gotta pull up.
Mike Allen [00:05:21]:
All right. We're gonna come back to all of your other community involvement, because I was reading your bio on the website. You got two different bios on the website.
Ashley Butler [00:05:27]:
Really?
Mike Allen [00:05:27]:
One for the store owner and then one for the franchise for the big boss. And I want to come back to talk about all the other stuff that you do, and I want to figure out where you get your energy from, because I need some of that. But before we do that, Relle, introduce
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:05:42]:
yourself Reliner with Northrich Automotive in Richardson, Texas. So right outside Dallas, family owned and operated. I've been working alongside my father for eight and a half years now. He started the business 30 years ago, was blessed enough to be able to convince my older brother to join us for the past year and a half. And numbers are high, goals are higher. I love this industry. Now. I was not supposed to be here.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:06:10]:
I have a science degree. I was enjoying medical sales. And something shifted. Someone that worked for my family for 21 years and decided to take a leap of faith and become a shop owner. At 25 and still here. Can't get out of it.
Mike Allen [00:06:26]:
You're stuck now. I'm very much like the mafia trying to get out. And it pulls you back in. So what's it like bringing. Like, you've established yourself in the business, you're an important part of the business, and then your brother comes in 18 months ago. What's that dynamic like?
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:06:40]:
It was also a change, but him and I are very much yin yang. He's an accounting IT guru, and he knows numbers like the back of his hand. People and, you know, connections like the networking is not as much of interest to him. So we balance each other out. Well, he helped me when I first stepped in. So eight years ago, he was just remote. And his company at the time let him work once a week with us, but we were picking up a failing business. And when you're a numbers guy and the numbers aren't growing after a year and you have families to feed, you know, he decided to step out, but brought him back in.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:07:22]:
And all in all, it's, you know, truly the three of us, my father, myself, and him, that's the reason we're able to excel past the goals last year, but it's. We're still working through it.
Mike Allen [00:07:34]:
So how long until you guys grow the business to the point that your dad's allowed to retire to the islands
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:07:39]:
and he can retire whenever he wants to. He does not want to. No. He has a lot of value and knowledge, but the goal is to be able to let him travel more, enjoy, relax. We still want him to work his brain. So we don't talk succession planning in our family yet.
Mike Allen [00:07:58]:
Well, you don't have to talk it, but you got to plan it. Right? Because you never know. We're not guaranteed tomorrow. Right. So that's something that has been pushed to the forefront of my mind of late because I've. I've heard tons of people all. All my business coach, everybody. You have to have a.
Mike Allen [00:08:15]:
I think the book that I have in my desk that I haven't finished filling out, it says, oh, I'm dead now what? And it's a book for my family and my business. What are all. Where are all the keys? Where are all the codes? You know, what are all the account numbers? You know, what's the succession plan? How do we keep payroll going? That type of thing. And as a small business, I feel like actually you probably have a lot of that is running on autopilot to a degree just because of the structure. You have to. Have to grow the business to that scale. Right?
Ashley Butler [00:08:42]:
Well, we're fortunate because we have eight franchisees and so they take care of the day to day their own payrolls. And so that doesn't land on us, but we do have five payrolls. We have the corporate office, then the four operational outlets. Pretty much, yeah. Office manager and the support team can guide most of the data entry. I am still like the final say yes. Green check mark in Slack. They usually post up like a payroll preview and pause real quick.
Mike Allen [00:09:14]:
Yeah, guys, you hear that? She said green check mark in slack. We use slack in the company. We had a team meeting Tuesday night and I was like, hey, guys, let's talk about slack etiquette and how we're going to acknowledge that something's done. The green check mark or the thumbs up emoji are the acceptable thing.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:09:27]:
Okay, so for teams too. Thumbs up.
Ashley Butler [00:09:31]:
Thumbs up is I acknowledge it, I see it. And green check mark is it's completed. So that's our etiquette. Like a thumbs up says, I got it, it's on my radar, set some type of reminder. Green check mark, it's done. Cash it in.
Mike Allen [00:09:45]:
All right. I asked Rochelle about the dynamics of working with your brother. Tell me about the dynamics of working with your wife. What's that like?
Ashley Butler [00:09:52]:
It's pretty easy, you know.
Mike Allen [00:09:53]:
Really?
Ashley Butler [00:09:54]:
Oh, yeah.
Mike Allen [00:09:54]:
I could never work with my wife. We kill Each other. We would kill each other.
Ashley Butler [00:09:57]:
No, I actually it works pretty good. We are both zodiac sign Taurus. And so we kind of live in our own circle. We divided the roles and responsibilities. Similar. Like you and your brother. I'm a front of the house leadership. I deal with finance, real estate, legal stuff.
Ashley Butler [00:10:18]:
And she's inter, you know, marketing, hr, back of the house, making sure we always have lots of interviews on the docket. And then our team in operations, we process the interviews and so we've split everything up. But yeah, we, we work from home. She loves that. She used to be a nurse. And so having to get up and drive somewhere and then care for people and then try to care for yourself, you know, we have a 23 year old son that grew up with us, you know, going through this process and you know, that can put a strain if there aren't boundaries. And so we make sure that we have. We call it wind down, where at the end of the day where we kind of take off the shop and we put on us and sometimes wind down kind of can blend too far into the evening and then one of us has to say, okay, it's us.
Ashley Butler [00:11:12]:
And like, all right, leave the shop at the shop. And so it's those understandings, right? And having those distinctions set that way you don't give up everything to the business. But when you're growing a business and turning around shops, there's a point in time where it's like 247 that you need to be on about the business so that you can write the ship and then you can go back and, you know, before we bought the franchise, we worked 10 hours apiece between networking BNI, maybe overseeing payroll. We didn't work for about a decade before we bought the franchise. We were absentee with our one store and it was perfect. And now we're back in the thralls of it. And so it's on and popping right now.
Mike Allen [00:11:59]:
So what does 2026 look like for ice cold air? And what does 2030 look like for ice cold air?
Ashley Butler [00:12:05]:
2026 is really cool. We have our training center that Adrian has wanted for, I would say good part of the decade. So we have a training center in Pinellas park, which happened by grace and also by fire. One of the franchisees just was too much pressure for him and he just walked away like Christmas Eve. 2025, you said, I can't lock the
Mike Allen [00:12:29]:
door and walked out.
Ashley Butler [00:12:30]:
He didn't even. He just was like, I just rolled up to give out gifts for everybody. And he Was, Yeah, exactly. He was like, I can't do it anymore. And I was like, well, what's going on? I was like, all right, let's. Let's work on a plan for you.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:12:41]:
He's like, no, I'm out.
Ashley Butler [00:12:42]:
No, I can't. And I was like, oh, what do you mean? I never, I've never. I'm not a quitter. So I didn't understand how someone could just do that. And he was like, yeah, I got a job at Toyota. And I was like, whoa, whoa. Oh, okay. Got it.
Ashley Butler [00:12:57]:
Oh, got it. So, you know, you got to get legal involved. You do all this kind of stuff and let them work that part out. But it was like, you know what? This is the biggest shop in the, in the company. Like footprint wise. It's near the P. Tech, it's near St. Pete College.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:13:11]:
It's.
Ashley Butler [00:13:11]:
It's this. And I was like, all right, big fella, I see what you're doing here.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:13:14]:
And so I said this all weekend. You have some serious angels looking out for you, right? My gosh, this girl, she's a lucky charm.
Ashley Butler [00:13:23]:
I tell people that. I tell people.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:13:25]:
I believe it.
Ashley Butler [00:13:25]:
I tell people, can you come hang
Mike Allen [00:13:27]:
out at my shop for a couple of weeks? Yeah.
Ashley Butler [00:13:29]:
Yeah. Now when everybody break out doing touch our slide over lunch, you know, because we have fun. You know, when I'm in the shop, the music's going and I keep the vibe right? So that we can get the workout, but everybody knows what we got to do. But anyhow, back to the fire turning into the grace. We now have this training center. So for 2026 and 2027, what I want to do is become a place where you bring me a novice and I turn them into a flat rate tech. And then I'll fill up all my shops and then, like, people can come and talk tech for me, you know, and so I'll train them like they know how to do devices and I have their metrics. Like this person can do DVIs and this front, they're strong on this.
Ashley Butler [00:14:09]:
They're strong on this. What shop is looking for it? And I was posted in the job board and let everybody say, oh, yeah, I want that guy. And I say, listen, this is how much I got invested, you know, I mean, give me a little something. Yeah, you know, I'm not trying to exploit, but, you know, I put a lot into this person and so, you know, help me reinvest that into the next group of people. And with partnerships like Napa Auto Care, they are coming through with toolboxes for us. They're doing a training tomorrow at our shop for ADAS training. So we're going to have ADAS systems in every county so that we can have the brightest technicians coming out of our shops and bringing full value. Education is big important to me.
Ashley Butler [00:14:51]:
Yeah. If you know me, you know that that's top, top importance to me.
Mike Allen [00:14:54]:
So you're big time involved with USF still as an alum, right?
Ashley Butler [00:14:56]:
Yes, yes, I. I am the Just coming off from chairing the Green and Gold gala at the Motor Enclave. That was cool. It's my second year throwing that big party. It's our biggest fundraiser and we've made money hire year over year. And I'm on the foundation board which is bringing light and awareness to everything that's happening at the university. We're doing great. We just became AAU and just proud to be a bull.
Ashley Butler [00:15:22]:
Go bull. We're doing a great job.
Mike Allen [00:15:24]:
Awesome. That's great. So Rachelle, same question for you. What's 26 look like? What's 2030 look like?
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:15:29]:
Well, I don't know about 2030, but you know, this year, next year, hopefully increasing sales 2 plus million more than what we did, so. Right. Would love to do over 4 million for sure. And really implementing a lot of our processes and procedures. So I have been spending time kind of hiding away from the fires, letting the team figure it out so I could write stuff down and not, you know, very much involved. Still running it from the middle. But allowing our team members to take ownership and responsibility. I would love, you know, eventually we want to expand.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:16:07]:
Hopefully, God willing, anything that comes around us and it's the right purchase, we will. We are very blessed. No parking spots. A good problem to have, but finding a way to improve our flow and continue to servicing more customers. And also we do have plans to remodel a bit. Our building is great. We've slowly, like I joke, I've been giving it a facelift over time. But it was built by my dad from the ground up by, you know, everything that my parents could afford back in 2000.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:16:42]:
So we are maxed out on space, period. We'd like to maybe remodel, blow out a few walls, maybe build up like we need to get a office space. Maybe not corporate. Right. Cause it's just us. But having a place where we can review all this data.
Mike Allen [00:17:01]:
Wait, wait, wait. You're not allowed to have an office?
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:17:03]:
I know
Mike Allen [00:17:05]:
you're a Todd Hayes acolyte.
Ashley Butler [00:17:07]:
You got.
Mike Allen [00:17:07]:
Your office is bayone.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:17:09]:
Yeah, but have you seen what Todd Hayes has upstairs over there. Yeah. It's a nice projector. You can easy review, but. Yeah, my feet have been in the rack attack. And that's true. As soon as I did that, you start to see it. Right.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:17:23]:
However, I'm. When you own a business, there's no off and on. If you have to review something, you get it done. So whether you have your residential office or just your office, we're in a day where you have to get it done. And I can work from home, I can work from here. Right. So just truly about cleaning up, making more. We don't have room for our customers in our waiting room.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:17:48]:
Again, it's a blessing. Right. We get them home, but some of our customers like to sit. So I'm constant. I'm a really good mover. Right. And builder of furniture. And my dad makes fun of me all the time.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:18:01]:
Right. I ask them, like, are you feeling tired? We gotta move this shelf over here and put this cabinet here. And before you know it, I have a pillow on a cabinet that's now a bench for a customer to sit at.
Ashley Butler [00:18:13]:
Why not?
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:18:14]:
Yeah. So just staying involved and growing.
Mike Allen [00:18:18]:
So what? You know, having. Not having enough space in the lobby for your customers. Right. Tells me that you have a lot of customers that wait for service. Right?
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:18:27]:
Not even a lot that wait for service, but we have four chairs.
Mike Allen [00:18:32]:
Okay.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:18:33]:
Very small and literally a bench. Like, I have a bench outside, I have a picnic table. But we have four chairs in our waiting room.
Mike Allen [00:18:40]:
How big is the shop? It's a big shop.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:18:42]:
Right, Right. So we have about 4,000 square feet in our front building and a little over two in our back. But again, maximize on space Every. Every ounce of it. So he built it to have 10 lifts in our building. Right. So we have that over time. It's crazy how even changing from a bulky computer to giving a technician a laptop workstation can save.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:19:11]:
Right. So just being innovative of that.
Mike Allen [00:19:14]:
Well, one of the things that, you know, the different speakers this morning were talking about was speed. I think it was Rosenberger was talking about speed. Speed, Speed. Right. And not just Rosenberger. Did the general also. Was he also talking about.
Ashley Butler [00:19:30]:
Yeah, you got to make choices and move.
Mike Allen [00:19:33]:
I mean, we're in a society where people decide what they want finally, and then they want it five minutes ago.
Ashley Butler [00:19:38]:
Yep.
Mike Allen [00:19:39]:
And so there's a lot of friction involved in a customer calling a shop. And you say, well, I can get you in in two weeks. Yeah, but look, that's.
Ashley Butler [00:19:50]:
Don't give me a heart attack.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:19:52]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:19:53]:
That's A point of pride with. With shops all over the country, like, oh, I'm booked out three weeks. Well, then you're on something bad, right?
Ashley Butler [00:20:01]:
Bad idea.
Mike Allen [00:20:03]:
I mean, you need to. You need to charge more, you need to hire more technicians, you need to add more lifts. You need to something save us more.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:20:10]:
Say yes.
Mike Allen [00:20:11]:
That's so many people find a way to say no. And, oh, it drives me crazy. Oh, yeah, yeah. Your brakes are grinding. Yeah, I can help you with that. We got a lot going on right now. But if you drop it off with me tomorrow, I can look at it.
Ashley Butler [00:20:26]:
No, no, no.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:20:27]:
Right now it's not that hard to look at it. Lock the car and in an ideal world, you get the car there. Now you get the. You show the customer, they say yes, you get them home, right? Then you buy time on the back end. But you're right, people want it yesterday. And their brakes didn't just start grinding on the way to work that morning. The brake pad falls off when you pull it into the lift. Right.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:20:49]:
It's a safety concern. And the more that you tell people like, this is urgent, you cannot continue to drive this or your technicians start to understand, like, I don't have to worry about taking my time on this work because we have a full buffet of work for our technicians. Right. Who needs. What's the next. The next car coming in, they just keep knocking it out. It's how much can we do?
Mike Allen [00:21:13]:
Have you had any pushback implementing the Hays concept from your technicians not wanting to give up DVIs?
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:21:22]:
Not necessarily not wanting to give up DVIs, but. So we've gone to train with Todd Hayes, I think three times now. And the first time in 2024, my dad and I went. It was just the two of us. We came back and my hair was on fire and you were either getting on this bus with me or you were getting out. Right. So we also didn't have 20 extra hands just to say, you're going to start helping me inspect this vehicle. So we shifted around and we continued to shift.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:21:54]:
And we still do, even almost two years later. We didn't get pushback on the, you know, technicians not wanting to do the dvi, because again, technicians, maybe there's a dime a dozen that really like to take the photos and detail it. They probably shouldn't be your A tech. They should probably.
Mike Allen [00:22:14]:
They're the ones who figured out that's how they write their own check is finding all the work.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:22:17]:
Right.
Mike Allen [00:22:18]:
But if they believe that your recitech team is going to find the Work accurately and quickly. Then they get on board. It's when they miss something or misrepresent something.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:22:28]:
Okay, we all have situations.
Mike Allen [00:22:30]:
Right now I'm confessing my own shortcoming because I got hot and heavy on Todd's concept and tried and failed to implement it in some ways and succeeded in other ways. But ultimately, what I've got is, you know, in my big shop, I've got some advisors who are really good at selling and some advisors who are really good at checking down a car and finding the documentation and doing all that part what ended up happening, rather than it being a rotation of advisors, the selling advisors live up front and the Rack attack advisor lives in the back. And then I got a couple of gss that are his hands and feet, right? And what I see when I go down to Woodlands is it's all advisors and maybe one GS or maybe one tech comes over to look at something. Man, I can't. I can't fathom having, you know, they effectively have 15 advisors over there. That's cray cray.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:23:22]:
They have a.
Mike Allen [00:23:23]:
You're like, what the hell are you talking about?
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:23:26]:
But you're right, you know, their advisors are on their feet. And we just brought on our third advisor, past month and a half or two. So I'm finally able to have three advisors and again, max capacity on space. So one of my advisors that has been with us for the longest, his desk now, is that rack computer. And I was hoping that I would be able to have all three advisors rotate through the rack and get in the flow of it. And we're seeing that's just not possible. So one thing I stop and look at at Adams is that they still have one man running that rack computer. The other advisors do come in to help and talk with them, but there's someone that's monitoring workflow, right? That's understanding dispatch that's still guiding them.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:24:16]:
The new advisor, or, you know, the advisor that checked in, the customer is coming, bringing that information, and we just don't have enough staff to where I could have a extra hand up front, let's say a receptionist. Not a receptionist, but I can't physically put a fourth person up front because of our flow. So as bad as I want that advisor that's selling the work to be involved in the car full time, he's got three other people waiting at his desk and two phone calls.
Mike Allen [00:24:46]:
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:24:47]:
So you just have to. You keep working it.
Mike Allen [00:24:50]:
Well, let's. I want to shift gears a little bit because as much as I know that, that Todd and Glenn and those guys would love it to be the Todd Hayes power Hour. We're gonna, we're gonna. I want to talk about the, the hot topic of the year and that's how are we going to integrate this technological revolution that we're living through right now of AI into our business? Because I think what's going to happen is the early adopters. My dad used to have a saying, being a pioneer is really exciting. Pioneers are also the ones that ended up face down on the prairie with a bunch of arrows in their back also. So there's some risk to that. But being an early adopter means you get the.
Mike Allen [00:25:29]:
It's a higher risk but higher reward and you definitely don't want to be a late adopter. So the early adopters are. Their business is going to evolve so much in the next 12 months that it's not going to be recognizable. I mean, I don't, I don't have the creativity to, to think about what it's going to look like. But the job of an advisor, the way they execute on their job, how many cars they can handle in a day effectively, how many phone calls the store can manage in a day, all of that is going to change dramatically in the next 12 months. Diagnostic workflows, information access, finding information efficiently for the technicians, having the information in their lap immediately rather than have to go log into the different OEMs or the different, you know, service information modules or whatever it might be. You know, how we manage our marketing. Marketing is going to be revolutionized by AI, you know, call agents that can handle 80% of your inbound calls to a high level of customer satisfaction.
Mike Allen [00:26:33]:
You know that that's a choke point in my business right now is last week we had 280 inbound phone calls and I got two advisors on the counter and they just couldn't manage it. It was just. So we're talking about how can we shorten the length of the phone call so that you can manage more of those and miss fewer of them. But ultimately I just need to add another advisor. Right? I don't know what the number is that you can handle, but 100 calls a week, plus the ROS, plus talking to the text, plus the slack messages with the green check marks, and then
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:27:01]:
making sure you got all. Everything operating in the back correctly. I mean, there's just so much our advisors are doing. I don't track inbound phone calls as many as I should, so that's a good metric.
Mike Allen [00:27:13]:
I think it's interesting I get sucked into data and I have paralysis with data. Too much. But how many inbound phone calls does it take to equal one car? And I think that's an interesting number. And trying to compress that number as much as possible means that your guys are being effective and not missing calls. And also the way to reduce the number of inbound phone calls is to communicate with your customers in timely fashion so that they're not calling for an update.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:27:39]:
Yeah, say it louder.
Ashley Butler [00:27:40]:
I just had that training and it's the number one. No, no. If customer has to call you about what is going on with their vehicle. You didn't set the stage correctly at the drop off. You didn't set the stage correctly with your team to where everybody knows what has to happen during every phase of that ticket running through the shop. And so you know. Very clear. Mrs.
Ashley Butler [00:28:09]:
Jones, thank you for bringing it in. We're going to take care of X, Y and Z. Is there anything else? Got it. We're going to get the inspection done. I should have a phone call and the estimate to you by XYZ time. 10:30, 11:30 from the time you give me the approval, review everything then. Usually we get all cars back same day. So usually if you get me it in by 9, I can have your car back out by 5.
Ashley Butler [00:28:34]:
Just like the dry cleaners. They usually laugh and you say, and if there's any issues like with parts or anything, we're going to talk to you by two so that you can rearrange your afternoon so you can pick up Sammy Joe, get to practice, get to the recital. Consider that time is the most valuable resource we all have. And when you respect customers time, they will choose you over anybody else that has the lowest price.
Mike Allen [00:28:59]:
They will put themselves significantly out of place to continue coming to you.
Ashley Butler [00:29:04]:
They love your system. Yeah, customers buy systems.
Mike Allen [00:29:08]:
So what we talked about at our last team meeting, once a month we have an evening team meeting for all the stores to come together and we eat, drink and be merry, that kind of thing. And it was 10 and two, you know, 10 and two, that's where you hold the steering wheel. I guess maybe not anymore. And I don't think they teach that anymore. I think it's 9 and 3 now because the airbag, I don't know, whatever. That's when we need to be talking to our customers. 10 and 2 because you know what happens when you're really busy and systems and processes start falling apart is at three o' clock all the lines light up because Ms. Jones and Mr.
Mike Allen [00:29:39]:
Smith and Mr. Jacobs, they all call wanting to know what's up with their car because they want it back by five o' clock. And they're trying to figure out, hey, it's about time to go get Timmy from school. And I got in practice and I got to go to the grocery store and then we got to go to church. The phone starts ringing at 3 o' clock when you drop the ball.
Ashley Butler [00:29:54]:
Yep.
Mike Allen [00:29:54]:
What I love to hear is the bays are full and the phone's not ringing at 3:15.
Ashley Butler [00:29:59]:
That's great.
Mike Allen [00:30:00]:
That feels pretty good. Knows we're doing all right.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:30:02]:
Manageable.
Mike Allen [00:30:03]:
I imagine that. I would love to hear that. I haven't heard it yet.
Ashley Butler [00:30:07]:
It's coming. 2026 is coming for you.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:30:10]:
We just had the same convers team as well. It's. We do the 10 and 2 and I send them the message, 10 and 2, I need your updates. I need your updates. And I don't get all my updates that I'm looking for, but you just pick up that one phone call from that customer that says, I haven't heard from this person in a day. Oh, team meeting right away. We're making sure this doesn't happen anymore. Right.
Mike Allen [00:30:36]:
So here's the thing. Outdated SMS just. They don't just slow you down, they cost you money. And I learned it the hard way. Before techmetric, I was wasting time on inefficient processes, manual updates, back and forth calls with customers. Now I handle everything in one place. Dvi, customer communications, payments, real time reporting, it's all in one page. Since making the switch, my average repair order has jumped from $293 to $916.
Mike Allen [00:31:02]:
And it's not just me. Tekmetric powers almost 10,000 shops nationwide. By the time you're hearing this, it probably will be 10,000 shops, helping them grow and operate smarter. If you're tired of losing time and money to outdated systems, tap the link in the show notes and see what techmetric can do for you.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:31:20]:
Because we've set clear expectations of what we expect as owners. I trust you to do it because you are a knowledgeable employee. You've acknowledged you will do it. And now Mrs. Jones called me to tell me you didn't do it. So where are we falling? Right. And that's where I kind of kept letting them know I don't care just about the cars you're working on today. You need to let the customer know whose parts we're still waiting on for three days.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:31:50]:
Hey, we're still here. We know you're still here. Your car is still here. Right. It's clear communication. I agree. Then you don't have to have your phones blowing up at 3.
Mike Allen [00:32:01]:
Well, in the word track we practiced this week was, you know. Hey, Ms. Jones, this is Mike down at Carfix. I just wanted to touch base. I didn't want you to think I'd forgot about you. I haven't. We're still on track. Everything's going as good.
Mike Allen [00:32:12]:
I just didn't. I don't have an update yet, and I was thinking about you, and I want you to know that it's. As soon as I know more, you'll
Ashley Butler [00:32:17]:
know the no update is an update.
Mike Allen [00:32:19]:
Yeah, absolutely.
Ashley Butler [00:32:20]:
It is an update.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:32:21]:
Yeah.
Ashley Butler [00:32:22]:
At least you know that I'm considering you. When you were saying one of our core values is our word is our bond. Something my mom taught me when I was a little girl, your word is your bond. And so if you can trust my word, even if you don't like what I have to say, I kept my word. And that is what builds relationships that are timeless. You can't break them because they're built with integrity. Relationships are everything. And taking care of people is a core, core, core incentive.
Ashley Butler [00:32:50]:
In order for the people to trust you with, you got to understand that most people in the United States don't own their own home. They're renters. Their car is their biggest financial investment. Biggest financial investment. So they left it with you. And they have things to do in their lives. And so our teams, like, that's one of the biggest things that I try to get into their head and when I teach these core values is that we're people are trusting us, and we can't play with trust. You have to treat trust with delicate kid gloves, and you have to honor it.
Ashley Butler [00:33:22]:
And when someone gives it to you, you have to treat it like a. Like a Faberge egg.
Mike Allen [00:33:27]:
That's your BNI training coming through right there.
Ashley Butler [00:33:29]:
That's it.
Mike Allen [00:33:30]:
People do business with people they know like and trust.
Ashley Butler [00:33:32]:
Y. I learned that before being I. But absolutely, I did BNI for 13 years. I. I think. I don't know when I learned no like and trust at some point early in the game. But it's true. It's true.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:33:43]:
And it takes one person to be upset to tell five people.
Mike Allen [00:33:48]:
That's it. Yeah, for sure.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:33:49]:
And then you're losing 20 cars because they don't just bring one car to you. Hopefully they bring the whole family.
Ashley Butler [00:33:54]:
That's right.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:33:55]:
So there's a lot of risk in that.
Ashley Butler [00:33:57]:
And when you work your whole life for reputation, and then one service advisor that just is there for the check tries to ruin that for you. You promote them to customer status immediately.
Mike Allen [00:34:09]:
You have to release them to the industry to seek further opportunities.
Ashley Butler [00:34:12]:
Release them to the industry to seek further opportunities.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:34:15]:
You'll be successful somewhere else.
Ashley Butler [00:34:17]:
You will be successful somewhere else.
Mike Allen [00:34:19]:
You know what? Here's the real deal, though. If we've got incredible processes and procedures, because I think. I don't remember who I should say it, but our competitor, it was you. Our competitors do a great job of making us look good.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:34:33]:
Other shops make it so easy for us to look good.
Mike Allen [00:34:36]:
Yeah, you said that when you're on stage. So I've had multiple guys that it didn't work out for whatever reason in my business, but we parted ways amicably. Right. We understood. And they are monsters where they are now. And some of that is, I like to think, because of what they learned. Well, they're. And so it's probably because they went somewhere that had a far better leader than they had when they were at Carfix.
Mike Allen [00:34:57]:
Because I'm a bit of a train wreck. But it is what it is. Right. I do want to go back. I want to touch on AI again, because I'm. I love Shiny object syndrome. Yeah. You guys have plans on how you're going to start to integrate and utilize this new technology in your businesses?
Ashley Butler [00:35:14]:
What I'm using right now are the Google products. Notebook LM for training modules, converted our entire franchise module into Google Classrooms. Use NotebookLM to create the quizzes, to create the podcast so that a new hire can listen to it, or a new franchisee can listen to the section on branding on their way in the work. And it's not just my voice droning on and on, because then I'll start sounding like the teacher on Charlie Brown. Right. Nobody wants to hear the same voice all the time. And so Notebook LM has been a big part of our training to get different modalities that will articulate for the people who like to visually see. We got the infographics for the people who are audible learners, for the people who have to have videos, like myself.
Ashley Butler [00:35:59]:
I'm a YouTube fanatic. And so that's one of the ways that we're using it. A lot of the things that we're building are all around training, because we think that's our secret sauce, is that we're just going to be the best at training people and then we won't have a people problem. And without a people problem, you can dominate.
Mike Allen [00:36:18]:
That's awesome.
Ashley Butler [00:36:19]:
So that's the way I'm using it right now. I have not set up a club bot, ab bot, but I think I will. I think I have a little bit of trust issues, and I do like independent thought, and so I think getting good output, because I think through a lot of the things before I put it into Perplexity or before I put it into Gemini, and it's bringing back a new rendition or a point of view that is similar to my train of thought and not an outside influence. And one of my favorite things that happens is when I tell Perplexity, hey, this is what I articulate, and I copy and paste what I type, and it goes, yeah, you're good. Like, what else do you want us to do? And they're like, all right. And then you read it back and like, all right. They changed two words. And so it's all right.
Ashley Butler [00:37:11]:
I'm training my AI to understand my voice, my tone, my business. It took me a while to trust it, but Adrienne, she gave me Lexi. That's what I nicknamed Perplexity. I was like, I got my assistant, Lexi, and so she helped me. She helped me free up that fear and also keep control.
Mike Allen [00:37:29]:
Is Adrienne looking at any AI tools for HR management?
Ashley Butler [00:37:32]:
Yeah, I'd have to. She'd have to be here to give you the exact tools. But as I'm watching our process get better and some of the tools that we're getting through our payroll processor, ADP that come with our packaging, I'm watching things become easier. They're not like they were 20 years ago when we got started. And. And so I'm grateful for AI and I understand that people are fearful, but I think you have to lean in and you have to get what you need out of it so that you can have more energy to spend on things that. That bring different art return.
Mike Allen [00:38:08]:
So I had an episode that I think was released a week or two ago, but it was with Seth Thorson of German Car Support, and he's got five Euro and exotic shops in the Minneapolis area also. But he. Dude's freaky smart, right? But he taught a class at Vision about building your own AI agents to do things within your business. Hr, bookkeeping, call agents, sales training. And he's been a big proponent of Trainual for years, and I think he's moving away to. To build his own, you know, tools in that capacity. But I hated that I missed his class because I was recording a podcast, and then everybody came out talking about what an incredible class. It was.
Mike Allen [00:38:51]:
But one of my friends, Anise Lavji in Canada, he was in the class and he came. I said, man, I bought a subscription to GTP Pro, which is the $20 a month subscription at the beginning of class. And yeah, I had my laptop and by the end of this three hour class, I had an app overlaying Chrome on TechMetric. And I said, build an oil change. And it looked up the right oil. It found what he had in inventory, it built the whole thing, it sent the approval link, the whole deal.
Ashley Butler [00:39:25]:
Game on.
Mike Allen [00:39:25]:
He said, three hours. And I don't know computers. I was like, holy cow, imagine. And so that was Seth and Keith's point in, in that episode was amateurs can do this in a few hours. If you become a student of these tools and really grind on it, there's incredible, like your imagination is the limiting factor on what you can get it to do for you and how you can streamline your business and become more efficient. And what have we been talking about all day? Speed. Money loves speed, right? And so all of this is going to make your business run more efficiently. Your people will be able to, to do more with the time that they have.
Mike Allen [00:40:04]:
You can eliminate the time suck things. And so I actually. What date is it? I'm paying to fly Seth down to Raleigh to teach that whole class again. It is gonna be June, Saturday, June 13. I don't have any details yet, but if you're a listener and you want to come hang out at my shop, we're gonna do Friday night shenanigans live from my downtown store. My. The second floor. My downtown store is a big lounge with video games and poker table and everything else because I'm a child, but
Ashley Butler [00:40:41]:
I want to chip in on this.
Mike Allen [00:40:42]:
All right, well, so I got a couple of. I love poker. I'm also very bad at poker. And so I have a every now and then poker game that's just for shop owners from the Triangle area of North Carolina. We all come together, a couple of vendors too, but they get great pleasure from seeing that I'm hosting an event and I'm buying the beer and the pizza and I'm getting my ass kicked at the same time, so. But it makes for a fun, a funny.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:41:10]:
You're doing good for our community. I tell you what, it's funny you bring up that episode because that, that's what I was going to say. I listened to it by myself and then I listened to it with my dad on the way up here and it changed my idea of how I could implement AI in our business. So I've been big on being able to write social or decide how to maybe review maintenance records for customers. And what are we not selling or taking a technician's verbiage and rewriting it. I've been using AI just chatgpt but now with my brother who is the IT the tech nerdy side of things, he's been loving his clod. I joke, he's clotting, you know, he's hanging out with his friend Claude, his girl, whatever you want to call it. But Claudia, Claudia, yeah, yeah.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:42:01]:
But you know, I said to him after your episode, I said hey, can you please listen to this? Because this put my brain down a rabbit hole that I wasn't even thinking about. It's not just build the oil change, it's making sure you've sold the entire oil pan if needed. Right. Or including the gasket so that your technician isn't about to start and your advisor forgot a part. Right. Or reviewing and research and can it help my technicians on the diag side And I loved how he said and reference a credible source so you make sure that whatever information they're providing them is helpful. I think in our world in general, you're not using AI just like the keynote speaker had where it was like all the gray dots and one red at the very bottom. Maybe like the last five rows were people that spend 20 bucks a month to use it.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:42:53]:
People are using it. If you use ChatGPT, you can tell a ChatGPT response in something. I even use it for hiring like indeed messaging.
Mike Allen [00:43:02]:
Help me draft when you see the resumes that are very clearly written by ChatGPT.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:43:07]:
Yeah.
Mike Allen [00:43:07]:
And sometimes they didn't even copy and cut out the part. They just copied and pasted the whole response and it says here's a good response for this question.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:43:14]:
Yeah, exactly.
Ashley Butler [00:43:15]:
And I don't see resumes, but that would just make me laugh so, so hard.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:43:20]:
So there's just so much that you could do. But that episode that you guys had really made me go back and I said to him, I'm like, please take a look because there's so much more that we could be doing we haven't even looked at yet.
Mike Allen [00:43:35]:
Yeah, yeah. I think it's only, it's only up from here. I think it's going to. I mean the business is challenging but there's a reason private equity is dumping money into our industry as quick as they can. It's because there's a lot of low hanging fruit because as an industry we haven't been good at business. And so they know that they can come in and they can put systems and processes in place and be far more profitable than what we do. That being said, they also tend to come in and buy and then the quality of that individual store or that small group of stores goes downhill and comes back towards the mean. But for small independents, I think we shouldn't be threatened by that.
Mike Allen [00:44:23]:
We should be looking at it as that's an opportunity. They've got good techs over there that are going to be unhappy.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:44:26]:
I love it.
Ashley Butler [00:44:27]:
That's what I have found out. Yeah, I'm glad when I see one of those big boxes because I know our. Everybody's going to say they got so many applications. And, and that's when I started seeing. Not that I like to curve around the process, but I start saying if you get any A's, I'll meet them for coffee. And I just meet them at my favorite little place and we have cafe con leche. And I talked. I just, I'm like get grab them before the other people do.
Ashley Butler [00:44:52]:
But I love when they run them off with their big box mindsets because most people want to be treated like a human, like Bobby said today. And big boxes, sometimes they're running numbers but they're forgetting that the people are the people who make the numbers possible. And so yeah, bring it on.
Mike Allen [00:45:13]:
Speed, luck. Money loves speed.
Ashley Butler [00:45:15]:
Money loves.
Mike Allen [00:45:16]:
So I'm actually sitting at 3:30 on a panel about hiring and recruiting and that kind of thing. And ultimately if I get a resume, if somebody is at that point in their current job where it's like, you know what? Fuck it, I'm applying somewhere else. Their people are scared of change. So right now they're passionate. Tomorrow they might change their mind. Right. So like the next time they have a meal, I want it to be with me. They send me a message at 10am hey man, what are you doing for lunch?
Ashley Butler [00:45:51]:
That's me.
Mike Allen [00:45:51]:
We doing for dinner.
Ashley Butler [00:45:52]:
Let's get coffee in front of the process. I don't have time to wait for you guys to do that. You can check if you have a valid driver's license after I have coffee. Yeah, you know, you can check that after because right now he's upset and I need to find out at the root of it what's really going on.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:46:07]:
If it's the right resume.
Ashley Butler [00:46:09]:
Right?
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:46:09]:
If it's the right resume, yes, yes.
Ashley Butler [00:46:11]:
Like what's going on. And for us we're favored because our, our cams and Our regional directors for our parts places, they know we're a great place to work. And so we'll get a text. Yeah, Ab right. This guy's about to make a jump. Can you meet him? I'm like, tool guy, right? I can, you know, you know where to tell them. So let's go get some coffee. And, you know, I just.
Ashley Butler [00:46:32]:
I just picked one up on Saturday. He's already in a store right now. You know, I picked one up on and jump right on it. And I knew he was the right person because I needed to get some refrigerant picked up from south Florida. And on Sunday, him and his wife jumped in their truck and they drove to south Florida and picked up 30 cans of 1, 2, 3, 4 YF for me from one of my vendors. Sold well, that was it. Like, the interview was great. The second part of the end, we went to shop visits, and I was like, boom.
Mike Allen [00:46:58]:
And so they know, can I trust you with $15,000?
Ashley Butler [00:47:01]:
Can I trust you with can I trust you?
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:47:02]:
But she already had his toolbox, so, no.
Ashley Butler [00:47:05]:
No, I didn't. He came through a reputable source. And I figure if you came through Iimer, then then you must be that guy, because I'm not going to give anybody my cell phone number. It's not worth it.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:47:15]:
You know, most techs that are qualified, they're working somewhere, their resume is not even out there.
Ashley Butler [00:47:22]:
Nope. So you got to catch it before. The best time to buy a piece of real estate is before it goes on the market. That's how I've gotten all my best deals. I bought a house in my neighborhood from walking my dog. The guy was complaining that his landlord was about to put him out, and I was like, what's going on, man? Tell me what happened. And before you know it, like, the next week, I closed on a couch. Deal closed, bought the house, but just from walking the dog.
Ashley Butler [00:47:43]:
So you got to be outside of your office to make these deals, and you really got to be asking questions and listening, and you got to be ready to pounce when the opportunity shows up.
Mike Allen [00:47:51]:
So for those listeners that are looking to grow additional stores and are not. Not looking to do it through equity money, or maybe they're looking for a deal, Right? I'm. I'm cheap. I'm looking for a deal. When I'm looking for another store, I would encourage you to find your trade association in your market and get heavily involved. It's networking amongst peers. But here's the deal. Word gets out that you're looking to grow and then before they go sign with a business broker, before they go talk to Main street or sun, they call you.
Ashley Butler [00:48:23]:
Right?
Mike Allen [00:48:24]:
And there are great deals to be had in that capacity because once sun or Main street or somebody else gets a hold of them is over.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:48:30]:
Because they're paying mad though.
Mike Allen [00:48:32]:
They're paying multiple so much higher than.
Ashley Butler [00:48:35]:
Than what they're paying. Yeah, Way past three and a half. EBITDA for owner operator.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:48:40]:
So those are the best names though to use when searching for resumes is by previous company.
Mike Allen [00:48:45]:
Yeah.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:48:46]:
Then you can find them all. So you take like son and you search resumes for people that work there. Then you start talking to them.
Ashley Butler [00:48:53]:
Okay, See?
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:48:54]:
So find out who your competitor, not your competitors, but who are these big guys because you can work there, but your resume is still online, which means you're interested.
Ashley Butler [00:49:03]:
You've been giving me game all.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:49:06]:
Do you want to send me your training manual? I'll trade you. We can trade some.
Mike Allen [00:49:11]:
All right, we've got a few more minutes. Give me your best guerrilla recruiting technique.
Ashley Butler [00:49:17]:
Umbrella recruiting.
Mike Allen [00:49:20]:
You need a GS. You go to Harbor Freight at 6pm on a Saturday. They're there in uniform. You send out cards.
Ashley Butler [00:49:25]:
What time?
Mike Allen [00:49:26]:
6pm on Saturday. They just got off work because they're
Ashley Butler [00:49:28]:
gonna go do side work.
Mike Allen [00:49:29]:
Yeah, they're. They're looking, looking at tools. They're in the tool bit, the tool aisle on Harbor Freight at 6 o' clock on Saturday afternoon. They're in uniform. Their names right there or the gas
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:49:40]:
station by the dealerships that you have. Right, we.
Mike Allen [00:49:43]:
We have one technicians. It's the bar on dealership row. Like the, the whatever sports bar that's between all the dealerships lunchtime. And you're finding dudes who are drinking at lunch? Maybe not. But after work there's always a bunch of tech.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:49:57]:
Okay, I have a good one. Find a GS, start interviewing him and ask him who the best master technician is or who he learned everything from.
Mike Allen [00:50:07]:
Who have you learned the most from?
Ashley Butler [00:50:09]:
Yeah, I heard that one.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:50:11]:
So were you actually doing the work or was someone guiding you? Oh, yeah. You know this guy Pete, he's. He's smart. Great. Thanks for your time.
Mike Allen [00:50:21]:
What would, what would, what would Pete say about you if I talked to Pete. Let me get Pete's number so I can ask him about you.
Ashley Butler [00:50:26]:
I heard about this one. Yeah, I need, you know, I gotta continue to be in rooms like this because you guys are really gully. I love it.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:50:34]:
And then on the back of my resume notes, I've got six different names and my dad's like, what is this? And I'm like, this is this person? This is.
Ashley Butler [00:50:42]:
Yes. And it's perfect. No, I'm so detached from that partial. I haven't done. Adrian came in at 13 and she took over all the people processes. And so I've been away from it unless I have a shop in trouble. And then I start hounding in the HR tools channel in Slack. Got anything? And then my GMs in there.
Ashley Butler [00:51:00]:
Me and the GM are like tag teaming. Give us anybody. We're ready to talk. We're ready to talk. And so I like these little black belt moves you guys are teaching. These are black belt level.
Mike Allen [00:51:11]:
I'm just trying to get something worth saying when I'm on stage in a little while. Going to steal your thunder and take credit for it.
Ashley Butler [00:51:16]:
Take it.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:51:17]:
We're all in your space.
Ashley Butler [00:51:18]:
We're all R and D. We're all rip off and duplicating many, many people that have said these things before us. Yeah, yeah.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:51:26]:
This is all easier said than done, right? Perfect policies, procedures that everyone follows. Every customer is happy, every employee shows up. No one makes mistakes. Love it.
Ashley Butler [00:51:37]:
Yeah, that guy said it perfectly on the panel. There's things that you cannot differentiate and then there's this window right here where I'm like, you can slam in between these walls as much as you want, but on this topic, you stay here. Right? But these topics run up against both of these walls and let's see what comes out. So thank y'.
Mike Allen [00:51:54]:
All.
Ashley Butler [00:51:54]:
This has been a great chat.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:51:55]:
Thank you.
Mike Allen [00:51:56]:
A lot of fun. Thank you having you guys.
Ashley Butler [00:51:57]:
Cool.
Rochelle Gotsdiner [00:51:58]:
Thank you, Mike. We appreciate your podcast.
Mike Allen [00:52:02]:
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 pro 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 mikeonfessionsofashopowner.com or call and leave a message. The number 704-confess. That's 704-266-3377. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to, like, subscribe or follow. Join us on the screen. Crazy journey that is shop ownership.
Mike Allen [00:52:38]:
I'll see you on the next episode.