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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.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (0:00 - 0:35)
And it is so surprising how frequently people will call being like, I have this problem, and an advisor inadvertently repels them. We're booked out for a long time, like we're booked out even just for a couple of days. It's like, you've just stirred the pot and like poked the bear and agitated their problem and made them aware like, you need your car to be repaired, you need your car to be repaired, you need it.
They finally pick up the phone and even if it's like, yeah, I can get to you in two days. People are instant, right? It's like, oh yeah, yeah, I mean, we're so busy.
[Intro] (0:37 - 1:08)
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 here 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] (1:08 - 2:12)
So one of my best friends from earlier in life, I don't get to see him a lot these days, but he was in town and he needed a transmission service. And so we made an appointment for one o'clock at the shop that was closest to his part of town, and he came down and dropped it off and I picked him up and we went to lunch. We went in the Miata, top down, just a couple of dudes, it was awesome.
And had a great meal and it was great catching up, and he had to go get his kids from school. He was the school bus for the day. And we get back to the shop and they've got it outside and they're pressure washing.
And they had a line blow off the transmission machine while they were doing the service and made an enormous mess. And is one of the best technicians in the entire company, right? Accidents happen.
It's like it's always in that situation, right? When it's friends or family or somebody that you're really trying to impress or whatever.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (2:13 - 4:00)
Yeah, I mean, mistakes happen. I think it's just like, if you work with humans, you are going to experience them making mistakes, but it's how that company responds is what I think. And I think empathy is a huge, huge element.
So like this roofer, we were actually, you're saying things always happen when you're dealing with family or something. So it wasn't family who did it, but we were hosting 22 people for a family reunion when it happened. And my sister came and woke me up and she's like, there's water coming through your brand new cabinets and your brand new kitchen.
So I ran downstairs, I text the roofer, I call him. He's slow to respond, doesn't apologize whatsoever, comes to our house, knocks on the door. I open the door and he's like, so what we got going on here?
It wasn't like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. Let me see how I can help you. And it's like, yes, mistakes happen, but it's how you respond.
And that's going to impact if I recommend him, that's going to impact if I give him a good review or a bad review, that's going to impact, you know, like talk about marketing, like how you act with people matters when it comes to your marketing, matters when it comes to your retention, matters when it comes to your, you know, reputation out there. And there's no amount of good marketing that can overcome a bad reputation. None.
You could do a million things, spend a million dollars in marketing, but if your reputation is bad or you have poor, you know, Google reviews, people are not going to use you.
[Mike Allen] (4:01 - 4:23)
So, I mean, this is a six-figure mistake we're talking about. I started recording in the middle of the conversation, but I figured this is pretty good content. Yeah.
Just to recap, you got a new roof put on right after you did a major remodel for your nice new kitchen and the new roof, massive leaks, first rainstorm comes and you've essentially had to gut your house now because of the damage.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (4:24 - 4:24)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (4:24 - 4:26)
How long have you been out of your house?
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (4:26 - 4:34)
Hundreds of thousands. So, that happened July 31st, today's October 8th. Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (4:35 - 4:36)
Months.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (4:36 - 5:26)
And so, the earliest possible time to get back in is April. Construction always takes longer than anticipated. So, we've had to move around.
I have, my daughter's turned one last week. I have a three-year-old. My oldest is four.
He's about to turn five. So, working with insurance, we can't get things, we couldn't, we now have been able to, but we couldn't get things approved to stay at like a long-term rental because they're like, oh, it shouldn't take that long, shouldn't take that long. And they just go and they're like, oh, this wall's wet, this wall's wet, this wall's wet.
Like, our top floor is basically down to the studs, part of our main floor, and then part of our basement, too. So, yeah, we've had to, in six weeks, we moved to six different Airbnbs with three little kids, teeny kids.
[Mike Allen] (5:27 - 5:33)
That's nightmare fuel, man. They say living your dream can be a nightmare, right? Nightmares are dreams too, right?
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (5:33 - 6:10)
So, yes, yes. And it's, but it's one of those things that it's like, so many people are like, take them down, take them down, take that roofer down, like put them out of business. It's kind of like what we were just talking about.
It's like, no, I'm a business owner. You're a business owner. We know that people make mistakes, but it's how we respond.
And it's also like how you make it right for them, how you fix it. I don't want to ruin that guy's life. I mean, he's ruining my life right now, but when we make mistakes, do I want someone to ruin my life?
No, I want them to understand. But also, I respond differently than they have.
[Mike Allen] (6:10 - 6:19)
Well, you're, you're, a lot of times you're a lot of songbirds are the ones where you've stepped in and saved the day after you dropped the ball, right?
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (6:19 - 6:19)
Totally.
[Mike Allen] (6:20 - 6:42)
So, because the expectation is that you're going to do things right every time, right? It's like, it used to be good enough to have a clean bathroom, and now that's the expectation, right? So, right.
But if, if the wheels fall off, don't show up at the door saying, so what got going on? You say, oh my God, I'm so sorry that this happened.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (6:42 - 6:42)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (6:43 - 6:45)
You know, let's get, let's make this right. You know?
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (6:45 - 6:45)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (6:46 - 7:20)
We had at a different store, a different situation earlier this week, actually, where one of the guys just wasn't being quite as attentive as needed to be. And we had an issue with an oil leak and oil got on a customer's driveway and their brand new home and their brand new subdivision. And so, you know, that customer is a songbird, right?
We were out there, that night, pressure washing and treating their driveway and, you know, back the next day to make sure that they were happy with it after it had dried.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (7:20 - 7:25)
And, you know, so that's, it's not doing that though.
[Mike Allen] (7:25 - 7:35)
Like, it sounds like they were still pissed, but well, I mean, and I think we went above and beyond in an effort to make it right as quickly as possible. And they're happy.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (7:36 - 7:37)
Oh, they are happy. Okay.
[Mike Allen] (7:37 - 7:48)
Yeah. Yeah. That's the important part.
So yeah, they weren't happy at the moment, right. But they were happy with the reaction and the response. So yeah, I guess we'll ultimately see if they come back for their next service.
Right.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (7:48 - 8:29)
I mean, but that's all you can ask for. So like we had a remediation company come in and they did, they were hired by the roofer originally. And there was still like wet spots and things that, like things that you could see.
And I was like, dude, look, like there's still, there's still a problem. And they were like, we're not going to fix it. It's fine.
I'll just wipe it off, off the drywall. And it's like, that's not a thing. So we hired a new guy and he's been awesome to work with, but they removed a couple of vanities in our upstairs and didn't like totally seal it, not seal, but like close it.
[Mike Allen] (8:29 - 8:29)
Yeah.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (8:30 - 8:37)
And so the water came through and destroyed like literally the one room that had no problems.
[Mike Allen] (8:38 - 8:41)
I just wanted to make sure it was a total clean sweep.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (8:41 - 9:34)
Yeah. The only room, our formal living room was untouched. And then we get this text message from a different contractor.
Who's like, Hey, I'm at your house right now. And there's a massive leak. It's leaking really bad.
And he sends us these pictures with like water everywhere. And it's been leaking for like 24 hours. But that guy came and he was like, we're on it right now.
I'm on my way. And he got there and he was like, I'm so sorry. We will absolutely take care of this.
Do not worry about this. We will have it completely taken care of. So I literally recommended them since, because it's like, everyone's going to make a mistake at some point, but if you know this one's going to own their mistakes, like I want to go with the guy who I know is going to own it, not the guy that I'm like, hopefully their crew will never make a mistake because it's probably not going to happen.
[Mike Allen] (9:34 - 9:57)
Yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah.
One of the things you talked about a minute ago is you talked about, uh, you know, Google reviews and reputation and how important that is. And that's been a real big point of focus for us. Uh, lately, uh, had a big push to get over a thousand reviews at the big store.
And so we're like at a thousand and 20 or something like that right now.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (9:57 - 9:57)
That's awesome.
[Mike Allen] (9:57 - 10:43)
Um, yeah. And, uh, and so those of the listeners who have listened to the podcast for a while know that the second half of 2025 was a bit of a hot mess at my company and our reputation tanked. Uh, frankly, we went from a 4.8 down to a 4.6, which is pretty big drop when you're talking about at the time we had like 750 reviews. Right. Uh, and so it's been a point of focus. I'd like to get it up to 4.9 again, like it was back in the day. Right. Um, but it takes a lot of reviews to when you're talking about that volume. And I was just doing the math this morning.
Um, one five-star review is going to offset somewhere between 15 and 20. I'm sorry. One, one-star review is going to offset the effect of 15 or 25 star reviews, right.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (10:43 - 10:44)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (10:44 - 10:45)
Uh, as far as the math goes.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (10:46 - 10:52)
And that's when you have a ton of reviews. So if you only had a hundred reviews, it would be really hard.
[Mike Allen] (10:52 - 11:07)
Yeah, for sure. For sure. So, you know, that's, uh, something where we're just trying to be very intentional about how we think in terms of giving a great customer experience so that they're comfortable giving us a review.
And we'd like to see two or three reviews a day, you know?
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (11:07 - 11:07)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (11:08 - 11:37)
Uh, and, uh, you know, we're not going to be perfect. And if that person who we went and pressure washed their driveway and scrubbed and everything, if they weren't happy and they went and left a one star, then, you know, with two or three reviews a day, that's going to be offset by 20 reviews in two weeks. Right.
So you don't want to have to offset anything. No, but I was looking back. We had 65 consecutive five-star reviews since our last, uh, unhappy customer, which is a pretty good ratio, but that's awesome.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (11:37 - 11:44)
Um, the truth is though, like if you had all five star reviews, that almost seems fishy.
[Mike Allen] (11:44 - 11:48)
That's a red flag. If they get a thousand reviews and it's perfect 5.0, that's a red flag.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (11:48 - 13:19)
That's a total red flag. So, you know, if you have them peppered in, it's not necessarily the worst thing. I think one of the worst things that shop owners do, like when we start working with people and we're managing their Google reviews, we log in and we're like, Oh, all these great reviews, negative review, no response, negative review, no response, argumentative response.
Oh, that's the worst. So you always want to answer. I don't know if you ever noticed this when we respond to your Google reviews, like a negative review, we always reach out to you and make sure like, what's the story, what's the skinny on this, right?
But then we respond. And I literally tell my team, smile. When you're responding, you have to respond literally with a smile on your face because it's more likely for you to respond in a way that's positive.
Even when responding to a negative review and you can still hold the line. So like say this, this customer who you went out and power pressure wash their driveway and did everything you could to make it right immediately, say they respond to this negative review. So I would say we smile when we respond.
And we also set the facts straight, but not in an argumentative way in a way that like, if you could imagine Disney world responding, like literally the people at Disney and they're saying like, I want you to have a Disney world experience. Even though you've had this bad experience, I'm going to respond and set the record straight. And I'm also going to say it with a smile so that my future customers, because that's really who you're responding to.
[Mike Allen] (13:20 - 13:21)
You're responding to the next lead.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (13:22 - 13:27)
Yes, because they're going to scroll through and see positive, positive, and they're looking for those negative ones.
[Mike Allen] (13:28 - 13:31)
I go and I sort by negative reviews first.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (13:33 - 13:36)
But so many people do that. So many people.
[Mike Allen] (13:37 - 14:02)
I think, um, you know, uh, when we started being intentional about trying to rebound from that, um, and I sorted by negative and read the recurring themes that I saw were poor communication, you know, it was there for four hours and I never heard from anybody. Or it was there for two days and never heard, whatever that might be. And I came in for an oil change and they told me I needed $5,000 worth of work.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (14:03 - 14:03)
Right.
[Mike Allen] (14:03 - 14:37)
And that's, I think we had bought into like hardcore 300% rule and that $5,000, 4,000 of it was yellow on the green, yellow, red of the DVI, you know, and not urgent and not, not an emergency or a breakdown situation. Um, and, uh, a little bit of evolution in that has helped a lot as well. So we still drop the ball communication sometimes, you know, we try to touch base 10 and two every day, but we fail.
So sometimes.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (14:37 - 15:45)
Yeah. It's hard, especially if you set that expectation, like we'll give you a call back around between 10 and two, and they don't hear from you as a consumer who brings my car to a shop. It's like, it is frustrating and it sucks.
It sucks because like for a shop owner, you've done so many things, right. To get that person into your shop for the first time to get them, like to get them to call, they've had to see your marketing so many times. Then they finally convert to a call in a moment.
It's like the stars have to align. They might see your marketing all the time, but it's like, I don't know. I don't, I just got my oil change recently.
I don't need an oil change. I don't need, you know, and that's all people are thinking about. Right.
Or like my car isn't making a weird noise or it doesn't smell funky. Like everything seems to be good. I don't need, I don't need anything right now.
Right. So stars almost have to align for the need to line up with them, seeing your marketing and enough times, and then going on and seeing your good, your good Google reviews. And then finally like picking up the phone in a moment where their kids aren't screaming at them and the dog isn't barking and food doesn't need to get on the table.
[Mike Allen] (15:45 - 15:46)
The roof's not leaking.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (15:46 - 17:13)
The roof's not leaking. They actually have a home. And then not only does that happen, but they actually convert from a call to a car in your shop, which like we listen to phone calls.
And it is so surprising how frequently people will call being like, I have this problem. And an advisor inadvertently repels them, pushes them away, pushes them away. Oh yeah.
I'm not sure about that. Oh yeah. Uh, we're booked out for a long time.
Like we're booked out even just for a couple of days. It's like you've just stirred the pot and like poked the bear and agitated their problem and made them aware. Like you need your car to be repaired.
You need your car to be repaired. You need it. They finally pick up the phone.
And even if it's like, yeah, I can get to you in two days. People are instant, right? It's so busy and they're not thinking about auto repair.
They're thinking about all the things that they have to do and how auto repair has to fit into their busy life. And I would guess like, I don't know. I would guess a great majority of the time when someone calls, it's like their back's almost against the wall where it's like, I have this big thing coming up.
I have this trip I'm going on or I have to drive my kid to college or it's going to be Thanksgiving or something. And they're like, I need it now because I've waited till the last moment.
[Mike Allen] (17:14 - 17:34)
Well, it has become urgent. One of the things that we train in the company is that when we have a first time caller inbound, it's typically one of three situations. They're new to the area and they don't have someone that they know like and trust yet.
The person that they know like and trust can't get them in a timely fashion and they have an urgent need.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (17:34 - 17:34)
Absolutely.
[Mike Allen] (17:35 - 18:09)
Or the person that they thought they could trust has done something and they no longer think they can trust them. Right. So in all of those situations, that consumer has their guard up because they don't want to be taken advantage of or they feel like they were just taking advantage of or they feel like they're cheating on their guy, whatever it might be.
Right. And so we need to do everything we can to remove barriers and create a welcoming, relaxing environment and 100% busy advisors find ways to say no without saying no.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (18:10 - 18:11)
Yeah, because they're stressed.
[Mike Allen] (18:11 - 18:12)
Yeah. Yeah.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (18:12 - 18:15)
It's probably just a gas cap.
[Mike Allen] (18:15 - 18:18)
I mean, just drive it for a few days. If it doesn't go off, call me back.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (18:18 - 18:18)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (18:19 - 18:22)
Are you freaking kidding me? Oh, my God.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (18:22 - 18:24)
I just spent so much money getting that phone to ring.
[Mike Allen] (18:26 - 18:43)
So, you know, it's always part of the struggle. You know, I know that I've heard you say it before that if there's if there's a big problem at your store and you feel like volume is going down and it's not a one man operation, first place you need to go is go to the phones, listen to the phone calls.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (18:44 - 18:54)
Yeah. How's that going, by the way? Last time we met, we talked about how you had like a massive amount of your leads were kind of getting pushed away.
[Mike Allen] (18:54 - 19:02)
So can you recount a little bit? I think we said that I had like a 28 percent conversion rate or something like that.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (19:02 - 19:05)
Yeah, it was like. Yeah, it was. Sorry.
Go ahead.
[Mike Allen] (19:06 - 19:12)
Yeah. Well, and I think that we what we establish is we're looking for over 50 percent closer to 60 or 70 would be ideal.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (19:13 - 19:25)
And we're talking about conversion from like call to car in the bay, not necessarily like sales conversion, but just converting people who pick up the phone and call you or ask for an appointment online to getting them into the shop.
[Mike Allen] (19:27 - 19:37)
So how how do you recommend measuring those metrics and come into that? How did you get to that 28 percent number just for those who didn't see last episode?
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (19:37 - 20:11)
Yeah. So I just took all your leads. So first time callers or first time request online for an appointment, like a form that they filled out.
And then I took that number and then I also took the number of cars that you had in. So I divided the number of cars by the number of new leads or like sorry, not necessarily new, but unique. So if someone if Mrs. Jones calls you five times, we're only going to count her one time because that's one unique lead. So we take that number and divide it or we take the cars and divide it by the leads. And that will give you the percentage of conversion.
[Mike Allen] (20:11 - 20:46)
OK, I thought that was the case. So we were in the mid to high 20s last month when we recorded and when we recorded last month, we were talking about the previous month. So we're talking about two months ago.
Right now, it's October 8th. I pulled the numbers for September across locations. We had just under twenty seven hundred unique inbound callers.
Now, I didn't have the ability to pull and see how many of those were first time ever callers. Right. But I'm not really worried about that, because even if Mrs. Jones has been here ten times, if I find a way to say no when she calls on time 11, it's still a lost lead.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (20:47 - 20:47)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (20:48 - 20:50)
And so we had worse.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (20:50 - 20:52)
That's almost a worse lost lead.
[Mike Allen] (20:52 - 22:31)
Yeah, for sure. For sure. Because that's an easy slam dunk.
All you got to do is say yes. Of that, like twenty six, seventy something, whatever it was, we failed to answer five hundred and fifty of those calls. Yeah.
Like they went to voicemail and or or well, or they were never answered or they hung up. Right. And so of that five, fifty, three hundred and sixty were during normal business hours.
So we've got an ability to answer inbound call issue that we're talking about. Right. So that's 20 percent weren't answered.
Yeah. Of the ones that we answered. So call it twenty two hundred.
We had six hundred and eighty two cars. So what's that? Hold on.
Let me do math. A little less than 30, three point two inbound calls per car. So that's 33 percent.
Yeah. So a little bit of an improvement. Yeah.
Not great. Right. But if we're pushing towards 50 percent, we'll get there now.
What I'd like to be able to do is implement a tool that will monitor all of those calls and make the judgment this was a potential lead and this was or not a potential lead. Right. This was a vendor calling.
This was a customer that was already there checking a status update and that kind of thing. And there are a lot of tools that will do that. And so I'm actually in the process of onboarding with a couple of those.
I'm in the process of a bunch of changes right now. We're switching over to RingCentral and going to go to Techmetric phones.
[Mike Allen] (22:33 - 23:01)
And the advisors are all excited about that. The ability to have the pop up on the screen that shows who's calling, if they're an existing customer and their statistics and that kind of thing. So that's super convenient.
And then we're partnering with a couple of other tools that are going to be monitoring and grading, you know, lead conversion and that kind of thing. So hopefully by the time we discuss next episode, I'll have some really hard facts for you about number of leads and conversion.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (23:01 - 23:02)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (23:02 - 23:03)
So we'll see.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (23:03 - 23:17)
But I do want to say though, Mike, like while that's not where you want to be, like you definitely want to be at 50% or more. I mean, that's a pretty big, I mean, you jumped at least, what did we say last time? I thought it was like 24%.
[Mike Allen] (23:17 - 23:22)
24, 25, something like that. So 32 or three, that's a seven or 8% jump.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (23:23 - 23:30)
Yeah. I mean, that's showing like you're getting, your guys are like actively trying, which means that you must be coaching them.
[Mike Allen] (23:31 - 23:45)
Let me ask you this. We have been talking about it very, very intently. How many of your clients have implemented an AI call assistant for overflow and after hours calls versus just a voicemail system?
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (23:46 - 24:44)
Yeah. I would say it's a small, let me rewind. I would say it's a small minority that have.
I would say that the bigger thing that I would talk about is that AI is calling you. And the thing that people aren't doing yet is setting themselves up to succeed when AI calls. And here's why it's really important.
People think it's spam. Like, have you heard any calls where it's like, this is Google calling for, you know, whatever. And then someone actually gets on the phone and talks to you, or it sounds like someone's actually talking to you, but it's really an AI bot.
And they're asking about availability and they're asking about, do you do this service or that service? So many people that I talk to are just hanging up. They're like, yeah, when that happens, it's just spam.
I'm just hanging up. And it's like, no, do not hang up. That is not spam.
It's a new way of the world. Do I love it? No.
I want to go back, but we're here.
[Mike Allen] (24:45 - 24:51)
So is that someone scraping data to get market data or is that a consumer who is having AI make the calls for them?
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (24:52 - 24:55)
That's a consumer who's having Google make the calls for them.
[Mike Allen] (24:56 - 25:09)
Really? So what feature in Google does that? Because if I want to call a plumber and have Google do that for me, that's interesting.
Because I've always assumed that it's just somebody scraping and collating data to get marketplace information.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (25:09 - 26:12)
Well, there might be people doing that on different calls. And that's the hard part, right? We get so many spam calls.
But Google is actually, if I go to Google right now, and I'll actually send you a video, I'll do a video and I'll send it to you that you can share with everyone. But you can literally have, you can say, ask Google to call for me. And so Google will actually ask you a few questions like, where do you want the service?
What kind of service are you looking for? When are you looking for it? And then Google will go and call shops.
It sounds at first kind of like a record, you know, like a robot. And then it sounds like a real person. And they're asking questions about like availability.
They're asking about that specific service. They're asking about price. And if you fail, if service advisors aren't prepared to answer those questions, it's basically like a massive ding against that shop.
Because Google is like, oh, this isn't a trustworthy shop. They don't know.
[Mike Allen] (26:12 - 26:15)
So it affects your trust score and your organic ranking, you think?
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (26:15 - 26:27)
Hugely. Maybe not your organic ranking, not your SEO ranking. This is more like your AEO, GEO.
So it's like, it affects how often you're going to show up in search, like what's called...
[Mike Allen] (26:28 - 26:29)
Map pack or whatever.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (26:29 - 28:45)
Not the map pack. It's the summary. It's like the AI summary.
So if you Google like, what auto repair shop should I go to near me? Oftentimes, Google will give you, you know, three to five. And so will ChatGPT, Cloud.
They'll give you like three to five answers. And that's going to be based on a number of things. But really, they don't want to recommend someone who isn't trusted.
And how do they know if you're trusted? They want to know as much information as possible. So whether they call you or not, they're looking to know if you do have these trust factors.
So if they have called you and you continue to botch it, like if Google calls and you're like, I'm going to hang up or I don't have that information or, you know, you don't give them the information, sometimes Google will just stop calling you, stop recommending you. Because you've told Google, even though you're doing all this marketing, you have Google ads going, you have great SEO, you have postcards and Facebook ads, you have all this stuff going. Now you're not getting, you're not showing up in that search, that review, that summary.
And so anyone who's asking AI or asking Google, it's like they're not even seeing you because they're not scrolling down to look below that. So what I recommend is give your service advisors some training on this. So tell them that Google's going to be calling, let them know Google's going to be calling, here's what it sounds like.
You know, they're, it's going to say like, I'm looking for, you know, auto repair. It's going to sound like a bot, listen to it. And when it asks you a question, even though it's super awkward and super robotic, answer the question as if it's a real person's talking to you.
Sound cordial, let them know, you know, that you do do that service. They want to hear like, do you provide break services? And I would say like, yes, I do provide break services.
And then if it asks how much it costs, I would give a range. Don't say like, oh, you need to come in. And this, this goes against like everything that we're taught right in the coaching companies, which I totally get, but it's just the way that Google's functioning.
And Google is kind of the king.
[Mike Allen] (28:46 - 28:48)
So be nice to the robot or the robot will spank you.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (28:48 - 28:49)
Pretty much.
[Mike Allen] (28:51 - 28:52)
Why do you have to make it weird, Caroline?
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (28:53 - 28:53)
What's that?
[Mike Allen] (28:54 - 28:55)
Why do you have to make it weird, Caroline?
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (28:55 - 28:57)
I didn't make it weird. You talked about spanking.
[Mike Allen] (29:01 - 29:01)
Okay.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (29:01 - 29:04)
Don't get too excited. Don't get super excited, Mike.
[Mike Allen] (29:09 - 29:30)
So coach up the guys on the fact that when you're getting these robo calls, these are not data scrapers just trying to get market data. Some might be. Potentially it's consumers, because we have a whole generation of young men and women who are getting out of college right now, who in their formative high school years, they took school from a laptop at home because of the pandemic.
Right?
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (29:30 - 29:30)
Right.
[Mike Allen] (29:32 - 29:36)
And so, you know, interpersonal communication is probably at an all time low right now.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (29:37 - 29:37)
Totally.
[Mike Allen] (29:37 - 30:01)
And so, you know, just they want a text message. They don't want to talk. So if you hear that robot voice calling, answer it as if you're recording a commercial for your business.
Absolutely. We can help you with that. We absolutely service bricks.
I have ASC certified master technicians. I've got over 100 years of combined experience in the shop right now. And we have a community leading five year, 50,000 mile warranty on parts and labor.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (30:02 - 30:40)
They would love that. That information conveys trust. That conveys we've been around.
We know what we're doing. We're giving you information. The hardest part is they're often asking for how much is that going to cost?
And that, again, that goes against the grain of everything that we've ever taught, been trained. So I would recommend from a marketing standpoint, from Google standpoint, what Google is looking for here, Google's AI bots are looking for, and also other AI bots are looking for, they are looking for at least a range. If you don't want to give a number, give a range.
[Mike Allen] (30:42 - 32:01)
I've been testing out some AI powered call attendants for rollover and after hours, trying to find a way to capture and convert some of those 550 calls that we missed last month, right? And one of the models that I tested, I was pushing it for like a water pump estimate or something on a truck. And it was really well polished.
And, you know, it asked me if it's been overheated or not. And am I seeing white smoke from the tailpipe? And when I really pressed hard for a number, I think after the third or fourth time I pressed, you know, it gave all the caveats, you know, it can vary widely from vehicle to vehicle based on kind of the idea.
And then it was like, it could be several hundred dollars to several thousand dollars. But that's why we recommend we have one of our certified technicians inspect the vehicle and give you a complete estimate, right? So, you know, if my conversion rate is right now at 33%, and it can answer those 550 calls and convert at 25%, that's still a hundred or more cars per month.
So, you know, that's an enormous amount of revenue that potentially we can capture that is potentially being lost.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (32:01 - 32:08)
Totally. And people are getting more used to that. You know, they're getting more used to those robo call, like the robo attendees.
[Mike Allen] (32:09 - 32:23)
Yeah. Well, we'll see. You know, and then you've got some folks that, you know, are vehemently against it and hate it.
But I think that's the loud minority because it's just the direction that the world's going.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (32:24 - 32:49)
So that's the thing. It's like you can hate it as much as you want, but it doesn't matter. You can hate it all the way to being alone and crying yourself in a corner.
It's like reality is our friend. That's what we say at Turnkey Marketing all the time. We have to embrace reality as our friend because whether we want it to be the reality or not is irrelevant.
It is what it is. And we have to figure out a path forward, given the reality.
[Mike Allen] (32:50 - 34:48)
Let me ask you this. I have a lot of my friends in reality. I've got a good friend of mine who has a shop.
He's been in business for four or five years now. He's up to three techs and a service advisor, and he kind of floats back and forth between the shop and the front office, right? He's had a coach from day one.
His numbers are rock solid as far as ARO and gross profit margins and net and all that kind of stuff, or it has been historically. But one number that was not that he's discovered, it's got him really nervous, is his customer retention rate is way lower than it needs to be. And so he's having to generate an enormous number of new customers to maintain the flow.
And from the outside looking in, I feel like he's probably... My grandfather used to say you can shear a sheep a dozen times and it'll be happy for the service, but you can only slaughter it once. And I think because he's in a more depressed market economically and he's charging prices like people in major metros, right?
Which is why he's got great margins and a really high ARO and everything else. But I think he's killing a lot of the customer relationships because every time they come in, he's giving them a three and four and $5,000 estimate, right? So that needs to be addressed in one capacity.
But for a small shop that is looking to get serious about marketing and driving new customers for the first time, obviously they should call you guys and see what's available from your kind of suite of services. But what do you think is going to be the biggest bang for their buck marketing-wise getting started? He's claimed his Google My Business page and he's got a basic website and that kind of stuff.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (34:49 - 35:02)
Yeah, yeah. Well, there's kind of two questions going on right here, or like two things going on in my mind. One is the biggest bang for his buck is going to address whatever is causing those people to not come back.
[Mike Allen] (35:02 - 35:03)
The cheapest customers are the ones you've already got.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (35:03 - 38:02)
Yes, and it's funny you say that because I just had one of my managers come in my office yesterday and literally I wish I was recording this because I want to show it to him because he came in and laid out almost the exact same scenario and he was like, I don't know how to help him because this shop owner wants us to increase the marketing. And he's like, of course I can do that, but I don't want to waste his money because his conversion rate is so low and his split between new customers and returning customers is off, like the returning customers are much lower than we want it to be. But the biggest thing is when we looked at of the returning customers or of the new customers who came in the past two years, only 24% of them have come back.
So he does have his old customers coming back, right? But the people in the last two years, less than one in four have ever come back. And so it was the exact same scenario.
They were doing about $3,000 repair orders and we think it was scaring them off. You know, people are not coming back. So the good news about that is that it's the cheapest and easiest fix.
You can convert more people if you figure out what's the sweet spot for your shop to make those recommendations. Or like I would dive in and be like, what is going on? Pick up the phone and call those people and say, hey, Mrs. Jones, you know, I saw that you were in eight months ago. You made these recommendations and then offer them something. Give them a reason to come back. I mean, you know, if you're, we do it all the time where like we do just call people and we're like, hey, just wanted to see how your vehicle's doing.
And that does actually stir up a lot of business. But if you're in a desperate situation or you're just like your guys are sitting around, you're like, oh my gosh, I just got this new technician in. It was so hard to get him in.
I do not want to lose him. Then play the long game. If it's going to cost you so much money to lose that technician or to lose two technicians, could you give up a little bit of your margin right now to bring people in, get some margin, get some money in your pocket instead of going negative, right?
Keep those technicians happy. So maybe you're saying like, hey, I was looking at your account and I saw that you need that water pump. We actually have a sale going on right now where we're going to give 15% off of water pumps, off the labor or just off the, you know, whatever.
Pick whatever the poison is or 15% off the whole bill. Or maybe it's 10% off or it's five or it's, hey, we have this $20 off, like whatever it is, give them a reason to come in because they've already given you their money. And clearly your friend has to do a better job to get those people back in.
[Mike Allen] (38:03 - 38:13)
Well, I feel like, you know, 50% GP and bays full while not ideal is better than 62% GP and no cars.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (38:14 - 38:14)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (38:15 - 38:29)
You know, neither of those are perfect, right? But one at least is going to keep your employees paid and whatnot. But I was thinking about it, if I think about my cost of customer acquisition, right?
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (38:29 - 38:29)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (38:29 - 38:41)
And correct me if I'm wrong, but my total marketing budget divided by my number of new customers, is that my cost of customer acquisition? Is that the easiest way to go there?
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (38:42 - 38:50)
Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, you could take out, to get like more specific, you want to take out anything that is for returning customers.
[Mike Allen] (38:50 - 38:51)
Yeah, retention stuff.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (38:51 - 38:57)
So anything like a CRM or, you know, thank you cards or thank you notes or little gifts that you do or anything like that.
[Mike Allen] (38:57 - 38:58)
That kind of stuff, yeah.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (38:59 - 38:59)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (39:01 - 39:08)
So, but either, however you get to that number, you know, marketing spend divided by number of new customers equals your cost of customer acquisition.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (39:08 - 39:09)
Yep.
[Mike Allen] (39:10 - 39:32)
And you hear people kind of cry about that. I don't want to spend more money on marketing if my retention rate is so, if my conversion rate is so low and my cost per customer is so high. Well, if I convert more, then that drives the cost down.
If I convert more on the same, we talked about this last month. I don't want to spend more money because right now I'm not taking advantage of the calls that are coming in in the first place, right?
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (39:32 - 39:32)
Totally.
[Mike Allen] (39:33 - 39:58)
So if we can get that number from 32% in September to 40% in October and 48% in November, then suddenly our cost for new customer acquisition is really reasonable. Our car count is up. Yep.
And everything's, you know, sunshine and rainbows and unicorns. Totally. So back to what we were talking about with my friend.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (39:58 - 39:58)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (39:59 - 40:13)
Lost customer reacquisition. There are a lot of different ways you can market to lost customers. Probably the most painful, but most eye-opening is to literally call them and say, what's wrong?
And then listen and take notes.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (40:14 - 40:14)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (40:15 - 40:15)
It's hard.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (40:15 - 40:22)
It's hard to do even as like the person receiving. So if you called me and you're like, what's going on? No one likes confrontation.
[Mike Allen] (40:23 - 40:28)
Yeah. They won't tell. A lot of them just won't tell you.
Oh, I've just been busy, you know?
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (40:28 - 40:28)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (40:29 - 41:38)
They won't tell you that they thought you overcharged them or their neighbor said that you were a ripoff or whatever else, right? So my dad, and I haven't done this in years, but I probably should. My dad had big letters.
It was a bifold letter in an envelope, but it was a picture of a parking lot space. It was empty, the white lines on the black asphalt and in block letters on the asphalt was your car here. And you opened it and said, we miss you.
We've got a spot for you. And it had an offer at the time. I think it was $20 off any service or whatever it was, right?
And anybody who hadn't been in at that point in six months or between six months and a year of their last visit, they got one of those every quarter. And I think he stopped after they'd been gone for two years, he stopped trying to capture them. And then he just treated them like a new customer at that point, if they ever came back.
What do you think now with longer service intervals that we're seeing in cars, what do you think is, when do you count a customer's lost?
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (41:38 - 42:22)
I would say around a year. So typically we'll start marketing a little bit more heavily to that customer around nine months. Because that's where it's like, they could be lost, they might not be lost.
But we want to make sure if they haven't come in around nine months, we kind of start treating them like that lost customer. And if they're not actually lost, then their car is probably close to due, if not due right now. So we want to get them back in when they're on that fence before they go to someone else.
After a year, they've likely gone to someone else already. Unless they just have like a little, you know, it's the little lady who drives to the grocery store. Yeah, yeah.
But I mean, yeah, cars are lasting longer.
[Mike Allen] (42:23 - 42:42)
Well, let me, I'm all over the place right now. I'm like squirrel, squirrel, shiny object. He's calling because car counts down and he's concerned about what he needs to do.
And we ended up talking a little bit about internal processes and is he killing customers with estimates that are too overwhelming?
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (42:43 - 42:43)
Yes.
[Mike Allen] (42:44 - 43:15)
We talked a little bit about marketing methodology. We talked about community marketing and going to like town fairs and art festivals and that kind of stuff and having booths and that kind of thing. But that's not a light switch, right?
You got to wait for the next festival to be able to do that. Sponsoring the high school marching band. That's a long game with extra money.
Yeah. What do you recommend for like a slow day blast or like, hey, the schedule's empty next week. I need to do something to drive cars next week.
What are your recommendations?
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (43:16 - 43:25)
I would definitely think about like what is the low hanging fruit? What does everyone need? And I would start there.
So the majority of clients, majority of customers, what do they need?
[Mike Allen] (43:26 - 43:29)
Oil, tires, state inspection.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (43:29 - 43:54)
Yeah, or if it's really cold out, maybe it's brakes or if it's really hot out, maybe it's AC. But yeah, those things I would start there. And then I would make it irresistible.
Like if it is hurting you and it is costing you money to not have customers in, I personally, people don't agree with this. I personally would rather take a little bit, have to take a little bit less money and be able to pay my guys than go negative.
[Mike Allen] (43:56 - 44:03)
Well, you know, I'm totally in the same boat, right? And almost all of my team has a guaranteed minimum.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (44:03 - 44:03)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (44:05 - 44:54)
And but still, so they know that they're not going to go hungry. They know that they're going to get whatever hours that we guarantee, but that's not what they want. They don't want way more than that, right?
So if they're having to rely on that guarantee on a regular basis over and over and over, you know what they're doing while they're scrolling their phone, waiting for a car is they're looking at ads. Yeah. And that's happening more and more.
And as we're coming into the winter months in the Southeast, it doesn't get cold enough to break cars. People don't travel. So it's, you know, there's typically a car count swing for a general repair shop in an area where it doesn't get cold enough for cars to break.
Right. So, you know, one of the conversations we've been having recently is, hey, guys, you know what was six months ago? Six months ago, we were super busy.
You know, what we should have been doing was booking the next oil change.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (44:55 - 44:55)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (44:55 - 45:00)
Because all those cars that we had six months ago sure would be nice to have them back right now. Right.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (45:00 - 45:00)
Yep.
[Mike Allen] (45:02 - 45:10)
And if we could just make that habit, like the dentist office, like it would be weird to go to a dentist right now and not leave with a reminder card. It would be weird.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (45:10 - 45:12)
Yeah. I'd be like, what?
[Mike Allen] (45:12 - 45:16)
Yeah. Are these guys hacks? Are they amateurs?
Why aren't they booking their next appointment? Right.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (45:18 - 47:07)
Yeah. I mean, I would say like, if that's the case, if your phones aren't ringing because you live in the Southeast and it's not very cold in the winter, cars aren't breaking, cars aren't breaking, which means people don't have a reason to pick up the phone and call you, right? So give them a reason to pick up the phone and call you.
So what does that look like? Pick a low-hanging fruit, something that everyone needs, and then give them a reason to take advantage of picking up the phone. So, hey, we have this special going on right now.
We have a free tire rotation with an oil change. And maybe you do that all the time. Lots of shops do that all the time, but people don't know about it.
So talk about it. Send out an email. People think email is dead.
It is one of the most effective ways to get in front of people, and it's so inexpensive. Get in front of people with emails. Get in front of people with text messages.
You can say, hey, it's been a while. Just wanted to check in or, you know, hey, this is like in Kansas City. It's a beautiful week.
You can use anything as an excuse to reach out. Hey, it's a beautiful week here in Kansas City. You know, in case you want to do a joyride and your car is making a weird noise, I want to check in and make sure everything's good.
Or, you know, something along those lines. Like, I was just doing a joyride because it's beautiful out, and I thought of you and wondered how your car is doing. Do you need anything?
You could do something like that, right? Or you could say, you could give them a reason to call. Give them a reason to respond and say, hey, football is on.
Chiefs won the last four, you know, every single game. So we're going to give, you know, $4. We're giving away an oil change for $44.44 to keep those Chiefs winning. You know, something like that.
[Mike Allen] (47:07 - 47:10)
It's a bye week this week for your Chiefs. So they're not playing this weekend.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (47:11 - 47:11)
My teammate's coming.
[Mike Allen] (47:11 - 47:16)
Patrick Mums is my quarterback in fantasy football. So I had to put him on the bench this week.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (47:17 - 47:27)
I did not. See, my, are you sure? Because everyone here is wearing Chiefs gear.
Like, I had to get changed out of my Chiefs gear before this.
[Mike Allen] (47:28 - 47:30)
I'm almost positive. Hang on. I'm opening my fantasy app.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (47:30 - 47:38)
Okay. My team makes fun of me all the time because I make really bad sports analogies. I'll be like, go Chiefs, get that, you know, home run.
[Mike Allen] (47:39 - 47:49)
Sports ball. Yeah. No, it's totally a bye because I've got to play Jacoby Bursette as my quarterback this week, which is terrible.
He went to NC State, which is the team that I hate. Yeah, yeah, of course.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (47:49 - 47:52)
One of your shops used to be like on NC State's campus.
[Mike Allen] (47:52 - 47:56)
Yeah, it's on campus. Yeah. Don't tell my customers.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (47:58 - 47:58)
Never.
[Mike Allen] (48:01 - 48:32)
So one other thing that I think he should consider, and if your shop is just having a temporary downturn in car count, and you're just looking for a way to drive a few extra cars a day. In North Carolina, for example, you have to do a safety inspection every year, once a year. Every car that was in this month and last month, a year ago, is due for another inspection or overdue.
There's no reason you can't send a text message to them. Hey, just thinking about you, I saw that, you know, your inspection was due. I don't know if you've already handled it or not, but I can knock that out for you.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (48:32 - 48:33)
Right.
[Mike Allen] (48:33 - 48:48)
Six months ago for oil changes. You know, make notes in your point of sale system for your customers that have extended service contracts on the mileage or date when those contracts expire. And maybe keep a Google sheet or however you want to organize it.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (48:48 - 48:49)
Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (48:49 - 48:56)
Sort it by day and contact, hey, your extended service contract expires next month. Bring it in and we'll see if there's anything that will be covered that we can get taken care of for you.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (48:57 - 49:18)
Yeah. You're gonna pay for those customers one way or another. You're either gonna do more marketing and pay for them that way, or you're gonna pay in time, your sweat equity.
So keeping a Google sheet like that, reaching out to them, is that fun? No. But we all did that when we started.
It's tedious.
[Mike Allen] (49:18 - 49:19)
It's monotonous, but it works.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (49:19 - 49:28)
Yeah. And I hear people say like, well, my friend doesn't do that and he has a great shop. Well, he probably did something like that in the beginning or she.
[Mike Allen] (49:29 - 49:35)
He or she is just better than you is what that is. And so you're not that good. So you're gonna have to put the hard work in.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (49:35 - 50:38)
Yeah. Or they might be in a better location or they might have a better brand. You know, there's a lot of factors that go into it.
But to answer, to kind of go back and answer your question, if I was a newer kind of struggling shop that was smaller, I'd definitely invest in Google ads. 100%. I would definitely optimize my Google business profile.
100%. Not just for like SEO and showing up in map packs, but also for AEO, for answer engine optimization, or when like different, you know, AI bots are, you know, like TachiBT or Claude or Gemini. When people ask them in a conversational way, you want to show up.
And one of the ways to do that, again, this is just what Google has said and what Google likes, is putting a menu of your services on your Google business profile. I know. I don't want to do it either.
I don't want to do it. But that is like gold chef's kiss to Google.
[Mike Allen] (50:39 - 51:10)
Well, one of the things that I've started doing, I signed up with 47C, who is doing social media content for our pages. And the quality of the content that they're making is just out of this world. I could never do anything like that.
So I'm super happy with that. But they're not only posting to socials, they're posting to our Google My Business page as well. And so I don't know that anybody ever looks at a business's post on their Google business page, but the Google crawlers do, right?
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (51:10 - 51:11)
Yes, 100%.
[Mike Allen] (51:11 - 52:03)
And so if you feel like you don't have the bandwidth to do those things that we've been talking about, you should just call Carrie Lynn or call Turnkey or find someone who can do it for you. That's my whole shtick is, I know what I don't know. And I know that some of the most expensive money that I can save is by trying to do something myself that I'm not good at.
I'm not going to do my taxes. That's not going to be money worth saving, right? So if you're good at it, great, go do it.
And I'm happy to share ideas. And I'm sure that you, Carrie Lynn, are happy to share ideas. But if you hear things like you need to AI optimize your Google My Business page, and it makes you go glassy-eyed or fall asleep or break out in a nervous sweat, just find a pro.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (52:04 - 52:56)
Yeah, that's one of the things, so much is changing every single week. And at Turnkey, we actually have a special task force that meets every single week and talks about what are the AI changes that we need to implement for our clients? And what do we need to stay ahead of?
And someone's giving a presentation on this is what we're currently using. This is what we're leveraging. This is what we need to do for our clients because it's changing so much.
Google now scrapes things from social media, from your Facebook, your Instagram. And you can link your social profiles to your Google Business profile. And when someone searches, in Raleigh, they're searching for auto repair, one of your Facebook posts or your Facebook ad could pop up.
And then the AI bots are also scraping that and using that to answer questions.
[Mike Allen] (52:58 - 53:11)
So two things that I hear from that real quickly. Task force sounds very serious. Do they have like black T-shirts with big yellow block letters like police?
They end guns. And guns, lots of guns.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (53:11 - 53:13)
They don't work, but we just carry, they're just like foam guns.
[Mike Allen] (53:13 - 53:13)
Nerf guns.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (53:13 - 53:14)
We carry them around. Yeah.
[Mike Allen] (53:15 - 53:17)
Yeah, just carry Nerf guns around the office.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (53:18 - 53:26)
We actually call it AI lab. And I've considered getting like safety goggles and lab coats for them just to be silly.
[Mike Allen] (53:26 - 53:26)
That's awesome.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (53:26 - 53:28)
I'm glad you said that. Maybe that's...
[Mike Allen] (53:28 - 53:31)
You need to put that on the Turnkey socials. AI lab meeting.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (53:32 - 53:32)
Yeah, I should.
[Mike Allen] (53:34 - 53:40)
What is the most impressive or most eye-opening or most alarming thing that you're seeing from AI right now?
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (53:41 - 53:57)
Those are very different questions. Alarming? I mean, it's very debatable.
It's a hot topic, right? Like the existential questions that are going on with the AI CEOs saying, hey, we'll probably be exterminated within the next five years.
[Mike Allen] (53:58 - 53:59)
Well, then I don't have to worry about margin.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (54:00 - 56:14)
Right. Totally. Most impressive...
I would say the most alarming is... It's funny because it feels like, oh, AI should just do these things for me. I should be able to ask AI.
And there were two other leaders and I that had something going on with an employee this past week. And we were trying to figure out how to word something. And individually, none of us talked about and said, hey, we're putting this through Claude.
But we all went to Claude and we were working on messaging on how to handle it. And all three of us came back with almost the exact same messaging. We didn't give like super in-depth prompt, but like literally it was almost the exact same.
And it makes me think of our client or, you know, shop owners who if you're just using AI... Like AI is a great tool that we all should be leveraging and all should be embracing because it is the way of the future and the way of the present. But if you're using AI and you're just giving like the basic garbage, you are going to get out what everyone else is also getting out.
And you are going to sound almost exactly like all your competitors who are just putting in the basic information, the basic questions, the basic prompts and not using strategy. Also, you know, in this like task force that we have, we were doing some deep research on a client and we used two different AI tools like ChatGPT versus Claude or Gemini. And we got very different answers for the same exact thing.
And it was like black and white difference, like literally. And so it really like the data that you pull from matters significantly. So everyone, I think the most alarming thing is that everyone kind of thinks that your ChatGPT or Claude is omniscient, like all knowing.
And it is not.
[Mike Allen] (56:14 - 56:23)
Well, and also what model you're using and how much you're spending for access to the computing power makes a difference in the results you're gonna get too, right?
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (56:23 - 56:31)
Yeah. And how you ask it to interact with you. Like I have to tell my ChatGPT or my Claude, don't disagree with me.
[Mike Allen] (56:31 - 56:32)
Yeah, stop being so damn agreeable.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (56:33 - 57:08)
Yes. Don't be a yes man. Like, oh yeah, that's so great, heart.
No, help me get to the real solution. But a lot of people don't know that. And so they're like, I think we should do this for marketing.
And they get something back from ChatGPT that's like, that is a great idea. We should absolutely do that. And then you're led astray, thinking that you have this all knowing technology that's leading you in the right direction.
But it's really not. And it's leading people to make decisions that are bad decisions. Now I am, again, I'm all for AI.
[Mike Allen] (57:10 - 57:12)
What is the worst marketing decision you've seen recently?
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (57:14 - 57:15)
Oh, so many.
[Mike Allen] (57:16 - 57:22)
I spent half of my marketing budget for the year on a billboard on the side of the interstate. That would be a good one.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (57:22 - 57:28)
I mean, we do have a couple of clients who have billboards that actually really work for them. But there's a lot of factors that go into that.
[Mike Allen] (57:28 - 57:29)
Location matters, yeah.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (57:29 - 57:41)
Location matters, how many locations you have, how big of a market you're in, what other marketing you're doing to support that billboard, how expensive it costs. Like, there's a lot of different things that go into it.
[Mike Allen] (57:43 - 57:48)
I'm gonna invest heavily in multi-page, full-color, yellow page ads.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (57:48 - 1:00:13)
Yeah, I'll sell them to you. I'll send you a link. That's a really good idea.
Just, my phone number is this. Just do Apple Pay, actually. Send me cash.
I also have a bridge I could sell for you. Man, I don't know. There's just so many.
Just, I think that it's, I see a lot of, like, the AI slop. Just the garbage, you know? And it's sad because people have spent so much money on building their brands.
I mean, that's actually a funny thing, I'll tell you. So I had a client call me, and he's like, I wanna talk to you about my brand. And he's an awesome client, very smart guy.
But his logo was getting confused with his biggest competitor. They're similar colors, and people would see his marketing. He's doing all this marketing.
But they attribute it to a different shop that's a competitor shop, because their colors are really similar. So people call the competition. And I think that's actually gonna happen more and more if you don't have a remarkable brand, like a brand that just sticks out.
Call the competition. So he decided, you know, I'm gonna change my logo. Put it in AI.
Got this complex but not very great logo that has, like, a million colors, a million shades. And he's like, I don't know, I'm about to put this on all my gear and, like, all my, you know, sweatshirts and stuff, because the winter's coming. And I was like, I'm so glad you called me, because there's a lot of foundational work that needs to go into this before you just change your logo and do something that AI created.
Because you might not own that, first of all. And it has all these colors, and isn't, AI didn't think about all the different use cases, like how you're gonna have to use this. So this will time out.
This is not a timeless logo for you. You need to do all this foundational work to really figure out what's gonna be the best logo. So I think that was one that was, like, a really close call.
Just wanting to change the logo. He does need to change his logo. He does need to make it more distinct.
But it's more of a branding process than just putting it into AI and getting a generic logo with all these different colors and shades and stuff like that. That won't work for the long haul.
[Mike Allen] (1:00:14 - 1:00:21)
For sure. I think we're actually gonna do another AI class. We had Seth Thorson down into North Carolina.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (1:00:22 - 1:00:22)
Yes.
[Mike Allen] (1:00:23 - 1:00:59)
Early this year for an AI class. And it was, we did, like, a social gathering Friday night, and then we did all day Saturday, like, deep diving, building your own agents, building, you know, service advisor assistants. And it was really eye-opening.
And I was talking to him at ASDA Expo, and he just had a sold-out class. And it was a three-hour-long class. It was like, we need more.
We need more. And so I think we're gonna have him back down to North Carolina and do another full-day class, probably in January. So I'm looking forward to that.
It's gonna be exciting.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (1:00:59 - 1:01:00)
That's awesome.
[Mike Allen] (1:01:00 - 1:01:01)
Lot to learn.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (1:01:01 - 1:01:05)
Yeah, we're gonna talk about AI and marketing. I'm pretty passionate about it.
[Mike Allen] (1:01:06 - 1:01:06)
I know a person.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (1:01:07 - 1:01:08)
Yeah, you know a person.
[Mike Allen] (1:01:08 - 1:01:09)
Thanks, Carrie Lynn.
[Carry-Lynn Rodenberg] (1:01:09 - 1:01:12)
All right, thanks, Mike. Good talk, go team. Yep, thanks.
[Mike Allen] (1:01:13 - 1:01:51)
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 mike at confessionsofashopowner.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.