When Personal Stress Walks Into the Shop: How Leaders Protect Performance [THA 487]

0:00This is the Automotive Repair Podcast Network. Hey everybody, Carm Capriato, Remarkable Results Radio. Glad to have you here. Our 11th year. We couldn't do this if it wasn't for you. And so I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Look, we have to thank all those great people that have been on over, you know, a couple thousand episodes between all the different shows that we've done to share their insights to help advance our great industry.

0:28We're going to talk about an outside influence on the sales ability, not only of yourself if you're a service advisor, client advocate, but as an owner, what do you got to do to help influence the sales ability of your people? When I come back, it'll be Rena Rennebaum, Rachel Spencer joining me. Hey, did you know that NapaTracs has on-site training plus 6 days a week support?

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1:55Kukui's integrated platform, they deliver 4 times better website conversions, automated follow-up, and real-time ROI tracking. Get industry-leading customer support with Kukui. That's kukui.com. Hey, welcome back. Look, I want to remind everyone about our app, and I think it's critical that we talk about it. And we have a really cool, neat, new URL, arpn.app, from the Automotive Repair Podcast Network. All the shows are there.

2:28You can save them and it's the ultimate playlist. Save your favorites and share them with people. You can even watch the video there. So I'm thrilled to be able to provide that for you. So let's get down to business. Rena, Rena Rennebaum, coach, consultant, empowered advisor at empoweryouradvisor.com. Empoweryouradvisor.com. Rita, I went back and I counted about maybe 15, 16 episodes that you and I have been on.

2:57I pick up the phone and says, hey, I got this wild idea. What do you think? She goes, let's do it. And you've been on a lot of panels, town halls. So we appreciate your influence. And Rachel Spencer from Spencer's Auto Repair in Crumb, Texas, and she is now a coach. With Rena at Empowered Advisors. How cool is that? One of the things that we did a while back, I wanna share with the audience, it was Aftermarket Weekly, was one of the shows that we did, I don't know, for maybe a couple hundred shows, Aftermarket Weekly.

3:29It was the Rachelisms, and I thought that was so cool when we did that. You found an awful lot about Rachel. And then we did, which I have to say, we should do more of soft skills episodes that you did. We did one, it was Town Hall Academy 398. You were on that. And I was recently speaking to an educator out at the high school level— no, at the college level— and we were talking about soft skills.

3:55And you know what he told me? Again, one of these language shifts that Carm is working heavily on. He says, Carm, they're not soft skills anymore. I says, what are they, Todd? It was, it was Todd Fortier. He says, they're necessary. Skills. That really hit me hard over the head. Just think about it while you're trying to come up with all the— we got lists of soft skills.

4:15But anyway, uh, we had an episode with Rachel which was so cool too called, uh, Is Your Bathroom Like the Ritz-Carlton? Remember that one? Yeah, that was a good one. That was a good one. And every time I talk to people, says, how's your bathroom? Rachel wants to know. So look, let's jump in this thing. We have so many KPIs on our salespeople.

4:36We're looking at their phone, we're listening to their phone calls. We've got AI that's assessing all this stuff. OMG. And did you ever stop and think that maybe there's something going on that makes that individual not up to top performance? Who wants to start and give us your insight? When my mindset shifted, and what I mean is, is I've, my mindset has always been, that you need to leave your problems at the door.

5:05And I still believe that. I still believe that you shouldn't bring your problems to work and make them everybody's problem. I believe that, but I also know that we are human and it is, for a lot of people, I'll say close to impossible to completely separate themselves from if they're having a problem either with something at work, something at home, or just outside of work, we'll say.

5:34Patrick Lencioni is the one that I heard on one of his podcasts, and he said, "For those employers that believe that only part of the employee comes to work, you're out of your mind. The entire person comes to work." The person that is having marital problems, that has a, you know, a sick family member, that entire person comes to work. And to me, it was like, wow.

6:05It shifted my mindset that we need to realize that we can leave it at the door. A lot of people are good at it. But no matter what, that person is still at the shop. When I was growing up in life and in business, there was this thing, separation of church and state. You leave your problems at home. Listen, we've got enough of them here.

6:29You know, we just can't deal with your blank. We just can't deal with it. And it is so different today. When you think of the goings-on that we see, I mean, all you have to do is, I don't even wanna say, don't even look at social media. Just look at what TV shows and the movies and what's going on in the news.

6:47There's so much strife and conflict going on, and a lot of it does come home. And we've got kids with issues, kids with fun things going on that we need to be there for. We have older parents that are ill. There's so, so much going on. Affordability. That the concept of the outside influence on the sales ability, and I know this episode's gonna drive the point home.

7:13That says, hey, look, you may need to care a whole lot more than you currently are. And not that you're gonna care and say, oh, go home and take 3 weeks off, fix. No. Is there anything we can do to help you get through your day? You're maybe having an off day, right? And the other thing, Irina, that it's not hard to discover it today.

7:36You have to listen, you have to look, you have to pay. I love the word. I always say it all the time. You gotta pay attention to what's going on around you. And if you are and you're not ignoring it, Rachel, I'm sure that at your counter, stuff comes in that's not supposed to be there, the outside influence. I always think I'll be Mother Goose until we get loose.

7:59100%. I mean, everything happens on a mental level before it happens on a personal level. Coaching is the tool that we give people, but empowering them is the outcome. So the way that we do that is we pour into people, we listen to them. We know that words matter, not only what we're telling them, but what they tell us. And we have to really pour into them by just making sure that we recognize them as a person and not just a service advisor.

8:24When you sent the email, Karma, about the topic, I thought to myself, like, both myself and Rachel were service advisors. I thought about all the things that impacted me when I was an advisor, and sometimes it was Well, my technician, like a specific one, is giving me really bad inspections, and/or I have a technician that's having a lot of comebacks. Also, it could be something personally that is impacting me, right?

8:53Like whatever's happening in my personal life. But I think about, like, why is that advisor hesitating to sell? Is it because there's a technician that isn't doing what they are best at? And so, we talk about the front end and how, what's going on with them, but do we ever look at our technicians and go, "Why aren't your inspections looking like they used to?

9:19Like, what's going on? Why are you having comebacks?" Without offending them. Just recently, I was talking to a general manager of a shop, and she was telling me that one of the technicians just like, things just kept happening. Like not good things, right? Inspections weren't good, comebacks, things were happening, he was slow. She had just like a heart-to-heart with him. He found out his dad had cancer.

9:47And so it was impacting the advisor as well because the advisor is like nervous to give him things and sees that things aren't working the way that they used to. So it was the snowball effect. And when we go out and we find out This is what's going on. Now there's things that we can do to help. I call that emotional weight.

10:11And when you have emotional weight and you're asked to carry another 20 pounds into your job and you notice it, again, I think it takes a great leader not to have the, you know, church and state separation, but an individual and even an individual at the counter says, Hey, let's go talk. Let's do lunch. You know, talk to me. Think about an individual who's carrying the weight of his dad has cancer.

10:38He's— there may be a divorce, children get ill. They just need to talk about it. And we all need to know that it's going on. And if we know that it's going on, we're not gonna give this person any less work, but we're gonna realize that there are some boundaries that this person can't get over. I'm not saying that the work will be sloppy, but the work may not be at the 110% level that this individual was giving.

11:05And that person just maybe needs a couple of days to regroup. We have to be like that in today's environment. Coaching gives us the opportunity to do that. We call and we're like, hey, we're listening to your calls and we're looking at ROs and we're seeing KPIs or whatever it is that are not at their best, not at their best. And we start talking and a lot of people in that private one-on-one, like we call ourselves like their therapist a lot of the time.

11:35We are their— I know, and please keep along the line, but you hear the word therapist 40 times a day today. 10 years ago, you never heard it. Yeah. And so people will tell us, "Kashino, I have this and this going on," and they haven't told anybody at the shop. And maybe it's because they're proud, too proud. Maybe it's because they don't— look, I don't want to be a problem.

11:56I don't want people to think I can't do my job. Maybe it's, well, I don't feel safe telling anybody. And so they share it with us, and now we get to see what's going on. And a lot of the time, we'll say to whoever we're working with, do you want me to share this with the people that need to know, or do you want me to coach you to tell them what's going on?

12:19And sometimes that's what they need from us is, "Yeah, like, what do I say? What do I do?" But we do, we hear that a lot. And I have had a shop owner say to me before, "I feel like you're spending too much time fixing their personal problems." And here's the truth. I can't grow them professionally until I grow them personally. A lot of us are stunted professionally because we can't get past personal things.

12:46And so we do spend time talking about things with people personally. And, well, you know, just like understanding, well, where does that come from? Why are you feeling stressed right now? Why do you think you stress out when this happens? And sometimes it goes back to, gosh, you know, when I was 7, you know, this or this happened to me. And we uncover why that person is stunted and why they're not able to grow professionally.

13:13Let me stop and challenge this thing about the coach can discover it. What about the leader of the organization? I mean, I want this episode to challenge ownership leadership, and I know, Rena, thanks for being my coach and discovering this for me. Thank you for the advice you're giving me, but I got this. Is that how you guys are doing it? Giving, giving the responsibility to the ownership?

13:39It depends. I mean, I think Rachel will agree with me. It depends on the shop owner. Like, we know the ones that we can go to and say, "Hey, there's something going on," right? And we know the ones that we can't say anything because they're not going to have any empathy or sympathy or understanding. We generally know what we're capable of doing and what we're capable of sharing.

14:01Most of the time, I feel like it is our responsibility to— I shouldn't hide things from the business owner. I'll let them know, "Hey, there's something going on," and I'll let them tell you. Or just let them tell you, don't say that I said anything. Maybe now is a good time for you to have a conversation with them, a private conversation. What they do with it is up to them.

14:22So you're saying it is my responsibility and I will share it, but you sometimes don't see resolution? Yeah. Wow. I mean, I think as shop owners or business owners, we set the stage for our employees. Calm is contagious, but so is chaos too. So it's our responsibilities to make sure that we know what's going on within our business. Outside influence doesn't just affect the service advisor.

14:45It often drives their performance more than skill alone. And sales is emotional, but advisors are human first. And whatever is happening on that front counter is gonna affect the back just as much as it does the front. So we've gotta make sure that that front counter is on their A-game and be ready for whatever comes their way. Emotional state equals sales performance.

15:03And what's happening outside of work, like Rena said, whether it's family, stress, financial pressure, Maybe they're not getting enough sleep. Getting older and we know how valuable that sleep is, but that directly impacts their confidence, their communication, their decision-making. And an overwhelmed advisor tends to rush conversations. They're not building value in that conversation. They don't have the confidence. They tend to avoid difficult topics like the price shoppers or selling out of their own pocket.

15:29But a grounded advisor who is, I'll use a Rachelism here, when we have our mind right, we have our grind right. A grounded advisor slows down, they build value, and they can confidently guide the customer and our team as well. Because what that advisor do, if there's one person in the shop that doesn't have their mental state where it needs to be, it affects the whole nature of the shop and our customers.

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18:45Get industry-leading customer support, and book a demo with Kukui. That's kukui.com. I love what you said a little bit ago. I, I want to repeat it: calming chaos is contagious. It's crazy around here, 7/24. Wow, it seems like we're always on the beach and there's a beautiful sunset every day. And so you have to make that happen. You can't wish it. You have to make it happen.

19:18And if you let the chaos continue, shame on you. This is so interesting, Rachel. You sent me a great talking point. Sales is a skill highly tied to emotion. And then you went on to say that consistently satisfied and happy with their life. Of course, if they're not, then it's not true. And these are the power pieces in my mind that help people deal with work on top of the emotions and the problems that they have going on.

19:51I have to tell you today, with the things that I know that are going on in just people around me's, you know, life that's going on, for someone to be at the top of their game some days, it isn't gonna work. It's really hard. And I could attest to The last year and a half has really been a struggle for me. And I can tell you, you know, business being up and down and all of us as business owners experience this, but I know how it can affect me and my team, my family, everything.

20:19And my husband can see a big shift in me when we have a good sales day versus a bad sales day. You know, language and tone shifts sometimes without us even realizing it. And that stress shows up in shorter answers, us being impatient with ourselves, with our customers. But all of that comes out, whether it's in the business or at home, all of our life affects everything that we do.

20:41I think that, you know, a lot of shop owners are retired technicians or even retired advisors. So a lot of shop owners, just business owners in general, are not retired therapists. And so I just don't think that everybody knows what to do when you see somebody that is clearly in distress. And I also think that shop owners, business owners in general are busy.

21:09And so a lot of the time they're not looking for that person that is stressed. They don't see it themselves. And so like I was talking to a shop today and the shop owner is also the lead technician. How is a lead technician go and look at everybody's like look at their eyes every day. Hey, how are you? Good morning. I think that you have to have someone that does that.

21:35So if this isn't your strength, you should find the person in your business that it is their strength. And sometimes it's like some of the shop owners I work with, it's their wives. Their wives maybe don't have a big role in the shop, maybe they have a huge role, but a lot of the time I find that they're the ones that will go kind of do the mom check-in, right?

21:55Hey, how are you? How are things? What's been going on? How was your weekend? And just see, like, we are creatures of habit. And so when you see that I'm different, I'm off maybe for a day, it's not that big of a deal, but you see it 2, 3, 4, like, what is going on? And, you know, like I said, a lot of people don't want to share with you what's going on because maybe they don't feel like they can or they should.

22:22But I know that eventually if you do, if you create the culture in your business, in your shop, whatever it is, to have where you have regular check-ins, people are going to expect it. So I think it also is the consistency of your check-ins that people are expecting them and it doesn't seem weird. You're just checking in with me because I'm having a bad day.

22:46It's like, no, you check in with me all the time. So, I feel safe talking about what's going on today. Yeah, I think we've really created a good culture here in our shop. I mean, most of my employees will come in after a long weekend or even the night— the next morning after they've had a rough night, and it's my therapist chair.

23:03They'll come in here and they'll pour their heart out to me. And I'll ask them, "Are you coming in here because you're looking for solutions, or are you coming in here because you just need to talk to me and get it out?" And sometimes they just need to come in here and talk it out, and then they feel better and they can go about their day.

23:15But just that extra 5 minutes can make a positive impact on the rest of their day. You know, that's honesty and trust. That's powerful. Hey, Rachel, uh, let me tell you about my weekend, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're in the therapist's chair. Isn't that what you said? The therapist chair. I love that. You could probably see in them, maybe not relief, but the confidence that you know what's going on in their head.

23:42And if they make a left instead of a right in something that they're doing, you may want to catch it, mention it, but you also know the why behind it. Yeah, absolutely. If we know that something's going on in their personal life, just like our advisors, you know, if we're listening to a call and we know that they've listened or we've heard a bad call, but then they get on the phone and they told us their dog just died or they just got into a car accident.

24:07Well, we're probably not going to go over that bad call with them. We're going to focus on what's going on in their life. And because we don't want to add to what the stress they're they're experiencing in that moment. Okay. Therapist chair, I have a question. Are you there to listen or to give advice or both? Depending on what they need from us.

24:24And that is one question that I'll always ask my staff. Are you coming here because you need me to help you through this? Do you just want me to listen or you need me to a solution? One of my employees had just come to me about his daughter and he's like, you know, I said, are you coming to me asking me for help on this or do you just need to vent to me?

24:41And he's like, I want your advice on this. He's like, I trust you. This is big. This is powerful. You mentioned something earlier about culture. I mean, I think this culture comes in so many forms and there's so many moving parts to get culture right. But one of them is that your people have to want to come to work every day and feel comfortable at it.

25:00Okay, you can bring your baggage, but let's let it not hurt the business. When I was thinking about the topic, like what I kept coming back to is like, how do we create a culture where it is okay to share what's going on? But not make it like a toxic thing where we don't want it to become the business. We don't want it to become so big that it overtakes the day, but recognizing that there's a problem, discussing it, or just listening, whatever it is, is I think very important.

25:32And what I kept coming back to is how important it is to have a genuine connection with the people that you work with. And I think that that's hard to do, but not impossible. And I think how you do that is DiSC assessments, communication style assessments, whatever it is you like or believe in, team building, like, and that could look like we're gonna make dream boards together.

25:56It could mean we're gonna go do go-karts together. Like, it doesn't have to be the boss that comes to you. It could be one of your coworkers. Because you guys are close and you recognize that that person isn't themselves. And so maybe I don't have that close of a relationship with somebody, but I know that someone else does. I might just cue them like, "Hey, do you mind going and checking in with so-and-so to see if everything's okay?"

26:23They might do that on their own, but I think it definitely comes from the top that we create a culture where we have each other's back, we know it's okay to talk, We could do another episode just about culture. We could do 50 episodes about culture. But you're right, this is creating a certain culture. One of the things that I just heard, and I wrote down the word confidential, and in my mind, you know, trust, honesty, confidential.

26:57I should have said that a few minutes ago because There are some people that want to tell you, but they just don't want anyone else to know. And it's very private. It's very personal because to your point about DiSC and the communication styles of people, some people don't want to get the— they carry the burden inside of them and it affects their daily life.

27:17It affects them at home, socially, at work. And if they tell you and it ever gets out because you breached a confidentiality, You lost that person. It's absolutely over. And you can't be excited to want to tell somebody else because you found out what the problem was. Ooh, ooh, I can't wait. No, it's totally wrong. You have to grow some calluses on being able to keep confidentiality inside.

27:46I think that's, it's huge. So you got a lot of Liancioni examples that I know you wanted to bring up. Yes, I do. Somebody once said to me— I read his books, they're great stuff. He is fantastic. And so one person once said to me, you know, Rena, you talk about him so much, he's your silver fox. I love what he has to say.

28:09One of the things specifically when it comes to this topic that I felt was really important is that he said, you know, we're not supposed to be someone's therapist, but we need to recognize that there's a problem because when people feel that they aren't important, that they aren't seen, that they aren't heard, now they feel unknown and unseen and they don't feel like they're part of your team.

28:38And so I'm going to give you an example. I did an in-shop visit. This was several years ago. And I was there on a Friday and then I was there on Monday. And on Friday, one of the technicians went home early because he was going to go to urgent care because he slammed his hand in between something in a transmission. He was replacing a transmission.

29:02So he left. Monday morning he came in. I noticed that he was really quiet, maybe even a little grumpy. And I asked the advisors, I was like, hey, what's going on with George? And they were like, I don't know, he's normally fine. I mean, I don't know. So I went over and I checked on him and I asked him, I was like, hey, how are you?

29:22You know, how's your weekend? How are you? And he just held up his hand and it was in a bandage. And I said, oh yeah, I forgot about your hand. How is it? And he goes, everybody forgot about my hand today. No one came to ask me how my hand was. That bothered him. It bothered him that no one came to check on him.

29:43You know what I think? I think of the word roll call. It's conceptually, right? On a daily basis, we do not a— it's not like in the Army, you know, Rita Baum here, Rachel Spencer here. It's not that. The roll call is— could be just an act and an action of being there when someone comes in the door, or if we're starting up and, you know, we don't want to have a crazy day, but let's do the tour.

30:09The roll call tour. And at that point in time, how's your hand? How's your hand? What's going on? You know, how long were you in the emergency room, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Those are empathy discussion points with people. And if he is an individual who likes to more talk with vehicles and not people, then you know, he's not going to go out and come in here and says, hey guys, I broke 3 finger, but He's just going to come in and be himself and wait on you to make that recognition.

30:42That's a great point, Rena. I have a question. So let me first say that I feel like a lot of shop owners are possibly afraid to venture into the truth. How are you doing? That question, because they're afraid of what happens when I open the door and then it's just an absolute flood. So I'm asking you, Rachel, because I don't know the answer, how do you keep it so that the problem doesn't become like a focal point where it just stays as like a healthy conversation and you don't allow it to become a toxic part of the shop?

31:25I think just being there for them, you know, leading with stability, being calm and consistent and intentional with those conversations. Conversations don't just come from what we know, they come from how we show up for our employees. And how we show up is influenced by everything that we do. So just leaving our door open and doing those morning check-ins with them, asking them how they're doing, and just being intentional and letting them know that we're there to support them.

31:52You know, if something's going on in your life, what can I do to support you? And just asking that question some of the times, and sometimes it's just them talking through it. I haven't had any big issues where, you know, somebody's had something so major going on in their life that it has affected their daily work. You know, I've seen it day in and day out where something may be going on and they put a wrong ticket on a part or something like that.

32:12And I'm like, hey, let's just slow down a little bit. I know you've got stuff going on within your life, but, you know, maybe, you know, you need to go take, you know, have a break and go get a drink or something and come back and reset. And that's one thing that's really important for us as a shop is we close down an hour for lunch every day.

32:27And I think that that is important for their emotional health because we've got 4 hours here and then we go reset during lunch and then we come back. And so even if our morning was bad, we get an hour break where we can reset our mindset and come back with a new perspective. What would you do though, if you had somebody that if you opened the door and it just came pouring out and it came pouring out every day?

32:52Because I have that where I have coaching clients where like every time I call them, it's like, yeah, you know, da da da, there's always a problem, there's always something wrong. It's very involved. Everything is very involved with what's going on with their life. Like, what do you do with that person? Man, I just think that you have to concentrate on what you can do in your life.

33:17There's only certain aspects that we can control and there are certain things that we can't and we've got to focus on that positivity. And we help them through that by focusing on what's going right and not what's going wrong. So we try and shift their mindset by doing that. There was a recent study where a scientist did a study, white rice and black rice.

33:34So what he did is he put— he had two jars of rice. The white rice, he was pouring positivity to and just saying, you know, "You're beautiful. You're amazing. You work hard." The other one, he fed negativity into it, and he was saying, "You're ugly. You do a bad job. You're awful." that rice started to turn black. So there are scientific studies behind that.

33:54So a little phrase within my family is if something's going wrong or we've got negativity, we say white rice. So I think that's really important that we pour into our people and just show them what they have to be thankful for, what they have grateful— to be grateful for instead of focusing on the negatives. I see what you're saying. Don't feed into it.

34:11You have to know where the boundary, where that line is. And I think that that can be difficult to know. How far do you go? I know, like, as a coach, sometimes I just have to say, "Hey, we're going to take 10 minutes today to just to do our weekly check-in, and then I want to do this and this and this." And I have to take more control of, "I'm willing to listen, but I'm only going to let you have this amount of time.

34:36Then we're going to move on to the next thing." Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we've got to be able to control that conversation because Even though we do wanna pour into our people, we also have a task to do, which is empowering them through the coaching. Pour into our people. I love that. I was recently talking to a shop owner, a multi-shop operation, and I says, how often do you get out into the field?

35:008 stores. Okay. He goes, I make it a goal to visit 2 stores a week. So I see all of my people at least monthly, and I'm the cheerleader for them. And of course we have managed store managers and general managers. And he says, I care about my people in the highest, highest degree. And when I started to think about that, and even if it was a single operation, no matter general manager or owner in the facility, you know, you can say things like, what's going on?

35:30What's happening? How's the family? I wrote these down. Any plans this weekend? You're looking good today. What's going on? You comb your hair. Nice organized workspace. When you getting your next haircut? It goes to my whole grooming thing. And hey, I heard about that. You did a really great inspection the other day. You found some real big problems for a vehicle that wasn't safe for our client.

35:58You just don't have to say, hey, Charlie, how you doing? What's going on? Did you ever solve your issue? You find out that dad has cancer, as an example, and you say, "Hey, how's your dad doing?" These are the empathy kind of things that people need to know you care about and that you're paying attention to them. I think so much as owners and coaches and everything, we get so stuck on the KPI sometimes and we forget about the person.

36:24And we focus on the negative instead of focusing on the positive, instead of going up front and saying, "Man, that was an amazing sale," or "That was an amazing call. You did a great job," that we have to pour more positivity into them than we do negativity. That positivity is a choice. We've got to be able to control that with our conversations a lot of the time.

36:43I just talked to a service advisor yesterday, and I said, "Oh, well, how was your guys' month? How did it—" And she said, "Well, we didn't meet our goal." But the shop owner, when I thought that he was going to have like something negative to say, He came in and he was like, "Yeah, but did you guys see you're this and you're this?"

37:04And he pointed out the positive things. And she said she was surprised at that because most of the time it's the manager that reports on those things, and he is very negative. He does not look at the wins. He looks at the losses. And so I think you're right. I think like it's like looking for the wins. And I also, I made a note that learning how people like to communicate, that can be DiSC, right?

37:33But one thing that I do when I'm working with technicians is I always like to ask them what their preferred method of communication is. So, just like we ask our customers, do you ask your technicians, "Do you prefer for me to text you, email you? Do you want me to come out and talk to you?" And the most interesting thing is, is it's always the really quiet technicians that stick to themselves that want you to come talk to them.

38:00Always. It is so weird. You would think that they're the ones that want you to communicate virtually, but they always want you to come out and have a conversation. The Whole Person at Work, which is Valencioni, I believe it was his book, The Whole Person at Work. I'm really loving this episode. I'm so glad you brought this to us and I think this could be a personal life-changing episode that people can listen to a couple of times and share it with people.

38:29But I started to think about the owner driving to work and the thoughts that are going through their mind about what's going on at home, blah, blah, blah. I've gotta solve this, gotta make this phone call. Yesterday was like this. And then you're driving home saying, ah, you know, trust me. Every day there's things, positive, negative issues that are going on. And as an owner, and I'm speaking to owners right now, or leaders, managers, your people are doing the same damn thing.

38:59They're coming to work with either baggage or positivity because we all don't live in the world of negativity. I don't believe that. I mean, maybe there are some people that are, they just can't climb out of, you know, a hole. But for the most part, we do have a, let's find that positivity when it comes up by going around and seeing our people.

39:20And maybe my job is the fluffing up or kind of creating the sunshine that goes on inside the business by having people care. Minute one of the start of the day, you know, 8:05, rah, rah, we did great numbers yesterday. Great inspections. Customers were thrilled and happy. We got a brand new client yesterday. Thank you for all the great things that you're doing.

39:45Now, think about the client advisors that are on our counters. If there's a leader there, that's their responsibility for their team, customer service people, and the owner. I love your whole point. This, to me, was an episode that dove heavily into culture. I think that to bounce off your point, we end up like just living in our little world here that we have a phone call to make.

40:11Oh my gosh, I forgot to pay that bill. Oh, I need a call so-and-so, and we look past that we have a team of people that are looking to us to see what our mood is today, and they are going to emulate us. Then also, I think to myself, Carm, how easy is it when you're having a good day, good week, good month to have those conversations about rah-rah?

40:36It's harder to have those conversations when you're not having a good day, good week, good month. And it's harder to go find the positivity. And a lot of the times we're like, well, I need to let everybody know that we're not doing well. Either you're gonna have a shit day cuz the leader's in a shit mood or has an attitude, or you're gonna have a wonderful heavy-duty sunny day.

40:56But your point is well taken about doom and gloom. Oh, maybe we didn't meet our numbers yesterday, but there could very well be some positivity in everything. Listen, we didn't hit it, but look guys, we have another day to get through it. And we had one little misstep yesterday. I know it won't happen again today. There's a lot of ways to get people excited about launching the day.

41:18Yeah, I think words change people. Tone changes our trust with them, whether they want to come to us or not. Energy really changes the outcome. So, you know, if we're having a slow day, I want to make sure that I'm boosting my team up like, hey, let's put our slow day action plan in place. They're coming. We got to get ready for it.

41:34Let's prime this pump. But just be ready at all times and really The power of positivity is amazing. But if we spread that negativity, oh my gosh, we're slow. This is happening. You didn't sell this ticket. That negativity is contagious to the entire team. Well, I'm going to call that your last word. Power of positivity, Rachel. The power of positivity. Rena, one final word, and we're going to thank you both for being here.

42:01And I'm telling you, we could go on for hours. I just love these little tight little 40-minute, you know, change people's lives episodes. Final word, Rena. Employees don't leave their personal lives at home. And so it is important to recognize that and either recognize them or to stop it before it becomes something bigger. Great story. Great stuff here today. Rena Rennebaum, CEO, coaching consultant from Empowered Advisor, and Rachel Spencer from Spencer's Auto.

42:34Repair in Crumb, Texas, and a coach with Rena's Empowered Advisor. This was a great episode. Thank you. Outside influence on sales ability. Powerful stuff. Thanks, guys. Thanks for being on board to listen and learn from the premier automotive repair business podcast, Remarkable Results Radio. Get your episodic education on the ARPN listing app at automotive repair podcast network. Com. Also enjoy the podcast on our Carm Capriato YouTube channel.

43:04Carm is all for advancing the professional automotive service industry. Until next time.