Ep 142: How People-First Leadership Drives Shop Performance with Chris Cloutier

0:00So all business owners I know, they're a little bit dumb, a little bit stupid. They look at those odds and they're like, so there's a chance. Unless somebody like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing's gonna change. It's not. It's one of the values I try to teach my kids is like, man, failure's not final. It is only a stepping stone to success.

0:20Success is built on a mountain of failures. But we only see, you know, books are only written about the success. They're not written about the failure. You're listening to the Limitless Leadership Podcast, the podcast designed to help automotive repair shops learn how to lead, coach, train, and manage their team better by sharing proven techniques and thought-provoking interviews from industry leaders. Are you ready to transform your leadership skills by tapping into unrecognized potential to achieve limitless results?

0:48Let's get ready for liftoff. It's time to go from great to greater. Here's today's episode. All right, all right. Welcome back to another episode of the Limitless Leadership Podcast. Joining you live at the 2025 Apex Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, joined by a friend of mine, the CEO and, well, founder and CEO. What comes first? I guess founder needs to come first.

1:18Yeah, I like founder. Then, then CEO of AutoFlow my friend. Oh, and Muay Thai shop owner, my friend, Mr. Chris Cloutier. Yeah. Thank you, Josh. Yes. Yes. I got so many titles. I told my mom when I was younger, I said, uh, she goes, Chris, what are you going to be when you grow up? And I said, Mom, I want to be president like every other young kid.

1:38Yeah. Yeah. But not president of the United States. I just wanted to be like president of something. So now I'm like president of a lot of things. Yeah. You're president of a handful of things. So congratulations on achieving that lifelong dream. Yes. I did it. Great job, man. It could have been a candy shop. I don't care. Just as long as I was president of something.

1:53President of something. Yes. And multiple things at that. Yes. So, well, Chris, if you would, man, go ahead and share with the audience who you are, what you do, and how you do it. Promotive is a recruiting partner built specifically for the automotive aftermarket, giving shops a smarter and more reliable way to hire technicians. Their team brings decades of industry experience together with real recruiting expertise, so they not only understand the work, you can trust that they understand your shop.

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2:41To learn more or start a search, Visit gopromotive.com, book a call, submit an opening, and see how Promotive helps shops hire better. This episode is brought to you by Limitless Leadership, because great teams don't happen by accident. They're led on purpose. If you're tired of wearing all the hats, putting out fires, and wondering why your team won't step up, Limitless Leadership is for you.

3:03They help leaders transition from player to coach who develop people and multiply impact through in-person or online leadership training like the Limitless Leadership Blueprint, or their Roots to Results coaching method, their services are designed to help you tap into unrecognized potential to achieve limitless results and help you create safety and trust in order to provide clarity and direction. So if you're ready to stop managing chaos and start leading with purpose, head to limitlessleadership.co to book a complimentary discovery call today.

3:33Yeah. So my name is Chris Cloutier, as you said, shop owner, and then I am owner of AutoFlow, which is software for the auto repair industry. So when I bought a shop about 12 years ago with my brother, one of the things that we were trying to do was help the community, help everybody out with their car needs, but then also create like a transparent interaction with our customers.

3:55I hated it when I would go to, you know, auto repair shop, I'd drop off a car and then I'd have no idea what was going on with it. So once I bought an auto repair shop, I'm like, holy crap, like, this is the— it's a black hole. It's a vortex, right? So how can I solve a problem of not only being a business owner, helping people, like I said, with their cars, but then create some transparency in the whole industry, right?

4:17And, and I built the software for myself first, and then over the years started talking to other shop owners like, hey, that's really cool, can we use it too? Can we? I'm like, absolutely. So AutoFlow never meant to take off, it was never supposed to take off, but it's one of those things, I, I built something, other people liked it, so now it's kind of taken off.

4:33So me, kind of who I am, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a serial entrepreneur, I like real estate. I like, like I said, I told my mom I was going to be president of something and I'm president of a lot of things, right? Auto repair just happens to be where I'm at, at this moment in time in my life. Chris, as a new entrepreneur, that's myself.

4:51I've been in, I've been in the, in the entrepreneur game, if you will, for going almost 3 years. And, and I heard a quote, I want to say it came from Reid Hoffman, who is the founder of LinkedIn. I want to say he's connected with Airbnb or Uber or one of those. Anyway, I want to say his definition of entrepreneurship is jumping out of a plane and building the parachute on the way down.

5:13How true is that? Yeah, yeah. Jumping out of the, the, the off a cliff. And I think not only building the parachute, but building the airplane on the way down. Okay. Okay. That is the, yeah, that's the definition of entrepreneurism. Ready, fire, aim. I can do it better. So I have this conversation with other business owners and sometimes they're discouraged by it, but I go, you know, Being in business for yourself is really dumb.

5:36It's a bad idea. Like, the odds of you succeeding are stacked against you. So all business owners I know, they're, they're a little bit dumb, a little bit stupid. They, they look at those odds and they're like, so there's a chance. And they're like, well, you're a business owner too, Chris. And I said, yeah, I'm stupid. Yeah, totally right. You got to have a little crazy in you to go do it, right?

5:54I love that you shared that. You know, to me, I feel like there's a fine line between courageous and crazy, and, and we're kind of walking walking the line, right? Yes. Um, but I also think that, like, I call it blind optimism. It's like, I'm just so stupid, but I'm just so optimistic. Like, you know, just kind of like a dog, I guess.

6:13It's like all of a sudden you just, I'm gonna figure it out. I'm gonna figure it out and it's gonna work out. Um, I want to go back to, you know, you introduce yourself as a founder of AutoFlow and something that I really appreciate about AutoFlow, and I'm not even a shop owner, but I appreciate this because as a leadership coach, I know how important is, uh, how important communication is.

6:31Yes. And we know that when there's a breakdown in communication, voids tend to get created, and oftentimes negativity fills those voids. So you put yourself in a customer's shoes who drops their vehicle off at a place that they don't know anything about automotive. They don't know what we know in the, in the automotive industry, and they are forced to trust you with, in, in all likelihood, the second most expensive thing that they own behind their home.

6:55And when we are failing to communicate properly and proactively, all of a sudden there's that breakdown that I talked about and voids start to get created. Negativity fills the void, and AutoFlow is a solution to that challenge that I'm describing, among other things. You guys do a number of other things, but one thing I really appreciate, and this, this goes back to my Christian Brothers Automotive days where you and I first connected, where AutoFlow gives the, gives the, the team, the shop, the opportunity to proactively communicate with, with guests to under— to help them understand where they're at, where their vehicle's repair is at in the process of the guest experience.

7:37Um, I'll ask you, what kind of— I mean, you guys are always evolving. I mean, in order to stay relevant, you always got to evolve. Uh, you know, today's great is tomorrow's good. Absolutely. So So in, in a world that's, that's ever-changing, how are you guys regularly and consistently able to show up for customers through this communication model? And what else are you doing in the process?

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9:49And don't take their word for it. Google Integrity First Car Pros to see for yourself. Yeah. So one of the things I learned a long time ago when I was a developer before I came to this life— now I've been an entrepreneur my whole life. Okay. But I've been a developer as well. So I actually wrote first version of AutoTextMe. So I like to call it eating your own dog food, right?

10:09So I still eat my own dog food. I still own shops. Actually, we're about to open another one. Yeah. Once again, be president of like lots of companies. That's my goal. Crazy, crazy. So how— so I constantly am interacting with, you know, my customers and my people in my shops, right? My employees and trying to figure out how all this is working together and how it's changing, how customers' preferences change, how their consumption change.

10:37And it is changing. And, and so we're constantly trying to see if it's, you know, you know, AI, video, different things to appeal to customers without forcing things on a customer that they may or may not be able to consume. So you set it up perfectly. Customers you know, second most biggest asset or their first biggest asset in their life. Look, 3 out of 4, uh, uh, 3 out of 4 people are— people have been screwed out of 3 out of 4 auto repair shops, right?

11:07That's the statistics are like stacked against you. Like, wow. Yeah, they're coming into a negative sales environment and it's a push. It's not like the Apple Store where they're like, oh yeah, I saved money for the latest iWatch or iPad or whatever. It's like, oh crap, my light's on. How much is this going to cost me? Yeah. So every time they go in, so it's a super negative environment.

11:27And I think, you know, like you said, creating that transparency is super important. So if we take AI, like, yeah, sure, we're playing with AI and we're seeing how it maybe can rewrite tech notes. That's one of the things we're applying. So sometimes the tech might write air filter dirty. We can click a button, it'll rewrite it and say air filter is, you know, when it's performing minimally, it causes airflow not to flow very well, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

11:51So, and this is the reason why you should change it. That's much better than dirty, right? So for a consumer, this is helping them digest and understand what their air filter does or what that ball joint does or what that— so we're trying to apply it in different ways where it's still going to be super helpful to the consumer. And it doesn't necessarily take over the job of the service advisor.

12:12I think with me and Craig, you know, he's been on your show too. Craig works for me. Trust but verify. Right. And I think with AI, we got to trust but verify. I think as we move forward with any technologies or anything, we got to make sure that we're paying attention to what it's doing and just not blindly give away our control to this thing.

12:30Yeah, love that. And you're referencing Craig O'Neill, by the way. I'm going to give Craig a shout out. His podcast, Speak Up, the Speak Up podcast on the Remarkable Results Radio Automotive After— wait, Automotive Repair Podcast Network. Man, what a law. I mean, can we just say, I mean, anyway, that's another topic for another day, but Craig O'Neill, fantastic individual who I've also known back in my Christian Brothers days.

12:53Craig, here we go. Chris, you said a couple, you said this word twice that really stands out, transparency. We know in an industry that quite frankly has a black eye. I mean, like trust is a huge word and it cannot be gained without some level of transparency. That is for a lot of folks, a deeply held value that people will, will own and operate within their shop transparency so that they can provide trust so that they can create clarity or create trust and safety for their guests to provide clarity and direction.

13:30I'm going to segue into something that you shared with me. You and I were at an event just a week or two ago and, and you shared with me AutoFlow's core values, which I absolutely loved. I'm like, Chris, you've got to share that on the podcast. These are not just a few words. These are a few like phrases, beliefs. I mean, they truly are core values.

13:53Can you share with the audience those 3 core values that you shared with me? Yeah, absolutely. And you know what's funny, Josh, is before the 3, I had 6, right? So, you know, a lot of companies, they go, well, man, we can't even find like 5 or, you know, they're so— so I'm one of those guys that I constantly thinking about how to improve not only myself but company and how we, how we interact with each other.

14:13And Over the years, what I've really learned is core values become— they do become important to people who are in the organization. If you don't have a barometer, you don't have direction, you don't have these values, people kind of go in their own directions, right? So, the 6 were really good. But the 3 that I've reinvented within the last year are— first one is, it's a Lorax quote.

14:37And anytime you can quote the Lorax, it's a good day. It's a great day. Right? And that's, "Unless somebody like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing's going to change." It's not. And you think about that and you're like, unless somebody like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing's going to change. Well, too often we think it's somebody else's job, right? Craig knows me, all my team knows me.

14:57If I'm walking down the street and I see an empty bottle laying on the street and it's just a plastic bottle, I'll walk by it, I'll pick it up and I'll throw it away, right? And so I try and do this as much as I can. Once a day, I try and pick up a piece of trash off the floor And then I say a little prayer too.

15:12I'm like, Lord, bless this person while I throw this piece of trash. If you do that— and they're like, Chris, why do you do that? People say, why do you do that? Why do you do it? I'm like, because the, the problem is, is too often we assume it's somebody else's job. But if we all just did a little part every day to make the world a little bit better, wouldn't the world be better, right?

15:30But instead, what we do is we go, well, that's somebody else's job. We need the world to be better. That's somebody else's job. We need the world to be better. So And this goes over to my team. Like, it's that whole idea of if it's a support call and they're there, it's not our software that they're having a problem with, spend the extra minute and find out if you could still help them.

15:49Maybe it's their Netflix. I don't care. They're in your, you know, they're in your path. God put them in your path. So spend that time, care a little bit. Yeah. And see if you can't help them. And so I try and change, you know, that tries to transpire all over in all my businesses. Chris, I love that you shared that. I mean, you're, you're, You are an entrepreneur and you are creating intrapreneurs in your business, which means they're going to be taking ownership.

16:15Yes. You know, something that I read a book years ago, Inside the Magic Kingdom by Tom Connelly, and he talked about the 7 keys to Disney's success. And one of the things that stood out to me was he mentioned that there are 56,000, 65,000— I'm getting, I don't know, maybe dyslexia is kicking in, but Anyway, 60-ish thousand, uh, um, cast members there.

16:39They're, they're not employees, they're cast members at Disney, but no custodians. In fact, there are— sorry, there are 60,000 custodians because if you see trash, you pick it up. If you see something that needs to happen, you clean it up. Like, this is— everyone is taking ownership. I mean, it— even in my own house, we got, we got 4 custodians, and I jokingly say to my kids, like, look, Leave a room better than you found it.

17:02Now, doesn't mean that it happens, but I'm trying to preach and teach this message regularly. Leave a room better than you found it. Take ownership, creating entrepreneurs in my family, creating entrepreneurs in AutoFlow. This is what it's all about in order to stay, stay aligned and, and, and drive the mission towards the vision that you are, that you're casting as a business owner.

17:20You're creating entrepreneurs within AutoFlow. Yeah. Share the second one. So we, we, we got the first one, the Lorax quote, which I I mean, the fact that, again, a Lorax quote as a core value is amazing. Uh, see if number 2 can top that. Hopefully I don't get sued for that. But, uh, and love the fact that you actually encourage your kids to take that responsibility, right?

17:38I mean, that's awesome. That's hard to do as a parent because we want what's best for them, but then sometimes we don't realize what's best for them is us making sure that we're disciplining them and we're, we're encouraging them to take ownership in those things. There's a fine line between love and accountability, and accountability is a form of love. There you go.

17:54Amen. Yeah, yeah. The second one is about grit, right? We always say grit, but me, it goes back to the Bible, and it's a proverb which a lot of people don't understand. They think it's a Chinese proverb, but it's a biblical proverb, and it's fall down 7 times, a wise man gets up 8. Chinese proverb says, you know, fall down 7 times, get up 8.

18:12Bible says fall down 7 times, a wise man gets up 8, right? Which is all about grit. And think about that, like, and especially as entrepreneurs. Yes. You— we talked about this the other week, right? How many times you feel like the windshield or the bug? And sometimes all within a day, within an hour, you feel like both, right? I mean, it's— entrepreneur is a— it's a tough life because you're responsible for not only yourself as you bring on people, your family, and, and that weighs heavy on you.

18:38So do you have the ability to get back up? And I think that it's one of the values I try to teach my kids is like, man, failure is not final. It is only a stepping stone to success. Success is built on a mountain of failures. Yes. But we only see, you know, books are only written about the success. They're not written about the failure.

18:58Yeah. The 10,000 people who didn't succeed, you know. So yeah, I love the fall down 7 times, get up 8. Wise man gets up again. Love that. Love that. So we got the Lorax quote. We got grit. What's the third one? The third one is one of my favorite. And It is feedback as a gift, like you receive on Christmas morning. When you receive it, smile and say thank you, and then decide what you want to do with it after that person's gone.

19:23Throw it away, regift it, or keep it. And so when I have more time to talk about this, I say, so it's like Christmas morning, right? When Aunt Flo gives you the half-eaten box of cat food and you're like, thanks, Aunt Flo, like, I appreciate that. And then your kids come and say, hey, Josh, hey, Dad, here's a great pair of socks.

19:41And you're like, I don't even wear these pink fuzzy, but they saw them, they thought they were great. You'd wear them. You're like, I'm going to regift that. I got a friend who I think would really like these socks. And then you say thank you to your kids. And then to your wife, she gives you a great golf trip for the weekend.

19:57And you're like, thank you. All three of them, you say thank you. So too many times with feedback, when we get it, we're like, we push back. We don't even accept it. We just shove back. And we know what happens when you shove back on a gift. Like, people just want to jam it down your throat. Like, listen to me, listen to me.

20:14So all my young people, whether it's the auto repair shop, whether it's the software company, I tell them feedback's a gift. The problem is your whole life you've fought against it. You don't have to do anything with it. Throw it away. Say thanks to the person who gives you it. Nobody says you have to act on it. And I think that's where we get caught up in the mistake of feedback.

20:33I wish more people understood really what, like, coaching is feedback. There you go. It could be received, it could be received as criticism, condemnation, and judgment if you allow it to be received that way. One of my favorite books is The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Oh yeah. And one of those, one of those Four Agreements is don't take things personal.

20:53Yep. And it can be very challenging to not take things personal, especially when someone is sharing something with us that may or may not be a blind spot. We all have blind spots, whether we want to admit it or not. If you're listening, thinking, Josh, you don't know me, I don't have a blind spot. That's a blind spot. Yeah. Oh yeah. So when someone provides coaching to you, they're giving you feedback.

21:15You don't need to take it personal. It's not criticism. It's not condemnation. It's not judgment. It's actually challenging for that person to potentially share something with you that might be hard to hear. Yeah. And so they're doing you a disservice by not sharing this with you. And by the way, It is a gift because they care about you. They see something in you that you don't.

21:32They see potential in you that maybe you don't. They see something that's an opportunity area for, for you to grow in. And if someone is giving feedback to you, it's because there's a, there's room for growth. There's room for improvement. So I love the fact that like, those are 3 strong core values that I really commend you for. I mean, when you shared those, those with me the other day, I'm like, dude, we got to share this on the podcast.

21:55That's, that's excellent. Yeah. And I'll tell you this, sometimes feedback comes as criticism, but you should still say thanks, right? I mean, that feedback's not always going to be delivered, you know, like you said, in the best of ways. I'm guilty of this, Josh. You know, when I started out in business, want to be president. I want to be president of one person.

22:14That's myself. When you start getting employees, you don't necessarily want that. You know, you don't want the responsibility of employees. But once you get them, you start realizing that, hey, you're the shepherd and they're your sheep. You got to do the best for them. Well, then you're going to start giving them feedback. You got to start giving them. And sometimes that comes in a form of criticism.

22:33It's not meant to hurt them or trash them. Sometimes it just comes out wrong. Sure. Right. Sometimes. I mean, you ever been with your wife and you're like, hey, you know, I don't want to really watch that show tonight. She's like, I knew it. You hate my show. And like, you know, you're like, no, I didn't mean it like that. But maybe you're a little grumpy when you said it.

22:50Yeah, I don't really want to watch that show. Right. It didn't come out right. We're human. Right? I think that's once again, the mistake that people make is sometimes it does come in harsh. And look, like, when I get harsh feedback, I'm not like, yeah, all right, awesome. But in the back of my mind, I'm like, you know, I just need to thank this person.

23:07And then I don't have to argue with them. I don't. I don't. I can say, man, if that's your opinion, that's your thoughts. And that's great. Yeah. Right. I appreciate you telling me that and sharing me with it. And then I get to decide what to do with it. Once again, no reason for argument, no reason to talk. And you know what, this, this world's kind of turned into a, you can't give people feedback.

23:26You can't really have conversations anymore. Cause everybody takes things so personally. It's okay to disagree without being disagreeable. And unfortunately a lot of us don't know how to be, uh, how to do that. Yeah. Um, so you talked about adding to the team. I mean, already as a, as a solopreneur, you are wearing a number of different hats. You're wearing all the hats and then you start adding to the team.

23:47So you're putting on more hats and they, and you're getting, you're swapping hats and, and, and a lot, a lot of hat hat swapping going on, right? Um, you're adding to the team, you're starting to lead people. I'll ask you one of the, one of the questions I ask every guest on this podcast is, what does leadership mean to you? How would you answer that, Chris?

24:06Yeah, you know, the best definition, and I still cling to this day, is the John Maxwell definition of leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less, which is a simple statement. But then I'll back it up with the, the, I think the Ford quote, unless, unless Somebody knows that you care, they don't care about what you say, or that nobody cares about what you say until they care about what you know.

24:25Yeah, nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care. There you go. That's it. Thank you. Unless you care for somebody, you can't influence somebody. Yeah. So leadership is about caring for people. It's about caring for their families. It's about taking the couple extra minutes to connect with them. Yes. I think a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners are afraid of that connection because It's the vulnerability that they're afraid of, which is a strength, by the way.

24:48That is the connection, right? If you're vulnerable with somebody, that's when they truly are like, hey, I get you. Wow, you're like me. You have pain like me. Yeah, you have joy like me. Yeah. But, but we're afraid of sharing that vulnerability with people because sure, people are people and they're probably going to screw you somehow eventually, right? I mean, that's the unfortunate thing.

25:09So we put up those walls, right? Which we shouldn't, not until they do. A good friend of mine says people are gonna people, you know, like people are gonna people. And, and I love that you just talked about vulnerability. And as a reminder, it is a strength. It's not a weakness. Um, you know, especially in a blue collar industry, I love talking about vulnerability in a training.

25:27Like typically in a training, I'll introduce vulnerability and specifically because I believe that we connect through authenticity, humility, and vulnerability. This is important as you just shared, because Connection creates engagement, and engagement is what increases performance. So a lot of us as, as business owners, as shop owners, as leaders, we're trying to increase performance. We're trying to increase revenue. We're trying to, you know, we're focusing on the KPIs.

25:55But I, I truly believe that if we shift our focus from the, the numbers, from the transaction, from the KPIs, the sales, the revenue, onto the people and focus on people before process, people before the profit, connection before content, all of that, all the sales, all the money stuff is a byproduct of the connection that you're creating. And this is important because 77% of employees are disengaged at work because they don't feel seen.

26:22They don't feel heard. They don't feel valued. And the number one reason people leave bad leaders, not bad jobs, is because of a lack of recognition, a lack of feeling valued. Recognition, in my opinion, is the biggest ROI in leadership. So when we can, when we can connect with our team, we then create engagement for our team, and subsequently an increase in performance is a byproduct.

26:44We're not doing it for that, it just happens to be a beautiful byproduct of a business that we're trying to scale and grow. Yeah, yeah. So, so that what you're talking about, and the people, and loving people It's really what it comes down to, right? Is loving people. And I think that we can love people and still run businesses. Yes. Right? We can still, like, you can't love somebody who's ruining your front counter or who's ruining your techs, right?

27:14So, unfortunately, like, I've had to let go, I let go of tech a while back because he made a threat to another tech. And I can't, creating an environment of safety. Yeah, it's important. Right. I still love that guy. I love the guy that's still with me and the guys that are still with me. Right. But I have to make a business decision.

27:33That decision is, look, like, it's just better you go somewhere else if it's not working here. It's not fitting there. And I think a lot of times in business, right, we're scared of that vulnerability. But then separating that line of we can still love, but we can still treat it like business. Right. There's It's okay. And once again, we get them meshed together and sometimes they absolutely mesh together.

27:54But once again, that's okay. It's kind of like the perfect conversation with your employee. It's never going to happen. Your perfect conversation with your wife, it's never going to happen. Too many times we conflate these things and the way that they go and we think that life's got to be perfect. Life's dirty. Life is— I mean, how many things ever go perfect, right?

28:13Rarely. Perfect is the exception. You take your wife to the perfect dinner and there's no calls from the kids. And I mean, usually it's like interruption and her food's wrong and this is wrong. I mean, think about it. And it's funny, there's another really good book. I don't know if you ever read that. It's called "Unoffendable." Oh, I haven't. "Unoffendable." It's a really good book.

28:35And it's about how we shouldn't get offended. Like when we go, oh, that's surprising that so-and-so and so-and-so broke up and, you know, got a divorce. And you're like— and his point is like, is it really? Like, if you think about life, like, it's really messy and dirty. Yeah, it is. And I think it really is, right? I think we just get scared to make mistakes.

28:56And once again, we talk about failure. And that's a church quote, right? I got that from a pastor. He's like, failure is not final. Yeah. And when he said that, I was like, man, that, you know, that's one of the quotes that went up on my wall too. And it's like, oh wow, you know, I don't think about that that way, but now I do.

29:10Chris, you talked about how you had to make a business decision, um, an employee, um, uh, correct me if I'm wrong, but essentially threatened another employee to where someone didn't feel safe. I truly believe in being able to create safety and trust so that we can provide clarity and direction. Speak to the shop owner who's listening, who they have, they have a good team, maybe not a great team., and they've got a couple team members who are just constantly, there's this tension, there are these attitudes, there's, I don't want to say toxic.

29:44I feel like that's kind of a buzzword, but, but I'm, I'm not, not going to say it. Like, speak to the, to the shop owner who, who probably deep down knows they need to make a change, but they're not doing it. Man, I, I, uh, I'm going to give credit to Norm Gaither. He was the first one I ever saw do this.

30:00And Norm Gaither, He's a trainer in the tire industry. A lot of people know him. He started a 20 Group a while back and just great guy. And so I was part of his 20 Group and this was the perfect description of what you're talking about. And so he puts a picture of Noah's Ark and it's cartoon pictures of Noah's Ark up there.

30:21All these animals are hanging off the edges and there's a woodpecker and the woodpecker has now drilled about 27 holes in the boat and he's still drilling holes, right? And he goes, that's your woodpecker, right? Think of that employee as your woodpecker. Sooner or later, that employee is going to sink that boat. If you don't get that woodpecker off the boat, he's going to sink it.

30:45But we don't think of it that way. We don't think that that one guy that we know that we got to get rid of— cancer spreads, right? And we've got to be able to say, hey, We gotta cut it out before it metastasizes and goes everywhere. Yeah. But I always thought that woodpecker description was one of the best ones I've ever seen.

31:02I'm stealing that, man. I love that. That is, that is amazing. Yeah. Yeah. It's really, that is so good. You probably get an AI generation of Noah's Ark with some holes in it. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I like the idea. Well, so, so the second question I ask every guest on this podcast is what is the best advice that you've ever received from a coach or mentor?

31:20How would you answer that question? Best advice I ever received by a coach or mentor. I could give you a bunch, but the one I like probably the most that, that I think matters when it comes to entrepreneur and business is you always got to be willing to step away from the table. And that can mean a lot of things. It can mean the ability to say no.

31:42Right. And I think as entrepreneurs and business owners, we got to be careful with the time that we have and the people that we have and the resources we have. And we can't, we gotta be able to say no to certain things. We gotta be able to say no to certain people. Yeah. And, and, you know, over my life, I'm like, well, that'd make a lot of sense.

31:59But then over time, as I engaged myself, became busier and busier and busier, and I'm still busy. I mean, right? I mean, here you go, Chris, you're about to open it. But I say no to a lot of things. I step away from a lot of tables. I, I, you know, so getting to learn to discern what's that important thing, where, where should I go?

32:17Has become something that I think that was really good advice. Once again, I didn't really understand it when it was given to me because I'm like, what does he mean? But then I've used that in all kinds of, not just for the auto repair shops, but for the software companies and deals that I've just been like, yeah, I'm just going to, let me just sit back from the table.

32:35Let me take some time on this. And, you know, so it's biblical too. Be still, right? It's hard for us to do. You see it? I'm showing Chris my tattoo. Be still on my hand because there's definite power in there. Sometimes the greatest action is no action. There you go. Like true. And that's hard for an entrepreneur, man. It's very hard. And I mean, even just being able to recognize like for every yes, there was a corresponding no.

33:02So if you're saying yes to everything and everyone, who or what are you saying no to? I mean, I've been guilty, Chris, of saying yes to everyone and everything and then unintentionally saying no to my own family, saying no to, or no to myself so that I can't adequately and effectively support or provide or lead or, uh, just be there for my family.

33:21And, and, and so I've had to, you know, thankfully with, with my wife's support and she's the greatest cheerleader I could ask for, but she has helped me really be able to set and more importantly, keep the boundaries that I am creating for myself, for my family, for my clients, for my, community, and it's really been a, quite frankly, a game changer in my own life, Chris.

33:42I mean, that, like, what you're describing has been, um, has been a challenge for me in the past, but over the last, I'd say, 4 or 5 years, especially with my wife's help, I've been able to work on that. Um, let me ask you this, Chris, because, um, man, you, you are a wealth of knowledge. Um, you are an avid reader. Um, let me ask you the same question.

34:03What's the best advice you can give to our listening audience? Putting you on the spot, but I know you got a lot of nuggets. Oh, man. Shoot. Man, that's a tough one, Josh. I would probably say that's it. Like, I'd give it back. Like, be still, right? Like, be willing to back away from the table. Be willing to take that time to think.

34:25Be willing to take that time to understand what you're getting into and engaging. So that's hard. Once again, like, I'm not discouraging entrepreneurs from not being entrepreneurs or business owners from being business owners. We should. Yeah. And going back to our original thought, like, business owner says, I mean, here's how business starts. Oh, I hate the way that guy does it. I can do it better.

34:45Yeah. And that's how, that's how this starts, right? Like, I mean, the napkin of the Southwest, you know, hey, if we just did this, you know, we could just do this. And Southwest, you know, it's now this huge. Yeah. Huge thing. So, I would say just be considerate as you continue because I've also seen it too where entrepreneurs and business owners have gone too far overboard.

35:05And then they get massive debt and they, like you said, lose family. Is it worth it to gain the whole world and lose your soul? Not really. And I've had to learn that. I still, man, married to my wife for 20— Get it right, Chris. 23 years now, 2 kids, 14 and 16. But I'm not going to tell you that it's always been easy right now.

35:31I'm going to tell you this, and I'll say this about your wife, which is true. Behind every good man is an even greater woman. Yeah. So if you got— and that's what my wife was, you know, she was a cheerleader. She cared for me and she knew my heart. And so she let me go do it right. And she knew that's where I needed to be.

35:46And that's what I— and which, which I'm forever grateful for. And I'm forever grateful for God for like putting this woman in my life who supports me. But then, you know, we talked about this the other week. I'm like, I told her and I promised her I can have holes in my socks, but you and the girls will never have holes in your socks.

36:02So I will do whatever it takes to make sure you have brand new socks. And if I have holey socks, I don't care. So I just— that be still, it's a good one. And once again, that's probably the advice I would give. Just like, think, don't not act. Because one of the things I love about entrepreneurs is we act. We ready, fire, aim, baby.

36:22It's like, shoo, pew, pew, pew. But it's okay while you're firing to think, hey, let me aim for this target versus every target out there. That's so good. Well, Chris, I know you're not one to promote your, your promote AutoFlow, but I'm going to ask you like for our listening audience who doesn't know what AutoFlow is and how AutoFlow could help. Could you share just a little bit about what it is, how it can help, and then where can our audience get in touch with you to learn more, or whoever from AutoFlow to learn more?

36:52Yeah, yeah. So I can't, I don't, I don't like to, you know, when me and Craig, we go and we speak and we teach at a lot of events and stuff like that. And we talk about communication. We love leadership. That's a great topic. We talk about technology and experience, like how they can work together for the betterment of the customer. So that's really what AutoFlow does.

37:11And I'll just keep it high level, right? Like we talked about earlier, it's, it's allowing to create that transparency, whether it be appointment setting, you know, where the customer's looking, helping you get good reviews, right? So it's part of this whole customer journey we're looking at, and we've kind of built this CRM system that goes from end to end, from the first part of scheduling to once somebody's in the shop, it's the text updates, it's the inspections.

37:34But it's so much more than that because we have like a quality control form, so it helps the shop be efficient, productive while that car is going through there. Stay and stick it with the customer, and then afterwards that reconnect with them, stay connected with them. What we kind of talk about is traditional CRM, which is the follow-up stuff like that. Yeah.

37:52So AutoFlow is really about staying connected with that customer through that whole customer journey from the time that they're looking for your reviews. So, you know, some industries it's called CSI, you know, what's your— what— how do you rank with a customer, right? What are they looking at? For us in auto repair, it's like, what are your Google reviews? What's your rating?

38:08Yeah, right. Is it 4.8, 4.9, 4.7? Because we know when that customer searches, they're going to first look and say, okay, what does Google say? Oh, okay, it looks pretty good. Now can I go schedule an appointment on the website? I know a lot of shop owners like, I don't want to do scheduling. I think a lot of shop owners have come around.

38:25It doesn't necessarily mean you're going to fix the car right then. You can say, hey, we're just making a slot so you can bring the car in and you can still have the conversation that depending on the complexity of it, might— we might need you to leave it for the day. You can say that in your scheduler. Hey, this is just allowing you to allot the time for it to get in here.

38:41And then once again, that constant contact and touch during, uh, during the visit. So text message is still the kind of the way we communicate in short bursts right now. And I think a lot of people have come around to it. We still see people hesitant to it. And I say, look, like, I, this is a joke I tell people, like, when I first started AutoTextMe, I realized that I could text my wife while I was working, "I love you."

39:06And then she'd text me back, "I love you too." And I realized I just saved a 5-7 minute phone call, right? You're right though. But my wife still, she's not like, "Oh, I didn't spend 5-7 minutes." I'm like, well, if I could text my wife, "I love you," I can text my customer, "Hey, we got your car. We're looking at it right now," right?

39:24The sentiment's still there, right? It doesn't, like my wife doesn't feel any less loved that I sent her a text. Now, if that's all I did was send her text messages all day long and all week long and never saw her, there would be, I guess. Sure. Sure. Right. So that's really what AutoFlow is, just staying connected with that customer. You create an efficiency as long as you, as long as you make sure that you're texting your wife, I love you, and not the customers and everything's gonna be fine.

39:46We're all good there. You have to watch that. Yeah. Sometimes. Be careful. Yeah. Well, Chris, man, thank you for sharing. Thank you for being on the show. How can our audience get in touch with you or someone from AutoFlow? Where do we need to go? www.autoflow.com. Excellent. And then you know, you can find Craig, you can find me, sales team. I got a good, great group of people.

40:07Um, you know, there's, there's a lot of people in my company are really awesome. Yeah. The Lord's blessed me a lot with this. Very good. Chris, man. Uh, hey, the Lord has blessed me with you in my life. You and I are still getting to know each other, but I gotta tell you, man, um, the, the little that we have spent together, the time that we've had together, the conversations that we've had, uh, you've been a blessing for me, man.

40:25I mean, I don't, I'm not just saying that lightly. I don't want you to take that lightly, like in a, in a, a new entrepreneur is what I still consider myself to be in this, this season of trying to, to grind, but also like have the boundaries and, and try to scale. Um, I, I, I be, I appreciate being able to lean on folks like you who have been there, done that.

40:48And I really value our friendship and where it's going to keep on going. Awesome. So, uh, pleasure to be on, Josh. Thank you, my friend. Yeah. And, uh, thank you for tuning in to yet again another episode of the Limitless Leadership Podcast. As you know, every episode we look to transform our leadership skills by tapping into unrecognized potential to achieve limitless results.

41:06So thanks again for tuning in. Have a great day, everyone. Don't forget to smile today. Don't forget to tell your loved ones how much they mean to you. I'm Josh Parnell reminding you to keep leading well.