Automotive Repair News Today

Braxton Critcher [00:00:05]:
How's your first Apex SEMA in the new role, GM shopware?

Cavan Robinson [00:00:11]:
It's been going really well. Luckily, in the first two days, I've had the opportunity of being at both shows, which is not standard for me. Typically, I kind of pick one and go with it. But yesterday I was over at sema, today I was over at Apex. It is great. I mean, being able to meet so many different customers, you know, show off some of the new products, do sneak peeks at some of the things that we've been working on, and then also just get a chance to see so many people face to face, because I feel like I've been in Zoom meetings for the last decade, and even you and I, I mean, we talked three months ago. It was summer. Something.

Braxton Critcher [00:00:47]:
Something like that.

Cavan Robinson [00:00:47]:
Yeah.

Braxton Critcher [00:00:48]:
Yeah.

Cavan Robinson [00:00:48]:
And, you know, being able to catch up with you and, you know, later, I'm sure I'll see some of the other folks from your organization when we party all night long. So I'm trying to save it up. And like I told you before, running on caffeine.

Braxton Critcher [00:01:02]:
Yeah. You might want more because Lucas will be there. And, yeah, he's. He's had five energy drinks today, so watch out.

Cavan Robinson [00:01:12]:
Seems like a light day for him.

Braxton Critcher [00:01:14]:
Oh, yeah, light. Yeah.

Cavan Robinson [00:01:17]:
Yeah.

Braxton Critcher [00:01:18]:
If you're not tired here, you're not doing anything.

Cavan Robinson [00:01:20]:
Yeah, it's.

Braxton Critcher [00:01:21]:
This is my first one.

Cavan Robinson [00:01:22]:
Have you.

Braxton Critcher [00:01:22]:
Have you been here before?

Cavan Robinson [00:01:23]:
Yeah, so this is the fourth, so I've been at.

Braxton Critcher [00:01:27]:
You're a seasoned vet.

Cavan Robinson [00:01:28]:
Yeah, no, I don't know if I'd say seasoned, because I hung out with many individuals today that they told me this was their 27th in a row or something like that.

Braxton Critcher [00:01:38]:
Founding father.

Cavan Robinson [00:01:40]:
No doubt about that. There's plenty of people that have way more experience than I do, but it's been good to see the change, because when I first came into the Velo side of things, you know, I was really just over a couple of our products and to be able to see the growth, you know, of the shows. And then also, by the way, we went through a pandemic in 2020, and this whole thing was virtual. Right. Like we did. Right. Joe's Garage, virtually. And then we kind of came back in person, and it was all masks.

Braxton Critcher [00:02:05]:
And so do you count your first year as 2019?

Cavan Robinson [00:02:08]:
2020.

Braxton Critcher [00:02:09]:
So 2020 was your first, but it wasn't here.

Cavan Robinson [00:02:11]:
No, it was virtually.

Braxton Critcher [00:02:12]:
This is your third. No, this is your fourth in person.

Cavan Robinson [00:02:14]:
Fourth, Fifth, total. Yeah.

Braxton Critcher [00:02:16]:
Okay.

Cavan Robinson [00:02:17]:
So we're. We're getting up there, but no, just to see. And the other thing that. And I talked about this, actually, which is funny, with Lucas and David when I was over at Ratchet Wrench in Orlando not too long ago, is same faces, new places, right? Yeah, yeah.

Braxton Critcher [00:02:32]:
You kind of hop around.

Cavan Robinson [00:02:33]:
It's, you know, it's. I think that I like the fact that though people are really good about it, they're really honest about their transition. So we. I mean, literally, you know, I won't name names, but we literally just had somebody that is. That announced that they were leaving, going to another company here in Aftermarket here relatively soon. They did an awesome job. Just like, I'm going to be transparent, this is the next phase of my career. I need to have this on my resume to really grow and move up.

Cavan Robinson [00:03:03]:
And it's not a competitor to you guys, but I understand that there's, you know, some hard feelings around me leaving, and I know the product so well, but I think the way that a lot of the folks do it here is very respectable. It's not like you typically see a booth and somebody maybe that you formerly worked with or was at another, and you look at that person and you go, that person did it the wrong way. Whereas when I was on the franchise side of things, that always happened, it was, you know, gotta do what's best for you. And at the same time, like, I don't care if I really burn some bridges on the way out. So I gotta respect the way that the Aftermarket keeps partnerships up and lifelong friendships, lifelong networking. You know, I was at a meeting earlier today where I was in a room with, I don't know, maybe six other people, a few that work for with us at Velo in the field, that work at a data company. And these were folks that knew each other from the early 2000s that were working at different companies. And now we're trying to figure out how to partner.

Cavan Robinson [00:03:58]:
So the ability to have that connective tissue, I think, has just been really valuable, especially for a guy like me who came from the franchise side. And, you know, four years later, now I'm still trying to kind of grapple with how does Aftermarket connect? You know, how do we make sure that we're doing the best by our customers and having that type of, you know, domain knowledge around it and seeing how this place has changed has really been helpful.

Braxton Critcher [00:04:21]:
Do you think this industry takes the transparency for granted? Because I hear that all the time, too. There is just so much transparency, there's so much community. And do you think that's because you came from something where that Wasn't a deal like, is that, is that something we take for granted?

Cavan Robinson [00:04:36]:
No, because I think we'd speak to it all the time. And I also think that there would be. Well, to set the context for that. The way the market is shifting is much more, a lot more competition. Right. So if I look at, even when I started four years ago, you know, they were the, you know, former leaders of the industry that had the market, the lion's share of the market. Right. 30,000 plus customers and, and even above that.

Cavan Robinson [00:05:03]:
And then a few disrupt disruptors came in, but they were largely seen as, you know, kind of like there's one of these every five years, every 10 years. Now, there's a lot of parity within the products and the customer operations. There's a lot of parity within the technology that's happening with partnerships and integrations. So I think the fact that the competition is sort of, you know, to probably use an anecdote that's used a lot, you know, the raise all ships. Right. Rising tide, the fact that everyone's been getting better and there are less, let's call it, disruptors out there, because we've built such a strong aftermarket, I think that we recognize it's important for us to continue that stewardship of the transparency of the trust of the, you know, just ability to network and work with each other. It's way more than I saw on the franchise side.

Braxton Critcher [00:06:01]:
So you even think that's within shop management systems? Yeah.

Cavan Robinson [00:06:06]:
Work together? Well, I think that we all respect each other first and foremost. Like there's been some awesome things. Like I'll, you know, I'll say it, that some of our competitors are the best products that I've seen out there, you know, compared to ours, obviously. And the way that we're approaching it is a lot different too. Right. We have six shop management products. Right. Shopware is just the most recent one that's come into the ecosystem and it's an awesome product.

Cavan Robinson [00:06:28]:
But we also have a product that fits really well in the tire market. We have an awesome product that fits really well in the buy here, pay here reconditioning market. So the ability to recognize, I think where we meet the customer is really important to us. Competition is going to do what they're going to do. But as you know, we kind of said a number of times, there's a lot of business out there. Oh yeah, you know, whether it's for us or for our competitors or anyone else. And we're just trying to find that solution that matches perfectly with them.

Braxton Critcher [00:06:56]:
So when you see a competitor do something successfully, they try something new, you're not jealous, you're happy for them.

Cavan Robinson [00:07:05]:
I think the only thing I'd be so myself as, and this is probably a little bit too much too insightful at this point for myself and self.

Braxton Critcher [00:07:12]:
Yeah, we're getting deep here, man. It's like therapy.

Cavan Robinson [00:07:14]:
So I love, I am like product marketing at heart. Like, that is my passion. That's what I did for a really long time. And when I see a competitor campaign where they just absolutely land the plane on a new product release or new partnership, new feature release, and they do something really creative as opposed to just the old, okay, here's our press release, here's our talking notes, and maybe here's an image, right. They do something really creative. That's probably the only time I feel jealousy because I'm like, God, man, that was.

Braxton Critcher [00:07:39]:
Why did I think about that?

Cavan Robinson [00:07:40]:
Exactly, exactly. So that's probably the only time that I feel, you know, jealousy. But I think we're also all coming together now to try and solve bigger problems. Right. It's not necessarily any more about the feature wars of you have to have DVI or you have to have this widget or you have to have this add on, because those will come and go. It's the solving bigger issues of how are we actually helping the businesses grow and grow along with them. That's been more apparent now than even, you know, when I started a few years ago.

Braxton Critcher [00:08:09]:
Yeah. I want to talk about the ShopHero Awards, but I'm curious because there's so many shop software management systems that are using AI now. What, what's your feeling around AI? What's the future with Shopware? How's that all like.

Cavan Robinson [00:08:28]:
Yeah, what. What a good question. Especially this week, I feel like it's been front.

Braxton Critcher [00:08:31]:
It's been everywhere.

Cavan Robinson [00:08:33]:
It's.

Braxton Critcher [00:08:33]:
Yeah.

Cavan Robinson [00:08:34]:
Probably in many of your conversations as well. So the one thing that we're trying not to do is maybe the best way to approach it first, which is we're not trying to just check the box. Right. I think there's a lot of really interesting, you know, integrations and partners out there that allow you to simply say we work with AI or we work with machine learning or however you want to position it. And while it'd be great to check that box and make it part of our story, I think we want to do something that's a little bit more impactful. Just, you know, kind of referencing what I had talked about previously. So, you know, some of the things that we're working on, you know, not to spill the beans entirely, but I think that there's some really interesting data plays and there's some really interesting consumer behavior trends and integrations that exist out there right now that we're starting to do proof of concepts, some prototypes with, just to kind of see how it lands, you know, with our customers. And actually, one thing we were talking about today that I think is actually really awesome is we've coordinated our first ever in person, cross functional customer advisory board that's going to be happening in person here in January.

Cavan Robinson [00:09:43]:
So we have 15 customers that represent eight different products in aftermarket for us for Velo. And some of them are single location, some of them are 130 plus location. But we're bringing them all together and we're going to basically have a three day brainstorming session, working session, think tank session on how can we actually bring something to market featuring AI or featuring machine learning that moves the needle for you as opposed to just, hey, here's this new chatbot that we have that has some AI capability behind it. Right? We don't want to do that. So we're probably going to have a lot more to share on that here in Q1, I'd say.

Braxton Critcher [00:10:22]:
So are you using AI right now?

Cavan Robinson [00:10:25]:
So AI right now in shopware specifically? Yes, we are. So we have something called the AI Parts Matrix, which is essentially a way to automatically identify margin within your parts as a shop owner in this case, to help you identify that, to essentially grow that margin and you know, understand opportunities for specific parts that you order. That's one thing that we really wanted to make sure that we had released. And this is, I mean, this is probably a year ago, I would say. We talk about it a lot at our conferences and a few other places that we have. The other thing that I think is really interesting, we represent a product as well called tireguru. They just released as part of the new product showcase, their tire price optimizer, TPO we call it, just because we're obviously very original and creative. And the idea behind that is essentially analyze market data for tires and then use machine learning on the back end to adequately price your tires for higher margin.

Cavan Robinson [00:11:19]:
Because I think most cases, a lot of tire shops will look at their pricing and say this is probably pretty good, but we don't really know. We based off wholesale in a lot of cases. Right. Or whatever the wholesale distributor is sending out there. So the ability for them to actually see in their system what others in the market are pricing their tires and then give recommendations for that margin. Super helpful to the dealer, to the customer, in this case that might not know otherwise and has no context of it in the market.

Braxton Critcher [00:11:45]:
So, Shop Hero Awards. So this is my first apex. This is also my first year around the sun in the automotive industry. So if the Shop Hero Awards have been going on for 25 years, I wouldn't know it. So you tell me what Shop Hero Awards are and I know you guys were involved with the Customer Champion. This is actually happening. We're recording on Wednesday, November 6th, and you're literally going to end this recording and go give out the award. Tell me about what all this Shop Hero Awards mean for the industry.

Cavan Robinson [00:12:21]:
Yeah, so for the last three years, we've always done a Wednesday night customer appreciation event, customer and partner appreciation event. And it's typically been very small, private, intimate, 30 some people. We used to hold it at Mot 32, which is a restaurant in the Palazzo. And it took off like people were looking forward to it every year because it's basically the happy hour before everybody goes off to their dinners, before they go to the 360 payments party, et cetera. So what we ended up doing last year as a little bit of a change of pace is we said, why don't we hand out some awards at this, since we have so many customers that have been raving about their experience with us. So we actually had it just once, like the awards, the cocktail reception slash happy hours happened a few years, but last year we called it actually the Garage Hero Awards. So a little bit of a rebrand, but for good purpose. And I'll talk about that in a second.

Cavan Robinson [00:13:11]:
So last year we just did the Garage Hero Awards and it was only Shop Boss, actually, which is another company that's under our kind of ecosystem of shop management systems. And then when we joined in with Shopware in March of this year, we said, I think we have a huge opportunity here to really expand the visibility on the shop customers and their impact in the market. So this year we actually decided to diversify it and we have five total awards. We have the Breakthrough Business Award, which is by Shop Boss, sponsored by Shop Boss. We have the Elite Entrepreneur, which is by Protractor Enterprise, MSO Sales Superstar, which is through Tiger Guru. And then the one that is probably the top of the hour and the one that's the most actually important for us because it's peer recognized, is the actual Shop Hero Award. So that was sourced from, you know, we have over 8,000 shops in our ecosystem Right now. And we sent out surveys to every single one of them asking, who is your shop hero? Is it somebody that works the front counter? Is it somebody that works in the back? Is it technician? Is it an owner? Is it a partner? And we ended up getting over 300 responses.

Cavan Robinson [00:14:21]:
And I mean, even just off that is pretty impressive. But not only were these responses just like, hey, here's a name and a phone number, it was these, you know, 600 word diatribes about how impactful these people were not only to the business, but also to the community. And I know, Braxton, you were just showing me on one of our publications.

Braxton Critcher [00:14:42]:
But we're looking at the same article.

Cavan Robinson [00:14:43]:
Yeah, yeah. Cause I'm like, I gotta remember, I gotta make sure I get these exactly right. So, yeah, the press release came out, you know, yesterday. We typically try to do that to build a little bit of interest. And then it's already got some of the names in there. But we'll do the formal introductions and give everybody a chance to, you know, give a little bit of a speech tonight. It's relatively informal. You know, it's a chance for us to meet up with our most impactful customers.

Cavan Robinson [00:15:06]:
We have a lot of partners that go to the event, including changing the industry. And then you guys will follow us right over to the 360 party and then right over the promoted party. So it's a good chance for us to recognize those in the industry that we're so proud of and put the spotlight on them just for the night. Because typically we don't get a chance to see them in person all that often.

Braxton Critcher [00:15:24]:
Yeah, well, this is really cool. So, you know, a lot of people like to highlight things in the, in the community, in the industry, and that's super important. What I mean, what does this mean? Because I think sometimes some organizations treat stuff like this as, like you mentioned before, a check the box kind of deal. Oh, we get to highlight somebody.

Cavan Robinson [00:15:42]:
Yay.

Braxton Critcher [00:15:43]:
But I don't think that's the motive for you guys. You know, you care about the industry and you want to highlight the good people in it. You know, what does that mean for the industry? Because I think it's so good to do that.

Cavan Robinson [00:15:52]:
I think it's a shift of, you know, whether it's customer perspective or even product development, that has largely always been in the, you know, sort of tunnel vision of startups, founders, etc. And those have been very, you know, integral parts of the aftermarket. But I think now the recognition that there are so many well educated, well seasoned Voices that. And some that are up and coming, right. Some that have, you know, come from other industries and are prime for, you know, creating success in the aftermarket as well. But I think the ability for us to really highlight them and have our, you know, I'll sort of call it the guardians of the customer voice hat on for understanding what are our customers asking for and really what helps them push their businesses to the next phase, right? Are they a hundred car shop a month? Are they a $60,000 revenue shop a month? Are they a million dollar shop? We have that entire spectrum. And that's why, you know, I kind of talk back to the customer advisory board thing that I talked about just a few minutes ago because sure, we could bring in our biggest customers, right? Those that drive millions of dollars in revenue every year. But I don't necessarily think that it would give us total visibility into what we need to build to be successful or the type of customer operation team that we need.

Cavan Robinson [00:17:20]:
So we bring in the single location owner operator that's been on one of our products for four or five, 10 years. We bring in the 10 location that just got private equity investment and is ready to expand to 20 locations next year. We bring in the 150 location enterprise that has franchise stores. They have a kickoff, they have a process, they have a corporate team, they have marketing, they have everybody you could ever imagine. So understanding that spectrum and how important it is is exactly why we highlight them as part of these awards.

Braxton Critcher [00:17:52]:
So what I'm hearing at this show is it's kind of like a reunion for industry people, but it's also kind of the cap to the year because people go back home and it's Thanksgiving, Christmas, and so you get it to kind of take a breather and not travel quite as much for a little while. So what are you hearing at the event? You know, people you talk to in all these meetings, you know, what's next for shopware and what's next for the industry? That's kind of, because, you know, so many things happen at these events when people get into meetings and brainstorm and think about the future and stuff changes in the industry because of events like this. So what are you hearing that's coming up?

Cavan Robinson [00:18:33]:
Yeah, I would say, you know, the two, the two things, let's say one is sort of market perspective and then one is sort of product perspective. I would certainly say on the market perspective side of things, there's a lot of M and A acquisition talk, right? Some of it involving, you know, new and upcoming providers, some of it up. You know, talking about different partners or mergers. You know, there were a couple mergers just announced recently, Steer Auto Ops, techmetric, Shop, Genie, that were super interesting. So I think that you're starting to see more of those, like how do we start creating platforms within different disciplines or cross functional components? So that piece has been a thread that's been pulled through is like, hey, if I don't get on the train, is it going to leave the station without me? So do I need to hitch my wagon to another product in order to make our offering more valuable, more powerful? Right, so that's one. And then on the product side of things, certainly AI. I mean I think we covered enough on that already. But there's a few really interesting companies that I met with this week that have, you know, really unique perspectives on how to run analytics, on how to analyze consumer behavior.

Cavan Robinson [00:19:50]:
And I think now we're getting into a phase, especially with AI, of less information overload and more practical application. Like how are we going to take this from, you know, the term that I hate but is used so much of like the big data. Like you have all the data you could ever want now. Well, if I'm a single owner operator of a shop in Madison, Wisconsin, the last thing I want to think about is big data. Like that sounds so complicated and sophisticated for what my role should be in my business. So how can we get the practical application of that to the point where it's actually helping?

Braxton Critcher [00:20:22]:
You done anything fun this week?

Cavan Robinson [00:20:25]:
Am I doing anything fun, man?

Braxton Critcher [00:20:27]:
Have you or will you? Oh, well, we're in Vegas, man.

Cavan Robinson [00:20:30]:
Well, yes and yes. Also five nights in Vegas. A lot of nights in Vegas. I've had a couple really good events so far. Velo had a kickoff event with all of our people that are here. We brought 60 plus people across 10 different products, had a dinner and just seen people that I hadn't seen in over a year. That's always really nice. Had a customer dinner last night with one of our biggest customers and got a chance to be really intimate with them and talking about the future and what the roadmap looks like.

Cavan Robinson [00:21:00]:
And we're actually going to be visiting them on site here in a few weeks and then just looking forward to tonight. I was telling you earlier I went to bed early last night because I was definitely anticipating the energy needed for the three, we'll call it the triad tonight of the awards, the 360 party and the promoter, the three headed monster. The three headed monster. Which is awesome because and to your point, I just remembered That I should probably answer the question specifically about Shopware in terms of what's coming. And the reason this triggered my memory is the promotive party tonight. Promota's founder Lisa Coyle, formerly of 360 Payments, One of my good friends, she's basically taken that template for 360 payments for the party and saying we can do this even better and say instead of just a 360 party, why don't we have a six hour party? So it's been working out. But the one thing that I saw yesterday is she got sent a video of Shopware's new service scheduler. So this is something that we're starting to dip our toe into in terms of how do we interact B2C so shop with customer, let's call it consumer in this case to bring appointment openings into the consumer facing website and then send those back into the shop management system with an appointment with details about the appointment with service selection with deferred services.

Cavan Robinson [00:22:20]:
So a lot of interesting stuff happening there that is on show at Arboose at Apex and sema and then we're going to do a soft launch of it in January. Cool.

Braxton Critcher [00:22:30]:
Thanks man.

Cavan Robinson [00:22:30]:
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me again. It was great to talk to you and I'm sure we'll be seeing you tonight.

Braxton Critcher [00:22:35]:
Absolutely. Hey, if you're still here, thank you so much for listening to this episode of Automotive Repair News today. If you enjoyed the show, please take a moment like share. Subscribe to the podcast. It'll help us out a big deal and help grow the show. And you know what, while you're at it, slap on a review too. If you feel like this content is helpful for the industry, don't forget to follow us on all your favorite social media platforms. We're on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, stay connected and be the first to know about new episodes, behind the scene content and more.

Braxton Critcher [00:23:10]:
And until next time, let's make the industry better together.