Hi, I’m Katie Mira’s author of burning, her business and I am brewing solutions with these awesome guys: , [ Applause, ], , [ Applause, ], next question for you, and you know.
I know that you’ve mentioned what you’ve done in the past.
You know you work for you.
How do you work for a shoe company for a little while you didn’t aim, and then you worked your way up into the carpet.
No, I shouldn’t say up it’s a cross platform because people buy shoes, people buy cars, all right, yeah using I’m a huge shoe guy, I’m a sneaker guy, not necessarily a dress.
You guy do have dress shoes and I love my dress shoes, but I’m a.
I love sneakers that collects you know, custom, sneakers and all that type of stuff.
Don’t know why? I’m just because I was a kid: I’ve always loved shoes um.
But that being said, so I love that world that world is a great world.
But what brought you into the car business? What made you say? Hey! You know I want to go into the automotive port realm.
You know I was in this now yeah go into that.
What brought you there I had as I was mentioning.
I haven’t had a really am I allowed to like use profanity, absolutely sure, word yeah.
It’s not a really shitty car buying experience.
Okay, so it’s just.
I can’t even say it was really shitty and and essentially and it’s actually the introduction or the preface of my book is the story of my experience and I’ll.
Never forget it.
I was getting at this time.
I was married and it it was a hot Saturday in July and in Toronto.
That’s a hot steamy Saturday, because it we get so humid.
So it’s like 40 degrees.
I don’t know what that is in, like almost 100, like around there like mid 90s yeah so um, so we pile everyone into the one Nissan Rogue that we have at the time.
My twins were six and my little one was three and we had one family vehicle and I was done like people had soccer and hockey and dance and gymnastics, and we all went to grocery stores together and mom never had in freedom.
So I was like screw this: I’m done we’re having another car, so we pile into my Nissan robe and we take off to the Auto Mall and we get to the autumn long, and I look at my kids, my ex and I at the time turn around And look at my kids and say: okay, we give them the please behave, speech right, we’re gon na go into this dealership.
I want you to stay beside mommy we’re gon na look at a vehicle like I wanted to purchase a car that day and I’ll.
Ask you what dealership do you think I went to what do you think the first dealership I went to if I was the guest because you’re driving a Nissan and you’re looking for third rail man? I guess yes, so then you probably went to uh.
I was going to say that I used to open one up in in the city right down the street from my cellphone.
I live in amazing.
Well so I went in and I was looking at the Pathfinder right so the third row and I would have even been okay with with a bigger Murano or something, but I went in there so anyways, so I I walked in and my kids beelined.
It threw up open the dealership doors and they they totally ignored the police, behave speech and the fact that they told us that they would behave, and I just realized you can totally see my unmade bed in the background anyway.
Welcome to my life, so you are at a beach you’re supposed to come on.
It’s all good! Don’t worry about so I went in and my kids, you know of course bolted and all I could hear his car door slamming and as a mom.
My my first thought is little fingers metal doors right, so you’re super worried about that.
So I’m darting around trying to rally them into one vehicle and I could see out of the corner of my eye and my my husband at the time was already being spoken to.
It was 18 minutes before somebody, a young gentleman sauntered over to me and what I mean by sauntered.
It was kind of like the like a scene like a slow-motion scene in a movie where he was like.
Oh, my goodness, I actually have to help this lady with these three crazy, kids, and so he comes on over and he is darting his eyes between me and the vehicle.
My kids are in and back and forth, and he looks at me it’s like well, what are you doing here? It’s a Saturday afternoon.
What do you think I’m doing here? I just wanted my kids to come into the dealership, I’m here to buy a car which was crazy and then the next question out of his mouth was.
Is your husband here? Oh no and I was what was the face real and I said well yes, he’s over there, but before I could tell him that I was purchasing the vehicle because I actually owned the Nissan Rogue and I owned the next vehicle I purchased.
Both vehicles um.
He cut me off and said: well should we call him over? Oh no, oh no.
I tell you doing sales marcelles for 18 years now I learned very fast that the decision-maker is never the husband it’s a 99 percent of the time.
It’s now you get.
Maybe if you get to that sixty year old or older age group, maybe it’s a little different, but my generation or anywhere around it.
It’s the woman who 100 percent thing she, whether she’s, buying it or not, she’s influencing the purchase so either way.
It is the woman, but actually women out by men, women in North America, by sixty five percent of all new vehicles, so we actually out purchase men, so I was purchasing his vehicle, not him me so I said to this sales associate.
That was super annoyed with me and my kids.
I said I I’m actually the one purchasing the vehicle, but I won’t be purchasing it from you and I rounded my kids up.
I walked out the dealership door and my husband followed me in tow.
We got into the car, he didn’t say anything.
He looked at me and said: okay, where to next I visited about you, know seven dealerships that day and I got roughly the same experience.
So it was that those experiences that, after you know three four years of being in a single family vehicle, was time to have another one.
That made me think.
First of all, this is the second largest purchase.
Any human beings gon na make in their in their life other than a home and for Millennials it’s the largest because they’re renting homes, so not really even making purchases, and so I might be a brand experience expert.
I get a better experience with my $ 200 pair jeans that I go by @ erisa than I do from purchasing a vehicle.
That’s crazy right and then I thought, but as a woman, I couldn’t believe that it this inequality, this gender inequality still exists like I couldn’t believe it, and so that’s what sent me down this tailspin of research on the automotive industry, which led to just women in General, which led to my book, but when I was researching the auto industry, I decided to put a keynote together and I started applying to speak at conferences and that’s how I got into the industry.
I’ve never sold a car, and I and I’m on stage and I’ll say this: the first few minutes that I’m on stage I’m, I don’t pretend to have sold a car.
I have no idea, I don’t know what they go through.
I don’t know what it’s like to be in the box or the pen or the whatever you call it an F, and I I don’t know what it’s like to be a service adviser.
But the one thing I do know is what it’s like to be a customer of the industry, and that is the lens they need to look through because – and you guys are car guys.
I hate to break it to you, but you don’t matter your perception of the experience doesn’t matter.
It’s only the perception of the customer that matters come on.
That’s right.
I mean you, don’t when you put together an amusement park, you’re not putting it on so that the people that are working the rides are very amazed with other people that ride the rides have been incredible experience you said earlier, you know it’s it’s about.
It’s the clients, you know you said who here is depends on their clients to make money and everyone put their hand up.
So if you do the ones that pay you, if they are you the ones that you’re serving and serve them the way they want to be served the right way, and you mean you and that’s great you – you know you jumping in at the right time.
I think the world’s starting to get a little bit more woke on things like that, especially our business.
I think that the problem and that’s why we just wanted to do this, there’s a lot of it right.
I was just gon na say my message isn’t new.
Like it’s not new, but it’s it’s that we’ve.
We forgotten how to be human, especially in this digital age.
We have forgotten that you know even in the car industry that you look at, I mean it’s still stuck in the dinosaur age.
There’s some really progressive viewers.
Don’t get me wrong, like I have worked with the young automotive automotive group, which has about 18 stores they’re gon na double in size in the next few years.
In Utah, I’ve worked with the new car dealer associations in ute.
I’ve worked at the dolly group.
I’ve worked with some really progressive groups, so I’m not saying that all dealers are the same because they’re not, but there there are a lot of even Volvo like I’ve worked with Volvo Volvo’s ready to expand on the OE on the customer experience.
You know they realizing that that’s so important, so there are progressive.
Oh, is there are progressive dealers, so I don’t want my message to be oh well.
This girl thinks that that no one’s great, but for those that are stuck in the dinosaur age, the thing that they should be stuck on is the fact that how they, you know, they’re, because they’re all grandfathered in right, so how their father or their grandfather ran The dealership, you know 40, 50, 60 years ago, the thing that they started our up the thing that made them successful was relationships human.
So if we’re gon na get stuck in the dinosaur age, if we’re gon na hold on to something that was done a million years ago hold on to that, oh thank you.
Yes hold on to the ability to create relationship.
You look at you, know, Dale Carnegie, the you know you look at Napoleon Hill.
You look at anybody who is the originator of ideas because we’re all not the original to it.
I make a living off doing that 100 %.
That’s what it’s about that right, but my as I say my message isn’t any different, but if we were to go all the way back and even back to the Bible, you know we’ve been talking about from the beginning of time.
The original message, if we can hang on to something, hang on to that, because if we focus on that, then everything else will follow like it’s.
It’s truly that simple, and so that is how I got into the industry, is that I saw a need for a fresh version of the message and to bring men along.
You asked you know, who might, who might you know take my targeted client is or might good person to read my book.
It’s it’s men.
It’s doing it in a way that makes men feel comfortable that I’m not here to berate them or make them sound, naggy or whatever you know.
Women seem to persona that women get right.
You know you’re just trying to teach people how to you know, and it makes sense.
You know you want you you’re, trying to just open up the man’s eye to understand how to look through it.
Like a woman, you know and and that’s that’s the person that cares the person there you go yeah.
I definitely makes me most happy.
The thing that makes me most happy is, I mean yeah.
So I want don’t want businesses to have success, but when I have men who have attended a talk or have you know, read I’ve sent a copy of my book or have seen me online or read any of my articles when they come to me and they Say, like I’ve actually had men say: you’d fix my marriage, like I understand my wife better because of you.
I get this and these are big.
I mean like any talker research or any workshop that I do.
I literally have the phone call saying I tried this.
We are in an argument and I tried what you said and the argument went away and I understand her better and she’s happier.
So if I can help gentleman make I mean happy wife happy life right.
So if I can help them help them have a healthier and a happier relationship that I believe that if people are gon na just try to change for business, it’s it’s it’s gon na be bullshit.
Excuse me image because nothing is really gon na change for good.
I mean they say you know when you new year’s resolution that last three weeks, you’re not you’re, not making a life change, you’re, trying to force yourself into something you don’t believe in.
So if, if any of my information that I share – and this goes back to inspiring positive actionable change – I want you to help people change in their lives, because when it changes in their lives, then it affects every other aspect of their life.
So when you can change personally, you can change professional, but you can’t just change professionally and have personal success.
Wow, that’s strong! It’s a chest! One time for me: real, quick everybody.
Listening to that, make sure that you feel that heartbeat, because she is hitting the heart and making sure that you guys are feeling it.
I mean this is how we have to actually be like a good cup of coffee.
You wan na feel it right.
You want to feel it upshift you, you want to feel it uplift, you you want to feel yourself get energized by something that could either be bitter or be used to make you be better and that’s the entire reason why we have her on the show.
We were talking earlier about successes and and how it is that that we look at the successes.
So I want to say this real quick just just to blow some wind inside of yourself Katie.
You are a success and we are continuing to evolve success story so right we are to be living epistles, living success stories that are constantly going from glory to glory success to success.
So I want to help you remember if this is what you were targeting.
You got two car guys sitting inside of a show and you are giving us the encouragement and the and the wisdom it takes to be better at what it is that we do and, along with the audience that we’re sharing this with.
So that is one success that only gets better only gets stronger, only gets more in bloom and those fruit that come from what it is that we’re growing turns into more seeds that become more growth, more fruit, so on and so forth.