Exploring the concept of building a successful automotive repair business, this episode emphasizes the importance of creating a meaningful customer experience rather than just expanding physical space or increasing marketing spend. Chris shares a compelling story of a shop owner who defied skepticism to launch a successful detailing business, highlighting the need for conviction and leadership in the industry. The discussion focuses on building processes, experiences, and community trust, urging owners to act on their insights and create something that truly resonates with their customers.
Topics:customer experienceleadershipbusiness expansionprocess buildingcommunity trustconviction in businesssignature experiencesteam developmentmarketing strategies
The Weekly Blitz is brought to you by our friends over at Shop Marketing Pros. If you want to take your shop to the next level, you need great marketing. Shop Marketing Pros does top-tier marketing for top-tier shops.
✅ SHOW NOTES — “If You Build It, They Will Come (But Only If You Build the RIGHT Thing)”
The Weekly Blitz with Coach Chris Cotton
Presented by Shop Marketing Pros
Episode Summary
This episode dives into the Field of Dreams mindset and how the legendary line “If you build it, they will come” applies to auto repair shops — but with a modern twist. Coach Chris Cotton breaks down why so many shop owners build the wrong things, delay the right things, or avoid the hard things, and how that mindset stalls growth, profit, and momentum.
You’ll walk away with real, tactical actions to build the processes, team, customer experience, and culture that actually attract customers — not just hope they show up.
Big Ideas from Today’s Episode
1. Vision requires courage, not permission.
Ray Kinsella didn’t wait for the neighborhood to approve his baseball field — and neither should you wait to build the systems your shop needs.
2. “Build it” means building the right foundation: Clear processes
A signature customer experience
A team that buys into the mission
A brand customers trust instantly
3. Your shop’s experience IS your marketing.
If people walk out feeling great, they will talk. If they don’t feel anything… they won’t remember you.
4. Fear delays momentum — and delayed momentum kills profit.
If you already know what needs to be built, the cost of waiting is higher than the cost of
starting.
5. The Field of Dreams Action List:
Build a system people can feel
Build consistent standards
Build a reputation you earn, not buy
Build the future version of your shop, not the fearful version
Coach’s Tactical Homework
Before the next episode, write down:
What are you building right now?
What do your customers actually need you to build?
What’s the ONE thing you’ve avoided building because it scares you?
If you disappeared tomorrow, what would people miss about your business?
Your answers tell you whether you’re building a baseball field… or just mowing grass.
Sponsor — Shop Marketing Pros
For auto repair shops ready to attract better customers and build a brand worthy of attention, connect with Shop Marketing Pros. They’re the trusted experts who bring clarity, strategy, and real results. 👉 Visit them to level up your marketing game.
Explore more industry-leading podcasts at:
📲 AutomotiveRepairPodcastNetwork.com
Download the mobile app for Apple & Android for fast, easy access to every show.
To listen to more episodes, make sure and go over to iTunes and or Spotify.
"...ncome, ruin your farm, build a baseball field for ghosts. No, thanks."
The Rolls-Royce Ghost is a very fancy car that many rich people buy because it's super comfortable and looks really nice. It's like the ultimate status symbol, showing off wealth and luxury, which is why people talk about it a lot.
The Rolls-Royce Ghost is a luxury sedan known for its opulence, craftsmanship, and powerful performance. Launched in 2009, it represents the pinnacle of automotive luxury, often chosen by those who desire exclusivity and comfort. Its significance lies in its status as a symbol of wealth and prestige, making it a frequent topic in discussions about luxury vehicles.
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This is the Automotive Repair Podcast Network.
It's your weekly Blitz with Chris keeping you in the game.
So quick question for you.
What are you building right now that your customers can actually feel?
Because here's the truth.
If you build it that will come, only works if what you build solves the real
pain your customers already have.
Ray Cancelo plowed under a perfectly good cornfield because something
inside him told him the world needed this ridiculous idea.
And honestly, most shop owners aren't lacking for hard work.
They're lacking for conviction.
So as usual, most episodes come from something that's happened with one of
my clients or something that's happening in real life.
So I want to tell you a story.
The idea for this podcast came from a coaching session I did with a shop owner.
He was with another coaching company.
He was in one of their tribes and he had an idea.
He had a space available or that came available next to his repair shop.
And this is a great repair shop already.
He's doing $300,000 a month plus or minus a little bit depending on the month.
So that side of it is great.
But he had this idea.
The easy thing to do would be to expand six, eight, 10 bays into this next
little shop area that he had come available.
But what lit a fire in him, what his passion was or kind of what ignited him
is he wanted to turn that into a detail shop that does tent, wrap, paint
corrections, things like that.
He's in his meeting.
He's vulnerable.
He's talking to his tribe and his tribe basically for lack of a better word,
just shit on his idea.
They're like, Oh, well, I tried that and it didn't work.
Or we know lots of people that fail at that business.
So he could have been like, Oh, you know what?
I don't want to try it, but he didn't.
He dug into it.
He basically told the tribe to shove it and came to us for coaching and came
to me for coaching.
And now he has another business that's not repair.
It is repair related repair.
Jason, if you want to talk about it, but it's a million dollar a year
business now, and we're only growing that.
And so when the people around you kick dirt on your idea, because they couldn't
do it or because they didn't have the site to do it, I'm going to tell you.
Find another room.
Anyway, that's that.
Let's talk about, you know, I've taken this idea and moved it
into what I'm going to present to you.
So let's talk about what building it air quotes really means in your
business and how to make sure people show up.
This episode of the weekly blitz is brought to you by shop marketing pros.
They are the best damn marketing team in the game for auto repair shops,
period, end of story, exclamation point, exclamation point.
If you want customers who actually fit your business and branding that
doesn't look like it was made in 1999, I want you to check out shop marketing pros.
They do it right.
They do it smart and they do it on purpose.
All right.
Plus it's the only people I trust with my marketing.
What field of dreams gets right?
So hopefully, everybody's seen the movie.
If you haven't, well, I will date myself a little bit.
Probably the first time I saw it, I actually saw it on a video tape.
Like I actually had to go to blockbuster, rent it, take it, put it in and watch it.
Okay.
So that's what I meant by watch the video, not like on YouTube or something
like that.
If you haven't seen it, go out, watch it, and then this will make more sense.
So what did field of dreams get right?
In field of dreams, the magic isn't the baseball field.
The magic is the belief behind the baseball field.
Ray, here's this voice.
If you build it, he will come.
Now, if Ray thinks logically, that's insane, right?
Tear up your income, ruin your farm, build a baseball field for ghosts.
No, thanks.
But what pushes him into action is vision plus courage.
It's not spreadsheets.
It's not letting other people kick dirt on your idea.
In the auto repair world, we don't have ghost ball players, but we do have an
industry starving for leadership, customer starving for trust, employee
starving for purpose, and shop starving for focus.
Most owners want results without building the foundation that earns them.
Everybody wants to line out the door, but not everybody wants to build the field.
So what is the real meaning of build it?
And I don't think it's what most shop owners think.
Build it does not mean open your doors and pray.
Build it does not mean get a new sign.
Build it does not mean buy a shiny alignment rack and call it a day.
Build it does not mean throw money at marketing and hope something sticks.
No, no, no.
This is what build it means for a shop owner.
A, build the process, not the dream, the process, not the hope, the system.
Do customers know what will happen when they walk in?
Does your team know what you expect from them?
Can anybody for crying out loud step into your shop and feel the intention behind it?
Also, you know, here's my tactical call out.
If I can't see your process on paper, you don't have a process.
All right, I want you to build the experience.
People didn't come to raise field for the grass.
They came for the feeling.
It's the same with your shop.
The experience is the product.
You want more cars, make your customer experience magnetic.
Make it impossible to forget you.
Make the feeling so good they tell their friends.
Experience is the new marketing.
I want you to remember that.
This is why we shop marketing pros.
No, like trust, like this is what it's all about.
If you're using somebody for marketing company that just sets it and forgets it.
That's not who you should be using.
So when we think about building the team, Ray didn't play the game alone
and you're not going to either.
You know, you need to ask yourself if I don't have this person on my staff
already, who's the first person I need to hire?
I also want you to think about who's the one person on my team
who's ghosting the mission.
And I also want you to ask yourself, who's the future leader I'm not developing?
You know, people don't come if the team isn't ready to receive them.
You know, next, the brutal truth.
Just because you build it doesn't mean they're going to come.
Lots of shops build stuff already.
New bays, more marketing spend, more technology, longer hours, pretty websites,
big dreams, the building isn't enough.
You have to build the right thing.
Ray didn't build a football field.
He didn't build a shopping mall.
He didn't build a batting cage or some top golf.
He built what the moment demanded.
And again, if you haven't seen this movie, go back, watch it, rewatch it.
If you have seen it and so do you.
But I need you to ask yourself, what does my community actually need from me right now?
What am I building because it's easy, not because it's needed?
What have I avoided building because it's scary?
And if I disappeared today, what would my customers miss?
Your answers tell you what your field really is.
You know, now let's shift the mindset a little bit.
I want you to build for the future, not build for the fear.
You know, he risked everything, but he wasn't gambling.
He was acting with conviction.
Most shop owners don't make bold moves because they're afraid to lose your money.
They've been burned.
They don't trust themselves.
They don't trust their team.
They don't trust the market, but here's my hot take coach, Chris Cotton style.
The most expensive thing a shop owner can do is delay the thing they already know
they should build. Repeat that back to you.
The most expensive thing a shop owner can do is delay the thing
they already know they should build.
Fear delays momentum, momentum delays profit, delayed profit destroys dreams.
You already know what you should build.
The question is, are you strong enough to act?
I don't know. What do we build in our shop?
Maybe there's an action list.
Here's some things that come to mind.
Maybe we build a signature experience, something customers associate
only with your shop, you know, is the fastest check in town.
Is it a legendary DVI?
Is it a five minute tech talk at the vehicle pickup?
Are you the cleanest shop in your county?
Like, what is this signature experience?
I want to say it's less swab.
I can't remember.
I think if you go to a less swab, they come out to your car
in like a crystal clean white t-shirt and a tie.
Like, what makes you different?
You know, build a signature experience.
Maybe you want to build a team standard, create a rule your shop lives by.
If a customer walks in, they're greeted within five seconds
or every estimate goes out with a full DVI and at least 300 percent
rule coverage in three hours or less.
I don't know. You build it, set the standard.
Maybe you build a community reputation you earn every day,
become the shop that people recommend because you're honest,
you communicate, you finish strong and you care,
not because you're the cheapest, not because you're convenient,
not because you bribe them with discounts.
Maybe we build a future we're proud of, stop building patch jobs.
You build things that matter.
Leadership, systems, reputation, culture, customer experience, team capability.
When you build with intention, the right people do come.
I'm a firm believer in that.
I still think it's hogwash that people out there are telling you
that they can't find technicians.
Great shops are finding technicians every day
and probably don't have enough room for all the people that come knocking on their door.
If you're a great shop and a great shop owner,
you don't have technician problems.
You don't have service advisor problems.
You don't have people problems or the only problems you have at that point
are problems you create.
If you build it, they will come only if you build something worthy of being visited.
You're not building a shop.
You're building a legacy.
You're building trust.
You're building opportunity.
You're building people.
You're building a place customers want to come back to.
That's movie magic.
Thanks for listening.
Let me know if you have a special topic or if you'd like to be on the show.
Email me chris at autofixsos.com.
Big thanks to our sponsor, Shop Marketing Pros.
If you want your customers to know, like and trust you,
the way Ray can sell a trusted, the mysterious voice,
you need Shop Marketing Pros in your corner.
You can explore many other outstanding podcasts dedicated to our thriving
automotive repair industry at automotiverepairpodcastnetwork.com.
While you're there, download our free mobile app
available for both Apple and Google devices for easy access to all our shows
in one convenient place.
What are those shows you might ask?
Carm Capriotto on Remarkable Results Radio.
Hunt Demerist on Business by the Numbers.
Matt Fonzlow with diagnosing the aftermarket A to Z.
Kim and Brian Walker with the Auto Repair Marketing Podcast,
also known as Shop Marketing Pros.
Craig O'Neill on Speak Up Effective Communication.
And of course, Lilomi, Coach Chris Cotton with the Weekly Blitz.
All right, folks, build something great this week.
I'll see you next time.
Rise and Grind.
Have a great day, everybody.
We're in the new year.
It's time to kick ass and take names.
You've been listening to the Weekly Blitz with Chris Cotton
on the Automotive Repair Podcast Network.
Download our exclusive podcast app at automotiverepairpodcastnetwork.com
because the best conversations in the industry start here.
Want expert advice on running your shop?
Well, Chris is listening.
Check the show notes for his email and send him your topics.
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