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The ROI of Kindness: How Giving Creates Growth in Your Business [E166] - The Auto Repair Marketing Podcast
The ROI of Kindness: How Giving Creates Growth in Your Business [E166] - The Auto Repair Marketing Podcast
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About this episode
Christina Beverly from Harrell and Beverly Transmission Auto Repair shares her inspiring journey of giving back to local teachers through a classroom supply giveaway. The episode highlights the impact of community generosity on business growth and employee morale. Christina discusses the evolution of their initiative, which started small and grew significantly, resulting in increased website traffic and community engagement. The conversation also touches on the importance of maintaining a positive reputation in the auto repair industry and the personal challenges Christina faced during her cancer journey, emphasizing hope and resilience.
Topics:
community impact
teacher support
business growth
employee morale
generosity
classroom supplies
local engagement
personal journey
cancer resilience
reputation management
Thanks to our Partners, Shop Boss and AppFueled
In this heart-filled episode of the Auto Repair Marketing Podcast, Kim Walker sits down with Christina Beverly from Harrell & Beverly Transmission Auto Repair in Sanford, Florida.
Christina shares the behind-the-scenes story of their now-annual teacher giveaway, an initiative born from local Amazon wish lists that quickly grew into a high-impact, community-shaping campaign.
You'll hear how a $500 donation turned into $1,500, the emotional stories behind the nominations, and how this one simple idea rallied their team, elevated their brand, and aligned perfectly with their EOS-driven vision.
This isn’t just another feel-good story. It’s a blueprint for what can happen when shops get intentional about giving back. From internal morale to external reputation, Christina explains how generosity fuels growth and how you can take this idea and make it your own.
Ready to inspire your team, connect with your community, and build a brand people can’t stop talking about? Hit play and take notes.
Lagniappe (Books, Links, Other Podcasts, etc)
- https://www.harrellandbeverly.com/
- https://www.harrellandbeverly.com/our-history
- https://www.harrellandbeverly.com/teachers
- Christina's blog about her cancer: https://www.livingrarely.com/
Show Notes with Timestamps
- Introduction (00:00:01) Brief intro to the Aftermarket Radio Network and the podcast.
- Host Welcome & Updates (00:00:10) Host welcomes listeners, gives personal updates, and introduces guest Christina Beverly.
- Sponsor Message 1 (00:00:57) Shop Boss sponsor message about shop management software.
- Guest Introduction & Conference Talk (00:01:17) Host and Christina discuss previous episodes, upcoming conferences, and Christina’s involvement with Flaca.
- Travel & Podcasting Life (00:04:02) Host shares about frequent travel for work and its challenges.
- Classroom Giveaway Origins (00:04:44) Christina explains how the classroom giveaway started, inspired by teachers’ Amazon wish lists and local needs.
- First Year of the Giveaway (00:05:22) Details about the first year’s small-scale giveaway and unexpected national reach.
- Scaling Up the Giveaway (00:09:19) This year’s expanded giveaway: $1,000 grand prize, $500 runner-up, and 271 nominations.
- Metrics & Website Impact (00:10:41) Discussion of increased website traffic and engagement during the giveaway.
- Last Year’s Impact & Teacher Reactions (00:12:02) Reflections on last year’s recipients and their gratitude, even from out-of-state teachers.
- Announcing Winners & Selection Process (00:12:41) How winners were chosen, the addition of a runner-up prize, and the team’s involvement in selection.
- Winner Stories & Reactions (00:14:48) Stories about the winners, including a first-year trades teacher and their reactions to winning.
- Sponsor Message 2 (00:18:00) Shop Boss and App Fueled sponsor messages.
- Core Values & Business Why (00:19:58) Host and Christina discuss EOS, core values, and how generosity fits into their business mission.
- Community Reputation &...
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Okay, welcome back to the Auto Repair Marketing Podcast, everybody.
Look, I feel like it's been a hot minute since I've done a podcast episode.
Brian's kind of been taking it, and then if you are friends with us on Facebook, you know,
we've recently had a pretty major surgery, so he's supposed to be chilling out a little
bit, though he's doing really great and is already back at it, so today I am here with
my sweet friend through social media, Christina Beverly from Harrell and Beverly Transmission
Auto Repair in Sanford, Florida.
But before we dig in, let's just take a moment to pause and give our sponsors
a shout out.
This episode is sponsored by Shop Boss.
Manage and grow your shop with top features like integrated payments from 360 payments.
Declined repairs don't have to be lost for revenue.
AppFueled's call center schedules follow-up calls and equips your team with everything
they need to close the deal.
Get started now at appfueled.com.
All right, thanks to our sponsors.
We really appreciate your support.
Couldn't do it without you, but let me tell you something.
If y'all listened to the episode we did with Christina before, what, a year ago, I think
that what they did or what they're doing has just...
I feel like it's gone to a new level personally, and you're going to love this episode sharing
the generosity, community, the impact, the legacy, personal strength.
Like there's so much story to talk about here today.
So welcome, Christina.
Thank you for...
You might be the very first guest to come on again.
What?
I think...
Okay.
I mean, yeah, sure.
I'll take it.
Okay.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
I love that.
You know, I think I need to do some research, but I'm pretty, pretty sure.
You know, other than like team members, right?
People that are not on our team, but even like clients, coaches, I think that Miss Beverly
is the first.
So...
Okay.
Can we have like a wall of fame?
I think we should definitely do that.
You should like repeat us.
And you know, like, Karm, you can go on Karm's website and like enter someone's name
and just do a search and see all of the episodes that they've been on.
Yeah.
And then you need to start tagging like the guest name.
That would be super awesome.
Okay.
All right.
I have a feeling you and I can just carry on.
For days.
Yeah.
But before we like dig in, it's July 31st that we're recording this.
So this is going to come out sometime in August.
Are you going to any of the fall conferences?
Fall?
No.
Hmm.
Let me think here.
We went in May to the FLACA Flaca Accelerate Conference.
So our whole team, most of our team got to go to that and that's amazing.
And I also am on the Flaca board now, board to help them guide them, give advice and
increase membership and attendance at Accelerate.
And so that's exciting because I know vision with the Midwest Auto Care Alliance
is cool.
And we got to do that in 2024.
The shop went and that was just amazing.
And so we kind of want to have something similar and grow the Accelerate Conference
down here in the South.
So we're looking forward to that.
Perfect.
I love it.
Yeah.
So we are about to kick off our fall travel season.
When I get off of this podcast with you, I have to go book a crazy amount of travel.
My American Express card is going to blow up.
I'm going to get an alert.
Is everything okay?
Is this fraudulent?
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
I love traveling.
So that's fun, but I'm sure it's exhausting.
That is a good podcast episode right there.
Just talking about it.
It is a blessing.
We definitely are blessed to travel a lot.
But when you are traveling a lot, you're constantly packing up, unpacking.
You miss a lot of things.
People never know.
I mean, I'm in town.
I'm at the grocery store and somebody's like, oh, you're in town today.
You know, and I kind of have these memorized verbatim responses to people, but anyways,
it is definitely exhausting, but it's a great life.
So, well, hey, let's start with this beautiful classroom giveaway.
It's not your first time doing it.
We might repeat a little bit from last year, but this year it just hit me different.
And so I want you to just talk about how this idea first came to life, what sparked it.
Sure.
So last year, we did something similar, but it was small and I didn't think about
all the aspects.
I kind of pulled it together last minute.
Harold and Beverly, we use the EOS system, the entrepreneurial operating system, which
is amazing.
That's probably, you may have done podcasts on that.
And so we love using that and we have our big, hairy, audacious goals, you know, looking
10 years out, 10 years from now.
And so one of those goals is to donate a certain dollar amount to local organizations
and charities that we care about.
So over 10 years, we want to be able to donate XYZ dollars.
And so that is part of this initiative.
But also what really sparked giving to teachers was last year I noticed on my social media
a lot of our local teachers, my friends, they were posting their classroom wish lists
on Amazon and just, you know, putting it out there and saying, hey, if anyone would
like to donate, you know, purchase something off of the classroom wish list, that's so
helpful because just we have a lot of Title I schools in our local area.
So, you know, the poorer communities, a lot of teachers are spending a lot of their
own money to purchase supplies for kids, to purchase food for kids, because they
don't necessarily know where their next meal is coming from.
We have teachers purchasing clothing and jackets and socks for kids on those cold days.
And so, you know, that really touched my heart.
And then both of our owners, my husband and his brother, the fourth generation
owners, they grew up here in Sanford.
They went to the public schools here in Seminole County.
And so they have a lot of fun stories from their time at school.
And as well, their mother was also a public school teacher here in Seminole
County. So there's just kind of like this tugging on our heart strings for
our local teachers.
And I saw teachers posting their wish list and I was like, I think it would be
cool if Harold and Beverly could donate to some teachers wish list.
So I put out kind of like this quick post really without thinking last year,
just asking, hey, you know, teachers submit your wish list to us and we'll
be able to donate up to, I think it was $500 last year.
So I would pick some wish list here and there and, you know, purchase some
pencils or whatever the teachers were looking for.
Teachers from Colorado, from North Carolina, from, you know, across the
country were submitting their wish list to us.
And I didn't think anyone outside of Sanford would see this.
I just, I don't know what I was thinking because social media is highly
public. And so I don't know what I was thinking.
But I ended up growing it into a web page where I posted every single
wish list that was posted and encouraged other people and shared that so
that other people could donate, you know, kind of like choose a mystery
wish list and make an impact.
And then so we were able to distribute the $500 last year.
But it was a little chaotic and a little more work than I anticipated.
And I didn't plan very well.
This year I was going to do something, you know, wanted to do something again,
but I was like, I'm going to make it simpler.
I will admit I didn't plan like I should have.
I could have given myself more time.
And for some reason, July just snuck up on it so quick.
But I reached out to Jasper engines and transmissions who we partnered
with last year and they said, yes, we'll partner with you again.
And this time I'm like, okay, we're going to up the ante.
Like we're going to make this a little bigger.
I'm going to donate $1,000 to one teacher.
I'm going to collect nominations as the community nominate a local
Seminole County school teacher, give us their, you know, a little story
about what makes them a great teacher.
And I'll donate $1,000.
Well, in the first 24 hours of putting that post out, you know,
I made the form, like it was collecting nominations in the first 24 hours
I got like a hundred nominations.
And I was like, oh, okay.
I thought for the whole thing we might get 80.
My husband, he was like, oh, maybe you'll get 10.
Well, thanks for that positivity.
But you know, like I'm thinking I'll get, you know, at least 80.
Well, in the first 24 hours, it was like a hundred nominations.
So I was like, okay, that's great.
But I think I used job form to collect the nominations, which was
that was a great tool to use.
I think I had the contest or the nominations run for about nine days.
And in the end, we collected 271 nominations.
Oh my gosh.
And that initial like 24 hours.
And those are all within the Seminole County.
Yes.
Okay.
So I made sure, like when I laid it, I was like, you know, this
must be a Seminole County teacher because it was great.
You know, hearing from teachers across the country last year, but I wanted
to keep this super hyper local.
And so yeah, I made, you know, made sure that they were from Seminole
County and that they had a Seminole County public school email address
and all of that type of thing.
So, so 271 nominations and then just seeing our website visits go up.
And then I think I have some numbers here.
Traffic increased about 200% for the time period that we had the nominations
open and then the users spent one minute longer on our site than normal.
Yeah, we're going to dig in to those metrics for sure.
So before we go further, I want to go backwards a little bit, right?
So last year was your first year.
Go back to, well, so last year you didn't like pick one winner.
You just contributed to a bunch of different.
Okay.
I was going to ask you like about the feeling you had and that sort of thing
of, of surprising that teacher.
So we'll talk about that.
Yeah.
Last year teachers were kind of still surprised.
They were just so thankful.
And even though like I wanted to keep it super local, even the teacher
from like Colorado or North Carolina, you know, they said, thank you so much.
And also if I have a friend that's kind of in your area, I will
recommend you guys if they need auto repair.
I was like, wow, thank you for that.
So even if they weren't local to us, we still impacted their life.
Yeah.
Today is July 31st.
You're going to make the social media announcement today, but you did
reach out to the teacher.
So actually there was more than one because I saw at some point you decided
to do like a runner up sort of.
So talk about that and then tell us, you know, this won't come out for a
couple of weeks and we'll be much further along the maybe even into their
school year already.
But like talk about, I don't know, the phone call or reaching out
to the winners yesterday.
Yeah.
So once we saw that we were getting so many nominations, our hearts are huge
at Harold and Beverly and we're like, okay, well, how can we do more?
Like now it feels like I wish we could give to every single one of them.
And so I went back to Jasper because they're matching our donation.
And I said, hey, this is the response we've had.
Can we do more?
And they're like, yeah, sure, let's do more.
And that's another thing for next year of some things I would do differently.
And maybe we'll talk about that as well.
But like getting more, more vendors, more people in the community on
board with the program anyway.
Yeah.
So we added a $500 kind of runner up.
So we're giving away, you know, $1,000 and then the $500.
And our team, we narrowed it down to six finalists.
And we have a weekly team meeting every Wednesday afternoon.
So yesterday I had our team go through, I created little summaries about each teacher.
And we all went through and kind of voted ranked, you know, the teachers.
And so our techs and our service advisors all got, you know, to give
their thought and input on who should receive the funding.
And so we got the winners and the $1,000 winner I was able to reach
on the phone yesterday.
And he is a first year teacher.
He was an electrician, but then when business slowed for him late last year,
he decided to kind of, he visited a high school and he was like, whoa, this
is kind of where I want to be.
Like he's just like, all of a sudden I want to be a teacher.
And he's teaching kind of the trades.
He's teaching HVAC.
He's teaching welding.
He's teaching, you know, alongside the automotive department and construction.
And so I called him yesterday.
He's just like, I'm in shock.
I can't believe this.
And his wife had nominated him and said some very kind things.
He was so thankful.
So I got his list this morning of things that he'll need.
And so there's all sorts of, you know, fun construction staff and tools.
And I think that really spoke to our staff because, you know, we want
to reach those kids who are going into these trades.
Well, it's just an amazing full circle sort of scenario.
And also incredibly, like just the whole thing is the whole story
of him is incredibly unique, you know?
And so I can see how he rose to the top.
So did you make the call?
I did. That was fun.
I hadn't talked to the other teacher that had one just yet.
I'm going to call her this afternoon.
But I was able to connect with her via email.
And, you know, they're so appreciative.
Even last year when we were able to just do like $10 to a wish list,
send some pencils, send some stickers, like just they are so appreciative
because teacher pay isn't probably what it should be.
And when they have to spend their own dollars on classrooms
and the kids' specific needs and these kids are from hard places, a lot of them.
And so being able to provide something as small as stickers.
I was a teacher.
I taught for a number of years, taught eighth grade, fifth grade, fourth grade.
And then I was a school counselor as well.
And yeah, the amount of money that gets spent is alarming.
And, you know, they're not making much.
And so I just can't even imagine that guy got the call and he already gave you his list.
So, you know, he spent all night last night, you know,
you just kind of unpack the series of events of what happened after the phone call.
He probably sat and was just like, what, how in the world?
And being a first year teacher, you have nothing.
And so you're going into it with so many things that you need,
especially in the trades part where you said there's tools, there's equipment,
there's, you know, all this stuff that's needed.
And he probably had this list and you don't even know how to prioritize it.
You know, like it's all important.
And then he probably shared with his wife who I can imagine.
Did you tell him that she nominated him?
So, you know, he's telling her and he said his wife, she's also a teacher.
I think 13 years.
He said, oh, and you know, my wife had to help me sit down and make the Amazon
wish list and kind of help him get started for this year.
So it's fantastic.
I told him, I'm like, this is probably the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
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Now you talked about your why, which is blowing my mind
because I'm going to tell you, for those who know EOS, the BHAG,
the Big Harry Audacious goal, we've changed ours a couple of times
just because we're not in love with it.
And we spent so much time racking our brains, pulling on our heart strings,
trying to figure out, you know, what is it?
And it's got to be something that your team can get behind.
It's really an internal thing.
And you want every single team member to say, yeah, I like that.
I want that.
And so we're not married to every single time we have a meeting
and we go over that.
We have an integral, of course, integrate.
We have an implementer who helps us.
We've been using him for four years
and we come to that section every time.
And the last two times we've said, look,
nobody has anything more impactful than what we have right now.
Let's just stick with what we have, but we're not in just in love with it.
But we are very generous over here.
Like we even talked at one point about our core values
and how do we need to add a core value of generosity in there.
And then we figured out, well, actually, generosity fits multiple of our core
values already, so we don't have to add it as a standalone one.
But we give and financially support multiple nonprofits,
but we don't really talk a whole lot about it.
But this is just brilliant.
And so you've inspired me because I feel like I can now go to my leadership team
and say, oh, my gosh, we didn't think about this.
And so how can maybe that's what we're going to we might even change
ours to be something along those same lines.
So in the spirit of talking about your why and why it matters
and what caused you to do it, why are you continuing to do it?
Why do you think it matters?
Not just for the teachers, but for your business and the broader community.
So I think you kind of mentioned one thing that when my husband and
his brother, we started EOS and the core values.
So coming up with those core values and you can even helped me
with our core values, turn them into an acronym like you guys have when I was
at Vision last year and you brought that up sitting at the table.
And I was like, man, I don't think our core values turn into some cool acronym.
And I wrote them down on my paper and I was like, wait a minute.
Sure they do.
So our core values are honesty.
Everything speaks reputation and own it.
And I was like, oh, my gosh, that is hero.
And so I have you to thank for that because that was like, that was like thing.
So now like at Harold and Beverly is like, OK, we're heroes.
We aim to be heroes.
And so going back to why we are doing this and how this, you know,
aligns with our business, I think it aligns with our core values.
Everything speaks reputation.
I think is a big part of participating in your community in a meaningful way.
Our business has been around for 66 years now.
And, you know, we have a long, you know, history of trustworthiness.
The family business we've been here for so long.
And so we have to maintain that reputation because I don't know what do they say?
Like it takes years to build a good reputation and just mere moments to ruin it.
So we have to stay on top of it every day.
And so participating in something like this, truly caring about our community.
It's one way to just maintain that reputation and share that with others.
Because, you know, we know the auto repair industry gets such a bad rap.
Everyone thinks that we're out to take advantage of them.
And this is kind of one of those ways we can counteract that.
Do you see what Promotive is doing right now, speaking of?
I did, yes.
Where you send in the videos for the scholarship.
Yeah. So when are you doing that?
Oh, yeah. Or your team.
Like it's your technicians or like anyone in it.
You know, like you were talking about having a feel good story.
They're kind of driving purpose behind doing it.
I think is really just to help tell the good stories in the industry,
which ultimately help paint a better picture of mechanics, you know,
and what people say about them and just the industry as a whole.
But also in helping recruitment and getting people into, you know,
that's what they are, right?
Promotive helps people hire.
And so I just saw that push come out again yesterday
and we're sharing it with all of our clients and put it in our Facebook group
and all that stuff.
But y'all certainly have a phenomenal, incredible, amazing, inspiring,
beautiful story.
So I hope that y'all jump on that.
It'll be super awesome.
All right. So you did talk a little bit about the selection process.
But one huge piece that I don't think you talked about is
from the 260 something, 271 nominations to the six.
How did you do that part?
How did you narrow it down?
I got help from our service advisor, Jessica.
She was great at helping me go through.
I whittled it down because there were some duplicates
and then there were some of just like Miss so-and-so is a great teacher.
And you're kind of like, but I want to know more.
So that kind of weeded out a significant number.
But then I don't remember how many we got down to,
but I had Jessica go through and just be like, I need help choosing,
you know, pick out who touches you.
And the next morning I went in and she had left, you know,
her choices on my desk and with a note that said,
going through this made me cry, like I cried, you know.
And so I knew she went into it with heart and, you know, tough choices to make.
And then I went through them again and I was like, oh, my gosh.
And then I think I showed some to my husband and he started going through them.
Like he went through like the first three and he's like, how can we do more?
And we had already like, OK, we're doing the thousand.
OK, and then we're going to do the five hundred.
And he's just like, well, how can we do more?
And we were like trying to do math of like, what if we did for every teacher?
But like, we have to have boundaries.
And so that was just like the motivation to go further next year.
So being me, you know, me being more prepared, being more on top of it,
reaching out to other vendors, Jasper has been great working with us.
But if we included some of like other of our parts vendors and even other
like we have several fleet companies that we work with.
And so reaching out to them, just being like, hey, you want mine
throwing in, you know, 100, 200.
And so I'll get out in front of that next year.
Thinking of the whole EOS, you know, like we have rocks, which are quarterly goals.
If that's my rock, you know, I'm breaking it out into milestones.
What are you doing to make sure that you get ahead of it?
You know, you like put in on your calendar now, like three months in advance
or is that what you're doing?
Ideally, no, ideally.
Yeah, this year we are making a lot of building improvements
because we're in our original building, right?
A 66 year old building.
We got to address some of these Florida induced issues.
And so we've just been working on a lot of those things.
And I think it just snuck up on me this year.
And I didn't even wasn't even on my radar.
And then all of a sudden.
You mean life happened and yeah, yeah.
But learning, still learning, always learning.
So once we're done here, recording, I'm putting it on my calendar for next year.
So you really just talked about two team members, including your husband,
but also your service advisor, who were emotionally impacted by the stories
that they read. So I'm just curious, are there any other stories
of changes maybe in your customer base?
Things people have said, have you seen the employee morale?
Just general community response since starting this giveaway,
whether it was last year or how it's unfolded this year.
I just can't help but imagine, you know, you're a company, you're EOS,
you've got core values in place, you've got a big, hairy, audacious goal.
Everybody is on the same page, going in the same direction.
I can't imagine what this is doing for your team, camaraderie,
your company morale, your company culture.
Talk a little bit about the impact doing this one big, simple,
amazing, charitable thing, how it's impacted your team and the community around you.
Because our team does have such heart,
they always like getting the phone calls and the emails of just saying like,
oh, hey, I saw that you're doing XYZ.
That's really cool.
I really appreciate that.
Once we collected all the nominations, I sent out an email to the
those who were nominated and then those who nominated the nominators.
So just thanking them and just letting them know we did receive their
nomination and read through each one of them.
And we got a lot of emails in return just saying like, you made my day.
Thank you.
You know, they may not have one, but just someone acknowledging that
that they're doing something good, that someone appreciates them.
One lady was like, I had a really tough July and this made my day.
So even just kind of receiving.
So when that shows up in our inbox that, you know, Jessica sees that
my husband sees that in just sharing that with the team,
they can go home and know that they touched someone's life.
Yeah, their work matters.
Their work matters.
You know, we keep people on the road and we're supporting teachers.
I also, again, learning next year when I get out ahead of it
and be able to share this with, you know, do like a little press release
or something, I shared it with our local paper and they were able
to put it on their online forum.
But yeah, I just hope that when people come across Harold and Beverly,
they're like, oh, yeah, they helped local teachers.
And I know there's a lot of businesses and organizations
that are kind of doing a back to school thing as well.
But hopefully it's just that extra thing that helps us stand out.
So in the end, this year, it was a $1,500 giveaway, right?
Because of the two.
Some shop owners are saying, oh, that's a lot.
What do you say to the shop owners who are like, that's just too much.
You don't have to do 1500.
You could do 100.
You could do 250.
You could do, you know, whatever you feel you're comfortable with,
even if it's just maybe you're collecting school supplies, be a drop off.
Or maybe it's like you're putting X number of dollars
from each invoice into a fund.
It doesn't take a lot.
Make it simple, you know, keep it within your realm of, you know,
just keep it simple and what you can do.
And people pay attention and people notice.
Yeah, those are great ideas, too, that you just shared.
Like I taught a couple of times in an event marketing class
and I'm like, you don't have to put on the biggest hugest thing.
Like start small.
Just start with something small and grow from there.
And that's what you that's what you're doing, right?
Last year, it just very reactive.
I'm doing this. I put a post out there.
It grew and you loved what happened.
And now this year, it's bigger.
You're already talking about next year.
You're just stepping up and leaving a little bit more.
Let's talk quickly about what you mentioned a minute ago.
What will you do differently next year?
So start sooner.
Like how long in advance would you tell the people that are listening,
you know, telling yourself, but also telling those who are listening
how far in advance of school starts up, I think, August 11th here.
And so I like to have like, ideally like to have the teachers, you know,
they have their supplies and everything provided, you know, before that
when they get into the classroom, backing that up, I want to get it out to newspapers.
I would, you know, start reaching out to maybe other vendors
and start designing my social media and website stuff
a month and a half, two months in advance, just to keep on top of it,
especially reaching out to if we wanted to work with other vendors and stuff.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
We generally tell people like six weeks, you know, give yourself a good six weeks
depending on whatever it is, maybe longer, but for sure, six weeks.
So that's awesome.
Yeah, for less stress, I would say.
One thing I hear all the time is the acronym ROI, return on investment.
Everybody wants to know that they didn't waste their time, that shop owners,
you know, you want appointments to be made, you want, but there's so much more to ROI,
return on investment than the number of appointments on the calendar.
It's certainly important, it's critical, it matters.
But I remember seeing you post some screenshots of some data that you were looking at
that I thought was super smart, because not only are appointments important,
but you can have people making appointments as a result of this
seed you watered six months from now, right?
But there are other things people can look at.
You mentioned briefly a minute ago, and I want to have you just unpack that
and talk more about the people that visited your website.
How long did they visit your website?
They maybe came into that nomination page,
but did they go look at other pages on your website?
Did your social media audience grow?
Were you hearing more buzz in the community, people just talking about you?
Like, ROI can really extend far beyond just the phone call, the scheduled appointment.
Talk about what you're tracking, what you're measuring,
the growth visibility, reputation, how all of that matters when it comes to ROI.
I'm not going to know the dollar amount that we invoice numbers,
and I'm not going to know that, and I'm fine with that,
because this is more about the community and helping local teachers.
But I am able to see that we had a 200% increase in traffic on our website
during that time period, and the users spent one minute longer on our site.
They were poking around. It's just a minute.
Gosh, even 30 seconds is almost like a lifetime on the web.
I'll take that extra minute if they were poking around looking at our blog posts
and seeing who we are in the community.
I had, on social media, the initial post got 5,000 impressions because it was shared.
I had total comments, likes, and shares was over 500,
and that was just from the ones that I could see,
because depending on someone's social media settings,
I can't always see if it's always shared.
And then we received new followers on Instagram and Facebook,
and I thought I was very clever for this.
On our form for the nomination, I had an option,
as most things do nowadays, would you like to be part of our email newsletter
that we send out occasionally?
We don't send it out very frequently at all.
It's every couple of months, if that.
And we're known for our dad jokes and trivia.
I said, hey, we have this occasional email,
and it has dad jokes, trivia, and giveaways.
Would you like to be part of that?
And I had so many more people sign up for the email than I anticipated,
but so that was great to capture those people.
But yeah, I'm not going to know necessarily,
oh, this person is calling because they saw this
or they participated in this, and that's okay.
I know that our brand awareness increased,
and so to me that was worth it.
I'm sure there are questions about this whole thing
that I haven't asked, and so I definitely encourage people.
One is get into our Facebook group,
the Auto Repair Marketing Mastermind.
That is where Christina posted about this
the first time last year, and I was like, let's do a podcast.
And then again, this year.
But I could just see that it had changed,
and I could see that the organization was coming together,
and I just really wanted to talk about it.
But definitely join our Facebook group.
You can find Christina in there.
I'm going to put links in the show notes
to several pages on their incredible website
that talk about their history for generations.
Like, that is the definition of legacy.
It's rare, it's beautiful.
I think you said 66 years is how old the building is.
I don't even know if that's how old.
Like, talk a little bit about that, the heritage, the legacy,
where y'all came from super quick.
Just tell that piece to people.
Yeah, so Harold and Beverly was started by my husband's
and his brother's great-grandfather and grandfather.
So it was like a father-in-law, son-in-law situation
at the time in West Virginia, Virginia,
right on the border of West Virginia and Virginia and Bluefield.
Yeah.
And so they started a shop up there.
I think it was like one of those,
it was like a gas station and, you know.
And so they started that I think in 1951 up there.
But then they were tired of the snow.
They were tired of and came down to Florida in 1959
and started the shop here several years
after they came down here.
I can't remember the date exactly,
but the great-grandfather passed away.
And so it was run by Nelson and Lloyd's grandfather.
And then it went to Nelson Lloyd's father and uncle.
Now it is Nelson and Lloyd's fourth generation.
And if I recall correctly looking at your website,
so you're married to Nelson, but is it Lloyd you said?
Lloyd is his brother, yeah.
Lloyd's wife also works in the shop.
Are there other family members
or just the four of you working in the shop?
It's just the four of us.
She is our accounting, our bookkeeper.
So it's cool.
We all kind of have our niche.
I'm the marketing, she's the numbers gal.
My husband's more of the EOS integrator
business manager and Lloyd is a ASC certified master tech.
Y'all thought it all covered.
Yeah, we got it all covered.
And then previously Nelson's aunt worked there.
Their grandmother had worked there.
So cousins have worked there.
Yeah.
That's amazing.
I love it.
That is a big, big deal.
So thanks for sharing that.
And I want to end, I was really thinking like,
you know, we don't really have time to unpack this,
but it's just so important.
I want to just leave with you shared a little bit
of your own personal journey, which honestly,
I didn't even know about until just digging in
to learn more about you and the shop
and this teacher giveaway and all of this.
And I came across your cancer story
and your living rarely.com website.
That's so beautifully done, by the way,
so incredibly put together.
And you talk about, I think it's an incredibly rare
Ewing sarcoma of the pancreas.
You talk about your journey, which was obviously
arguably the most difficult time of your life,
depression, going through treatment, the surgery.
Several years, I love how you put the timeline on there.
It's so beautifully laid out and well done.
Christina, what do you want to tell people?
Because somebody's going to hear this
and we're focusing on this amazing feel good, great story
with teachers and making impact.
And we're talking about a four generation shop legacy,
but in the midst of all of that is this phenomenal,
miraculous story of the most difficult time of your life.
And here we are a couple of years on the other side of it
and look at you, beautiful, thriving,
making an impact in your business
and your family and the community.
So what do you want to tell people about your cancer journey?
Never lose hope, whatever you're going through,
never lose hope, never give up.
There were so many times when I wanted to, I told my husband,
just leave me on the side of the road, man, I'm done.
I can't do this anymore.
I can't go through treatment.
I don't want to be here.
And if I didn't have my faith and my family to get me through that,
yeah, I would have just laid in bed and passed away.
But yeah, never lose hope.
I know so often it seems you're just in this pit of despair.
And I think what you have to ask for people to do for you
when you're in that pit is to just sit with you in that pit.
So often people will come along and they'll say,
well, at least, they'll give you the at least perspective,
but at least it's not this or at least blah, blah, blah,
but or they'll try and give you advice.
And you'll just put a smile on your face
or tomorrow's another day.
And it's like, I love you,
but I just need you to sit with me
in this terrible place for a minute.
But yeah, never give up.
Don't lose hope.
Take things minute by minute, second by second, if you have to.
That's remarkable advice.
It's really, really good.
I think so many times people just don't know what to say
and they fall back on some of these things
that you just said.
I just lost my mom in January and she was 79.
She lived a very long life.
She was ready to go.
And I know in the grief, people say things that their intention,
I always had to go back to, what's their intention?
But yeah, you don't want to hear about all the other possibilities.
You just want to say, well, this sucks and I just need you to be here.
And so that's really great that you have that to share.
And you've got a story that's going to truly make a difference
and help somebody, whether it's the person going through the hard time
or the friend who needs to know, you don't have to have answers.
You just need to have a heart and just be there.
So I really love that.
Maybe we'll have to have you on for a third time
and just dig more into that.
I want to encourage all to look up harrellandbeverly.com
and explore their site.
Look at all of the incredible things
this awesome shop in Florida is doing.
Go visit Christina's blog, livingrarely.com
and take something away that makes you a better person,
maybe makes you better able to support someone else
or heaven forbid, you're in this situation,
you can gain some hope from someone who thought, that is it, I'm done.
Just let me go.
But only to realize that there's so much more life on the other side of healing.
So I really appreciate you being here in your time with us today.
Before we close out, just because it's technically August
and we have a couple of more months, I want to encourage everyone.
We still have a couple of spots available in our plan
with the pros event coming up in October, at the end of October.
Last year was our first year doing it.
We kept it secret, hidden.
We didn't publicize it until it was over and done
because we wanted to keep it small and intimate and controlled
and really make sure it was something that we wanted to keep doing.
And obviously now we know that it is.
We got great feedback from the ladies that were in attendance
this year.
We're opening it up to the guys and so our limit is 25
and we have just a few more left.
And unfortunately, by the time you're hearing this,
our payment plan option will be gone today, July 31 is the last day
to sign up to pay over a couple of months
because we know budgeting can make it easier for people.
But visit planwiththepros.com to really see what it's all about.
We are hosting it for the last time at Bayer Hotel at West Point.
So if you're a history buff or you're a military-minded,
patriotic person, you want to experience West Point,
we're going to be able to take you on post for a tour.
But the whole main focus of this event is to teach, coach, mentor,
and train you in how to create your full, whole-year marketing plan.
Do it and leave with it completely done.
So you're going to leave this event and all of 2026
for marketing will be planned out.
You know, things to put on your calendar to get ahead of it
and all that kind of stuff.
So definitely go take a look at that and get registered.
Take advantage of that's the spot that is available.
And until then, hey, thanks again for listening
to the Auto Repair Marketing podcast
on the Aftermarket Radio Network.
There are some other great shows on the network
and you can find them at aftermarketradionetwork.com
or on your favorite podcast listening apps like Spotify,
Apple Podcasts, and many others.
Tune in for another episode next week.
Until then, go fill those bays.
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