Video: Ask Me Anything with Kyle Doyle | Duration: 1816s | Summary: Ask Me Anything with Kyle Doyle

Transcript for "Ask Me Anything with Kyle Doyle": Hey, everyone. My name is Jacob. I'll be your moderator today. Welcome to the first ever ask me anything with a car wash expert, sponsored by RINZ. We've got a great session planned for you today. Without further ado, let's meet our car wash expert for today, Kyle Doyle. Kyle, has has over 25 years of industry experience in car washing. He launched the first ever, POS software CompuWash, that was eventually bought by Sonny's. He led marketing and customer experience at Russell Speeders. He founded Ignitewash, which built the first the first ever car wash industry salesperson platform, and he continues to solve problems for car washes at RINZ. There is nothing that Kyle hasn't seen or done in car washing. Kyle, thank you for joining us today. Sure. Thanks, Jacob. Looking forward to it. Okay. So for today, the way this is gonna work is if we already have some questions that you submitted ahead of time, so thank you for doing that. If you have more questions or new questions, feel free to use the q and a chat, on your screen, and we'll get to as many as we can. We are gonna be short on time today, so thanks in advance for understanding. And a special update here. So we are going to invite some of you to come on stage. If you ask a question in the chat, we may ask you if you wanna come on stage and ask Kyle live yourself. So please keep an eye on the chat, and we will tell you how to actually come on stage. Okay. So with that, let's let's kick things off. And we're gonna start off, Kyle, with the first question here. What are your recommendations? And this is from Thomas at Cheetah Clean. What are your recommendations for scheduling software for car washes? Okay. Hey, Thomas. I you know, I don't know that I'm the greatest expert on scheduling software, but I I would say check, talk, car wash. I used a Zoho product in the past. Connect Team, I remember. I think you're just trying to find something that's simple and and meets your needs, and is not crazy expensive. So I I would say ask on Talk Car Wash, and and you can check out that Zoho one. It it wasn't that expensive. Connect Team's another good one. Alright. Nice. Next question coming at you, Kyle. Just a 2 part question. It's from Vida at Revive. So, first part is, what are your recommended recommendations for local advertising? And then second part is, what are some of the key elements to ensuring a superb customer experience? Okay. So 2 two big ones. Thanks, Vida. So I would say on local advertising, I think you have to start grassroots. I mean, I think that's always going to be good. Car washing is one of those businesses where you have to own your 1, 2 mile radius around you, 3 miles depending on where you are, and know the community. So I think free wash codes giving out to to everybody in the neighborhood. If you read up a little bit up on Chick Fil A, this is how they really build their brand in the beginning. Get people to try you. Just be in the community, local schools, local fundraisers, local community events. I think that's really really important. You can obviously get into the digital stuff. So Instagram, Facebook, you know, the meta stuff, TikTok. We can go deep into, you know, geofencing your local Walmart, using Placer AI to find out where people are coming from before the car wash, and going to after the car wash. But I think on a local advertising, kind of perspective, get in the car and just go visit a whole bunch of people. I really believe in the power of just relationships and and human connection. We over complicate things sometimes. So if you are the owner, if you're the manager, get in the car, go shake some hands, kiss some babies, and and say hi to everybody. I can't tell you how far that goes. It's simple. It's inexpensive. It does take time. Also, you're gonna learn a lot about what people think about the wash or the competition and things like that. So local advertising, I would just say really be grassroots. On what makes customer experience customer experience, I've spent years on this. I think to start, make a list of every touch point. So the car is passing by your facility. That's a touch point. What is the what is the the frontage look like? What is the signage? What is the landscaping? Alright. They enter the property. Now they're wayfinding. They're trying to find the entrance to the tunnel in the pay area. That's a touch point. They roll up. Now they're gonna greet either a person or a kiosk. That's a touchpoint. They're gonna load. That's a touchpoint. They're in the tunnel. It's a touchpoint. They're gonna call to get some information. That's a touchpoint. All of these different things. They're gonna try to cancel a membership. You pause it, whatever. These are all touch points. I would make a list of every single one. I got deep into this. What were they doing, thinking, feeling in each of those touch points? But think of those touch points, and just take one at a time and say, how could I make this a little bit better? I was curious to see or interested that the what's his name? He gave the at the NRCC, the Northeast show just 2 days ago, he gave a talk about unreasonable hospitality. He kinda talked about how he helped his restaurant, 11 Madison Park, become number 1 in the world. That's really how they did it. Experience is about putting yourself in your customers, shoes and really understanding all of those touch points and how you can make it just a little bit better. But I think customer experience is is significant. It's hugely important, and I think it's worth the time, you know, spending it. So so good question. Thanks, Kyle. Next question just in just a second, but first to the audience. Make sure if you've got a question, you put it in the chat. Don't be shy. So next question we've got from Ryan here is, paying for sales staff seems expensive. Do I really need, salespeople at my car wash? Ryan. Ryan. Let's talk. Come on, Ryan. Yes. You need salespeople. You absolutely need salespeople out there. You will not sell memberships without them. Yeah. You'll sell it. We see conversion rates without salespeople being in that 1 to 3 percent area. Once you put warm bodies out there with even no training, you're at like 6%. You start to focus on it with intentionality. You're getting to that 10 and above. Make it a core part of your company, your business, from the top down, and you're gonna get to 20%, 15 to 20%. I'm not saying that's easy, but I'm saying nobody should be under 10%. That is low hanging fruit. You have the ability to do it, but you need salespeople out there. Just that human rapport of somebody being there saying, hey. What wash feels right for you today? I wanna make sure we meet your needs today. Were you thinking about this package or that package? You want tire shine? You're looking for a little wax? Okay. Great. That's a great choice. Hey. We've got this great membership now that I've established the value of what you just asked for. Got a great way to give it to you. Either I can give it to you one time just for today, or I can give you a whole month of unlimited. Our customers love the way it feels to wash whenever they want. Can I get you set up? You do that with a human being, your conversion rate will be 2, 3, 4, 5 x what it's gonna be without people. That's just the facts. That's tried and true, across hundreds of car washes, that we've seen. So, yes, you need salespeople. I know we all kinda went through this thing, whatever, 10, 15 years ago where it's like, let's get rid of all the labor. We don't need labor anymore. We don't need as much as we once did, but the labor you do have can make a huge impact on the customer experience and your revenue. So yes, I would say you absolutely need salespeople. Our clients that have been on the fence once they see the ROI of the difference in conversion rate when they have people versus when they don't, it's a very simple math thing to do at that point, and you can see, you know, how valuable that really is. Okay. Thanks, Kyle. That was that was a great one. Next question here is, from, Tom. So he at Super Clean, he he asked, how do you compete with a large tunnel nearby when you have a small tunnel? Yeah. No. Another great question. Look. I found that, I've operated car washes that were smaller and and from a marketing side. Smaller, less pretty than the new shiny nickel, the new shiny car wash that was, you know, 8, 9, $10,000,000 greenfield car wash, and you can outperform them. You absolutely can. Look. Customer experience going back to that is gonna be everything. So that place might be shiny. It might be new, but if the people are not giving a great experience and your people are, people will go to you. They don't care about how big and shiny the building is. What they care about is do you clean my car, and how do you make me feel when I'm on the property when I visit? That is the name of the game. That will beat pretty buildings every time. Now if you can do that with a pretty building, that's even better, and pretty buildings will absolutely drive trial. They will bring visual attention from traffic passing by. That's all good, but have you ever seen those restaurants? They pop up, it's like, oh, there's a new restaurant. Did you see everybody's trying the new restaurant, and in 6 months, the place is dead because everybody tried it, but they didn't like the service. They didn't like the menu. They didn't like the experience. And so, yeah, when it's new and shiny, everybody tries it, but they will go back to the place that makes them feel good. So I would say if you are a smaller tunnel, first of all, get with your chemical rep. Really make sure you're cleaning, the car well to the best of your ability. Don't skimp on chemical costs, things like that. But once you have that, that's table stakes. Once you have that, really think about your people and your experience, and I guarantee you you can beat the bigger tunnel as long as they are not also, you know, giving that amazing customer experience. But just be different. Even if they are, find a way to be different. Give out popsicles in the summertime. Shake hands, kiss babies, give a great experience, and and talk to your customers. I I think that's the other thing that, again, to go back to being human, spend time at the car wash just talking to people. Thanks for coming in today. Can I ask you why did you choose us today? I can't tell you how valuable that data is. That is worth tens of 1,000 of dollars, that data. You can get it for free. Just walk your lot. Spend time asking your current customers why they choose you. Now there are certain customers that are gonna choose you even if you're doing a terrible job because you're just happen to be right around the corner from home or work or shopping, but, if you spend time asking them, I would say the other thing I really love to do, and this is another trick, is go to a supermarket between you and the competition. K. Grab a loaf of bread, walk around the store, and when you see somebody say, sir, ma'am, can I just ask you a question? I'm looking for a car wash. I'm new to the area. Can you tell me what if there's a good car wash in the area? See what they say. I can't tell you again how valuable that information is. Do that enough times, and you start to realize what people think of your car wash versus the other car wash, and I guarantee you none of those people are gonna say, yeah. That other tunnel is longer. Nobody's coming in with a tape measure figuring out who's got the longer tunnel. It doesn't matter. What matters is customer experience and meeting their needs. Okay. We've got a live question. We think we we have an audience member ready to ask live. So can we get, Jose on stage? Yes. Hi. Sorry. Hey, Jose. I'm already not working. That's alright. This is not Okay. Okay. And so Jose, go go ahead. It's not call you. Yep. Cal, how important is location in this business? I mean, once you are known, are people going to follow you? Yeah. Great question, Jose. And and, again, this is site selection is one of the things we can spend hours and hours and hours on. There are algorithms that look at all this data, but I still believe in that combined with gut check on how does the location feel, ingress, egress, all that kind of stuff. But I would say that, yes, it's very important. But once you choose so so it's very important when you're choosing a site. Okay? If you're about to invest in a car wash, it's it's super important that you really do your due diligence to find the right location. However, once you're there, you're there. These are the cards you're dealt. You have to deal with what you have. Right? So now it's a question of how do I make my car wash a destination. And people will car washing can be a destination. But again, not to to beat a dead horse, but it comes back to the customer experience. If you give them a great experience, they're gonna remember that. And and let's be honest, a lot of car washes don't give a great experience. It's just here's the soap and water. Here's the suds. Yes. It may be pretty. Maybe we give you towels, but just give them a great experience. And and even if you are a b minus or a c location, they'll come. They'll visit you, but a lot is gonna depend on it's gonna look, a bad location is gonna make it a little bit harder in your marketing and in your customer experience. It's a little bit more of an uphill battle. But the reality is that you have at least. Yeah. The the reality is once you pick it, it's yours. It's kind of like love the one you're with, and just do do your work, and and it could definitely work. Great question, Jose. Thank you. Thanks, Jose, for joining us. Next question we got for Kyle here is from Brian at Cheetah Clean. Brian says, after rebranding a car wash a year later, we are still having trouble with volume and conversion on a high traffic road. What do you recommend doing to increase conversion and profits? Yeah. So, again, there's a ton of context to this one. I think speed of the traffic is is often a problem. It it may be really high traffic, but they're they're at a pretty high rate of speed. To start, you know, wind dancers and things to just get people out of, you know, kinda retail blindness of of forgetting that, oh, I didn't I kinda forgot there's a car wash there. So I think some of those simple things like wind dancers and kind of novelty at the street, a sign spinner, like, that could get some attention. Top of funnel, bottom of funnel. So top of funnel is retail traffic. Bottom of the funnel is conversion rate to membership. They're 2 totally different problems, but let's start with the top of the funnel. I think it kind of goes back to that local advertising kind of thing, being in your community, really trying to be grassroots, meet people, get people in the local community to to try you out. I think trial is where it starts. So a ton of free wash, tickets, coupons, you know, use your POS. All POSs have the ability to do this, but really just give away a ton of free washes. However, make sure your customer experience is good. It really does go back to that. So, you know, sometimes it's like, well, I built this great place, and and nobody's coming. It's like, well, did you ask people why? Did you go to the supermarket? And did you did you find out why they're not coming to you? Did you spend time in the detail area? You have to spend time talking to to the people. The consumer is at the at the top of the food chain. They're the ones who make these decisions. So I would say get out in the local community, even if it's, you know, you think it's silly. Put some wind dancers up there, but talk to people. Find out, you know, what the problem is. And again, you're trying to maximize the location. Again, once we have it, we have it. Love the one you're with, and now just try to do the best you can. And then I would say conversion rate then becomes really important. You can't afford with a low retail volume to have a 5% conversion rate to membership. You need to make sure that you're just crushing your sales operations, and everybody is really offering that membership to every single customer, and and keep that conversion rate up at 10, 15 plus percent, and I think that's, you know, that's the way to go. Ton of context there. I mean I mean you can get into campaigning and promotions and and and things like that, but, that would kind of be the big principle kind of ideas I would think about. Thank you, Kyle. Next question here. So this is from Matt. He says, I've got attendants in the driveway, but, it doesn't it doesn't seem to be going well in terms of selling memberships. What is your advice for how we could improve sales, in the driveway? Okay. So this one's easy. Here here comes the commercial. You need Sales Path. Sales Path is, you know, the platform that's gonna really drive accountability, but really here's the thing. At the end of the day, it's not about the most charismatic salespeople, It's about the most consistent salespeople. So sometimes we think, well, I need, you know, the all star, and and it's great when you can find them, but what you need is to find the way to present to every single customer. Anecdote, we had a client with a Spanish speaking salesperson who spoke no English, but he was a hard worker, good guy, so he wants to do sales. So he memorized the sales presentation. Okay? He doesn't speak English. All he can say is the sales presentation, and so he just gave it every time. That's all he said. He didn't go off target and and say other things. Well, guess who their top salesperson was? It it was this Spanish speaking man who just he was consistent. He was hardworking, consistent, didn't let it bother him. Now that's easier said than done. How do you get salespeople to give the presentation every single time? And that really starts with you. It starts with driving accountability. Again, with Sales Path, you guys probably know this. We're recording the audio so that you can coach. You can find out what they're actually are saying. There's live leaderboards with what the conversion rate per salesperson is. So but even without all of that, honestly, if you just really pay attention, there's a great line. Mike Weinberg is a great author on sales management. I recommend anybody to to read his books, you know, follow his content, but he has this line that the the sales organization cannot do better than the sales leader. And so your sales leader, if it's you, if it's a manager, you have to drive the bus with accountability, with a path to how they reach the targets, with follow ups on coaching, and follow ups on how we're doing relative to our targets. So I would say start with you. Just make sure it's important to you. It's the thing that you start your day thinking about, and then drive that accountability down to make sure you're presenting to every car. Great. And I think we've got a good follow-up to that one, from Brad. Rachel, can we get Brad's question up on the screen for everyone to see? Brad asked, do I need a kiosk? Since I'm relying on a salesperson, can I operate with a gate only? Yeah. So you you need POS. Right? You have to have a POS system, but it's up to you. We see, you know, lots of people that have pay stations, with people out there, but we also see plenty of people that have stainless steel stantions and boxes with just a regular, terminal POS terminal in there. We see security booth kind of setups where there's a register and a POS inside. We see people using tablets from their POS company. So look, you need POS, but, whether you need pay stations or not, if you're gonna operate with salespeople, and again, salespeople, if you're in the express membership business, then people will always outperform pay stations. That's just a fact. Nobody can argue with that fact, and so if you have the people, do you need the pay station? Here's where the pay stations are a nice backup, but there's pros and cons to this. The salesperson calls in sick, somebody wants to take a lunch break, you can still operate. You can still have customers come through and get their wash. However, the downside to that is the salesperson can also use that to start to float away, to kind of go talk to their buddy who's a loader, to spend a little more time checking their phone, and because you don't know that the customer is actually not talking to your salesperson, they're just using the self-service ability of a pay station. So that's the the kind of the dark side. I do know operators who even when they buy a place rip out pay stations because they know that it's going to create this problem where salespeople can just let customers order on their own. So it's really a personal choice. It's it's an investment choice, but you can do it with pay stations or you can do it without. You need POS either way, but it's the choice is yours. We've got another question in the, q and a if we can get that on screen from Luke. Luke is asking, I have a single site location. We've been at 25 100 membership plateau for a year, 75% of which are unlimited, recurring at $45 a month. They stay around 10 to 13 months. What's the best way to retain unlimited members? Thank you, Luke. Yeah. Okay. Good question. So we're kinda getting into churn a little bit here. So it means that your churn every day is matching your sign ups every day. So I think for starters, it's good for the sales team to know what your churn is every day. Now that doesn't mean you have to give them the number today, but what happens sometimes is salespeople will get, hey, we had 8 sign ups today. Pat on the back. Hey, we did awesome. Man, that 8, that's really good. I got commission on 8, but what they need to understand is, guys, we lose 8 a day, let's just say for argument's sake. And so what you did is you you didn't help us grow, and so the incentives, the communication from you as the leader needs to be about, guys, we're not trying to sign people up. We're trying to grow. We're trying to grow our member count. So is there a big thermometer poster thingy on we wanna hit 3,000 members? That's the goal. Come on, guys. Growth is the goal. Because sometimes if sign ups is the goal, we're kind of losing track that we're actually churning out the same amount of the sign ups. So I think mentally, psychologically, make sure everybody's talking about the goal for growth. Growth is the goal. 2nd, on churn, I mean 10 to 12 months is not bad. That's that's pretty good tenure. I would say for churn, what's the biggest reason people say they're canceling their membership? I'm not using it. Well, that's code. That code is I am not valuing it. I am not prioritizing use of this membership. So you need to get the right behaviors, and usually that's in the first 6 weeks of their membership. In that first 6 weeks, we need to make sure they're coming to the car wash as often as they possibly can. So we want them to create that behavior. That's why members that sign up in the wintertime, in colder climates, in pollen season, they are gonna have a lower churn because they build the habit in that high demand season because there was constantly salt on the road, constantly pollen on the car, that type of thing. Customers that sign up in the summertime type of thing, a higher churn because they don't build the habits quick enough. So anything you can do, you can use your rinse CRM, to do this. I love video. So taking, like, even a low production value video of your employees saying thanks for being a member. Thanks for being a member. Here's what you're getting. Send them, like, good content in that 1st 6 weeks. Give them free wash codes for their family. Hey, you got the membership, but I bet your wife is jealous or your husband is jealous, so here's another free wash code for someone else. Do those kind of things that drip kind of content in that 1st 6 weeks to drive the behaviors, and churn will come down in the long term. Obviously, a down sell program like rinsed has, again, is a powerful way to save 15 20 percent of those that are attempting to cancel. But just, again, customer experience, make sure they are using the membership. They feel good about the value they're getting, and and you'll you'll hopefully drive that down. But I think set goals for growth not just sign ups, and then send really good content in the 1st 6 weeks to build behavior. Alright. We've got one more question, and then we're going to go into the lightning round. So stay tuned for that. Wow. Kyle, last regular question, is about menu redesigns. So can you share what you've seen work well in the past in terms of redesigning a menu? Yeah. Again, one of these things we can spend hours on, but keep it simple. Think of a consumer. Like, they don't know what all this chemical stuff does and what is what. It's really hard for them to process in a very short time span. Let's call it 3 to 5 seconds to really get a sense of what they wanna buy. So simplify the heck out of your menu. You don't wanna have too many inclusions. They might be there, but the the where the visual weight lies should be in the big ones that people notice. Tire shine, ceramic, or or something what your waxes, undercarriage, that type of thing. Maybe wheels in in in certain areas, but really try to simplify it. Remember, as consumers, we don't make decisions rationally. All these check boxes and things like that, that is not why we buy the things we buy. We are emotional creatures. We buy buy things based on emotional drivers, and then we support it with rational drivers, so we can explain it away to our spouses and and and ourselves. And so make sure an emotional driver is first. Are you the type and I'm not saying this is the menu, but are you the type of person who buys the best? Then you're just gonna get the top package, and it needs to communicate. People like you, they buy the top package. Are you a value oriented person? Hey, this is gonna be a really good maybe one up from basic. This is really good because it's gonna give you this one inclusion, but really try to understand the psychology of consumers. There's a ton of great books on this, but understand that consumers are overwhelmed by the option, so keep it simple, and that we're gonna make decisions based on emotional drivers, then we're gonna support it with rational drivers. Alright. And that brings us to our lightning round and last portion of this session. So, we've gotta quit. Okay. So, Kyle, we're gonna ask you to keep these answers to, 5th 30 seconds or less. Okay. Are you ready? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm I got my watch ready. Okay. First question, what tactics and incentives do you recommend using when coaching salespeople? Look. Commission. Commission people wanna get paid. They wanna pay for things and support their families and and go on vacation. So be generous. I think you look at a lifetime value of a member, it's 2 to $400 somewhere around there. That membership is worth it. So give them good bonuses. Pat them on the back all the time when when they're winning, and coach them when they're underperforming. But I would say just just pay pay them. Be generous. Alright. What metrics should I pay attention to on a day to day basis to achieve long term membership growth? Conversion rate. Conversion rate is everything. It doesn't matter whether it's cloudy, sunny, it's winter, summer. It's a b plus location or an a plus location. Conversion rate is anything. Some people call it capture rate, you know, penetration rate. But out of all your retail cars, how many memberships do you how many of those people do you sign up to membership? Focus on that and and obsess over it, and and you're gonna be good. You're gonna grow. Next question. What's more important, attracting new customers or improving retention? That's like asking me which is my favorite child. You can't choose. You have to do both. Like, it is nonnegotiable. You have to give a great experience to make sure churn and do all these things we talked about with churn. You also and we but we know we have really high churn rates in car washing relative to other subscription businesses. So they are going to, there's gonna be attrition. So sign them up. You have to focus on both things. And last question, what marketing campaign should I run for existing members to encourage retention? Existing members are already paying you, so I don't know that you need marketing promotions. Family plans are are a big way to do it. I love free wash codes for people at their 3 month mark, 6 month mark, whatever. Give them a free wash for their friends and family. What you want is when their spouse says, hey, I'm looking at the credit card. Do you really need this car wash membership? You need them to say, yes. I like that one. Keep that one. Get rid of the other one. And if you give them stuff, they're more likely to say, no. Keep this membership. I don't wanna leave. Kyle, thank you so much for joining us today and blessing us with all of your car wash wisdom and experience. We are definitely gonna look to do this again. So thank you all to everyone who joined live and asked your questions ahead of time, and we will be in touch soon. Thank you all. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, Rachel and Sarah, behind the scenes. Good job.