Maximum Octane

In today's episode, the #1 Relationships Coach, C. Regi Rodgers, visits us to discuss how we establish and build romantic and business-related relationships.  Former renowned Pastor C. Regi Rodgers has been featured in "I'm Just Saying" from TCT Network, "Heavenly Sent" from the Word Network, "Atlanta Live" from TV 57 in Atlanta, and other local cable and national radio programming. Regi lead...

Today, we are joined by two remarkable women, pillars of ATI, Katie Plitt and Ashley Lehr, to talk about how they deal with being a spouse, a mother, and the backbone of an organization with over 1700 members and more than 80 workers.  Ashley, whose son Travis is almost 4, and Katie, mother of Caleb, who just turned one, talk about their daily routine, how they juggle the responsibilities of...

Laura Ritch and Rosa Anderson joined us today to talk about how they decided to open a soothing salt spa at the back of Integrity Auto Care. Laura is a US Army veteran, who met her husband Robert while stationed in Norfolk, VA; they got married in 1992, and then she transitioned from active duty to a military wife. Rosa is a former nurse who had to leave her profession due to health issues. Althou...

How much attention are you paying to your business' Google reviews? Probably not enough. Of course, reviews might look like a double-edged sword to many business owners. We all love positive five-star reviews, but what if we get a wrecking one-star review?  Regardless of how we deal with good or bad reviews, being relevant on the web is more important than ever: a company that doesn't exist d...

No one is in business to lose money; however, we've been taught that profit is the bottom line, and before thinking of it, we must take care of the expenses, the debts, salaries, and so forth. Therefore, following that old-school thinking, what comes first will get more attention, dedication, and time, and what comes last won't. Our guest, Ron Saharyan believes the exact opposite; profit must alwa...

For many entrepreneurs, putting a system together seems too complicated, a ton of effort, and a series of time-consuming routines when, actually, systems are natural freedom producers. To explain the multiple benefits of having sustainable, reliable, and replicable systems in our business is the amazing Wendy K. Walters with us.  Wendy is a Motivational Speaker, Dream Builder, Author, Ghost W...

Accumulating stuff we barely use is something almost all of us are guilty of. It has become a national issue, thousands of storage facilities around the country are full, and all of them have a waiting list.  The stuff we refuse to throw away or sell occupies a physical space in our homes or offices, consuming our time and energy. That is why decluttering has multiple benefits, and our guest,...

One of the toughest lessons our guest, Frank Leutz, learned from his first experiences as a business owner is to have a clear idea of what kind of business we want to build. He overworked himself to exhaustion, spending over 20 hours every day at a packed garage that looked more like a car dealership than a repair shop. During that time, Frank lost the first five years of his daughter, and on top...

Becoming a more home-based society during the pandemic didn't eliminate the threats to our and our employees' safety. The threats simply followed us home. To our guest, Terry Choate Jr, taking care of our external and internal customers is the best way to enhance our organization's security.  Terry Choate Jr is the CEO, Co-founder, and President of Blue-U Defense. This company provides Fortun...

We already know that many variables are working against shop owners in the battle of getting qualified internal customers and retaining them. The first step to solving this problem, just as with every issue, is focusing on what we control. To our guest, Jay Goninen, that would be asking ourselves if the job we offer, the working conditions, and the environment at our company is attractive, and if...

The international conflict between Russia and Ukraine presented itself as the perfect opportunity for small business leaders to execute one of our favorite activities: creating a smokescreen in front of us to distract ourselves from taking care of our businesses. Although the conflict is real, and our business might be affected by it long-term, we can't do anything about it now. So, why do we insi...

To succeed in the entrepreneurial journey, we need more than determination, consistency, commitment, and grind; it is also crucial to put a plan in place, surround ourselves with experienced experts, and get guidance.  Our guest, Adam Kushner, found a great way to reverse engineer the entrepreneurial process, inspired by his experiences in endurance sports. He suggests we start by identifying...

There is a subtle yet extraordinary difference between owning something and being responsible for it. An employee will take care of something they own a thousand times better than something they are held accountable for. This works for material things like a gas pump or a tire rack and intangible things like customer service. The amazing discovery was made by Steven King, owner of King's Smokehous...

Service Advisors are the bridge between external customers and service technicians. They transfer customers' doubts and concerns to the technicians and determine the repair timeline. For the most part, Service Advisors have the last word on which internal customers should be sent home when they are not helping achieve the levels of excellence required.   Our guest, Brittany Schindler, GM...

Among hundreds of other things, the irruption of social media gave means to virtually every person on the planet to share their voices, knowledge, opinions, and, of course, market their businesses. Although podcasting is not considered a social media per se, it certainly does a great job at offering people the chance to share their voices and opinions, and needless to say, market their businesses....

Statistically, companies have a small percentage, between 10 and 20%, of top performer internal customers and a similar number of people on the exact opposite side of that spectrum. The rest of the entire workforce is in between those two groups. Ironically, most companies dedicate their time and resources to trying to "fix" those underperforming collaborators in an attempt to recover them. This p...

Today's episode is a powerful one. Having read several books and watched tons of videos on self-help, visualization, and manifestation, I had never achieved what our guest, Barney Feinberg, helped me unlock in just a couple of minutes. The simplicity, clarity, and kindness of his voice and message just blew me away, and I'm eager to share all of that in our show.  Barney Feinberg is an Innova...

Most of us, especially in our businesses, change things when we are forced to. Of course, there are other times when we create a plan, design a course of action, execute the plan, and arrive at the desired destination. But for the most part, life is unpredictable; things out of our control happen and force us to pivot. What we decide to do with what life imposes can differentiate us from the rest,...

Emotional intelligence usually receives the unfair tag of metaphysical woo-woo, but actually, there is science behind its concept, and it is a teachable skill. A first step into understanding how it works is realizing many things happen in our brains that we are unaware of, and we have no control over that directly impact almost everything we do.  To talk about the importance of emotional int...

Becoming an independent contractor might be the recipe for financial freedom to many people, and it probably is the best place to start looking for it. Still, other aspects must be considered once we become responsible for an organization, regardless of its size. For instance, if we are sole proprietors and someone working for us gets hurt while doing their job, they can sue us, and we'll respond...

When we think about being CEOs of our businesses, usually big names come to mind like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos and immediately, we feel we are too far from them, therefore, far from being CEOs. However, let's look at the textbook definition of CEO: the only difference between big corporate CEOs and us is that they report to a board of directors, are responsible for improving their share price, and...

From a business owner's perspective, having happy clients paying considerable amounts of money while sometimes waiting hours to get the product they paid for sounds, at minimum, impossible. However, that is what an average Disney visitor experience when visiting The Happiest Place On Earth. How is it possible, then? Our guest, Dennis Snow, has several answers to that question, and luckily, he shar...

Although it takes a lot of work to align, having a decentralized business benefits both business owners and internal customers. Since our guest, Scott Brown, implemented that leadership style in his company, he got happier, more productive employees and more satisfied clients.  He gave his internal customers autonomy to decide and the right tools to make things happen; having someone worrying...

As a self-confessed workaholic, perhaps one of the toughest challenges Bill Nalu faced as a leader was to decide to close on Saturdays. He didn't want his internal customers and their families to go through what he experienced working 60 hours a week.  Bill Nalu, our guest today, is the President of Interstate Auto Care and a fantastic leader who lives and breathes serving. At Interstate Auto...

Have you ever wondered if it is possible to run a successful business, keep it stable and solid for almost thirty years, grow and evolve, then transition from business owner to CEO, and do all that while working with your spouse? The answer is yes, it is possible, and the Weatherbys, Kelli, and Lee are with us to share their story of how they managed to pull that one out.  Kelli and Lee Weath...