Buckle Down and Get On the Road | ENTREPRENEUR BUSINESS ADVISE
well thank you everyone for your time um i'll make my i always have this famous disclaimer i get before i ever talk to anyone if you learn one thing today then your time was worthwhile because we're only here for about an hour and i don't want to take up too much of your time but i want you to leave with some nugget that you can use to help yourself so i'll get started on how to buckle down and get on the road everything i say and i know my kids always laugh at me it's like really is it always car related but that's my expertise but it does apply to businesses and i'm also an entrepreneur so it started way back i was 10 years old and you're going to laugh because your mother told you you can't ride your bike to the store well i did i rode my bike to the five and dime store would buy negotiate with the manager for candy and then i would bring it home and put it on a little tv tray if you remember those things at the end of my driveway and i would sell to the other kids who listen to their parents of course my mother wasn't very happy about me doing that but what it started was something i didn't realize was my ability to look at things from a different perspective and that's kind of what you have to do and that's kind of what we're going to carry throughout the theme of of today i started racing on 16 years old so yes i've been racing cars i actually forged my mother's name on the minor waiver of course you can't do any of that stuff these days um but part of the interesting thing is that when you see opportunities uh it's amazing how you lead you to something else like where you are today you probably graduated high school or college and said i'm gonna do this and you find yourself over here and you can't figure out like how did that happen that was not what i was thinking and that same thing is true with me i was always looking for opportunities uh i had a t-shirt business i had learned how to screen t-shirts in high school and so i was 16 years old and i created a t-shirt business and i thought there's got to be other people that want t-shirts remember this is in the 80s this is not today where you can go on amazon and pretty much order what you want um but that business started taking off i was literally going to every pizza place in the area going you should have t-shirts you should have t-shirts and they're like who's this young kid in here and they dislike the fact that i was enthusiastic i was entrepreneurial and people love to help so if you're younger and you're thinking oh no one's going to help me i'm just a kid no believe it or not people like myself are always helping out kids that are i had kids at my door a couple weeks ago trying to sell me rocks that they had painted of course i bought a few i don't need rocks that were painted but i was helping them create an entrepreneurial spirit and that's the kind of thing when you see girl scouts running around or boy scouts selling whatever they're selling you help them out not because of what you're getting but what you're doing for them so that's kind of how i always have this pay it forward kind of thing um i started working for my dad when i was in high school he had a breakthrough manufacturing company and uh and i answered the phones so i have a very unique voice i'm not sure if it's deep or it's just different and guys used to call there all the time and ask for car parts no one knew who i was but i knew my stuff because i was so passionate about cars so while other girls were playing with dolls i was playing with matchbox cars and playing poker with the guys my father was in the garage working on cars so i would go out and help him so to me that was fun it was different it was a connection to my dad he was an engineer he worked for the big three we lived in detroit so when i moved to buffalo where i still i'm located now um that passion came along with it and you know when he would say i'm changing the oil today i'm like can i help he never told me i couldn't and that's the thing you need to inspire in your children you know if they think that's something they want to do then you should support it to a point i mean if it's crazy you got to kind of give them a little bit of a reality check but what's interesting about all of this is it led to me creating a disc brake conversion kit which may not mean anything to you but there were cars in the 60s that had drum brakes they were horrible stopping and they had a lot of power at that time so i created the first disc brake kit to put disc brakes on a car which is standard on literally every vehicle now but what i didn't realize that did is it connected me to a lot of really great people and i'll talk about that as we go further along how in the end those people that you connected with way back when they're still watching you they're still following you they're still inspired by you and what i didn't realize at the time because again i was not told no i submitted my blueprints back in the day when there were blueprints before there's computers i submitted them to society of automotive engineers and at the time you had to be an engineer and you had to have your blueprints well i never sent anything on a degree because i was still in high school when i created this and they accepted me i thought that was like the coolest thing and they had no idea who how old i was because you don't ask those things um because you're not allowed to and so that sort of inspired me to continue my path with automotive and that's exactly what it did my husband and i started a company in 1989 called classic tube we were making prevent brake fuel and transmission lines for at the time just mustangs but then it turned out to be volvals and corvettes and camaros and and suddenly this business started growing and my husband had all the engineering but i had the marketing and the communications experience again this is totally different time than today and i'll update you on today and what you can do to help your company as well but the interesting part of this is this company is very successful we've expanded and grown we do things for industrial military medical which helped us through the covid nightmare because we were making tubes for medical applications and all this was going great and then around 1992 i get a phone call from chicago this is a whole different time you know the cell phones were real expensive and you answered the phone like talk quickly uh and it was from harpo productions which is oprah and i had no idea she was actually my sister-in-law was more excited than i was i'm like i don't know she's a woman on tv i do tv work all the time i didn't really think about the fact that she was somebody big because i my goal has always been to help people have car smarts to empower you to make better decisions and i always did that from a car perspective but then when oprah called that changed everything so they flew me to chicago i got to work with her at the time there was a huge snowstorm and they wanted us to go around and ask people um hey can you know are you prepared for winter and i didn't think i was going to be on the show i thought my job was just going to be to just give advice on tape and then leave well little did i know that they asked me to come back to the studio and everything was very secretive then like you couldn't share the producer's number everything was kind of interesting so many people have asked me i'm like i still won't share her information um but it was interesting because what ended up happening was that opened up doors of opportunity like i had no idea i did not get the rachel ray version of it unfortunately or the dr phil where he had my own show because of that but what it did do is it opened a lot of opportunities and i worked with her on your live your best life tour where i got a chance to actually communicate with her and really have a different insight on things whether you like her perspective or not it's always good to listen to different people's perspectives because it helps you think differently and and see how the other people think and it expands your mind and it it's really it's really a good thing um so what ended up happening is i was on the road with her for the three live your best life tours until her show went off the air but that continued to go on to other things and i've literally been on every news network that you can name online offline radio tv so it opened up a lot of opportunities again that was random things happen when one door closes two doors always open i was in 2009 my daughter was the one who got to announce me being inducted into the hall of fame for women in transportation that was a big honor um and it was great and by the way i mean we named our daughter shelby after the car designer so and yes by the way fix is my last name i married the right guy a long time ago um so in 2016 i had the opportunity to be a part of the north american car and truck of the year jury which decides the best cars trucks and utility vehicles of the year i was on the board and then i became president so as a first woman president and i made some massive changes we changed the perspective from car manufacturers because of my marketing and my entrepreneurial background i literally dove in head first and made some massive changes and now this is considered one of the top three awards in the industry well there's tons of awards believe it or not we're we're of the top three so it's current driver motor trend and north american car and truck of the year so you'll see that logo that we created and have empowered manufacturers to use so you'll start seeing that now in dealerships and you'll go i know that last year i was lucky enough to be or honored to be involved with the world car the year jury so i'm on both juries now and that has helped elevate my work so what what that means to you is if you can join some groups that have respect in whatever industry you're in what that does is it elevates you your brand your company and that's part of what all this is about is looking at things a little differently it's not just about for you but it's for helping other people and i always say what you give you will receive sometimes you don't even know it and at times you don't receive but you have to give in order to receive so one of the subjects we were covering is revving your engine and your entrepreneurial spirit and i kind of touched on that a little bit but what i want to talk about is creating that road map so we all have aspirations for ourselves or our company and when it started for me just to give you just a little background as i used to watch the today show all the time it was there was only three networks so i was watching nbc today's show and i used to say man i want to be on that show my mother watched it all the time was like i got to get on this show so how do you do that how would you do that for your company whether it be local get in the news get some exposure radio or internet well first thing you got to find out is the outlet that you want whatever that might be so again we're going to do the road map but we're going to do it backwards where do you want to be and then how do you get there and rather than just saying i'm going to keep working hard doing putting out great products and helping people and doing all the right things and it it doesn't happen and a lot of people get very frustrated so i'm going to teach you a way to do it backwards and i know it works because i've helped a lot of people do it i was also a mentor of the year for the sema which is the aftermarket for the automotive i've been woman of the year there as well and part of that is because i love to help people get to their goals so what is your goal first so if your goal is to be on i don't know cnn that's your goal i want to be on a net i want to be in all the national news networks talking about whatever it is that you do how do i do that it could be anything you could it doesn't have to be media it could be something in life whatever your goal is well first off to get there you need to be have a good story and be considered an expert in your field so how do i do that i'm not i'm an expert but like people don't know who i am well there's lots of ways to get that one of them is an easiest one and it costs nothing you're going to write this down it's h-a-r-o help out a reporter it is free you get it three times a day and there may not be anything for you on a certain day but i've had for automotive i've had five or six in a day and you don't know most the time they're anonymous so it'll say h-a-r-o you can look it out help out a reporter it's free to sign up which is even better and when you get it you'll ask for it to come three times a day and still get your morning when you wake up in the morning sometime midday check it and then the evening comes about five o'clock these are all eastern times and what's so great about it and i this is like the secret of all secrets because it it is the easiest way to get amazing coverage so i've answered questions it says anonymous don't know where it is and it turns out to be reader's digest and i'll get it in both canada and the u.s huge numbers or i'll get it and it's yahoo finance again massive numbers or it could just be some local place some local area but i just did one and i had no idea i had 53 appearances from it it was just a zoom just a quick zoom someone my opinion on saving on fuel because that's a timely subject that's they're always looking to get answers from experts like you so if you can answer that they're this is great they don't care about anything more than getting the answer to their question if you don't want to be on camera i have a girlfriend who's an expert on cleaning she doesn't like to be on camera so write an answer don't answer the ones that want you on video write the ones that want you in writing and always tell them how you want to reference i want to be referenced as lauren fix automotive expert car coach reports so you you will then pick your name your company and how you want to be titled and believe it or not it will bring you attention a lot of attention now you have to be on it every day i know so if you can't make it you're sick you're busy then don't answer today's you're going to get three more tomorrow they're monday through friday and they're worth looking at there are days that you'll have 30 opportunities and there'll be days you have hundreds but just remember they're very very timely to reply because these are typically eight i just did one for reuters there's ap and so when you start thinking about all of this you start realizing there's opportunities and i would have never been able to reach one specific person from reuters or one specific person from fox business news but that's what happens and then suddenly you're leading to more opportunities which gets you on camera or gets you mentioned or gets your company mentioned so that's you have to start from that perspective so you go well i'm new to this i really don't have a lot of expertise we've obviously chosen a path whatever path it may be and if if you're fresh out of college i always say you know what you don't want to do so eliminate that originally i'm not going to do this okay so those aren't options but i do enjoy doing this because if you do what you love and love what you do you're never working a day in your life and and you can tell from me i'm super passionate about cars i love cars i collect cars and and when you start thinking we restore cars as well and when you start looking at things that you love to do whatever it is it could be flower arrangements it could be food you could be a food blogger and the key to it all is is to focus on your subject only so if you go to any of my social media and i'm literally on every social media we'll talk about that in a second um it's at laurenfix super easy and i only post car stuff you'll never see me post about politics or i don't know i always say the price of rice in china or food i love to cook but you know that i keep amongst the family because it would totally distract from what my subject matter is so whatever your subject matter is whether it's you know organizing it's a home design you're a realtor whatever that might be you want to focus on your subject and i know it's hard so if you want to have a personal private page i have friends that actually have their name and then they put private and they keep that like family pictures and all that i try not to mix apples and oranges as they say um so the so as you work your way back you have to decide your goals like my goal is this but i will promise you it's going to change so why i thought the today's show was that bl end all and i worked with katie couric and matt lauer when he was there he was totally fine of me but but as as you start working with all these different people you realize this is good but i want more and that's good that means you've accomplished one goal so check that off your list and your next goal is what i want to be on whatever show or whatever magazine or whatever exposure you need especially if you're working in a regional area or a local area you really want to focus on and it's easier believe it or not it's actually easier local and regional than it is on a national or an international level so i work a lot of international news which is partly why i joined the world cardio jury and all of this has helped support the effort to get to the goal so remember your goal is going to change but you really need to write that goal down and it's so funny you've probably heard a million times get a post-it note write down whatever your goal is and put it right on the mirror so when you're brushing your teeth you see it every day you're brushing your teeth at night you see it right there and it helps remind you of what you're doing because there are days and i promise you there are days and and anyone who knows me you throw your hands in there and go what am i doing you know i don't even know what i'm doing am i on the right path and you're allowed to have those days and you're allowed to have miserable days as well so i mean those are things that i always tell people so those are days we all have miserable days i have bad days also there have been days that i always as oprah would say you have a pebble that hits you in the head and you go i'm gonna ignore that and then the rock gets a little bigger and until it's a brick or a cinder block that hits you in the head that's when you go oh i i guess i really didn't see that one coming you actually did you just didn't see it and you're not alone i've been there as well so i always say you are allowed to have one bad day but the next day is a new day so make it something better for yourself whatever that may be if that means as i always say there's a fork in the road uh choose the left or right and i've been there i worked for my dad for 20 years and i reached that fork in the road knowing that nothing is ever going to change because of the old school mindset that i would never be able to take over that business i could stay there or i could start something new so i took the fork in the road and a very good friend of mine gave me this advice and we'll talk about friends and allies in a second um to take the fork in the road to take the risk because he had been there too and the thing is it's not like we talk every day he's just a guy that i talk to at car shows and stuff and um it was the best advice because if i had been doing what i had been doing and i was miserable every day i would have never been sitting here talking to you today and all these opportunities would have never happened and yes i've had my ups and downs and i always say if you get knocked off your horse you've got to get back on and ride and i know there's lots of analogies but the truth is that they really do work there's a lot of self-talk involved there so i want to talk about uh building a well-oiled machine uh in the tech savvy world social media whether you like it or not is something you have to do i am on literally every form of social media if it's new is my my daughter and i have this little challenge to see who can get on quickest because i want my name lauren fix and it's easy to grab and her name is shelby fix and her name is easy to grab so we both try to get on so when facebook was new we got it when it was twitter when it was tumblr and even if they're no longer big or not parlor getter truth cloudhub mewi gab i'm not all of them and i have to be because i don't know where you live and so because the world has changed and we're not just living on one form of social media or one tv channel if i've got a message i need to get out you don't know where your customers your clients are so i post on everything except for myspace i think i still have a myspace account but but i think that's kind of music only i've sort of let that one go but for the most part i post on tumblr and people like why would you post on tumblr i'm like because if i pick up two people or one person that's one person who i've empowered and taught them car smarts i've taught them about new cars about saving money on gas about electric vehicles whatever it might be but if i would have no other way to get to that one person if they only live on that platform so you have to kind of think with that mindset i need to reach everyone i can so if you own a bakery let's say and you're in a little town and you post our specials today or whatever and why our product is the best that's out there post it everywhere if nobody from one social media site clicks it doesn't make a difference you post and you can get off of it you don't have to have a whole conversation if there is a conversation you'll get a notification hey are you open on saturday yes or no i mean those are the kind of things that's how you build your brand and you have to build it in today's world there's no longer the old thing i'll put up a billboard i'll put an ad in the local newspaper you can do that see if you can get interviewed on a local radio station about why you're new why you're special whatever it might be if you're a consultant and you're working to help people improve their business or improve something about what they're doing you can easily get content out there put out articles just put out articles use that help auto reporter h-a-r-o is one of the best free things you can do that's like i said one thing you can take away that is great i helped a friend of mine who's the wing king uh my daughter and i are both judges for the national chicken wing festival hey we're in buffalo we have to do that uh it's part of part of the fun it's actually one of my favorite events of the year um but he wanted to get more national so i first advice i gave him help out a reporter and he says it's been really helpful so there's there's some results for you um using social media is important remember again stay on your subject i love to cook but i don't you know i'll post one thing on the chicken wing festival but i can't put a whole thing about chicken wings in my opinion of flavors because it doesn't match with automotive it would be obscure for those people that are following me from an automotive perspective they're like what are you doing so that's what i want people to really think about is while you may have great multiple issues try to focus on one subject that you are the expert at and there's so many great subjects and if you haven't found your expertise start paring it down make a list of boy people come to me for advice or or i like to whatever it might be uh and it used to be in the old days and i'll just show you quickly i have two books this is driving ambitions my first book uh and the other book is lauren fix's guide to loving your car this is with saint martin's press before books became no longer books i don't think people read books like they used to um but i've done three books the the third one is it was a very it was not an evergreen book it was very timely uh on suspensions and handling probably not your average book um but you could write books and i just had a friend contact me said he wanted to write a book and i said okay so you have to self-publish today that's one thing you got to think about uh amazon does these dollar pamphlets you could create the dollar pamphlet but if i can get that same information for free online it's very very difficult to sell so what can you do you can create a sub stack i have one as well i offer the information for free you can always change it to charging you can always add a patreon to it which is how you can raise money there's a couple other sites out there besides patreon and i have friends that are making a living off of their money from patreon or from sub stack so it can be done literally you can make more just offering great information that people can't get anywhere else especially if you have some really really cool subject matter like space junk or something that like no one else would know like i wouldn't even know where to start on a subject like that so i mean if you've got something really special start off by offering your information for free let people read learn that you are the one post your stuff on haro all that stuff are tools in your toolbox that only you can use a certain way no one else can use them a certain way um also capturing that multi-generational thing now my numbers are very broad i mean at first i thought i'm just going to help women because women don't know anything about cars but these days there's a lot of guys that don't know anything about cars either so my current uh i just checked it before before we came on live i'm between 25 and 54 with 20 female so that means you have to make sure that whatever your demographics are now those are from google um and what's also interesting i have 3 million impressions a day that's a lot globally 14 million so this is some huge numbers so i didn't just happen overnight let me tell you i've been doing this for 40 years so in the auto industry i've been racing that long i've been on television since oh boy 1986 my first opportunity was on motorweek on pbs so nothing happens overnight there are some people that have great subject matters and it will happen for you overnight and if that's the case congratulations i mean take it we should all be supporting whoever that is i think that's fabulous i mean especially if you're talking about some of the topics that are out there today and i won't even go down that road but um so interesting and then look at your other opportunities within your immediate family my daughter and i have been working together for a while she's the car coach 2.0 so she talks to younger generations not that i can't but they kind of want to hear it from their own people so she's been writing articles and doing videos and we've been hired to do work for a couple companies so it was great she was able to make some money we're working on a project together on 101 things drivers that didn't teach you because they only teach you to pass the test so if you've got kids involved or elderly people involved and you're talking about a subject that they can help you with utilize them they're your allies and that's what's really great about doing that now if you're working in an industry and then this is something that i did want to cover is breaking the glass ceiling so there's a lot of people that i've helped that feel that they're limited because there's a glass ceiling you know i think especially working in a male dominated industry the glass ceiling is also a roadblock and it's there if you allow it to be there and it's not there if you don't i've never let anything stop me if i want something i'm going to figure out that goal and figure out how to get there but i will tell you there are some really important things you need to do number one there's no whining and crying soon as you do that male or female or whatever you might be you lose credibility and you can't earn it back so what i do is while everyone else is watching you know tv shows and where it might be and i'm a bit obsessed about this because auto industry is my thing there's a lot going on i read as much as i can some i don't agree with some i agree with but you need to know what's going on out there so when you're asked a question you don't just answer with especially for females with yeah that's correct because then you don't get the credibility and actually marcy who put this together today we were discussing this yesterday that you can't just answer with a simple word answer male or female these days you need to answer with a concise supportive answer here's why this is true and here's in your head three bullet points of why so now i'm like oh this person really knows their stuff i'm impressed and so i actually just did an interview yesterday with someone who was asking me about cobalt and and cadmium and nickel and all the metals that are in these electric vehicles and i just didn't answer with yeah there's a problem i answered with well a lot of the nickel comes out of russia and and the ukraine so that means that we have to consider the fact that this is going to impact electric vehicles which means you when you go to the dealer may not be able to get one for a longer period of time and so you just answer the question that way and suddenly it's like oh they're not questioning your credibility your expertise so if you don't have a book and you're like i'm new at this or i'm working at a company and i'm not getting to where i want proving to your boss or to your co-workers that you really know your stuff makes you the go-to person which elevates your credibility to a level that other people will notice don't expect there to be something like oh we're so glad you answered that you get a raise and a promotion but don't worry there are people listening there are people that know and when people are asked about you they'll always say wow that person knows what they're talking about so you want to be that person so the other thing you need to do is find allies you will always find people who think you're so cool or that love hanging out with you and finding allies even if they're in your life for a reason a season or a lifetime you will be surprised they'll talk about you and you're like oh really that person likes me like we talked once but you'll be surprised that's why you need to really know whatever your expertise is you need to know that yes you're going to have hurdles yes you're going to have potholes pardon the car pun but know as much as you can so instead of you know yes maybe you like sports you enjoy football and whatever but if you could spend a little bit of time every day just learning a little bit more about your industry whatever it is even if it's government learning something that's going on that could help improve your position then you're creating a stronger person and it doesn't make a difference whether you're male or female or whatever you might be that ceiling will start to dissolve and that hurdle you'll find ways around because you're finding allies you're learning about what you're supposed to know but the key is to have that toolbox and know when to use it i can tell you the worst story uh there was a woman who was trying to get involved in automotive no names and um she immediately said that she felt threatened by this guy because he was talking down to her and i knew right away when i heard it i went that's not going to go well for you because what ended up happening was she got fired because everybody wants you to be a team player so if somebody's bothering you either don't engage with them but if you have to engage with them just be more knowledgeable and yes there are some snakes out there who will try to steal your ideas and take away your credibility and try to squash you find other allies in that department or another department or you know and that includes this is also true if you own your own business there's going to be competitors out there who are going to try and throw essentially as i call it bricks at your head and i've had that happen even recently i had someone make a false accusation and i had to get an attorney so and i i wasn't whining i wasn't crying but i stood my ground and i won in the end but they were just throwing stuff at the wall trying to cancel me not gonna happen anyone who knows me knows you're barking up the wrong tree so you need to stand your ground and stand up for what you believe in and you will be totally surprised and things start to unfold and and don't give up i know it's so easy to throw your hands in the air and go that's it i'm done unless something physically is happening to you or someone's literally hurting you that's a totally different story but for most of us that's not the case so try not to be offended i know in today's world that's a lot of that but improving yourself both inside and out making yourself mentally stronger really is important and it may not be your friends at work but maybe someone you talk to maybe you grab a book i'm saying the word book i know go to your favorite bookstore look online i have believed me i have read many books and trying to help myself and talk to friends that have given me guidance even my kids have offered me guidance when you feel like things are just not going your way so don't be surprised just open yourself up to learning expanding and you will find that you can break that glass ceiling hey Mary Barra did it that's pretty darn good you know what i mean in my business that's you can't get much higher than the president of general motors so and i know the gentleman below her who is super supportive so i mean there are some really great people in all industries i love the automotive industry by the way so if you're looking for opportunities and you're like there's nothing in my field i got nothing the auto industry is desperately seeking people service writers sales people accountants marketing corporate world if you live in the Detroit area or California or Nashville Atlanta new jersey there's a lot of manufacturing plants there they are desperate for people we cannot find people quick enough if you're a veteran and you help support our country we do appreciate everything that you've done for us but note that there are jobs and if you can't find one email me i will connect you with USA motor jobs they they have so many jobs they can't find people to fill them so if you're concerned about where am i going to find a job they're all over the country coast to coast there's tons of opportunity so never feel that there's no way out and there are times where you think your goal is this and maybe covet or something caused you to really rethink your position there are other opportunities out there for you you just have to ask other people and that's maybe that's why you're here today listening to me talk maybe that's the connection that will help open a door for you so always go with this thought in mind where one door closes two doors always open sometimes more and and you will find your goal just keep focusing on whatever your end goal is you will get there you never i made it if i can do it you can definitely do that
2022-03-20 15:32
