Achieving SMART goals in and out of the automotive industry with Debbie Waines, John Elway Dealerships

Debbie Waines is the Advertising and Marketing Director at the John Elway Dealership Group. She started working in the automotive industry while in high school as a part-time receptionist and cashier for a car dealership on the weekends and evenings. She has been in the auto space for 36 years.

Debbie is also a transformational life coach. Over the years, she has helped many people realize their own potential and live happier lives.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

• Why and how Debbie Waines got started in coaching
• Does change only come when people hit rock bottom?
• How Debbie helps people find their “why” and how becoming a life coach has impacted her life
• Debbie talks about setting SMART and time-based goals
• How Debbie started working in the automotive industry
• Debbie talks about her company’s merger with AutoNation
• John Elway Dealership Group’s association with the Denver Broncos
• Where to learn more about Debbie Waines

In this episode…

Ten years ago, Debbie Waines learned about something life-changing: setting SMART goals. She learned of their importance not just in your personal life but also in your career. Since then, she has been leveraging this practice every day in her life, coaching and automotive work included.

Debbie’s advice for car dealerships is to set SMART goals that will allow them to build the type of businesses they want. She also advises them to ensure that those goals are time-bound, so that each step in the process has a dedicated start and deadline to achieve them.

In this episode of the InsideAuto Podcast, co-hosts Ilana Shabtay and Aharon Horwitz are joined by Debbie Waines, the Advertising and Marketing Director at the John Elway Dealership Group, to discuss the benefits of setting and achieving SMART goals. Debbie also talks about her entry into the automotive space, her life coaching work, and how she helps people find their “why.”

Resources Mentioned in this episode

• AutoLeadStar
• Ilana Shabtay on LinkedIn
• Aharon Horwitz on LinkedIn
• John Elway Dealership Group
• Debbie Waines Coaching
• Debbie Waines on LinkedIn
• Debbie Waines on Instagram
• AutoNation
• Denver Broncos
• Todd Maul

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by AutoLeadStar, a company that helps car dealerships engage quality customers on the web and convert them into car buyers.

Co-founded by Aharon Horwitz, Yishai Goldstein, and Eliav Moshe, AutoLeadStar’s state-of-the-art software automates a dealership’s entire marketing funnel and provides around-the-clock service for dealers.

AutoLeadStar’s innovative technology helps dealerships automate ads, connect with customers, and discover ROI and performance metrics. 

Visit their website at www.autoleadstar.com to learn more about their around-the-clock marketing service.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:03

Welcome to InsideAuto Podcast where we feature everyone and anyone you’d want to talk to you in and out of the automotive industry.

Ilana Shabtay 0:14

Ilana Shabtay here with Aharon Horwitz, co-hosts of InsideAuto Podcast where we interview top dealers, GMs, marketers, entrepreneurs and thought leaders in and out of the automotive industry. And before we introduce today’s guest, this episode is sponsored by AutoLeadStar.com. The AutoLeadStar platform is built on a technology so powerful, it allows you to market, sell and service cars as you would in the real world at scale and online, making one to one matches between inventory and shoppers. AutoLeadStar is the only platform that is powered by scale, speed and specificity to change the way dealers do marketing today.

Alright here we are. Aharon, how are you doing today?

Aharon Horwitz 0:53

Okay, Ilana, how are you? Been a couple been a minute since we last

Ilana Shabtay 0:57

Yeah, we skipped a week. So it feels like it’s been like a month.

Aharon Horwitz 1:00

It has. nIn this world a week is like a month and a month is like years, you know? Yeah. Yeah, we have a really special guest today, Ilana and our friends, our listener friends. As you guys know, we love to bring people on the pod, who can weave together different things into this world of auto and you know, things that they do, they bring from their own personal special superpowers into the dealership and vice versa. And rarely do we get someone who has that kind of true nexus point of crossover, I think insights from other aspects of her life and the automotive world than with today’s guest, who is Debbie Waines. Debbie is the advertising and marketing director at the John Elway Auto Group. Debbie, welcome.

Debbie Waines 1:45

Thank you. Thank you. I’m so glad to be here. I love everything about AutoLeadStar, I’ve been a partner with you guys for a really long time longer than I almost want to care to actually share.

Aharon Horwitz 1:58

It’s unbelievable. It’s as we were saying Time flies. It sure does, doesn’t it especially like the things that we experienced? Well, these days pandemics and more. Debbie. So it’s so interesting to have you on because, you know you have a very long and sort of, I think robust experience in the auto industry and kind of lots of different cool roles, but also from different perspectives, which we want to hear about. But you also I don’t know you I think a lot of people who follow you on social media know this, but I’m not sure if like everyone you know, in LA may know this, but you’re also a coach, a life coach, and you have over the past few years really developed like powerful practice to help other people realize their own potential. So we want to talk about both today. Because we like to again find that we’ve and I actually want to start with the coaching. Is that new? When did you get into that? Because I didn’t think when I met you initially when we first kind of introduced you, I don’t think you were doing life coaching explicitly, right? Is that something that came along later?

Debbie Waines 3:02

Yeah, so my life coaching started as a result of losing my husband in 2013. And about a year and a half after that. 2017 is really when I started my coaching. And it really came out of realizing how many widows and widowers were stuck in a negative mindset and a negative cycle and just a negative life. And that was not something that I was going to be okay with. I became a widow at 44. And I was not ready to live the rest of my life in a negative headspace. And so not only did I start taking classes for myself, but I realized that I wanted to help other people. And then through that it’s just evolved and morphed and grown and changed. And I work with less widows and widowers now than I did in the beginning. But I feel so fulfilled and passionate about what I’m doing.

Aharon Horwitz 4:09

Can I ask you about that? Because I think that it’s just such a sort of powerful story and experiences that you had, you know, from that transition from 2013 to 2017. Did you have to find your way just to find that fortitude? Or or, you know, how, how long did it take before you found you had that realization and insight that enabled you to kind of propel yourself to where you got to?

Debbie Waines 4:34

Oh, it definitely transitioned. Roy and I were my husband. were part of this. We were called mama and papa of this big dysfunctional car, family bar family. We had all of these extended family members that it was dysfunctional. It was very dysfunctional and people always look to us to be the leaders of The family. And so when Roy got sick, and eventually, we knew he was terminal, and he gave me this role to basically take care of the family wide and show them that, that you can move forward and that you can, you could miss him. But you, you really needed to move forward and, and move through your grief and transition through your grief. And through that timeframe. everybody’s like, Oh, you’re so strong, you’re so strong, I can’t believe how strong you are, oh, you know, always coming to me for advice and looking for me to let them know, it was okay to grieve, but move forward. And that happened. And then all of a sudden, everybody moved forward like they were supposed to. And I was left. And that’s when you know, that year, year and a half where everybody else’s life went on, that’s when my life really felt the biggest void. That’s where Roy was really, really missing. And the camaraderie of our family in the togetherness, it all kind of just dwindled. And that’s when I hit my rock bottom and realized that I had really substituted, taking care of him for taking care of the family, and never taking care of myself. And that’s when that transition really had well, and I had to hit my rock bottom to wake myself up. And once I did that, and I realized what I wanted to do coaching, it was just a natural fit, because it was what I was doing already. I was just doing it with our friends and family.

Aharon Horwitz 6:53

So let me ask you even, like deeper on that, do you think that people that change can only come when people hit the rock bottom? Or do you? Or do you think meaning, you know, I think about things in my life like that I try to change and stuff I find I get into these bouncing cycles. And you know, there are sometimes those, you know, those rock bottom moments where you are almost desperate for change, you know, not compared to what your experience was, it was just totally singular and extremely, you know, different. But do you see that in people? Or do you see that people can make change, even before they hit that rock bottom on an issue that they want to change?

Debbie Waines 7:38

I think there’s two ways you make impactful lasting change. One is hitting a rock bottom. And the other is really really really having a good why. Right now we talk all the time about you know, I’m kind of extreme when it comes to my health. But I have seen so much death in my life. This is why I have three grandchildren that I want to see get married, and if that’s what they want, go to college and do all of that and I want to see their children do the same thing. And in order to do that, I have to take care of myself. My health is my top priority. Like the first thing that goes on my schedule every week is my sleep. Right? Most people, that’s the last thing that they put on their schedule. That’s my first thing that goes on my schedule. Because my health and my Why is so important to me that I taste it. Right. So I think you either have to hit rock bottom, or you have to have such a strong foundation in your why otherwise, changes just might happen. It might not happen if it doesn’t happen today. It’s okay. But when you can really like the taste, smell your why, or have hit rock bottom. I think that’s when you make those really impactful changes

Aharon Horwitz 9:12

Ilana Sorry, go jump in.

Ilana Shabtay 9:15

It sounds like we’re about to ask the same question. But I was gonna ask, Is that part of what you help people do? Do you help them find their Why? And I feel like that’s something just that step alone can be very difficult for people.

Debbie Waines 9:31

It is because I think we all want to get healthier, or we all want to eat healthier, or we all want to have a better relationship with our spouse. Why do you want to have those things? Why do you want to save for your future, like when you talk about financial independence, which I am not a financial person, but I can start people down the right path of making better decisions with finances. When you Think about the fact that you seriously don’t want to work past 62 or 65, or whatever that is, and you go back to that number. And you can really taste that on a day to day basis. It changes your outlook on what you do. Right? And you have to start with, where are the Where are the biggest voids in your life? Right, where where is the lack, and then you have to move forward into deciding which one you want to start with first. Because if you start on too many things all at once, I just don’t think it works. It’s like somebody that wants to lose weight, and they, all of a sudden, they start exercising, eating right, drinking all this water getting up earlier, and then all of a sudden, they’re overloaded. Whereas if you can start on smaller projects first, where I like, for me, I personally think if you’re trying to change your weight, you should start with implementing eating properly, and eating well, and then implement moving your body, you know, and then going down these choices, because what we eat fuels our body to make it exercise. So does that answer your question? Yeah, exactly.

Aharon Horwitz 11:21

You were correct. That’s exactly what I was gonna ask.

Ilana Shabtay 11:23

I knew it. I heard that first word. And I was like,

Aharon Horwitz 11:27

Because I was wondering if, you know, I feel like the how do you get purchased and leverage on, um, you know, kind of series A on the, the personal history that all of us have with, you know, whatever we’re trying to change is a very difficult challenge. And I think, you know, that idea of really honing in on a why, you know, as a way to begin that process is who, as you were saying, I feel like, also, the rock bottom piece is something that, you know, it’s almost like, it’s almost like a tragic way to start a change process. Because, you know, did you have to go to rock bottom? Do you have to get there? Do I know that, that sometimes you do, but um, knowing that there’s another way is a, I think is, is important for at least me to hear that, you know, and I’m happy that you have that kind of method. And I noticed in your, we were learning a bit about your coaching, that you mentioned, smart goals in your kind of, you know, which is obviously like a more of a business II kind of concept. And I imagine, and we want to hear a little bit about this, but I imagine there’s quite a lot. You know, you’ve spent many years managing people, you’ve spent many years kind of managing, but also kind of corralling and hurting when you’re not necessarily managing right, as we all do. in workplaces, right? Do you find that the kind of learning you’ve done and the process you’ve undergone becoming a life coach has impacted the way you operate at the workplace, in the hallway group? And if so, how?

Debbie Waines 13:06

I think it’s impacted every aspect of my life. And I think vice versa, right. So what I learned in my coaching courses, and what I’ve learned in automotive, PE, it’s life, it’s just life. Right? And they completely overlap. But I would say that my automotive career because I’m 36 years into it. And I have gone through so many trainings, and so many seminars, and I’ve been blessed to be partnered with people that believe in growing yourself, not just growing your business skills, right? That my automotive career has had such a great impact on what I do with my coaching. And what better way to learn how to become your own brand than being an advertising director in an automotive industry. And that learning all of the things that I’ve learned through sem and things like that, that that all of that just fits together. And I truly believe in smart goals. That was something that I learned through my automotive career. And, gosh, probably 10 years ago. Yeah. And it’s something that I implement that, to me, just comes naturally, that I can’t believe that I learned. I learned this 10 years ago, which was probably eight years dated by then. people haven’t heard of this. What do you mean, you haven’t heard of a SMART goal? You know, it just seems like such Such a natural progression when you’re trying to make improvements in your life for me that I can’t believe that people haven’t heard of that. I mean, have you both set goals that are smart goals? Like, yeah, with that technology.

Aharon Horwitz 15:19

I mean, I definitely. Remember, before auto lead star, I was running a global, like a nonprofit that was doing incubation and acceleration for startups that were so like social impact startups. So we would take in social entrepreneurs. And, and I remember, we would do like, like, almost like a six week course Institute, or six month Institute, depending on the program to help them build out their social innovation projects. And we would use like, in 2007, let’s say eight 910 1112. We use SMART goals a lot in those years. And I think like a lot of the technologies in high tech, kind of follow from that whole way of thinking. So like the big thing in most startups, I think, in a lot of the bigger tech companies are okrs, which I don’t know if those are automotive, if there are dealers that use it, but its objectives and key results, which is just another way of doing SMART goals. But I think that the goal is to really align the whole organization with kind of a top mission all the way down to every individual person. And, and create kind of like loose coupling, but like very much aligned. So I think those are really important technologies in the workplace. And yeah, it’s sort of like logic, if you care about being you know, that that’s what it takes to get it done in business, then, well, what’s sort of the gap between that in your own personal, personal life? I mean, I think there’s a lot of crossover applications.

Debbie Waines 16:54

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, to me, one of the key foundations of a SMART goal is the time like it has to be time based. And I think that in personal life, that’s when people really have a hard time. setting those goals is when you usually have to put a time each step that needs its time limit, right. And I think that’s really easy to do from the retail sales perspective, right? in automotive, especially, when you have a sales person, or a salesperson that wants to hit salesman of the month, they can put these metrics in place. And it’s a numbers game, right, the more phone calls than text messages and emails you send out, the better off, you’re going to, you’re going to get some kind of a return on that investment of time. But at the end of the month, if you don’t hit it, it’s over. And if you do hit it, it’s great. And then it’s over again. And you start back over every single time you go from hero to zero, or zero to hero or whichever direction that is. And I think it’s so important that we put those time blocks in like, right now. My whole family is saving up for a trip to be together at Christmas time. So I had to help my two daughters back into Okay, what, what does that look like on your budget? How much money do you have to put away? And what does that mean sacrificing or changing or going out and earning more money? How are you going to get there, then you need to have all of this money saved up by you know, the end of September, early October, so you don’t have to worry about it. Come you know, so we can buy all the plane tickets and do all that stuff.

Aharon Horwitz 18:53

That’s really nice. Yeah. Very nice. Um, and, you know, one of the things we are always curious about and I think the answers are always so interesting, is sort of that first encounter with the auto industry and how one ended up in the auto industry. No one seems to have a straightforward path. And you mentioned in the opening about you and Roy being part of this, like extended family that had some car connections. I’m curious, like, what brought you into Automotive in the first place or kind of how did you stumble into it, fall into it, you know, sideways into it back into it? What happened?

Debbie Waines 19:32

So I stumbled into it. I was part of a program when I was in high school called deca and the car dealership was looking for a part time receptionist and cashier on evenings and weekends and I was looking for a job. And so that’s how I got into automotive. I started as a part time receptionist at High School at 16 years old. Yeah.

Aharon Horwitz 20:00

Wait, what’s this program?

Debbie Waines 20:03

It was like building your business and thinking towards your future. And you know, what did you want to do with college? And, what or where did you want to go with your life? type, like on a on a business level

Aharon Horwitz 20:16

Was that in Colorado?

Debbie Waines 20:19

Yes. Well, yeah, I don’t even know if they have it anymore. But it was an after school program we met like, once a week, twice a week, something like that. So it was fun.

Aharon Horwitz 20:31

It was just so you should appreciate all those programs and stuff that just, you know, help you find your way. I find that such an awesome thing. And like the American landscape when those things exist, you know, and they just open doors and encourage kids to like realize, you know, different dreams and yeah,

Debbie Waines 20:47

yeah, well, and then, so my mom got sick. When I was a sophomore in high school shortly after I got that job. And she passed away from cancer my senior year. And I knew that my I mean, my life was hospital beds in my living room, and my prom, they met my mom in a hospital bed. And, you know, so my life was really super serious my whole High School upbringing. And I decided that I didn’t want to go to college right away, because I knew I would just go and party and blow my dad’s money. And so I decided I was going to take some time off. And I was able to go full time in automotive. And I’ve, I’ve gotten out a couple of times for a short period of times, but I, I’ve pretty much never looked back. I’ve been an automotive and very, very long term. Automotive segment segments, right. So I was at one for probably three years and then went to work for another legacy dealership. I was probably there for four or five years that went to work for deelen dog. I don’t know if anybody knows dealin, Doug, but I worked for him in Colorado for Yeah, for seven years. And then I went to work for chez Roan. Yeah. Which is where I started working for the mall. And we merged with AutoNation and from 96, until today, I’ve pretty much worked for two organizations.

Aharon Horwitz 22:33

Wow, that’s amazing.

Debbie Waines 22:35

Yeah. Yeah, I’m very, very fortunate to, you know, when you find people that are good quality people, and you find people that really believe in taking care of their employees, and believe in the culture, that they’re that they’re bringing, to their, their employees, it, it makes you want to go to work every day. And you know, Todd always says that, you know, we have water for our guests. But it’s not just for our guests. It’s for everybody. Because if he doesn’t take care of his employees, how can he expect them to take care of his guests that are there to purchase vehicles? And you know, I think that when you find someplace that’s really positive, and you walk in and you can feel that energy, you you don’t want to leave. Why think I plan on retiring here. That’s my goal.

Aharon Horwitz 23:37

That’s amazing.

Ilana Shabtay 23:39

Yeah. And you were with Todd at AutoNation, you said and then you both went over to Elway together?

Debbie Waines 23:45

So we were the first store that merged with AutoNation in Denver, and that was the chest room group. And then Chevron, Emic and La all merged with AutoNation.

Aharon Horwitz 24:00

And Chevron. DIdn’t Chevron then, didn’t they go into like auto America room in the end? So Marshall,

Debbie Waines 24:10

Yeah, right, Marshall, right.

Aharon Horwitz 24:13

Love these like automotive lineage things like here’s the like, here’s the story of the

Ilana Shabtay 24:17

I also remember being taught from Vegas when we met with him.

Aharon Horwitz 24:21

Todd was a dealer. What did he do? He was in the dealer of the year running, wasn’t he? He was.

Debbie Waines 24:26

He was for Colorado, but he didn’t know AutoNation.

Aharon Horwitz 24:30

Yeah. Yeah. And we’ve had the chance to meet Todd a few times, at conferences. Did that sit down on Saturday? Without time and it’s pretty we had a lot of it and you know, out and I also in, in the Chevy store in Denver, so wait, so Debbie, right. Where did you go? Were you there at the merger with AutoNation, meaning you were at the store at the time. What was that? Like? Was that like a crazy experience? Is that smooth? Like, was it weird was it I mean, it’s kind of a more interesting moment in auto. History Like what? What was it like in that, you know, moment when, you know, suddenly your stores were going into AutoNation.

Debbie Waines 25:07

It was much different. And again, we were the first ones to merge. So it wasn’t too. It wasn’t too crazy in the beginning. It was when we, when all three of the dealer groups came together Elway and MC and Chevron. All of them that gave us 17 stores in Colorado, all at once. And then they literally merged. We were the first emic next and they were probably six months after us. And then Elway came on board. And it took on this life being that all of a sudden you had an A whole advertising department and you know, we were taking three different advertising departments and trying to merge them into one and we all thought we were the best of the best. Well, right. So why wouldn’t you listen to us? And it was an interesting juggling system. And then we launched the John Elway Group. So they decided to pay John for his name. So he got royalties for that. But he was really just a spokesperson. And it

Aharon Horwitz 26:24

also they’re still Elway, another LA and Colorado. That’s not.

Debbie Waines 26:29

No, it’s been rebranded.

Aharon Horwitz 26:30

I see. Okay, so you want to judge John was the spokesman and keep going, keep going?

Debbie Waines 26:35

Yeah, so he was the spokesperson. And I believe we kept his name for about seven years. And then we went to calm cars and trucks. Which was pretty fun. This is kind of a fun interesting fact. With the NFL, you cannot do you cannot play in how to pump up music for offensive plays. You can do things like, Let’s protect this house Under Armour had a big deal for that.

Aharon Horwitz 27:11

So it was good because the core of the team wants to hear the plays. That’s the logic, right?

Debbie Waines 27:15

Well, and it’s a lot of home field advantage, right? They’re trying to even read defense, you can make as much

Aharon Horwitz 27:20

noise as you want and try to make it possible for that, or Yeah, got it. Yeah.

Debbie Waines 27:24

So you can have kick off music and stuff like that. Well, we were having our name being gone. They literally did a promo where it was Go, go. And they would play it on offensive plays. And they were able to get away with it. Because it was technically a commercial. Oh my god, that was fun.

Aharon Horwitz 27:48

That’s crazy. That is a little cool. trivia footnote in the history of advertising. And so

Debbie Waines 27:55

yeah, then they rebranded again, and now it’s on an AutoNation. They had to really work with the manufacturers to know, the manufacturers want to be bigger than any other brand. So when you get somebody like AutoNation, that’s nationwide, and and this huge monster that it is, they had to really work with a lot of the manufacturers to get that approved.

Aharon Horwitz 28:21

Right. Right. They Yeah, I mean, it does feel like they and a few others are gonna be going for their own brand. I mean, they want almost be like an OEM essentially in the, in the way that they operate, which, which is logical looking at kind of, you know, how, how, how how, like the there’s some pretty good case studies of national platforms starting to be successful, you would imagine these big, big dealer groups are, are very much locked in on that which we see with the big ones, the big public companies are certainly behaving that way. You know, and with all the things they’ve launched, and, you know, if you look at lithia, if you look at Asbury, certainly AutoNation, CarMax, Penske, I think like, there’s a lot of these interesting platforms. I think regional groups have a chance to do it too, right? Why should a dealer only think in a 20 mile radius anymore? Like doesn’t you know, there’s, there’s tons of opportunity outside of that. I know, you guys went with one of your previous doors used to do a lot to extend radius and play with those distances. I think that was like that, there’s certainly going to be more of that. As targeting gets better, especially with some of the AIDS used inventory. There’s so much opportunity for AIDS use, but no one really knows how to focus on it. And no one knows how to really sell digitally how to get those types of inbounds on those vehicles. And then they go off to auction and Debbie, when did you go? So you were there for what When did you move to LA and how did that happen?

Debbie Waines 29:45

So I’ve it’ll be 10 years on May 2? Wow. Yeah. So when John, Mitch and Todd opened up, a Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram store in Really. And when he got his second store, when they opened up the second store, which was the John Elway Chevrolet store, which we still have, then my salary was, it made sense to bring me on board to run both stores. And we picked up another Chevy store, like really quickly after that, that ended up transitioning with Sonic into we kind of swapped a Chevy store for a Cadillac store. And, but it’ll be 10 years in May. That doesn’t even seem possible.

Aharon Horwitz 30:37

Wow, it’s incredible.

Ilana Shabtay 30:39

How much you witnessed and how much you were able to impact and all these different stores. Incredible.

Aharon Horwitz 30:44

And Debbie, so obviously, we have to ask because it’s la. First of all, we, as you mentioned, have been blessed to know the group for a long time. And we know, it’s obvious, there’s a very special energy there. And it’s just great, it feels like a great group, longtime French practitioners also so it’s like folks know what they’re doing there. But it’s la so we have to ask him, you know, to what extent is there like a football energy in the, you know, in the dealer group, like, to what extent are you guys essentially an extension of the Denver Broncos? Or are you in a you know, I mean, like, we have to wonder about that?

Debbie Waines 31:21

Well, we like to think that we’re an extension of John. Yeah. Right. Much more so than the Broncos themselves. Because there has to be a we have to be we we’ve always had to be extremely careful. Especially when John went to the, you know, manage, yeah, and help manage the Broncos. So we really had to separate that so we like to definitely hang our hat on John himself. And he’s a legend in this. He’s a legend here. And everything is football. Our colors are orange and blue. Yeah. Yeah. And and usually when we give things away for charities, it’s an autographed football. And we really limit those to make sure that, you know, his his, his autograph actually has worth. Yeah, you don’t want to just give them away to everybody. Because everybody’s like, oh, if I buy a car, give me a football. And it doesn’t work that way.

Aharon Horwitz 32:24

Yeah. He doesn’t show up to deliver every car. That’s not the way it works. No,

Debbie Waines 32:29

no. And he goes, man personally autographed the football. And I’ll tell you, it’s, it’s way more fun. Because John’s an actual owner, right? And he gets the daily docs every day, and he engages with our general managers. So having him at this level is way more fun than when he was a spokesperson. Yeah, like it was just, he was just a name on the building right? Now. He always wanted them to be run. Well, don’t get me wrong, because his name is his brand and he’s done a very good job managing his brand. But it’s way more fun to have him as part of an owner group, right. And we just bought a BMW and mini store up in Loveland, which is about 50 ish miles away from Denver. And he’s really enjoying driving a BMW right now.

Aharon Horwitz 33:24

There you go. That’s nice.

Debbie Waines 33:25

Yeah, he gave up his Cadillac, Escalades, and he’s driving a BMW, and he’s very much enjoying it.

Aharon Horwitz 33:33

Very nice to hear and very exciting. Well, this was a great conversation. And we really, I think, covered this interesting kind of, you know, perspectives you have and sort of where your life is taking you and where you’ve where you’ve taken it. And hopefully, we’ll do it again, because it was really enjoyable. And I feel like we could have gone on, we have this kind of informal rule how long we go, but I feel like we could double down here. And we’ll have to do that for sure. I still think finally about the time we got to co present at a digital dealer. And, you know, it’s always fun, we get to, you know, get enough kind of environment like this together. So, we look forward to the next time. Yeah. Okay. So Ilana, let’s first make sure that folks know where they can go if they want to, Debbie, I think it would be that people might really want to learn more about your meeting. They know how to find the LA group just google it right. But if they want it, don’t click the ad click the organic, but Google please, please. Yeah, exactly. But on your own coaching, I think it’d be interesting and we’re gonna include it in the show notes. But if you could just tell folks how they can learn more about what you do. Do you have a web page of some sort or a Facebook group or let us let us know?

Debbie Waines 34:43

I have a website debbiewainescoaching.com. And Waines is is w a i n e s. So debbiewainescoaching.com. And I’m extremely active on Instagram, which is cololifecoachdeb, short for Colorado. I’m very active on Instagram. So I’d love to hear from people.

Ilana Shabtay 35:07

Yes, we will link both out in our show notes as well. Thank you so much.

Aharon Horwitz 35:13

Okay. Very nice. Debbie. Thank you so much. Ilana, do you want to wrap us up?

Ilana Shabtay 35:18

Yes. Thank you so much for joining us, Debbie. And for our listeners I know you enjoyed this episode, please tune in Inside Auto Podcast. You can find us on Spotify, Stitcher, basically any I heart Apple. Insideautopodcast.com. Thanks Debbie.

Debbie Waines

Thank you.

Outro 35:40

Thanks for listening to the InsideAuto Podcast. Check out our other episodes with top entrepreneurs and industry leaders.