Ep 106 - Mike Allen, Bryan Pollock, & Braxton Critcher | The Repair Industry is Like a Bucket of Crabs

0:00And here's one of the things that also crawls up my ass a little bit. These same technicians who are in here saying, oh, nobody makes that much money. You must be stealing. Oh, that's crooked. You're a, you're a, you're a hack or whatever else. These are the same guys that are bitching about how they can't get paid enough and techs aren't paid well enough.

0:14Yet when there's a technician who is getting paid through the moon, he's gotta be a thief. This whole industry is a bunch of fucking crabs in a bucket. When one starts crawling out, the other ones grab 'em and drag 'em back down. 'Cause they can't stand for somebody else to be successful when they're not. Fuck you guys. The following program features a bunch of doofuses talking about the automotive aftermarket.

0:39The stuff we or our guests may say do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of our peers, our sponsors, or any other associations we may have. There may be some spicy language in this show, so if you get your feelings hurt easily, you should probably just move along. So without further ado, here's your host, Mike Allen. With Confessions of a Shop Owner presented by TechMetric, the best software in the history of ever.

1:05Let's be honest, in this business, everything needs your attention all at once. A customer's waiting on an update, a vehicle's ready for pickup, there's a payment question at the counter, the phone's ringing, another estimate needs approval. Everybody needs something and it all seems to hit at the same time. That's why having everything in one place matters. TechMetric brings your shop management, your payment processing, and your marketing all together in one platform you're not bouncing back and forth between systems and losing time chasing updates.

1:33It keeps your team aligned and gives your customers a better experience from drop-off to checkout. Learn more at techmetric.com, tap the link in the show notes, or scan the QR code below. Do that face again right now. Do that face again. I will not. I will not. That was awesome. Um, so, uh, Anyway, we've had so much fun lately talking together amongst us privately about the comments in our, uh, video sections that we thought— I'm, I'm not even gonna say we— Braxton thought it would be amazing for us to just record us talking about how fucking stupid some of the people in the comment section.

2:24Yeah, it was funny. One night you guys were going back and forth for like 20 minutes ripping people in the comments, and I was like, hey guys, that, that's enough. Stop. You need to get a microphone and a video camera. My name's Timmy Technician and I can't math. It's— and you know what, that was fine, uh, when you were a technician in the '70s and '80s, but evidently, um, The level of cognitive aptitude required to be a competent technician has increased significantly, whereas the general ability maybe has not kept pace.

3:01Yeah. The comments are really connecting the dots for me. Really started to figure a lot of stuff out. Yeah. What episode was it where you were like, I, it was, Was it, uh, it was one of the ones in Tools. I wasn't there, uh, but you were talking about how average effort equals average, uh, pay output. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Was that Chris Gainey?

3:27I think that was the, uh, when the, the 4 of us sat down, Braxton. Was it? Okay. Yeah, because I think the reel that just got released was actually a Jaded reel, right? Right. Yeah, that's fair. The average Yeah, to be fair, I haven't watched any of those episodes. I, uh, I haven't watched any of the episodes from Tools. I hear they were great.

3:48Thank you for that, I appreciate it. Um, good luck. Do you guys— I mean, like, Brian, do you watch episodes that you're not part of? I don't watch episodes that I am part of. Well, yeah, I mean, that's a given because you're part of it. Like, you, you were there for it, you don't need to watch it again, right? Yeah, I think like if somebody says something, if somebody messages me about like one of your coaching call episodes, like I'll try to find the section they're talking about.

4:15Not like negatively, but no, Brian, it's like something to do with the report or something. Brian doesn't watch the full content. He just goes on and just watches the reel and gets a snippet and then gets all mad. You know what I find? No, that's the best thing is to, is to comment on short-form content without the entire context of the conversation.

4:36Yes. Yes. Makes sense. Well, also thinking you know way more about the subject than you actually do. That's very important. That's the most important part is to make sure that you think you know way more than you actually do about it. Well, I think that's most of us, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know everything. Um, do you have a favorite, uh, rage-filled comment section video of, of recent memory?

5:06I mean, my honest— honestly, my favorite one is, and you know what, I'm not even a huge fan, but, um, my, my favorite one is the 358K technician just because the lack of, just because the lack of listening skills, right? The lack of— now I didn't listen to that whole episode. Um, I didn't listen to any of it quite honestly, other than the reel pertaining to that.

5:31Specific. And I was able to make out that the previous employer of that technician would not pay him, um, the extra dollar an hour to get him to like $28 or $29, whatever it was. And we have comments full of people saying, I'm going to read one. The math is not mathing at $28 an hour flat rate. Nobody said anything about him making that right now.

5:55They said he quit that place because he— yeah, yeah. 240.3 hours per week. Nobody. Listen, Michael, nobody said anything about him making $28 an hour still. It's fantastic. Reggie, who's our top producer flat rate technician, wanted $1 more an hour, $27 to $28. That was Reggie? Yeah. Holy shit, he's going to a rock store. They wouldn't give me permission. It got rejected.

6:20I was in no control of my people. $1 more an hour. It was over this guy who turns 110 hours of flat rate a week. They wouldn't give him a dollar. Where's Reggie today? He worked at a Fairfax location. He made $358,000 last year. He's an automotive technician working in the shop who made $350,000 last year. Yeah, he's on track for close to $400,000.

6:41The reason I asked the question about where Reggie is right now is because I was going to go find that motherfucker and try to hire him. But they had already hired him. Let's make sure that we understand a couple of things. That's Matt. And I assume that's like maybe like his One of his managers, right-hand guy. Okay. Yeah. That's his right-hand man.

7:00And he said, they wouldn't, they wouldn't let me give, wouldn't give me permission, which implies that if it was at Matt's shop, he wouldn't be saying they in that situation. And just for context, Brian, you weren't involved in this conversation and you never, nothing. You also haven't listened to the full conversation, right? This is basic. So this tells a lot of things about the people in the comments.

7:23So we have people in the comments that couldn't deduce from that video what was going on there, and then they wonder why they're not making a lot of money. I bet you if they couldn't figure that out, they're probably not that great at going through like logical-based diagnostic procedures. It's probably, if you can't get there from here, or right on that one, I don't know how you're going to actually fix anything.

7:49It's, it's, it really opened my eyes. So many comments were like, the math ain't mathing. Or $28 an hour times 110 hours times 52 weeks doesn't work. Yeah, he doesn't make $28 anymore, man. It's obvious in the, in the video. Like, what are you even talking about? Oh, my favorite one, uh, was a dude who said there is no auto tech in the United States making $300,000 a year.

8:15Even if he's fed like a racehorse, he's only bringing in $70,000 to $80,000 a year. Mm. And I was like, hey, I got a message for that guy. If that's what he believes based on what he's making right now with what he's doing, you know, the biggest lie everybody was ever told is that you can be whatever you want. I'm not going to be an Olympic high jumper no matter how hard I try.

8:45It's not going to happen. Or a pole vaulter, or you name a plethora of things. Maybe if you kill everyone else. All the other people. And unfortunately, auto repair has gotten complicated and it's not for everybody. It's on— that's, that's the friendliest way I can say it. It's not easy, man. It's not easy. And it's extra hard if you can't figure out that Reggie was not making $28 an hour anymore.

9:20Because neither Reggie or Matt's right-hand man are working for they anymore. No, but for real, for a long time it was Aaron Stokes was the lightning rod and then it was Todd Hayes and now it's Matt Curry. So people just want to shit all over anything that has Matt Curry's name attached to it. But like, I mean, he apparently has a very good business that does incredible numbers, that has incredibly happy customers and very happy employees.

9:50Well, I mean, we can make, we can make sense of this whole deal pretty easily, right? It's not this $358K in, uh, in Fairfax, Virginia. This isn't hard to make sense of, right? The guy's making what, $65, $70 an hour? Um, he probably doesn't have much else to do, so he probably locks himself in the place for all the open hours, which he's working like— I had actually said that.

10:11I had actually figured that based on, you know, 25 years of doing this. When you see something like that, you're like, all right, how's this possible? Fairfax, Virginia. Okay, it's expensive to live there, so that means the guy's probably getting paid a lot. And then I was like, well, if the guy freaking— you know, man, a guy— most people probably aren't going to turn $110,000 or $120,000 in 40 hours.

10:29But I'll tell you what, if a guy locks himself in the place 6 days a week— and then after I said that, you had disclosed like a couple days later, yeah, they have to tell them to go home. Yeah, it's one of— it's one of the wealthiest demographics in the country, and the guy works high traffic. Yeah, incredibly high traffic. He works 6 days a week on a store that focuses on— yeah, yep, in a place that focuses on not having super duper insanely technical ass kickers.

10:58Not that they don't do any diag. I'm not, I'm not trying to say they don't fix anything. I'm just, I'm just saying that they— anything they don't— it's not— they don't get bogged down by hero. Yeah, they don't. They're not getting bogged down with hero work. They're doing the stuff that you can make money on. They're they're bolting a lot of parts on, right?

11:13Which is, which is fine. That's a business model. Yeah. And the techs who want to say the idea that real wrenching— that's ego talking. That's ego talking. That's fine. It all depends on what your goal is. That if, even if it's not, let's pretend that there is a judge and it's not real wrenching, that's still $358 grand a year. Which, you know, if he's there 6 days a week, he's probably got to file single and zero because he doesn't have a lot of home life.

11:36So the Government probably takes $125,000, and then this, that, and the other thing—rent blah blah blah blah blah—he probably ends up with $100 grand left over in Fairfax, Virginia. Not bad. I bet his bass boat's paid for. Probably. Yeah. Anyway, I just wanted—I got a lot of chuckles out of that clip just because there was so much rage. And here's one of the things that also crawls up my ass a little bit: these same technicians who are in here saying.

12:02Oh, nobody makes that much money. You must be stealing. Oh, that's crooked. You're, uh, you're, you're a hack or whatever else. These are the same guys that are bitching about how they can't get paid enough and techs aren't paid well enough. Yet when there's a technician who is getting paid through the moon, he's got to be a thief, right? This whole industry is a bunch of fucking crabs in a bucket.

12:21When one starts crawling out, the other ones grab them and drag them back down because they can't stand for somebody else to be successful when they're not. Fuck you guys. Oh my gosh. That was amazing. Nice. I can't, I'm laughing so hard. I couldn't even remember how to get back to my second screen. I think it was on the wrong side. I just liked it when Matt Curry posted the guy's W-2.

12:50Yeah, he did. With permission, he redacted the name and address and posted his whole W-2 and was like, suck it, fellas. Here it is. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm not, you know, I'm like I said, I'm not, I'm not, as you know, I'm not a Curry superfan, right? You know that I'm not a Curry superfan, but there was nothing confusing about that video.

13:12And, you know, if a lot of these guys were, knew as much as they claim to know and were actually as experienced as they claim to be, they would see how that is totally possible. Does it happen every day? No. Is it the first W-2 I've seen over a quarter million dollars a year? Also no, from a technician in a bay. It happens.

13:31There's guys out there that are, um, you know, they're the top 1% in the top 1% shops with the top 1% process that, you know, turn a quarter million dollars a year. And I think it's very few and far between, but it, it's a thing that happens. I think the problem is that a disproportionate number of the keyboard warriors in the comment sections all think that they are one of those 1 percenters.

14:01Yeah, they're not. They're not. They're not. Which is okay. And look, here's the deal. I'm not one of the 1 percenters of shop owners. I'd be lucky if I was, you know, in the 50th percentile. Just give me top of the bell curve. I'll be happy. But, um, The folks that get all the hate, they are the 1 percenters, the Stokes and Hayes and well, okay.

14:23It depends on what your definition of success is. Sure. If it's just net profit, then they're 1 percenters, right? But everybody has to choose how to define what their yeah, which in their mind, in their in they you know they've they're achieving. Their goal. Yeah, right. That's their goal. If your goal is to be in your town and to be the guy in your town that everybody comes to when there's a problem that nobody can fix and you can fix it, and to have the house paid for and to have your vehicles paid for and have no debt and, and make good money for you and your lifestyle choices, then great.

15:01Then that's your definition of success. And you don't have to be open 7 days a week or 6 days a week or even 5 days a week. For a lot of folks that are out there. And that's great. And screw anybody who wants to say that that definition of success is less important than I want to build a roll-up target for $1 billion.

15:20They're both definitions of success for different people. Sure. But that's one of the big problems that we have is that we all judge everyone else in our field based on our personal definition of success. So anyway, yeah, agreed. Okay, so guys, today I'm actually here recording and I've got part of Team Detect Auto off camera and we were just laughing about some of the tool names that they have.

15:50But one of the ones I want to talk to you about today, they call it the Inspection Finding Writer, which is a terrible name, bro. Do better. But it is an awesome tool to go along with that. You know, when I was trying to find a way to describe it, if you've ever used Grammarly as an add-on onto your web browser. It's like Grammarly, but for tech speak.

16:09It's gonna take the findings that have been written up by your techs and by your team on the repair order, and it's going to shift that into more easily understood language. It's gonna clean up the grammar, it's gonna clean up the spelling. But the other thing that's super cool about it is it's also got the ability to analyze images that are added to the repair order.

16:28If I check a red item on my DVI for fluid leaks and take a picture of an oil pan that's obviously leaking, It's going to identify that that's an oil pan that's leaking and it's going to give that language into the repair order for you. So that's yet again going to save you time typing and writing it out. Now you can also add a little bit more context, add some simple, very short context, and it will expand upon that for effect.

16:49It's just another great tool that the team at Detect Auto are putting out there to help streamline your business, make things run more smoothly. Now they just need to work on naming their tools. If you want to find out more, check out the link to Detect Auto in our show notes. Our service advisors on average work about 10 hours a day. So you have a 10-hour day.

17:09We've looked at every single inbound and outbound phone call for the last period of time. And on average across the company, a service advisor spends 2.5 hours on the phone per day. Now we're down to 7.5 hours. How long do you think a really good intake process and write-up process goes from the time they walk in the door to the time you hang the keys on the dispatch board?

17:26And we heard that that's 10 minutes. How long from the time that they walk in the door until they leave with with their keys to check out, that's probably a 5 or 6 minute conversation typically. Sure. 15 minutes per customer. Well, we're doing 6.8 cars per advisor per day, so that's, uh, 2 hours and 20 minutes a day. Now we're at 5 hours of the day.

17:42Well, you know, we need to audit repair orders, review the repair order, make sure that all the right parts are on there. Sometimes we got to go back and ask questions with the technician, that kind of thing. So we, we told them 20 minutes per car on that too. Okay. We're trying to be really giving on that. So again, 7 minutes or 7 cars a day, rounded up to 2.5 hours.

17:58Now, now we're at 7.5 hours. So we got 2.5 hours if it's not on the phone because sales conversation happens on the phone, right? And that's already accounted for. Yep. And if it's not greeting a customer or checking a customer out and it's not RO audits, what are the other 2.5 hours going to? My favorite comment is, fantastic rage bait. Well done, Braxton.

18:16My favorite, my favorite one is, don't pay attention to me. I'm just here for the comments from people that don't understand what parody and sarcasm is. Keep it coming, bros. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I see him. Yeah, rage bait. So, but there were some service advisors that were— and some coaches getting up in their feels in that comment section. Oh yeah. Uh, suddenly it's a little bit awkward when you turn the same magnifying glass that technicians have been under for the last 40 years and you track the service advisor movement 6 minutes at a time, all day, every day.

18:56Weird. I mean, what does Becky Witt say? That the value of a technician is by the minute. So what is it? I mean, if it's, I don't know, whatever the number is, call it $10 a minute for a technician, then it's got to be at least like, you know, $1.35 a minute for service advisors, right? Oh, that was such good rage bait because everybody's like, there's no, there's no way I'd work for a A shop that tracked my time like that.

19:26And I'm thinking, bro, everybody that's freaking working on cars in the back is probably under that magnifying glass, like, for their entire careers, selling their soul 6 minutes at a time. One comment I remember, this guy's a joy to work for. I'm a raging asshole to work for, trust me. I do have— do you have a high sense of urgency, Mike? Personally, no, I'm a piece of shit, but I really expect it from my— no.

19:55So anyway, I remember when my dad first got a consultant, uh, went to his first coach way back when. It was when technician time management first filtered out of the dealership world into the aftermarket, and you had punch cards, uh, and you had to punch X time. So you punch in and out of every car that you're working on, but you also punched for what specific purpose you were not working on a car.

20:19I'm on the tool truck, I'm waiting for parts, I'm waiting for authorization, I'm going to the shitter. There was a, a code for bathroom time. I mean, that level— you're not going to believe micromanagement. Oh, you're not going to believe this. You won't believe it. But man, if you go work at a machine shop, they have punch cards too for job times.

20:43You're not going to believe it. It's, you know, they might get paid hourly, but they're micromanaged much. That's nice. Um, let's see. 10 minutes for intake is laughable. 20 is more likely. If it takes you 20 minutes to write up Miss Jones for oil change inspection, you got to go, bro. You're not, you ain't working. Nope. Bye. I think that's got to be a case of I'm applying the filter of my life to every possible interaction.

21:09And that might be a shop that doesn't even do oil services, right? That might be a specialty, you know, whatever. But can you imagine if we had technicians clock in and out of their time spent on TikTok? Or I'm sorry, advisors clock in and out of their scroll time during the day. What's the one they've been on lately though, where they, with the iPhones, where they play billiards, they play pool back and forth on iPhone.

21:32There's all sorts of games built into iMessage. Yeah. 6.8. I don't have an iPhone. Seems to be the problem. Yeah, I agree. I need more cars. 10 minutes for a write-up is funny. I mean, like, how advanced does the problem need to be on a car for it to take more than 10 minutes to write up? How often do you need a 20-minute conversation for the intake process?

22:04I mean, 10 minutes is a long time to have a back and forth about somebody's car. I would, I would argue out to the car with the customer and doing a walk around and building rapport. I would argue, I would argue, I'm going to make the argument, and there, this will be another rage bait for Braxton. I would make the argument that a lot of service advisors are going to start to get irritated when the write-up process takes more than 5 minutes, when they have to do their job for more than 5 minutes.

22:30They start to get irritated when the customer wants to talk about— what's that? They need a safe space break. Yeah. They're like, oh, this guy wanted to talk about getting his balls checked on Tuesday at the doctor and this, that, and the other thing and blah, blah, blah. It's like, they're 5 minutes in, 5 minutes in, they're done with the conversation with the customer.

22:51Yeah. I, um, so you might find this hard to believe, But I was a really mediocre service advisor. Um, I know that you were super— wow. I can't believe it. Yeah. I, uh, you can't fix cars or write service. Yeah. Or run a shop. You're right where you belong. You're right where you belong right now. Can't run a shop effectively. Uh, those who can't fix or service right own.

23:20Those who can't do any of those things have a podcast. Those who can't, those who don't work on cars just have a podcast talking shit about service called Confessions of a Shop Owner. One of our listeners snuck up behind me while I was shoulder deep into the fender well of a Chevy the other day and said something like, wow, you actually work on cars.

23:45Which honestly was the rare instance I was doing some actual mechanical work. So it was kind of funny that I was actually working there. So how many of your employees, uh, listen to your podcast? Um, actually today one of them asked me, they're like, what's up? You know Mr. Subaru? I'm like, nope. I was on the phone with Justin Morgan and he's laughing in the background as I'm gaslighting this guy saying I don't have any idea who Mr.

24:10Subaru is. He's like, I seen you talking to him on TikTok. I'm like, that was somebody else, man. Wasn't me. That was some other Sasquatch who doesn't work on cars. It was some other weirdo who doesn't work on cars. So fuel and carbon cleaning, thank goodness. No technician in America makes more than $70,000 or $80,000 a year, and that service advisors, uh, have the hardest— are inherently lazy.

24:38Yeah, have the hardest job in the shop, uh, and should not be micromanaged. Okay. Yes. So we're 2 clips in. We have solved 2 of the biggest problems in the industry already. How many times in these groups have I responded to people? What do you mean by A-tech? And they're like, a guy that I can give everything. And I go, here's the deal.

24:54I don't know everything. I know a lot of really smart people. I haven't met a guy you can give everything. I haven't met a guy that you're going to give a European immobilizer problem to. And then he's going to rebuild a GM 10-speed and then he's going to put injectors, whatever. He's going to correctly diagnose some diesel injectors, not just sling them in there.

25:12Right. And then do whatever else. Like, Like, it's, it's not gonna happen. It's not a person, guys. The person doesn't exist anymore. People were big mad at that one. Yeah, they're big mad. Mm-hmm. Yeah, where do we find that? Because everybody thinks they're the ATAC. Oh yeah. Oh, all the guys that are supposedly doing it was unbelievable. Oh, you ain't never met me.

25:33Well, I ain't never heard of you, so you're probably not doing it. Let's see, let's see if we can find it. Someone said, I've done all that within a 24-hour span. Plenty of us exist. We just don't exist captive inside a shop. LOL. What does that even mean? He's like a free-range— he's like a free-range chicken. What is he talking about? Uh, you went back and forth with him for a while.

26:01And the, and the deal is, is even if they are doing it, they're not doing it efficiently. They ain't making no money doing it. So I think that's the reality. The underlying problem with this conversation is the very definition of ATEC. Like, this is something that Carm Capriato has talked about a ton, is how bad for the industry the names ATEC, BTEC, CTEC have been.

26:23And, you know, he has proposed— he's got a whole white paper out and he does speeches about it, but he's proposed a whole different naming or nomenclature for different specialties and skill sets. But What I think an ATEC is versus what you think it is versus what Dutch thinks it is versus what Matt Curry thinks it is, maybe 4 totally different technicians, right?

26:46And so the problem is that 80% of technicians that are out there also think they are one of those 4 definitions. So what's really funny is I'm really good at memorizing things that have happened, and that's how I get really good at not getting screwed the same way twice. There's a guy in the comments that says, I am that guy. He goes, I am that guy, right?

27:10And I'm not going to read the rest because I don't want to call him out, call him out. But dude, um, he burnt a vehicle down in his shop and he's asked some of the dumbest questions I've ever seen. Technically, you're not, you're not that guy, bro. I've seen the questions you ask on open forum. You are not that guy. You're not.

27:30How did he say that? I didn't know that he burned a shop, a car down in his shop. I can't disclose any other information or else it would. So if I were to say his name right now, would that make it weird? Definitely would make it weird. Michael. I will choose to move on to an alternate comment. Yeah. But like, you see the questions they ask.

27:55They're not that guy. Right? It's like, it's like I just, you know, Jeff Barnes and I have a funny joke about guys that, you know, in the auto shop owners hangout, there's all sorts of auto shop owners that know everything technically there is to know. And then 2 weeks later, they're like, I have no communication on an '03 Chevy. And you're like, does it have an aftermarket radio?

28:12And they're like, yeah, how'd you know? And I'm like, yeah, because you're getting yanked by the oldest freaking radio Class 2 interface in the book. But meanwhile, you knew everything Yeah, because you're not that guy, but you knew everything 2 weeks ago. Like, how do you, how do you not know that? I'm not that guy, but I know 3 guys personally who can do all that stuff, plus fabrication and bodywork and carpentry.

28:37It takes a certain type of autism though. But they— and, and you know what, given enough time, anybody— but not anybody, a lot of people can do all that, but can they do it efficiently? Right? So if they can't do it efficiently, I think they're not that guy. The real unicorns out there though, they're a little bit weird. It takes a weird hombre to develop a high level of skill and efficiency across all the different systems and complexities that you guys face.

29:15This guy, I'm com— I'm contemplating on sending this video to my old shop foreman. Yeah, they had some problems. They had some ego issues. He knows people. See him? He knows people who thought they were that guy but weren't that guy. That's in most cases. Listen, I know some pretty sharp dude. I know some people that are so smart in certain areas, it'd freaking blow your mind.

29:40But they're also smart. They know how much they don't know, and so they don't have the ego. Yeah. And they're like, you know what? I'm not going to really get involved in this because I'm not that guy. Yeah. So, hey, I have a question. No, I don't. I forgot what I was going to ask. It was going to be fucking profound, though.

30:02It was going to be awesome. Sorry. Great service advisors are not born. They are trained. Coached and developed. That's why Elite Worldwide created the Master Service Advisor Program, an intensive 3-day training happening September 10th through 12th in Dallas, Texas. This class is built for service advisors who want to elevate every part of their performance, from customer communication and relationship building to presenting recommendations with confidence and increasing overall sales right away.

30:30You'll learn proven strategies used by top-performing advisors across the industry while gaining practical tools you can immediately apply in your shop. Whether you're looking to improve your confidence, increase your effectiveness at the counter, or become a stronger leader for your team, this program delivers the training and support to help you succeed. Join us in Dallas this September to take the next step towards becoming a world-class service advisor.

30:54Hey guys, Carrie Lynn with Turnkey Marketing. If you are looking to increase cars and you're looking for the right demographic to go after, you want to get the right people who need auto repair right now. Then give us a call. We have a service called Direct Track, and it utilizes AI to find people in your area who are the great demographic that you want to go after, have raised their hand and opted in saying, I need auto repair help right now.

31:19We send them an email. As soon as they open the email, we then get their physical address, follow it up with commercial ads on all their streaming services like Hulu and YouTube and ESPN, Fox News, all those different things. And then we also get their physical address and we start sending banner ads and display ads to every single device in that house.

31:41It has been incredibly effective. It has made shops seem like they're everywhere to those people who need repairs right then. And I mean, I'm telling you guys, the return on investment has been huge. So if you want to increase car count, you want to get great people in the door, give us a call or reach out to us and ask us about Direct Track Marketing.

32:02Becomes increasingly difficult when cars are designed to— yeah, I don't know if cars are designed so technicians can't fix them. I think that the technology outran the training, personally. Um, if that was the case, I mean, let's, let's face it, if cars were designed so technicians couldn't fix them, the Lemon Law buyback would be 3 times as much as it is and nobody'd be making any money.

32:29I don't think they do that. There's people fixing the cars. I don't even think that the training hasn't kept pace with the evolution of technology. The training is available and out there if you want it enough to search it out. Yeah. I can't tell you how, how much, like you've made the comment about average effort equals average pay over and over and over.

32:51And yeah, you see what average is for technician compensation. And it's terrible because of all the factors that we've discussed ad nauseam. Right. But those same dudes are like, oh, I'm not gonna study at night. I'm not gonna look at ScannerDanner at 8:00 PM. I'm not gonna read case studies. Well, then you're gonna be fucking average your whole career because you're not putting any in any extra effort.

33:15Yeah. You think you get a gold star trophy just because you completed the race. That's not how it works. Now that you're in the real world, to me, most of the people that I would consider the top-end diagnostic people in the country have their notes and are in group chats at 8, 9, 10, and 11 o'clock at night asking questions and bouncing ideas off people.

33:38It's weird. They never text me and ask questions. I know. Yeah. Well, um, most of them are doing that. Most of them are researching, and it's not like, hey, have you guys ever run into this and name the symptom? It's like, hey, I tested this, this, and this. I read this. This is how I think it works, but this is what I'm finding, and that's not going along with how it works.

34:00And it's— and here are the readings I'm getting. Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, not it tests good, good, everything tests good. Well, the car's not broke, Timmy. What do you want me to tell you? Yeah, I owned it out. I own— oh my gosh. Ohm is not a verb. Ohm is a noun. Testing is a verb, but nobody tests anything. Yeah, this is— so what you're saying is, what you're saying is, by definition, half of people have below average intelligence and more than half of them are in the comment section.

34:40Yeah, more than 200% of that half are in the comment section. Oh gosh, everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to this podcast. I mean, commented on this video clip. I mean, I don't know, this guy didn't even spell tech right. He, you know, I, I don't know, man. Well, I mean, it's spelled T-E-K, right? Let's talk about— let's talk about— let's talk about this comment.

35:13Reading comprehension, right? We all just listened to the clip of me talking about how it doesn't exist and shop owners need to quit looking for it, right? That's literally what I just said. No context required, right? Pretty clear what I said. Ah, this guy is looking for a unicorn. He doesn't understand what an ATEC is. Like, bro, bro, what are you— what are you talking about?

35:36An ATEC can do those things. No, what? I don't understand. I'm looking for a unicorn, but then an ATEC can do things. I wasn't— no, I'm saying that you can't. I'm not looking for it. What are you talking about? I'm not looking for it. I just said it don't exist. Why would I look for something that ain't real? The heck, weirdo? Like, what is he talking about?

35:58It's about proper testing, interpreting results. Nobody, nobody expects a doctor to do everything. Like, Brian, I want you to know— wait, an ATEC can do— an ATEC can do those things. A paragraph later, nobody expects a doctor to do anything. Which one is it, buddy? What are you even talking about? Yeah, these guys don't want to go home at 8 o'clock and read or watch training, but they'll spend 40 minutes typing out a 4-paragraph comment on a video that contradicts itself 6 times in 5 with— well, there's only like 3 periods in the whole thing.

36:31Contradicts itself 6 times in the paragraph. What are you talking about, bro? I'm not gonna say anything mean about this guy because if the picture on his profile is real, he could break me in half with his pinky. But Brian, I want you to know you sound like someone that only worked at one American Guard dealership your whole career. The rest of us have been doing bumper-to-bumper repair for decades, Brian.

36:58Just so you know, you've, you've been a Chrysler guy your whole life and that's it. Yeah, I don't know anything about that. Thanks. Yeah, I never, never had to work on different varieties of cars. Never, never. Andrew Fisher even stepped in and commented and replied to that comment. Oh, did he? I'm not surprised. He's like, he's so funny. He's like, dude, you make so many people mad and I love it.

37:23I'm like, they don't— I don't know, everybody thinks that like they're all, oh yeah, I'm super tech. No, you're not. You know, I freaking— I thought I was super tech. I got a lot of cars that ain't fixed also, you know, people. And the best part is the, the most ignorant thing somebody can do is think that they have cars that aren't fixed because they just didn't come back to you, dude.

37:44I mean, I know I have a bunch of cars that aren't fixed. But who knows how many that I don't know about are out there where they're like, fuck that guy. I ain't going back to him. He ain't fixed my car. I gave him 2 tries. You don't know. Could you imagine having such an ego and being so ignorant to think that you don't have cars that weren't fixed?

38:01I mean, get out of here, weirdos. All right, look, that's one of our interview questions is, uh, you know, when's the last time a car kicked your ass, right? Because everyone has had a car kick your ass. We all have, for sure, for sure, period. And the number of dudes who are like, never, I've never been beat by a car. Really? Even if they don't know about it, even, even if they don't know about it, they are not as experienced as they say they are if they really believe that a car didn't go somewhere else, that they didn't get fixed right.

38:37If they really believe that. I know that I have them coming from other shops To me, I'm sure that mine are going somewhere else here and there that weren't fixed right. It's, it's, dude, I've, I couldn't imagine. I couldn't imagine being so ignorant to think that you don't have cars that didn't get fixed. That's weird, man. That is bizarre. Well, that's people.

39:02That's like, you, if you're one of them people, you probably need to see like a psychiatrist or whichever one can prescribe drugs. No, they're just in our comments. The world is safe. My, my latest thing is when I see somebody write something super dumb, I offer to buy them out of their Facebook account. Like, I just offered somebody in Zeb's comments the other day, I said, for $200, I will give you $200 to delete your Facebook and never come back on here so I don't have to read anything so stupid ever again in my entire life.

39:37That's great. That's, that's amazing. Anyways, let's go to Matt Lofton. What's your next one? You can't do a $99 fluid transmission service on a modern-day vehicle and change 12 quarts full synthetic ATF. It's not possible. So we call it a vanity flush. I got a canned job in the system and what's supposed to happen is put the brake fluid service on and then they put vanity brake fluid service in there and it's got the description of what's probably actually happening at that vanity service, which is if I pay your technician $0.20 to go do a brake flush right now, we're charging the customer $89.

40:13He's sucking the master cylinder and putting— he's vacuuming out the master cylinder and pouring some pretty fluid in the top side. And so that's what the description says, man. He got so much hate for that, and it like just total lack of understanding again of what we're talking about. So that's— so I've never listened to that one before. I've never listened to that reel.

40:33And so what he's talking about is he's— okay, yeah, you've never listened. Let's see if I can grasp what he's talking about. I can— I think that as a sales tool or a coaching tool, he's saying how not possible or how not transparent it is to act like that service is actually getting done for that price. Yeah, is that close? He has built a comparison that he puts on the estimate.

41:02Here's the vanity flush that, you know, Joe's Quick Lube is doing for $90. Yep, he's using it as a sales tool, right? Here's what we do for $229, or whatever that number is. We actually flush it. And this is so that you can compare them side by side. Yeah, and see the difference, right? Like, so our coaching company not our— the coaching company that Matt is the director of coaching for, which I am a client of, Elite, got calls from Elite clients upset that he was advocating for that type of service.

41:40Really? That they couldn't understand what was going on. Now, mind you, I didn't even see, because the way Braxton has this set up with the screen share, I didn't actually see the video play. I guess you don't have to see to listen. You could hear it. Yeah, I could hear it play. I like— that's not what I got out of it. He was using it as a sales tool to show how his service was better and how what they say they're doing, what they say they're doing for $89 isn't, you know, you're not getting the service you think you're getting for $89, right?

42:08Well, I wanted to be like, hey, tell me which, which Elite client called to complain about that because I want to call and have a conversation with them because they clearly didn't listen to my whole podcast. You should listen to the show, guy. Yeah, listen to the whole thing. I digress. Well, but you didn't have to listen to the whole thing. That's the thing.

42:23I was in there. That's the thing though. There was enough there to figure out what he was talking about. I'm just a stupid grease monkey. I figured it out. It wasn't difficult. I don't know, man. Yeah. People are weird. That's one of them. Where are some of the comments? Let's start. Let's start. I'm going to, I'm going to that video now so I can look at the comments.

42:44I really like Matt, uh, basically because I used to watch a lot of NASCAR. So I, I tried to not fanboy too much when I met him the first time. You guys know I have, I have his hero, uh, picture signed, autographed from, uh, eBay that he did when he was a driver. Hang on. No way. Oh my gosh. Are you freaking kidding me?

43:08Hunt Damrist of Parmelis got this for me and gave it to me when we saw each other last time. It's got his bio in the back. He's standing in front of his car wearing Mossy Oak with a shotgun over his shoulder. I mean, that's just amazing. So I've got it on a little stand. I love everything about that. Yeah, I put it up in the background at one of our recent recordings and didn't even mention it to him.

43:35And he spotted it and knew, and knew what it was. It was amazing. I can't find that one. Look at that. It's in the chat. I can understand the— oh, is it? Oh, I'm sorry. I can understand. Oh geez. I can understand the comment. I can understand what he said, but I can't find it. Hey, you dummies. Don't mind me. I can't actually find it, but at least I know what he's Sad.

44:03Yeah. At least you understood the context based on, you know, what you had available to interpret anyway. It just further, it reinforces, uh, you know what? No, I'm not gonna say that. That would be rude. And I don't wanna be rude. Say it. Say the mean thing, Mike. No, no, Tanika. I'm not gonna say the thing. Tanika said the thing today. Are we allowed to?

44:34We're probably not allowed to talk about that. We should save that for her show. Ooh, ooh, Tanika, can we be on your show together? Yeah. The, the last episode of Downshift with Tanika. The last one. The farewell episode. Yeah. The farewell episode. That's not right. No, but I will tell you that I feel like, um, if you're coming in for the content and not just the yuck, yuck, yuck, you know, dick jokes that, you know, I do, um, the episodes with Matt are some of the most content-dense, uh, quality, uh, episodes that we do because that's what it's like to have a coach, right?

45:19It's a coaching call. I'm told they're pretty informative. Yeah. Well, there are 18 of them out there right now, so, uh, you can go back to episode 1 and follow through the process if you want. But we've touched on a lot of content, which isn't difficult to be good considering the rest of us is just you and I being idiots. Or you or I, sometimes you and you or I, sometimes you and I.

45:43Yeah, I would say I've heard that the episodes from Tools were way better than, uh, most of the ones that have me in it, so I don't know. I have a lot of ADHD. I feel bad for the people trying to listen. Yeah. Weapons grade. That's terrible, man. What else you got, Braxton? Give it to me, baby. Let's play another one where Brian pissed off all the internet people.

46:08You want to see me start vibrating? Put somebody on a job that's got 3 hours on the ticket and put them in a different bay than what their toolbox is in. I will start vibrating. I'm like, why is that guy walking an extra 8 steps every time to go get his tools? I'm like, this is freaking crazy. The comments in that video were unhinged.

46:26They were so bad. They were so bad. I, I don't think it makes sense for a guy to work in a different bay than where his toolbox is. Sorry, it doesn't. It's, it's all wasted, unaccounted for time that I'd like to use. I'd like to use that same tracking method on the service advisors, to be quite honest. And we're back to managing by the minute.

46:47Yeah, it's like, oh yeah, here they are. There's only 96, but there's a lot of— let's see here. Only 96. Only 96 angry people that think that. I love that. And Rachel, Rachel Bearclaw, do you even work on cars, bro? Come on. She knows. You know, she had one of the best content suggestions, uh, ever. Early on in our recording where Braxton kept making fun of me for having too much headspace.

47:18And in our first few recordings, I actually would get pillows and put them in my office chair and like hop up on my office chair so that my headspace was good. And, um, we should have this montage video cut of where I hop up on the chair and then my feet are dangling like a kid swinging back and forth. It was an outstanding— it was an outstanding suggestion.

47:39What I love is all the people that actually know me making the super sarcastic comments. It's fantastic. Tommy Markham, this guy couldn't lead a small staff running a one-window ice cream joint and clearly couldn't fix a tire. Josiah Martin, this guy never, clearly never worked a day in his life. I mean, it's great. I mean, when's the last time you actually touched a car, Brian?

48:07Um, always the dumbest takes from you. I love to see it. I don't know who Stephen Thompson is, but he thinks you're an idiot. That's okay. I don't care. He doesn't, he doesn't, he's not a customer at the shop, so it don't matter to me. Yeah. Let's see. Uh, when the last time I touched a car, about, uh, 4:48 today. Um, and I did not fix it after working on it for an hour and a half.

48:32So, which is— I have my Google document with all my testing, though, and I will get figured out what my next plan of action is tonight and get her fixed tomorrow morning. You know what I was tinkering with today is I got— came in the mail the new Napa Accelerator VR headset for training GSs and apprentices. I'm sorry, that was the NAPA one.

49:01Yeah. Do you know, I have to say something funny. Can I, can I, can I say something funny about the NAPA people at ASTA about this VR headset? The guy that was in charge of that had no sense of humor. And, uh, I said that I walked up to him. I said, dude, if you can't virtually cross-thread a bolt while you're trying to flat rate the control arm in this car, I said, that's a BS VR trainer.

49:26And he didn't even crack a smile. He probably didn't know what the fuck you were talking about because the dude who's in charge of it, the dude who's in charge of it is like a film producer because he was having to set up all the cameras and do all the lighting and everything. And he's not a technical guy. They hired a movie guy for that.

49:44Let's see. Yet you're doing a podcast and not wrenching. Yeah, I know. Terrible. Doesn't look like he walks much at all, honestly. Fuck you. I lost 65 pounds in the last 5 months, asshole. Um, doesn't your toolbox, doesn't your toolbox have wheels? Patrick, my toolbox probably weighs more than your daily driver. Um, let's see. Yeah. Yeah. If you can roll your box from bay to bay, you don't have that many tools.

50:16You don't have a box. You have a 7-drawer cart. No, this guy, he just asked me, doesn't your toolbox have wheels? I, I think I put more mileage on my toolbox than I do my car. I do. That's, that's a weird comment. Just for frame of reference, everyone that's listening, if you don't know, Brian has one of his spare snowmobiles on top of his toolbox.

50:40Yeah, it's not it. My, my toolbox weighs, with the snowmobile on top, my toolbox weighs 5,000 pounds empty. I'm not rolling it. From one end of the shop to the other. It's not, it's not safe. It's not safe to roll that amount of weight on a regular basis. Plus it's got a lot of stuff. Plus it's got a, um, it's got, um, like a network cable running to it for all the crap talkers that can't even program a car.

51:03So I can do remote Autel Expert for those people. So, you know, it's kind of not, not very convenient when you have that amount of wiring running to your toolbox to roll it around. Um, plus it's not— it's just not efficient, man. It's just not efficient. Only one correct solution: leave the auto industry. Okay, this guy's all over in the shop. That's why they have a Locker Docker.

51:29I know what a Locker Docker is. Snap-on hasn't made— dude, you got— you got to go on Marketplace, get those. They quit making them because so few people bought them, Brandon. So get over— what's a Locker Docker? Oh, that's the one where you have the, uh, roll cart that rolls— the tool cart that rolls into the locker so you have all that wasted space.

51:44I have to tell you, I've seen some of these people organize, organize their toolbox, and if I organized mine like they did theirs with everything all spaced out to take up as much room as possible, apparently I'd have to buy another one the size of mine. Well, you want to spread it all out so the toolbox looks full because you spent way more than you needed to on a toolbox that was double the size you need.

52:02Yeah, because I, I spent $18,400, and you know what, let's not even get started on the guys I see people This is going to go down a whole other road. I see guys that make poor financial decisions that are listing the toolbox like it's just my bottom roll cab for more money than I paid for my top to bottom setup. And I gotta wonder, like, did you really roll that much in finance at 24%?

52:30Can any of you answer that for me? Like, I feel like a lot of them people are in these comments. They don't actually know what they actually paid for their toolbox. Because they just pay a weekly payment. Oh, it's $118 a week. They find out it's $27,000 for 72 years. Who knows? I don't know what they do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. People were angry.

52:55Let's play one of Mike getting the internet mad. Ready? I know I've never said anything to get people mad. It's always Brian. A lot of the students in the automotive programs don't ever graduate because they're working part-time at a dealership or something else. And they get told you don't need to finish your program. Just come on full-time with us and we'll finish your training internally and you can go to OEM training.

53:15But then they get pigeonholed into the quick lube and GS work for a couple of years and they get mocked and made fun of and yelled at and everything else. And then they, they wash out. You need to invest time and attention into the development of a young technician. A lot of the comments thought Mike owned a dealership. I remember that. That was— there's been a couple of these that have gone hot.

53:39Where they assume I'm a dealer guy. Yeah, I think it's because of my douchey white shirt and sport coat that makes me scream dealership vibe. Maybe. Um, I don't know, does that mole on my forehead look a little unhealthy? Is that still there? That's my— is that a camera trick? What's going on? What side of my head is that? Can you see it?

53:59I don't know, lance it off. Is the camera reversed? I can't tell. Uh, that looks unhealthy in the picture to me. Do you think I have the C word? That'll be fine. Yeah, whatever. It's cool. Just rub some whiskey on it. Um, yeah. Why do so many— is that why so many people think you own a dealership? Because you gotta wear the freaking shirt and sport jacket everywhere.

54:25I'm happy I don't go to the events you do. You know, I think it's like a pain in the ass. I got— looks like a major pain in the ass. Peer pressured into dressing like that by Lucas. Years ago because he would always come in like a fucking suit and tie. And like, I'm here to try— I'm, I'm fatter than all of my suits right now, so I've got to have the top button unbuttoned, right?

54:46You see how the button's unbuttoned there? It's because shit don't connect anymore. And if it does, I sound like this when I talk because I can't breathe. Uh, so yeah, I just gotta— I gotta go back to hoodies and t-shirts so that people take me seriously as an aftermarket guy. I guess, you know, the other one that made the people get all angry, uh, was the one where I was talking about loaner cars, how I don't fucking owe you a loaner car.

55:10And everybody assumed I was a dealership service department manager or dealer owner. And they were like, yes, you do owe me a loaner car. And I was like, go fuck yourself. Uh, that was amazing because you can't read, uh, or, you know, contextual clues weren't— that was, that was truly amazing. That one made people mad. Um, me saying I wasn't going to tear down the Volkswagen made people mad.

55:32Then it made them madder when I shared the picture of the completely still assembled engine out of the car sitting on the pallet going back. Just because you're too dumb to articulate to a warranty company why it needs an engine without taking it apart doesn't mean that everybody else is. Like, some of us can, some of us can like, you know, stick a borescope in, get the pictures and articulate why it needs an engine and what the failure was or the fact that the failure isn't going to be found because it's catastrophic and get the warranty company to cover engine.

56:02It's not a big deal. Or maybe you've established a relationship with the warranty company and the adjuster such that they just fucking trust you because they didn't even send an adjuster. They didn't even send an adjuster. Yeah. Because I gave them so much information. They, I didn't have to take the engine apart and they never sent an adjuster. Imagine that. Imagine what Brian just said is it sucks to suck.

56:24Yeah, sucks to suck, bro. I don't know what to tell you. It's terrible. What it all boils down to is that, uh, people lack the mental acuity to connect the dots, uh, without a full set of data. So what you should do if you find yourself looking at one of our videos and you're like, man, Mike's an asshole, or Brian's never worked on a car, or Braxton's a terrible editor.

56:52You should be like, you know what? Fluoride's making the frog gay. Yeah. Before I comment on that, I should watch the entire episode and visit the sponsor boards on each of the show note links. Or, or at the very least, just listen to and comprehend what you're watching. Because let's face it, most of those, most of those people are pissed off about things that they just There wasn't context required.

57:18They're just dumb. Most of our listeners are very smart. Most of the commenters on our reels and shorts are dumb as a box of rocks. So if you want to be smart, listen to the whole episode and don't just comment on the video. Take that. Yeah. Too easy. Yeah. Ring it up. Cheers. Did you say ring it up? Thanks for listening to Confessions of a Shop Owner, where we lay it all out— the good, the bad, and sometimes the super messed up.

57:49I'm your host, Mike Allen, here to remind you that even the pros screw it up sometimes. So why not laugh a little bit, learn a little bit, and maybe have another drink? You got a confession of your own or a topic you'd like me to cover, or do you just want to let me know what an idiot I am? Email mike@confessionsofashopowner.com or call and leave a message.

58:06The number is 704-CONFESS. That's 704-266-3377. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, or follow. Join us on this crazy journey that is shop ownership. I'll see you on the next episode. If you're still thinking about the shop at 10 PM, you're not alone. You're replaying the day, wondering what got missed, what still needs follow-up, how the numbers look, and whether anything is waiting for you first thing tomorrow morning.

58:44That part of being a shop owner gets old really quick. TechMetric is built to take some of that off your plate. It brings you shop management, payments, and marketing together in one place, so you're not piecing things together at the end of the day trying to figure out where everything stands. Your team has what they need to keep things moving. Your customer communication doesn't stall out.

59:04And you have a clearer picture of how your shop is actually performing. See how it works at tekmetric.com. That's T-E-K-M-E-T-R-I-C.com, or tap the link in the show notes.