Jeff Compton Tells All - A Real Look At His Industry Impact | Jeff Compton - Ep 10
Now playing — Downshift with Tonnika
About this episode
Consistency is key - heard that! But, consistency is HARD. That's why I gave up on trying and let the experts handle it. Detect Auto.…
Key takeaways
- —Effective communication between technicians and shop owners is crucial for a healthy work environment.
- —Toxic employees can significantly impact shop culture and productivity, and it's essential to address these issues promptly.
- —Technicians should be encouraged to recognize their value and engage in conversations about their roles and responsibilities.
- —Teamwork and collaboration among technicians can lead to improved efficiency and morale in the shop.
- —Continuous learning and personal development are vital for both technicians and shop owners to thrive in the industry.
Frequently asked
- What should I do if a technician is causing a toxic environment in my shop?
- It's important to address the issue directly and have a conversation with the technician about their behavior. If necessary, consider letting them go to maintain a positive work culture.
- How can I improve communication with my technicians?
- Regular check-ins and open discussions about expectations and concerns can foster better communication. Encourage technicians to share their thoughts and feelings about their work environment.
- What steps can technicians take to recognize their value in the workplace?
- Technicians should engage in self-reflection and seek feedback from their peers and supervisors. Participating in training and development opportunities can also help them understand their worth.
▸Full transcript
But I still have a responsibility to tell them that there's other options for them out there. If I was to just shut up and say nothing about who I am— No, we don't want you to shut up. I would be nothing. I wouldn't be the person that has contacted me and said, "My life is so different now because I heard your episode and I went and changed jobs and I'm making $10 more an hour and they love me."
I wouldn't get those conversations. I wouldn't have had that impact. Welcome to Downshift with my sis, Taneka Haynes. We all know as shop owners, sometimes you got to slow down in order to speed up. And that's what this podcast is all about. It's time to downshift. Like, I went and had a blind date last night and I talked that poor girl's ear off.
And I warned her that would happen, um, but she's like, oh yeah, I see why you have a podcast now. And I'm like, yeah, you went on a blind date? Yeah. Was it a friend that hooked you guys up, or was it an app? What did you find this woman? Facebook Dating. Um, who is this woman? She's, uh, oh shit, I don't even know her last name.
Danielle's her first name. Um, okay. Yeah, so she lives like an hour away, which probably won't work. Um, and then there was just no real connection. She's a nice girl, but she's kind of— how do I say that— she's a little skinny. Um, too skinny. I don't know, that's a real thing. It is. And it's not that I like— you know, I mean, it doesn't really matter, right?
Like, if the chemistry is there, the chemistry is there. But she's just not— she's not somebody that would have ever caught my eye just attention-wise, because she's just— she's tiny, she's skinny. So, you know, not my thing. We need something cushion for the pushing, a little bit bigger than that one. Yeah, she's— I was not supposed to say that. Bryson, take that out.
No cushion. Well, cushion, cushion for the pushing, right? And then you keep saying it, and I just keep saying it. We don't have it on his t-shirt, so it's all good. So, so, well, this is why we're here. You've been a podcaster for 3 years. I've been on your podcast. I adore you. Thank you. And Braxton does a really good job of getting everybody's attention with his reels.
Yeah, that dude can edit something and make us all look like nutjobs. And it's funny and it gets attention. Yeah. So in my coaching group, a couple years— a couple years— a couple weeks ago, I'm losing it. Um, so my 20 group, you know, we get together, we meet, we talk, we talk about numbers, we talk about the things, and we talk about stuff.
All the things. Your name came up. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. And I did my best to defend my brother because I'm gonna do that, but a lot of the points were, um, valid. It wasn't hateful or spiteful. And I want to get your take on it, and especially after kind of what's been happening in the, in the Facebook groups and all the anger and all the back and forth.
And, um, you know, I like to joke and I like to have fun, but I also really worry about people's heart and their mental health and their well-being altogether. And what I heard in my group of shop owners— I mean, good shop owners, because they're doing the job, they're doing the training themselves, they're doing all the things that you say shop owners should do.
And I know what is the top 5 or 10% of us are doing it. So I would like to think that they're good shop owners. What they're finding, some people are finding, is that your, your podcast is causing havoc in their workplace, right? And let me get it out. So from what I understand and what I can see from their, their perspective is maybe technicians, or, um, the technicians and the mechanics are only watching the highlight reels and you have nothing to do with that because you're not editing, and they're not getting the whole message.
Yep. Doing a podcast, and they're going into work with the attitude of, I, I should be making more money, and I'm this, and I'm all of that, and I'm quitting, and I'm going to hold the shop hostage because I am the shit. You will respect me. I do not have to bend to your authority. And what I say goes because the Jaded Mechanic says we're all underpaid and we're all this and the industry sucks and we need to just leave.
And that's not what you're saying. I know that's not what you're saying. But what do you say to the technician that's not listening to the whole podcast? They're not understanding where you're coming from and they're definitely not at the level that you are. We're talking about these Jiffy Lube type techs that don't, they're not technicians, they're parts changers. Yeah. And they're not coachable and they're not trainable, and the shop is offering training and they are still not doing their job.
So I'll liken it to like this, right? We see, you know, certain people, uh, this week everybody wanted to pile on them, right? And I'm not talking about myself, I'm talking about people within our circle, right? And, um, here's the thing, a lot of those people make that decision to jump on that person based on how things look on a page, how things will jump off the page at them, maybe it starts to really hurt some feelings and stuff.
I would say that those people, just like you've never listened to anything but a 30-second clip of mine, if you haven't heard the whole episode, you don't know me. You have never met me. And I think it's kind of similar to that. So It sucks that the algorithm works that if it seems like something negative, um, it draws a lot of attention.
And I have by no means have I ever advocated for technicians that they hold the shop or their employer hostage. Now, there are some technicians, and I've talked to a lot of them in the last year, they didn't know their true value and where they were working. And I'm not saying that everybody just pick up a pitchfork and go in and demand.
And if you don't roll out, I'm not saying that, but it's a situation of like always have the conversation first, but be aware that most of us work for that 90% that are not having the conversations that you and Ashley are having. And, you know, the three of us are having about trying to improve the industry and improve the shop every day.
Like Josh says, 1%, right? They're not trying to do that. We already know what to do. We've been to the trainings, paid for the coaching. Learn the right way to inspect cars, build estimates, and talk to our customers. That's not the problem. The problem is consistency, because some days it only works when the right person is working, and when they're not, it's a whole different shop.
So now you're stuck in that cycle. You need a strong team to run a great shop, but you need a great shop to attract a strong team. Make it make sense. That's why I rock with Detect Auto. Detect Auto streamlines your service processes with automations that save time, increase maintenance sales, and improve productivity without changing your whole system. It plugs in, guides your team through inspections, recommendations, and even customer communication.
Now, that's not just based on memory or mood. That's how Shop runs. And let me tell you, I've been using it for over a year now. My ARO is up 63%. That's not new knowledge, that's just consistency. If you're tired of your shop depending on who showed up today. Go check out Detect Auto, book a demo. So the shop owner might be in a dead end.
It would be a disservice to my people, my fellow brothers and sisters that are techs, to not show them or talk to them about what you do when people are in a dead end. You know, they're, they're already where they want to be business-wise, and it's not enough for you, there's nothing wrong with realizing it, but you can't just sit there. Too many technicians for too long have sat there and said this industry sucks, and they've never had a conversation about why it sucks and what should be done to improve it, and they've never tried to hold people accountable.
Now, people accountable for why it sucks, that's a lot— falls back right back on the technician, right? We have not been as professional as we thought we had been. We have not been always the advocate for the customer, and we make excuses for that. Some excuses are valid, I feel, but I don't want people to just immediately hear what I have to say, um, and base it on a 60-second clip that I'm out there like some other podcasters in the realm that I'm not going to even bother naming who every week, um, don't even acknowledge who they are, where they work, what they do, and are just constantly trying to cause an uprising.
There are people with platforms that pretty much will say every week, "You should quit. You should get out." I've never said to anybody, "Get out." I have said, "Move on from where you are." I have said that you have to do more than what you're currently doing for yourself if you want to get to that level where you think you deserve. But I've not ever said, "Get out of this industry."
And that's where I think a lot of it rubs people a lot the wrong way. And it's the same as my detractors that, "Well, you shouldn't have any opinion at all because you're not a shop owner." It's a fair opinion for them to have. The reality is that when every conversation seems to revolve around the fact that it's a technician did this or technician did that or I can't find a technician, I'm not an owner.
But I got one heck of an insight into the technician perspective after 30 years of doing it and the better part of a decade on Facebook before there was a podcast talking to hundreds of technicians a week. So why does it resonate with them so much? I don't know. I think it's because it's relatable. It's like we were just talking about. I'm authentic.
And they like the way you say out. Yeah, it's about out. It's about, about out. It's the accent. But I mean, so do you ever think— I got— nobody wants to change you. If you ever cut your beard and if you ever do anything different, I will unfriend you, okay? So if you find this woman and she's like, well, can you color your beard or can you trim your beard, it tickles, I'm gonna be pissed off.
So don't do that. So don't change who you are. But what scares me is, I guess, is really, do you think it's your responsibility? Like, do you have any— like, you're, you're so influential on so many different social media platforms, right? Do you think you have the responsibility to make your message more clear? Um, to the younger techs or to the techs that are in the bad shop and say, okay, don't rage quit, have the conversation?
Or is that— I mean, is that just too much to ask from one person? Is— what's your responsibility in that? We're changing the industry, right? Yeah. So every day when I wake up, I wake up with knowing that whoever put me here, without going down a religious thing, um, I'm put here to speak for them. I'm there. They are my people. They are who I represent.
So it's not a situation of any— like, I love shop owners. I really do. Like, you guys are some of the most amazing, incredible, hard-working, talented people I've ever met in my life with absolutely awesome stories and insight and perspectives and everything else. But it comes back to that 90 and 10 idea. Round numbers here, where we're talking to 10% of the owners.
Whereas like I talk to technicians that don't even know about these groups other than in passing because they've been mentioned, right? And their owners don't even know about these groups. So they're in a situation of where it's not malice that they're in an environment that maybe isn't good for them. It's just what they— they don't know what they don't know. But I still have a responsibility to tell them that there's other options for them out there, this 10% that we are in our circle.
If I was to just shut up and say nothing about how I live— No, we don't want you to shut up. Yeah, do it. I would be nothing. I wouldn't be the person that has contacted me and said, "My life is so different now because I heard your episode and I went and changed jobs and I'm making $10 more." for an hour and they love me.
And, and I wouldn't get those conversations. It wouldn't have had that impact. So when I have the— in the room, the, the, the owners stand up and say he's all negative and he's causing uprising, you know, I— how do I say that? Just say it. If you're— if your own— if your own environment is already Great. Your people, I won't have any effect on at all.
But if your people are coming to you going, "I'm demanding more because I heard this from him," it maybe wasn't— you maybe weren't as keyed into your people as you thought you were, which is more human nature, right? Like, it happens. We get in a— our good friend that we've talked about, right? Like, he had a rough year because he kind of stepped away from the the plate a little bit, you know.
You know who I'm talking about, and I'm not— yeah, no, we're not throwing shade, but if you are listening into that— yeah, and you forget about your people that's allowing you to do the things that you want to do, and you're not communicating with your people, which are your technicians and your frontline, your service advisor, down to the guy that's taking out the trash, um, you take your finger off the pulse of your business and it turns to shit.
And, um, yeah, I can definitely see that. So I, you know, I cannot back up now and back off the throttle and stop being me, or stop or rechange, you know, rethink how I actually have the conversation, because it wouldn't be authentic. Um, and there's just too much now that has shown me that I am making an impact and I am making a change.
And I don't think for the really good owners out there that I'm having any kind of negative impact. I think the people that are triggered necessarily by me are not really looking at the reality. They're looking at what they hope things are, and maybe I shock them or scare them or make them worried, and that's not intentional. It's just having conversations. That's all it is.
I'm not out there to cause the uprising, you know. So what I think that what they were saying— okay, go ahead, Ash. What do you got, miss? Has there ever been something that you believed in the past and now today don't, but haven't had an opportunity to talk about it and change your mind? I have a really probably, um, what's the word, crystal ball, uh, image of the average technician in the Bay.
Um, and I believe Brian Pollack pulls me back into reality a lot in the sense that he reminds me that I'm not exceptional, but some of the things that I do without even thinking about it, my processes and stuff, and some of it's 30 years in, it just, it makes me not necessarily one of the problem technicians for some of these people that they hire.
So I see all these technicians as hardworking, really competent, and if the job doesn't go right, it's 'cause they weren't given enough time or they weren't paid enough, blah, blah, blah, not training. The reality is, is just some of them, are not good technicians. They don't come with a good attitude. They don't come with good tooling. They don't apply themselves. They don't build themselves.
They don't pour into themselves. And that's because, like, I don't work with 10 other technicians every day, right? I work with one other technician that's my senior, and, you know, senior in age, not necessarily in ability. And I just go to work every day and do my job., to the best of my ability. Cars don't really give me a hard time anymore to fix if I have the tooling and the information.
And that's it. And Brian reminds me that he sees things every day, not necessarily as much in his own shop, but what comes into his shop, of people that paid for things that didn't get at all what they were supposed to get. And that's technicians that are responsible for that. Now, they have leaders who didn't necessarily maybe You know, hold them accountable.
Mm-hmm. At the end of the day, there's a lot of incompetence that I have been not seeing because I'm not exposed to it and because I didn't want to see it at first. And it hurts me sometimes to see how far some of them still have to go to be worth what they feel they're worth because some of them might not have the time, but they have to start by trying.
Pouring into themselves. If they won't even bother, then it just goes like you said, they're uncoachable, you know. Yeah, it's just like the shop owner that starts a shop, um, from the ground up, and then they're just frustrated and they're not doing the coaching, and they think they only have to work from 8 to 5, and they're not staying late and doing the late hours, and they're not going in on Saturday and Sunday, and they're not putting in the extra effort.
And they're comparing themselves to the shop owner that's had a shop for 10, 15, 20 years, and they wonder why they can't get there. And And it's everybody else's fault but theirs. It's like, 'cause you haven't done the work. Yeah. Like, so that, I think that is the demographic that the shop owners that I was talking to, 'cause they're trying to do the work with those technicians that really think like they've done work.
And like, no, dude, you didn't do anything. Like, you really are not applying yourself. And, oh, you're not giving me coaching. Yeah, but you're not even coaching yourself. You're not trying to learn anything else. Like, help me help you. And they're using you and your podcast and the words that you're saying after your 30 years of experience, and they're trying to compare themselves to Jeff.
Yeah. And it was like, no, no, dude, you, you don't even know how to change a belt. Like, literally, we had like, what are you doing? Oh, this is, this is bullcrap. It's not. You're the bullcrap. So I think that's where the disconnect is. Like, I think when you're talking Um, and like you said, you don't have the crystal ball, but when you're talking, the people that are listening to your podcast are looking for a reason to make themselves right and not be accountable for their own downfalls.
Like, they want it to be everybody else's fault but theirs, and they're not looking at a 30-year-old tech that has been in their shoes and has made mistakes. But you've done the coaching, you've done the training, you've done the training again, you're still trying, you're still doing training, 30 years in, and they won't even go to a training if their boss says, oh, we've got training on Friday night.
I gotta go home, my baby mama would— don't get mad. So those are the technicians I think that some of the shop owners are up against that start out thinking they're supposed to start out at $100,000, but can't even— don't even torque the wheels when they're doing a rotation. And here's the unfortunate thing, is the, the shortage has driven a lot of techs owners, excuse me, owners, and I know the truth.
And I, Ashley, you can for sure confirm, as can you, honey, that they're having— a lot of shops are keeping technicians that they shouldn't have to keep if there was a bigger talent pool out there to be pulling from. Now, do you blame the technicians for that? Uh, you blame them if they're not competent, but the fact that we have such low numbers, we have to put the blame back on the industry for that.
Mm-hmm. Because the industry didn't do what it needed to do. I mean, crap, when I was starting out 30 years ago, they were telling me the shortage was going to happen. They were telling us then young people were not coming in in the numbers that they used to, and the industry just kept doing what it does, you know. And what is that?
What is the industry doing what it does? What does that mean? Going into survival mode, just trying to survive, not putting their door rates up, not going to training, not buying tooling, not subscribing, not pouring into themselves as a company. And then sit there and go, these young people can't do this. Well, I'm sorry, if you look at a 1988 versus a 1998 anything, and it's a 10-year window, and you look at the difference in technology that's happened between '88 and '98, and then you think about some of them that were hiring them were there when it was '78, and you think that they should come in and with 3 years just all of a
sudden be an ATEC, you're absolutely over the moon crazy thinking that it can still be a 3-year window and they're an ATEC. It doesn't work like that. Because you might very well still book in a '78, and then the next day you might book in a '98, and both vehicles should go to the same technician. The odds, sisters, of success happening with both of them is about like, go buy a lottery ticket.
They have, depending on their age level and what the complaint is, they have a better chance of fixing the '98 than they do the '78. Right. But the leader looks at it and goes, that '78 is so simple. Whereas the young person might look at the 2008 and go, "That's simple to me. I don't understand why my leader can't understand this concept."
So we have brought these young people into something that the technology is always looking like this, and we've been going like this the whole time. And we look over and go, "Oh crap, look what's coming." But when we don't do anything about it, we just keep surviving. We just keep going in and turning the lock. Every morning and we flick the lights on and we drink our coffee and we complain and wring our hands and go, "I don't know what I'm going to do about this industry."
And it just keeps chugging along. Well, the technicians to survive it have figured out how to survive it. They stay in their lane. But if they stay in their lane and you as the owner think you're staying in your lane, But you're not having a conversation about what that actually looks like and how do we approach these challenges together. You're leaving them hanging and you're putting all the blame on them.
And that's the reality of the dichotomy of what happens in shops most days. We have unrealistic expectations of what we can get through as a company, and we have unrealistic expectations of our people that work for us. Some of that is brought on by how they pay them. I don't want to get into that conversation again. And some of it is just they're not tooled up.
They're not tooled up mentally or physically, huh? Right. So just fix it. Just fix it. Just fix it. Make it. I can't imagine, like, like, it's just make it work. I can't make it work. It ends up going somewhere else, and then yeah, it becomes a cycle, huh? I'll tell you a real quick story. I had a '21 Explorer that the power seats would only work memory function.
He would reach down and touch the switch and nothing would happen. And the— we— so I go over and there's some key points here. I go over to Pro— um, ProDemand, which is all the information system I have, and I punch in the VIN number. That's the other key thing. And I punch in the VIN number and I start looking at wiring diagrams for the power seats.
And I have the switch off, um, and it come from another shop, it was already broken. And I can see by looking at those two wires right away, just from training, the two heavy wires are going to be what makes that switch power, and everything else is going to be an input and output, no big deal. So now I take a power probe, I touch it to the wire, I can make the seat move.
Cool. Okay, I have it open to that switch. This is where the wheels fall off the truck, because the printed service information that I had was completely wrong. And there was like 4 different ways that you can wire a power seat in that Explorer depending on options and, and all this kind of stuff. I didn't have accurate service information on a '21.
It's 5 years old, right? From AllData? Yep. ProDemand, excuse me. Yeah, we only have one. So in my brain, I can already make this switch work, right? I have an open. So I go looking over and over again. I go down a rabbit hole of removing the cowl and looking at the battery junction box and testing powers and grounds to it and power out of it.
It's not coming out. And I get really frustrated, and I go over to Google and I punch in 2021 Ford Explorer power seat problem. It shows me on Google completely different wiring diagram that has a secondary fuse that's not in any of my diagrams, that's located in another part of the car. And it takes me to a video on YouTube that a Ford tech has made that shows me not only where the fuse is, but where the short will be in the seat that caused the fuse to blow.
So that's a 4-minute video that was able to save my butt because of holes in service information. Because a shop owner that I work for only has one, not two, not three, not four, you know. And so I liken it to back in the day, we would all call a friend, you know. It used to be every shop owner I ever worked for had a friend at the dealer.
They would call the parts department and say, I got one here, you guys see this. The internet has become that. So I'm a smart dude and I went down a rabbit hole because of lack of tooling that's provided to me. Now that happens every minute in every shop all over this great land. Whose fault would you— well, okay, so whose fault is it, but what is the remedy?
What is your— what do you think would have helped you in that situation to make sure you have all data identifix, all of the things. Yeah, all of the things. Um, and even if you have all of the things and the car is so new that there isn't— you can't reach out and phone a friend and find a bullet and all that kind of stuff, what is allowing me to stay on task, stay focused, not getting beat down by the, the situation, is how that I know that when I go home at 5 o'clock I didn't go in the hole fixing this car.
So make sure you have enough time. Pay, pay, pay in time, right? Nobody's yelling at me going, oh my God, this has got to get done. Now that's my own environment because we're reconditioning cars for sale. We don't have necessarily— now we still have deadlines because salesmen love to look at something on Saturday morning when a customer comes in and promise it for Monday morning with no idea what the car might need, or it's had one test drive of, you know, 2 miles around the block and that's it.
So it's not that I'm without deadlines, but I'm not punished if we have to spend some time to fix this car. I'm not punished. And that's what this industry, not always intentional, has done to so many young people for so long that that's why they're not coming in. And I didn't expose everybody to this. Every old mechanic that I ever worked with told me, don't do this, get out of this, because this is how they treat us.
And I just ignored them. I said, "Fuck you. I'm going to be better than you. I'm going to make it work for me." And I did. But there was some truth to the warnings that they were giving. So that's how I believe we empower our people to become better is let them fix the damn car within reason. If you can fix it better than them, go lead them how to fix it.
If you can't, You're at a cut bait and fish, or you go back to the dock. Good morning. What's up, Jordan? Happy birthday. He did an army crawl and I just looked down as a kid. Say hey. Happy birthday. Thank you. It's good to see you, Jordan. Get out, go to the car meet. Can I go to the car meet? In what?
What are you driving? What? Oh, you got your— that my truck? Okay, love you. Bye. You need to put a toboggan on your hair. Sweat. Braxton, don't take that out. That's motherhood. He's going to the car meet in Raleigh. Um, well, his truck, he wrecked it, and my friend's painting it because he moves next week. And so his truck's in the shop, in the paint shop, and so he's driving my— not my truck, not the Mercedes.
Cadillac. He's driving a Cadillac, which he can't stand. He'd rather drive his 2015 Jeep that's jacked up on these ridiculous tires. Oh yeah, you go, Jeff. I'll send you a picture of it, my boy, with purple emblems on it and so many hats. And it's just so, so rednecky. I love it for him. But he thinks the Escalade is beneath him, like he'd rather be driving a 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee.
Well, that's so 1990s mom, an Escalade, like, you know. Yeah, right. I'm gonna drive this thing. It's a mom mobile with the antenna. I think he has a 10-foot antenna on the top of this thing that's just in the wind. I know my kid when he's driving by, it's hilarious. Let's get back on task. Oh my God. So again, I got a kid going into the industry, and I like to, um, introduce him to all of his uncles, and he's so lucky that I know that one day he'll be— he can call Benji, he can call— hopefully he can call you, he can call all his industry uncles.
How can you be more of an industry uncle even if you don't want to? Because again, you have to accept— like, I have accepted that this is my calling to have the conversations with people even though, like, I don't want to. This is really uncomfortable for me to sit on this podcast But if I don't do what my Lord wants, has led me to do, which I really believe he has from what the feedback that I'm getting, like, oh, this is so exciting that you're talking.
I'm like, why do y'all want to hear from me? There's something there, whether I see it or not yet. So I'm like an industry auntie, and I love it at this point, even though sometimes I just want to scratch my eyes out and just want to go to sleep. But that's not my ministry right now. I have to do what I'm placed here to do.
Your industry uncle, you have a responsibility to the Jordans. How does that even make you feel? It makes me feel like it's heavy some weeks. And then like, actually, I've been thinking a lot about your technician that you had that was so toxic when you shared with us last time we talked, right? And I, I feel like part of what I'm doing is— can make that person become more toxic.
Or some things that what I have to say might have made them more toxic. And then I feel like if I can reach some of them now and they reach out to me in person through a DM or whatever and say, this is what I feel— I have some real hard conversations with sometimes when people contact me because they think they're all that.
Then you start talking to them about their fundamentals and their process and they ain't all that. They're getting by on pattern failures. They're getting by on maybe somebody's telling them what part to put in and they're absolutely killing the time, right? So they look very— there's that word again— that they look very productive. And it's important, but the true growth as a person isn't how fast you do something because you will slow down.
It don't matter what. Your body just can't keep doing it. It's your ability to pass on what you know. It's your ability to raise everybody that you come into contact with in your business every day. That's your true worth, right? So I've been thinking a lot about Ashley's former employee. Coworker, excuse me. And it hurts me to think that I don't know where that person is.
It doesn't really matter. It is what it is. I'm not excusing the way they would've acted. But me as somebody that's always fascinated about what makes people tick and why they are the way they are, that's the story that I always want to know. I'm not giving them affirmation that the way they acted and conducted themselves was right. That's not what I'm out here trying to do.
But if I can show people why some of them get to where I was and some have gone farther, then I think we truly start to, to fix the problem. You know, when we talk about how 1 in 12 technicians contemplates suicide, like, the rate is so crazy high. Yeah, it's followed only by first responders and vets, people. Like, in all the blue-collar trades, it's the number one.
We— if we can't see that as a real telltale of how— I'm not going to use the word messed up, screwed up, effed up this industry is, but of how difficult it is, then we're missing everything that everybody's trying to tell us. So I want you to get a little bit more uncomfortable And I want you to tell us who you were and who you don't want these kids to become, because they're seeing 30-year-old in the trade you.
Yeah. And you can save them a lot of heartache, pain, stress, high blood pressure, and all of those things. Tell them who you were. Tell us who you were. I was very much that technician that Ashley had. I was very much that technician that like, you know, the joke was, but I have grabbed more than one parts guy by the counter and, you know, tried to yank him across the counter by his shirt collar because I was being disrespected, I thought, or he wasn't hustling the way I needed him to hustle because I had to make money for my employer.
I was expecting, you know, I had people yelling at me about how long it was taking to do something because I was standing 20 minutes at a parts counter. And they were lackadaisical. Lack of effort was really biting into my butt at the time. And that's inexcusable. A long time ago, I had a parts guy on night shift that wanted to fistfight me because he had brought me the wrong brake rotors 3 times.
And when somebody asked me what was taking so long, I said, "Well, if you would stop hiring your effing family." to start hiring qualified people, uh, I might have gotten the parts I needed. That man wanted to fist fight me right in the bay. We were ready to go and somebody was pulling us apart. Now the next day when I had to sit in front of my boss and his boss, who was his uncle, we both got sent home that day.
And from that point on, we were good. We were good. Now, I had good conversation, good relationship with that guy up to that point, but the situation made me very frustrated and very angry, and I said things I shouldn't have said and didn't mean. No excuses. I have been somebody who has made a service advisor pay me cash for a job that he told me to do that he then couldn't have the the cohejos to charge the customer for.
And that was a good friend of mine. But I was, I was, I was the type that if you showed me a hill of principle, I would climb that hill and stake my flag on. So I had— yeah, so because I felt that it was right and it was just and it was deserved. When I look back now, it was all for such an insignificant amount.
Of financial, but the principle's still important. It was just the way I executed was wrong, and I— the way I executed was a result of the culture and the environment that I was in. Not making excuses, but it was. Ashley, what— whatever happened to your, your coworker that way? He's still the lead tech and put on a pedestal. Did you guys ever have— yeah, sorry, go ahead.
They know that he's a problem and they admit it every day. They will not get rid of him because there's nothing to replace him with. They don't think there is. There is. Yeah, yeah. It's like the, the technician that holds the shop hostage, or the, the owner that allows the technician to hold the shop hostage because you don't want to lose production.
And you think you can't find anybody. What I remember, I don't know who said it, well, if you fire him, you will find somebody. And just think about, like, I think it puts the owner in an uncomfortable situation. Wait, I think about it like this. I don't know, I don't know how the barbershops and the beauty shops work, but in the hood, if you go get your haircut, there's going to be a hookup man that comes in selling stuff, whether it's a TV or whatever.
And if, if someone came in the barbershop and they had a 60-inch TV And it's like, oh, brother, I can give you this TV, and you know it's a $2,000 TV. I can get this TV for $500. Even if you don't have that $500, you gonna find that dang on $500 to get that TV. So if you fire that toxic technician, even if they're productive, you got to think about how they are affecting the whole culture of the shop.
If you fire that person, you will be more motivated to replace them. Yes. And your, your production on everybody else will come up 100%. It does. It does. And Ashley— so it was an interesting experiment because one of our other locations was down a tech. Mm-hmm. So they pulled him and sent him over there and he was gone for 12 weeks. Our production and our culture had never been better.
Right. When he came back, that's when I decided to go start remote services, the estimates. And I remember in 2 and a half, 2 years or so, I grew it from 1.1 to 2.5. Very proud of it. And when I was phasing out and we were looking for my replacement, he made a comment that, well, we'll just pull your replacement from the McDonald's drive-thru.
What did he say? But my point is like those people are stuck in their way of thinking that Everybody sucks. Service advisors are terrible. Service managers are no better than the drive-through worker at McDonald's. And it doesn't matter what credibility you have, what credentials you have. If we raise technicians to always think that the front of the house sucks, how are we ever supposed to expect change in the industry?
Good point. When they move that technician to the other location for 12 weeks, what did it do to their numbers and culture and everything else while he was over there? You know, that shop had trouble finding technicians to stay because it was a little bit of a dungeon. It was like one tech plus a lube tech. So it actually did help, like having him there and be a lead tech there helped them bring in new techs that saw somebody consistent in the company stayed there.
So it did actually help in a way. But it ran off 3 service managers in 12 weeks over there. And we had a revolving door of advisors at my location. And I don't take training people lightly. I pour my heart into training people and I train damn good advisors. So for me to pour into somebody and then them have to leave because this technician can't get his head out of his you know what, like, and for leadership, to accept that.
Yeah, yeah, it's ridiculous. From a leadership inspect, uh, perspective, I've done that. I've kept someone around too long because I didn't want— because we were busy and I don't have time to replace them. But the last, the last tech that I had to let go, um, it wasn't a production thing, he wasn't very toxic, it was just something didn't sit right. He didn't own anything.
And I remember the last straw was there's a transmission that was damaged and we had to replace the transmission and front office did a great job. We got everything done. Job was done. And he just did not care that you damaged the transmission. Just, it was supposed to be a fluid replacement. Like what happened? There was no, I'm sorry, boss. Nothing. There was no, no responsibility.
And I said, you know what? This is just bad. But I had another technician that just could not stand him, but he could not tell me why. And he didn't want to, he didn't want to tell me why. But as soon as I let him go, the sun came back out. Yeah. Everybody stepped up to make sure that we didn't get behind because we were down one guy.
Everything worked out and I still don't have a replacement for him, but it's going to happen. But I tell you what, nobody's walking around wanting to throw a wrench at nobody's forehead. Yeah. So yeah, it is, it is a, it's a, a crazy one. I learned recently with hiring and stuff, like when you're trying to hire out of desperation, you're gonna make the wrong hiring decision.
I did that up front twice. So small plug, but I did hire Promotive. I'm very excited to keep like the revolving hiring process going that way. We have the ability, like if at any point someone steps out of our culture or expectations, like there's no scarcity mindset of like, well, I have to keep them. 'Cause I did that too. I had an employee that was tearing everybody apart.
I mean, making awful comments and offensive comments to people, but I was in a bind and so I couldn't let them go. So. And yeah, I had that happen this week with my coworker and he's very, Um, he's older, uh, he's almost 60. Um, he's very, very, very, very jaded, more so than I ever was. Um, and he is very toxic within.
Now it's a small operation, you know, they tolerate it. Um, but he has had several outbursts directed at me that I have had to go to my leader and say, I don't play like this, like, this is, this is This is not good. Like, I'm not paid enough to put up with that. Nobody's paid enough to put up with that. So I'm asking you and tasking you with handle this.
And, you know, supposedly it was handled. It's not. The boss is away in Barbados on vacation and he has another outburst. And sometimes for us technicians, When you just say something to pacify us and say, "Oh yes, I'll handle it. Don't worry, it'll get better," and nothing changes or it stays the same, it's not so much a big middle finger to us.
It's just a situation of we don't feel like we're all that important. It becomes a machine and I'm just a cog and I'm not going to be— The beatings will persist until morale improves. When you pass it off as just the way things are, that's the way he is, or that's, you know, he's always been that. And I'm not young, but it's a situation of like, I come from a very old school of thinking that it's like, if you don't want to handle it, I will handle it, no problems, right?
And I'm not threatening anybody or saying anything, but the— you just did. I got you. The unfortunate situation, you know what will happen will be is you'll be without two technicians instead of just without one. Right. Yeah. And that is not the answer. But we've all talked about it in the groups and we've seen— you can find the videos on the internet of, you know, guys out in the parking lot in front of the service drive throwing fisticuffs, right?
Or out back behind the tire pile, you know. And everybody goes, oh, that's, you know, blah, blah, blah. When you have allowed it to get to that point, right? You've already failed. And we always want to look at those people as they are the problem. And sometimes it is like you've got a toxic individual and suddenly somebody in the shop steps up and does the right— does something.
I won't say the right thing, but does something. Does the something, the thing that needs to be done, should be done, maybe not, I don't know, and takes it to the end. And we would go, that's unprofessional and that's, uh, it shouldn't have had to go to that. You're all right. Yeah, but how did it go there? Because someone— leadership, leadership did not handle the problem.
So now I have to decide when I go in on Tuesday morning, how am I going to handle it again? You know, and that's something that like it You know, I haven't had to think about how many flat rate hours I've made in a long time or any kind of stuff, but those kind of issues still always are around in this industry.
So it's never been my thing to try and make people toxic or try to— I mean, he doesn't listen to me, right? Uh, he doesn't listen to the podcast. It's not his— it's not my target demographic. But there are people out there that probably listen to me, they'll go into the shop every day and think they are better than a lot of other people around them and they should be allowed to can, you know, conduct themselves in a way that maybe is not very good for the team.
And I have never ever said that you get to go unchecked because you're a little bit smarter than somebody else. I've never said that. I believe that sometimes you should be given some grace in the sense that, yeah, maybe he show up 5 minutes late, but, you know, if you're just the kind of person that, uh, can get the car fixed that nobody else in the building would, then sometimes that just is part of the package.
But toxic, abrasive attitude that kills culture, it's inexcusable. I don't care how smart you are, how good your production is, it's, it's inexcusable. How can you teach technicians to become leaders just from, from their toolbox, like Lead from Any Seat. It's a really good book, but like they have a role in leadership as well. They might not own the shop. Well, they have to, they have to see that, that position as an opportunity and not as a punishment, not as a responsibility that cuts into their pay.
Not in a, you know, you can't. And then so it's like the foreman in the shop, right? Sometimes the foreman in the shop, all of a sudden a lot of mistakes happen and everybody's, you know, the service manager has been chewed out by the general manager. General manager is going to chew the shop foreman. The shop foreman is going to go out and it just goes downhill and they chew it.
Just butts get chewed. You look at oftentimes what causes that and it had nothing to do with the technician, or it might have been somebody out in the service drive that was not following a process. But that person now that's been tasked with being the leader got their butt chewed, and it's expected of them that they're going to go out and chew butt because that's what I pay you to do.
That's what you get this salary for, and the rest of them are all on flat rate, and it's your job to go, man, that ain't what it's about. Yeah. I don't know how to make the foreman necessarily the leader. I'm of the old school mentality that the manager's the leader. I think I'm more meaning like, even if you're not given the title, like you're just a B-tech or an A-tech at a shop, you're there to collect a paycheck, right?
Like that's a responsibility that you have to better the industry by choosing to be a leader? Like, rather than go down to the service desk and go chew out the advisor for a mistake, how can you be a better leader and create better service advisors? Yeah, so open ways of conversation. Um, you know, the knowledge that you have, the experience— here's the thing where I catch hell all the time is because I share experiences and knowledge of people, and they tell me that I shouldn't share it because I'm not a shop owner.
I'm not showing you too many times the better way that it was done. I'm just talking about the ways that I saw that I 1,000% know don't work. So, when I see people start talking about using those methods, I'm like, "Whoa, wait. Pump the brakes here. I got a story." And you know, when you do that with your people, your coworkers, that's a form of leading if they're open to it.
Take your knowledge and share it with people. Um, when you're— I believe in— and I, again, it's going to come back to pay. I believe in the team thing where if, if your bay mate has got a rush job, you're doing a brake job, you go do one side, he does the other side, you know, and then you check, make sure. If they're doing 4 tires— tires are an excellent example of this because I've— it's been my whole career.
When you're doing 4 tires and he's doing 4 tires at the same time Okay, you do that. You mount them, I'll balance them. That's right. You know, um, stuff like that. Like, uh, it comes down to teamwork. So the leadership as a team in the back, and I'm blessed because I actually feel like I really have a team that works together. Like my latest Facebook, my service advisor, they had this huge— I mean, I don't know what size tire it was, but they were having a hard time mounting this tire.
It was 3 of them over there mounting these tires for this truck. Truck. Yeah. And then the other guy was over there balancing them. And this is one of my service advisors was out there helping them. And together we all achieve more. But when you get in the headspace of, that's not my job— like, when I'm hiring someone, my latest tech, and I told them, the guy that's supposed to start hopefully in 2 weeks, I said, all of these lifts are my lifts, all of these cars are my cars, we work together as a team to get it done.
So that's my car, that's my job, that or that. I really don't have a lot of that. Because it's 4:45, we've got 2 hours left on this car, you're done with your job. Like you said, you get that side, he'll get this side, and then we'll check each other's work. Yeah, but when we can get past that and work as a team, and the shop owner or leadership promotes that and applauds that and make that part of the culture instead of like, oh man, this is not your job, you need to get this done, I've got 4 more hours left on this, boss, Well, you should have done it quicker, but this technician's just sitting
there twiddling his thumb instead of saying, hey, can you come over here, help your brother out? You know, just saying, you know, shame on you for not getting it done. So teamwork trickles down. Certain pay structures though, the conversation that pops up is, okay, what am I getting paid for that? Yeah, that's what I do, hourly plus bonus. I'm not trying to go down that conversation again, it's been had, y'all know what I think, right?
Yeah, we know what you believe in. But then go ahead. If that guy's helping, if everybody's on flat rate in the shop and you got the right culture and everything's been doing right and all the dominoes are falling, if your brother's there and he needs some help, what kind of man would sit there and say, ain't my problem, that's your job? That's a part of culture as well.
Yeah, because you don't know when you're going to need him to help you bleed some brakes or whatever. I don't know, somebody's going to need somebody. So it's not— it's got to be teamwork. And I don't know if flat rate could really— I've never done flat rate except for in a collision center, but I don't even know how you can get that rate working really well and they would help each other.
So I don't know, that's, that's culture. And it can— yeah, it's not the pay system, it's the culture. It's the culture. But when you got one that's at $200 and the rest of them are trying to hit $80, like, you're never going to see that guy at $200 get help. Yeah, it's just not happening. It's crazy. I mean, there might be exceptions.
I've had a different experience. Only one other time though, it was a unicorn shop that we had a tech who would turn 100, 150 hours a week, and anyone would drop anything to help him if they had to because he would also help them be more efficient so they could turn more hours. But that's— Yeah. That's culture and that's teamwork. Most of the time, that star player that I've seen is not the sharing type.
Be the type to put down their tool and go over. It is sad because that's how we cannot get kids on the bench. We can't get the kids on the— in the industry on the bench because there's nobody in there willing to help them, even though there was somebody helping you, right? And here's the reality: the reason we don't have 3 in the shop hitting 150 is because that one that can hit 150 is not sharing with the other 2 that are only hitting 80.
Mm-hmm. Right. Wow. So because ideally in a perfect world, if we believe everything that we're, you know, if we make carbon copies, clones, we should be able to all bring up closer to that level of what there is. Because I mean, there's just, there's ability and there's knowledge. But I mean, like, if I show you this shortcut and I show you the trick and I show you the pattern of failure, pretty soon you all know it, and then we're all doing it and we're all going up.
You have that one person that holds to them self. And everybody goes, that's my star player, they're producing so much. They're holding the secret. They're not sharing the secret because if they share their secret— like, I won't share my recipes— if they share their secret, then what makes them special anymore, right? And it's, you know, it's called gatekeeping. Or, you know, I used to be, and I've said it, and sometimes it's still— I will say it depends on certain situations— you are training your replacement.
You have to see that in a good way, though, that you're training your replacement, not in a bad way. And sometimes, unfortunately, I have had service managers come to me and say, just go over there and do it for them because I need it done. I'm sorry, you're not learning that way. Yeah. And need it done is a you problem. It's not an us problem.
It's not a me problem. It's a you problem. Probably because you overpromised and underdelivered and now you're back. Becky Witt was just talking about Becky. We just said it was like, when it's going to be done? When it's ready. Yeah. So, you know, and it— life is about clicks, right? So there were people that I would have, like, I would have given the afternoon away if it meant that I was helping my partner across the bay, because, like, I knew I could count on him to do that for me.
But that's not always— it's not that symbiotic relationship everywhere where I can count on the 9 other team members that will just drop and give to see me succeed. They just aren't. It's different personalities. So I was very— I kept my cards pretty close to my chest. But there was a, you know, there was a group of us that like, yeah, I'd go over and donate time, donate hours to help, you know.
I would stop what I was doing to go over there and help them, see them through something, you know. Um, I watched the guy that— one of the most toxic individuals I ever worked for. I watched him change shops and I remember he was there a week and he came to a shop that had good culture. And I remember driving past because it was a shared lot and it had been like 3 years since I had worked with him, but I knew him to see him.
And I remember him watching him try to push a truck in by himself and everybody standing at the doorway watching him laughing. Now, he had been there like 10 days and he had already alienated himself so bad through his attitude and his, and his, you know, the way he was. Old grumpy, grouchy, know-it-all, can't tell nothing, everybody's an asshole and an ignorant dummy but him.
Um, and everybody's smiling and watching him push that truck in by himself. Now, here was the backstory on the truck is that, you know, He didn't even manage to diagnose it properly and fix it, and he was fired the next day. But in a very short, like 2-week period, he had completely divided himself from everybody else in that building. He walked in there on the first day, because of course I'm friendly with them, I talk to them, and they're like, "Oh yeah."
Because they're like, "You know that guy?" I'm like, "Oh yeah, I could tell you stories." And they're like, "Has he always been like that?" And I said, "From all accounts, from everybody that I can talk to." Yeah, he's always been that level of a-hole. So there are sometimes when you bring a toxic person into the shop, um, it, it's not gonna work.
Yeah, no matter how many hours they turn, know how much money they make you, they're going to end up costing you more with the morale Teamwork, culture, and all of that. I believe that's why the idea of the, the working interviews is, is definitely a plus for more people. I think they really need to do that because like you can have an awesome resume and be really smart, everything, and if you come in and people, your, your team doesn't feel a good vibe or doesn't like that person, don't ignore it.
Doesn't necessarily mean you don't give them the opportunity, but you got to start like making yourself a checklist and like, okay, we got to work on this, and, and John doesn't like this about him, maybe we got to delve into why did he do that, or why might have John got that feeling? Just have a conversation, man. Like, don't sit there and go, oh, listen, I'm down for the month, numbers aren't going to be if I don't get a body in that bay.
I'm so tired of body in the bay as an excuse in this industry for why it sucked for somebody. September, dude. But I tell you that, that the last tech that I fired, um, I remember we're not open on Fridays, but there was something that needed to be done. It was a chaotic situation, and the service advisor had agreed The part was there.
He had agreed that he would come in on a Friday, finish the job. He never called. He never answered the phone. She went and got the part. She's sitting in the shop waiting for this person to show up. She went home and drove past him sitting at a lake fishing. And then on Monday, I, she's upset because she's like, I've lied to the customer.
We look bad. You never answer the phone. If you didn't want to do it, just say you're not going to do it. And he had no apologies again. Same transmission guy, no apologies, nothing to say. And I said, you don't think that you owe her an apology for putting her in a situation? No, I'm not going to apologize if I really don't feel it.
And this was his mindset, but it also showed up in his personal life. And I tried to coach him through understanding that you're having so many personal issues right now that you keep telling me about But your personality, it all makes sense. Like, you don't understand that you're the problem. And a lot of people just cannot see that they're the problem, or they're not willing to do the work to see that if you make this change in your life, whether it's at work or at home, that your whole life could change by you just being a better person and working on yourself.
And some people are not up to doing that. And so I was— I, I tried. What I— at some point you just have to say that base just got to be empty because you're ticking everybody off. People joke about the Canadians, but I'll tell you something, I learned a long time ago that the one word that you can say without really meaning it, but it normally makes the situation better, is sorry.
Yeah, he refused to say I'm sorry. I was like, so you can't open your mouth to apologize? And he said no. I was like, oh wow. No, this is who you are. And then as every time he showed me who he was and I tried to smother him and I tried to help him fix himself. If you're not willing to do the work, I can't make you do it, baby.
I can spend that same energy on another technician, another employee, and make them a better— not that I'm going to make somebody a better person, but help them be better. And we all can help each other be better. Wreath each other up. Was this the same tech that did not want to go to ASTA? Exactly. Yeah, did not want to go to ASTA.
He paid for it and didn't want to go. Yeah, so all my technicians, the whole shop, we go to ASTA. Everybody gets their own hotel room. Everybody— I want everybody participate and just be emerged in it. I want you to be there Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, all of that. Miss Tanika's buying drinks sometimes. We're gonna turn up, we're gonna have fun. He didn't want to go.
And so that Monday I got back from ASTA and I was like, you know what, I'm gonna let you go today. You show— if people show you who they are, you better believe it. And he was just— he just kept showing me, and I just kept having more faith in him than he had in himself. Yeah, which— that was me trying to help someone, and that's just a part of, you know, me, my personality.
I'm going to try to help you see that you're a better person than that. You could be an awesome tech. You've got it in you. But when— I can't care any more than you. But like you said, the shop owners do not want to lose the money. We don't want to lose the production. We don't want to lose— have an empty bay.
So every day I look at that empty bay and that computer screen is dark and whatever, and I'm thinking, oh, I could be making X amount of money. But on the other hand, we haven't skipped a beat. Yeah, everybody else picked up. Because they're doing it for the culture, they're doing it for the team. Ashley, did you ever work on a team where you felt like you had to be somewhat guarded because you'd been hurt before working for somebody?
I know that's a tough question. I'm not singling you out, either one could answer it, but I— no one misses— miss— no, um, my own team now. Okay. I am struggling in like figuring out my groove and leadership because of so many bad experiences that I don't ever want to show up as the bad leader that I had. So like I'm missing opportunities or I'm making the wrong decision because I'm so scared of doing the wrong thing.
So like my current team, it's a struggle that I can't show up the way I want to show up out of fear. Yet. Yet. Yeah. And they know I'm very open with them. I'm very transparent. Like, this is a work in progress. I'm working towards being better in these areas. So they do appreciate that. But yeah, I, I can tell you sometimes I'm a little bit guarded when I first start at a new place, um, because, you know, the time that you spend sometimes— and maybe I'm not trying to defend Tanika's former employee, but there are some technicians that are walking around out there that have been really hurt in the past and don't necessarily
want to be embraced into that culture where we're a family and we're, you know, like, I want to spend time with you away from here and I want to pour into you because we might have at one point been so open and receptive and with it and then things don't work out and all of a sudden these people that you thought were your friends your family, you go different ways, you part, and you carry scars with that with you.
Yeah. I believe that that's sometimes why these people that we get labeled as, like, they didn't want to go to dinner, you know, they didn't want to do— they didn't want to have shop lunch. They go and sit by the tire machine and eat their pizza. They don't— that is valid. That is true. And I've recognized that in one that is still with me Um, but I've got him out of that a little bit, and he's appreciative of it.
So that comes with insight, just knowing who people— not knowing who people are, you never know who anybody is, you barely know who you are— but trying to reach people. Um, but then you also have somebody that will use you without telling all his business. Oh, it is what it is. Um, this, this young man actually lived on our property because he was basically homeless when I first hired And so I've had a physical embrace with this person.
I've tried, I tried to do my best to pour into this person. And the more I poured in, the more he was ready, ready, ready, but he could not reciprocate that. And that is a him problem. And hopefully with age and maturity and life experiences, he would recognize that, hey, somebody was trying to pour into me. I can pour into this young man or this young lady.
So maybe all of my work and pouring into him was not in vain, but I knew that I had reached my max of caring. Not, not caring, but I could not let that affect everyone else around me. Yeah, you know, they can't— so what— that, that is true. It became a distraction, and, um, it became a ministry that I was not willing to preach anymore.
That's not my job. That is not my current ministry. Uh, but that comes along with responsibility for yourself. And you can, you can walk in this place and not get hurt. Like, you can walk into a relationship, but you're going to be guarded based on the last relationship you were in. But there's, at some point, whoever you're dating, whoever you're with, should not have to keep apologizing for what happened 3 years ago.
Yeah, yeah. Or what somebody else did to you. So that's, that's personal self-work. That's work that people need to do on themselves, um, and we can't wait for everybody to come save us. Yeah, so that's a lot of work that needs to be done within ourselves, within the office, the industry, and all of that. And then hopefully if everybody decides, okay, let me work on this about me, it'll trickle down to your team, it'll trickle down to the industry, it'll trickle down in the social media groups, and everybody won't be so aggressive And it also would trickle down to the suicide rate that nobody wants to talk about.
Yeah. And the loneliness that nobody wants to talk about. And the shop owner that's sitting in his shop, lights are off, and he's wondering, should I even be here? Or what am I going to do? It'll be easier for me to just leave this place and not disappoint everybody. Mm-hmm. It's Friday night. You know, it's a Friday night. It's another week that we didn't hit the goal.
It's another week that the stress adds up at home. And before long, I think that's why some people just— and I mean, if you're at that place, by God, let the business go. Don't let it destroy your life to where you think that you're more valuable to somebody as an insurance policy payout than anything else that you had to offer. You know what I mean?
Don't think like that. But we have a responsibility in the—, you know, in the media, in the socials and all this stuff, even though we don't want to, we've talked about our responsibility in this, that when they go and make a Facebook post and they're asking for help, because you think about it, I can't imagine that you will ask for help every time you need it.
If you go to a space and you're saying, okay, help me, I can't get this, you probably needed help 6 months ago. Yeah, but your ego, egos and testosterone and estrogen will get in the way of making those decisions to say, hey, Hey, help me, because we don't want to be attacked. But when we get to the point and we're saying, hey, help me, and you're going to this leadership group, this group of your brothers and sisters that are in the industry that may have gone through what you've gone through, what we end up seeing more times than not is that one keyboard warrior that's going to say, well, that's the stupidest thing I ever
heard. That's stupid. That's stupid. That's a stupid question. And so then what happens? We retreat. Yeah, we're not going to talk because we're trying to come in here anonymous and we're trying to get help. We're raising— help me! And then you raise your hand, you finally get up and say, help me, and someone says, pow, pow, pow, that was stupid, and they shoot it down.
So we definitely have a responsibility, not just us three but people as a whole, to be more responsible in how we react and answer these things. If you don't have anything nice to say, just shut the hell up. And we can have responded to those literally just saying, what an odd thing to say. Yeah, yeah. How did that make you feel? I hope that made you happy to be a jerk today.
What an odd thing to say. And then there's times where we really need to answer the question, like there's some constructive criticism, and then people— what you guys call it— a dirty delete. It's like, no, don't answer the question. And just because we didn't answer it the way that you wanted to hear it and it hurt your feelings, now that's different. Well, you say— yeah, go ahead.
I did, I did that last week where I, you know, somebody talked about servicing, you know, they had a breakdown in process, right? And they serviced something that they probably didn't need to service, probably needed a replacement, and then they dirty deleted it. And everybody's like, what are you making a big deal about this? The conversations are lessons, right? If we go and eliminate the conversation, all that effort that people put into that conversation— effort, input, whatever you want to call it— it's gone completely.
And it should— like, if I could run Facebook, you wouldn't be allowed to delete it once it was up there. Because when I think about all the, you know, people like credit card fee processing questions, right? And like, everybody just wants to pull their hair out because it's been discussed at nauseam. Yeah, at least the conversations are there. When we go and do the delete thing, all the perspectives, input, good things that people said, all gone.
All gone, right? It's like turning off commenting. You got what I want. That's selfish too. That is selfish. That is crazy when people— I just don't want to hear it. It's like, okay, but if you don't like the answer to the question, it's like, okay, what's the next answer? If you don't like the ingredients, like, that's not going to work for me, I don't But if you just don't like that you are wrong, like, did you put that question out there to be validated, or did you put that question out there to learn from it?
A lot of people, validation. Yeah, it ain't learning. Think about how— grab the hot stove, you know, somebody grabs your hand, oh my God, I shouldn't have had the stove on, and let me get the ice pack. And then the other generations might have been like, ah, I told you, don't touch that. And I'm not saying one is right and one is wrong, but like, if you were just coming to look for validation that you— we didn't do wrong here.
No, actually, you know, so look at it right or wrong, but take some pers— you're asking for perspective, people give you perspective, it doesn't align with what you did, don't go flipping, like, get all hurt and, and, and hide it, delete it, let it B, leave it there. It is a conversation. It's the same as we all get on this transactional versus relational, relationship-based.
Listen, I am for anybody that is helping the shop improve. Doesn't matter who they are. Does not matter. I am— I— they have my respect. They have my support. Am I going to align with everything that everybody says online about how to do this and how mechanics should be? No, I'm not, because I am me, and what I went through has carved into me a belief system and values that I will— when they put me in, when I'm done, my last day, they will still be within me.
It is going to be my core. But my God, like, you know, the fact that we're having the conversations, you've come together and we've said there is a problem here. And we're having this discussion, let's keep having it. It— you saw it yesterday, people are saying there's so much division. There's not division. That's not division. So many ideas. That's just a lot of ideas.
And, you know, it doesn't apply to you, then just keep moving. If you don't like that, don't do that. We have not divided the industry yet because we don't even represent 10%. Of it. So it is not divided, but it's the 10% or whatever numbers of people that are active that are decided, I'm going to pick up this torch and I'm going to run with it, and I'm going to try and bring up the conversations and improve this.
You all have my love. I love all of you because you're looking at the problem and you're saying, we have to do something here. Yeah, I'm not going to agree on everything that Lucas says. He's not going to agree on everything I say. Lord knows we have our conversations where he tells me, whoa, I think you caused some damage there. And I go, eh, not for the person that I'm for.
I didn't cause damage. I might have put them on the path to something better for them. But it's just different sides of the aisle, right? It's a different perspective. He's looking at that going, that poor shop owner lost a tech. And I'm looking at that going, that tech might now finally be on their way to somebody that's valuing them to the level that they feel.
They may crash and burn. I don't know. I am not there. So I don't ever say to them, "Yes, definitely go," unless they're in my immediate area and we start talking about people that are common acquaintances and I know what you can do and I know what you're like. And I say, "Yeah, get out of there, man. You can make better somewhere else."
I'm never going to say, "Go somewhere else because the money's better." But I simply say, you feel like this, why? There could be opportunities somewhere else for you. You could get this. You know, the techs come to me all the time and say, like, I'm in a mom-and-pop shop, the pay is not great, there's an opening at the dealer. And like, me, the guy— and they, why do they ask Jeff?
Because Jeff's been back and forth both sides for 30 years. I've done them both. So when I say to them, here's the pluses and the minuses of each, I can say it with firsthand knowledge, not second hearsay rumors and internet bubble about what somebody prints every week on YouTube or says on YouTube that dealerships are terrible and flat rates all over. I can tell them, listen, I've made good money.
I learned a lot. Most of my processes and where I got my training came from a dealer. But here's the negative side: I was that guy that was like ready to throw hands at somebody that was going to mess with my paycheck. Yeah, you know. So, wow, uh, we have been talking for 2 years. This is really, really good. So Uncle Jeff, Uncle Jaded Mechanic, where can the people find you?
As if everybody doesn't know. Like, we know everybody knows who you are and where they can find you, but go ahead and give your shout out about your podcast and how they can call you or send you a DM just in case they need to talk to Uncle Jeff. So let me start with saying we're on all the social media, um, platforms.
We're on LinkedIn, we're on Twitter, X, uh, we're on Instagram, we're on TikTok, we're on Facebook. I will tell you right now, if you shoot a message to Instagram, um, that's not linked up to me, so I won't get that message. So if you're trying to reach out to me and you see the Instagram, just go over and find me at Facebook and message me there..
I'll get that message. It'll take me longer to get it if I get it at all through Instagram, so don't do that. LinkedIn and X, that's all being handled from the editor side, so I don't always even see. We come out every Tuesday morning, 6:00 AM my time, at least Eastern, is when the episode drops. If you want to be on the episode, you know, you have something to say.
If you're not comfortable, um, recording an episode but you need to talk, still reach out to me. I will talk to you. Now, the problem being sometimes there's only so much hours in the day and so many hours in the weekend especially to have. So I, you know, I will never shut my door to anybody, but sometimes we have to have the recording because it's, it's well worth sharing.
And if you're not comfortable, we'll— I'll still talk to you. I'll still hear your story. I will still pour into you what I feel and what I think. But people that are on the fence about like, I'm not sure, I'm not comfortable, I'm not sure about being recorded. Listen, I'm going to start going forward where I'm going to record more, and if you don't feel comfortable and we won't share it, I'm not going to publish it.
But I've had too many good conversations that I didn't hit record on that would have really helped other people. And let's be real, people, when you're coming to me and you're, and you're bearing your soul or you're looking for input, that's good gets good perspective for everybody. So share it, man. You know, I'm easy to find. I'm not an abrasive jerk like everybody— some people think, you know, but I will hold you accountable sometimes.
I will remind you that like you might be a little bit too big for your britches, you might be in your head too much. And you can hear that from me and go, pfft, You don't know. Okay, I don't. I ain't there. But I've been doing this a really long time, got a lot of different places at a pretty good level, and I wouldn't share it with you if I thought that it wasn't the absolute best thing for you to hear and the truth.
So, you know, it is not, uh, I'm not aligned with any one particular I mean, I'm aligned with Lucas. He's family at this point. Um, but I mean, it's a situation of like, you know, I will give it to you as real as I possibly can. It's— I have nothing to gain by giving you anything but my truth. So, and I bet you would do the same for shop owners.
So shop owners, if you're listening, he's not out here to take over all the technicians and make them Raise Up and Revolt. There will not be a technician, uh, war happening anytime soon led by Jeff. If you don't understand his perspective and you're only listening to the highlight reels, I encourage you to listen to the whole podcast. And if you're still confused, send the man a message, go on the podcast, have the conversation.
But sometimes, sweetheart, the problem might just be you. Yeah, figure that out. There's a lot of well-respected shop owners that I've had great conversations with that I talk to on the regular. And you might be surprised at some of them because you wouldn't think that we'd be aligned. Yeah. But we are very much aligned, right? Some of it is just in the love of the industry and the love of being the absolute best tech we can be.
But I'm not out here trying to, you know, everybody needs a union and if you're not getting 50% of the door rate, you're getting screwed. That is not my platform. That is not his platform. But my platform is like, you go in there every day, you try to be 1% better, like my brother Josh teaches me, and you come to work as an open vessel to be, to receive and to give.
You pour out of you and you receive back. It's a cycle. It's a circle. And you do that. And then what happens is everybody lifts up. That's the whole goal through this. This is not to divide and say that everybody needs to be $400 an hour because every technician deserves $100 an hour. I am not saying that. I'm quite aware of some of the realities now.
So I'm not out to divide. And it hurts me sometimes that some of the shop owners think that I'm only out there to cause an uprising because it's the furthest thing from the truth. I am out here to hold both sides accountable. And that's what we wanted to hit on today. And I'm so glad that you were here and that you agreed to answer some of the hard questions that are not that hard.
But I am looking forward to our next conversation. Yeah, I love you guys. You guys are awesome. And I mean, I'll, I'll come on anytime you want. Ashley, you're, you're coming up soon with me, hopefully. I was gonna say we need to record soon. Yeah, because I, I really want to dig into your backstory and, and hear it because I think It's going to be awesome.
And, you know, Tanika, darn, you're awesome. You really are. Thank you. And, you know, it makes me so happy to see, you know, the love you have for your kids and Jordan and how much potential you see in him. And I'm so happy that I'm young enough still that I can see where he's going to be in 5 years, 10 years. Ash, you're sitting there nodding.
You can't wait to see it too. Like, I can't wait to see it. I've been watching him since he was about 2 or 3. His love for cars, his love for the industry. And when people— especially when he decided to go to UTI, Universal Technical Institute— oh, why'd you send him there? I said, because he wanted to go. I'm going to let him choose his own path.
And him headed down to Mercedes in, what, 7 days is killing me on the inside. But that's his path, and if he chooses to pivot, he'll pivot. But I'm not going to keep that kid from running out this dream. He said, Mom, I can't wait to have my own name on the signature of a Mercedes. And I'm like, well, baby, I'll be the one in the store trying to find the Mercedes with my baby's signature on it.
So I'm not going to keep him from dreaming. I'm going to try to keep pushing for young people in the industry a little bit softer, softer, nicer industry. And we're going to keep doing great work. Yeah, 100%. Downshift with Tanika is where we slow down long enough to have real conversations hosted by myself, second-generation shop owner Tanika Haynes. This goes beyond your car count, your KPIs.
We want to talk about leadership, legacy, mindset, and the messy, beautiful journey of building something that lasts. You will hear stories from shop owners, technicians, and other industry leaders who are figuring it all out by themselves in real time. This is a space for growth, Tough love, laughter, and leveling up.
More from Downshift with Tonnika
Stop Running Your Shop Like a Technician | Rick White and Buckaroobob Bucknbob (John Firm) - Ep 27
Consistency is key - heard that! But, consistency is HARD. That's why I gave up on trying and let the experts handle it. Detect Auto. Let them clean up your estimating process and raise your ARO - like they did for me! CLICK HERE TO BOOK A DEMOAnybody can run a shop. Building one that lasts? That's a whole different story. If you're ready to build smarter systems and a better experience for your team and customers, check out Tekmetric HEREWhat does it really take to run a thriving auto shop without living in the bays? Today Rick White and Buckaroo Bob join Tonnika to break down the journey from wrench-turner to true business builder. Hear firsthand stories about learning to trust your team, why “hiring smarter” is the real secret, and how the right coaching can seriously change your shop’s future.Plus: Why you need to delegate, why “set it and forget it” marketing frees you up to lead, and why building your network is as important as building your car count.Timestamps:00:00 Are you running your shop—or is your shop running you? 02:07 Letting go: When Bob's son joined the family business03:43 The long road from working IN the business to working ON it06:03 Bob’s transformation: Training yourself out of a job07:25 How group coaching built an unstoppable shop owner family10:03 ARO breakthrough: From $252 to $820 by trusting the process12:00 Control freaks, “Mama syndrome,” and learning to let your team lead14:50 Why you must hire people smarter than you—and how to spot them15:43 Book club for bosses: “One Minute Manager” and more game-changers18:01 Coaching: Are you looking for a coach—or just a cheerleader?21:20 Rick’s journey: From micromanagement to true leadership25:51 Letting go: Real growth means they don’t need you every day30:26 Training is NOT optional—why you’re never too good to learn31:39 The three reasons shop owners skip coaching (and how to fix it)33:02 Your only entitlement: Opportunity, not comfort35:59 Facing big challenges—without carrying all that baggage39:02 If you’re still taking technical classes… you’re not leading your shop40:34 Simple details that set your shop apart—yes, the smell matters!41:21 Saying yes to more—adventure, networking, and stepping outside your comfort zone43:22 Big invitations: Family reunions, cookouts & open mic wisdom44:07 Upcoming advisor training and summer events—don’t miss out!
The Conversation Women in Automotive Need to Hear | Maryann Croce , Melissa Birdie Patterson and Tiffany Scherado-Birou - Ep 26
Running a shop is hard enough—you don't need your software making it harder. 😂 If you're ready for more clarity, better organization, and a smoother experience for both your team and your customers, check out Tekmetric HEREConsistency is key - heard that! But, consistency is HARD. That's why I gave up on trying and let the experts handle it. Detect Auto. Let them clean up your estimating process and raise your ARO - like they did for me! CLICK HERE TO BOOK A DEMOIn this episode, the conversation focused on the Amazing Women in Automotive group and its mission to recruit, retain, and engage more women in the industry. One concept discussed was the importance of mentorship and how even new members can offer fresh perspectives to the group. A key theme that emerged was the challenge—and the necessity—of giving yourself permission to evolve as a leader and embrace new roles as your business and life change.Timestamps:00:00 Belonging in Automotive: Propping Each Other Up00:40 What’s Amazing Women in Automotive REALLY About?01:15 The Origin Story: Creating Space and the Mission02:12 Men, Listen Up: Why This Matters for Everyone03:24 Safe Spaces & Real Talk—NOT a Kumbaya Circle05:07 Welcoming Newcomers and Building Confidence06:22 Mentoring & the Power of Fresh Eyes07:09 Automotive Auntie: Why Mentorship Matters08:20 There’s a Community Out Here—Don’t Miss Out09:09 Transferable Skills: You DON’T Need to Be a Tech10:10 Bringing Marketing, Accounting, and More to the Shop11:16 Events, Retreats & Partnering with Schools12:13 It’s OK to Focus on You—Permission to Refuel13:38 Balancing Motherhood & Shop Life: Permission Granted14:41 Leading at Work, Leading at Home: Raising Leaders16:00 Why Don’t We Give Ourselves Enough Credit?17:15 Permission to Say Thank You (& Mean It!)18:14 Auntie Advice: Sometimes You Just Need a Dance Party19:25 AI, SOPs & Finding Time—Give Yourself Grace21:05 Getting Women Out of Their Shell & Into Community22:33 Technician Engagement: Cultural Differences and Challenges24:21 Why You Need to Show Up—Even if You Think You Don’t25:20 Weekly Encouragement & Why Laughter Matters26:07 Tears, Tough Days & Doing Leadership the Right Way27:31 Letting Go: Empowering Your Team and Yourself30:13 Redefining Your Role—No More Mom Guilt32:12 Coaching, Leadership & Sharing the Wins34:05 Raising Leaders at Every Level of the Shop36:00 When Your Why Changes—Identity, Shifts & Legacy40:43 How to Join Amazing Women in Automotive!41:18 The Power of Community & What’s Next
Why Busy Shops Stay Broke | Josh Oberlander | Ep 25
You shouldn't have to play detective just to figure out what's happening in your own shop. 😂 If you're ready for all your shop's information in one place, check out Tekmetric HEREConsistency is key - heard that! But, consistency is HARD. That's why I gave up on trying and let the experts handle it. Detect Auto. Let them clean up your estimating process and raise your ARO - like they did for me! CLICK HERE TO BOOK A DEMOIn this episode, Tonnika Haynes and Josh Oberlander break down why slowing down and focusing on process can actually turbocharge your shop’s growth. Tonnika shares hard-won lessons about moving from high car count and burnout to prioritizing quality over quantity, showing how DVIs (with more photos!) increase both trust and repair order value. Josh jumps in with actionable advice on building team buy-in, gamifying new processes, and leading from the top. Timestamps:00:00 Leading from the top: Why technicians and advisors must buy in00:35 The untapped power of free training for shop owners01:17 Doing less for more: Getting profitable work from fewer cars02:16 Maximizing ARO by slowing down and focusing on DVIs03:07 The quick lube trap: Saying yes to everything vs. building real value03:23 Photos = trust: How transparent DVIs win more jobs03:34 Josh shares shop success with upping DVI photo counts04:04 Protecting your shop with good photos (and covering your … liability)05:01 Why busy shops are still "broke"—the cost of missing training & coaching06:10 Saying 'no for now': The hardest lesson for shop owners06:41 Why oil changes almost never build loyalty (and what to focus on instead)06:53 Coaching your team: Breaking through resistance to DVI and new processes08:04 Gamifying buy-in: Whiteboards, numbers, and making it a challenge09:20 The 60- or 90-day challenge: Real tracking for real results10:00 Why photo & video DVIs build trust—and prevent burnout11:19 Video in the shop: When and why you want to use it12:08 Technicians, not actors: Keeping DVI videos authentic12:25 The magic of just one extra hour per ticket12:36 Team buy-in starts at the top—stop relying on "because I said so"13:18 Creating a culture of “disagree and commit”14:20 How team input drives goals, ownership, and commitment15:08 Buy-in that sticks: When your team runs the shop without you15:53 Setting the next big goal (and getting your team hyped!)16:06 The never-ending work of real leadership17:01 The payoff of openness: Why your team should know the numbers
ATTENTION: Shop Owners - Buy Back Your Time | Dan Thieken - Ep 24
Consistency is key - heard that! But, consistency is HARD. That's why I gave up on trying and let the experts handle it. Detect Auto. Let them clean up your estimating process and raise your ARO - like they did for me! CLICK HERE TO BOOK A DEMOAnybody can run a shop. Building one that lasts? That's a whole different story. If you're ready to build smarter systems and a better experience for your team and customers, check out Tekmetric HEREIn this episode, Tonnika Haynes and Ash Kaplan chat with Dan Thieken, owner of Kreager Tire and Service LLC in Millersport, Ohio. Dan opens up about the journey from sweeping floors as a high school student to owning his own shop, emphasizing the importance of building the right team so that owners can eventually step away from day-to-day operations. He also shares his philosophy on why shops should offer tires—not only as a profit center, but as a window into the car's soul that keeps customers from ever needing another shop. Timestamps:00:00 Why you should ALWAYS offer tires at your shop02:11 Dan Thieken's origin story: From sweeping floors to owner04:32 The leap to management—and whistleblowing on bad leadership05:25 Not a tech? Why owning a shop is still for you07:07 People skills: Bartenders, restaurant work, and automotive service10:41 Building a team so you (finally) can step away13:31 Small town challenges: Hiring, no running water, and real culture16:14 The trust fall: Letting go of your “baby” shop18:17 Shop success = buying back your own time20:04 The slippery slope of coaching and paying it forward22:11 What’s your business mix? Service vs. tires, and how it changed24:22 Two reasons EVERY shop should offer tires25:10 How selling tires unlocks full-vehicle inspections26:20 Stop “selling”—just advise and build relationships28:00 Would Dan ever hire a coach? The answer might surprise you32:26 Advice for new shop owners: Train your replacement34:21 The personal side: Boundaries, empathy, and being “too nice”39:00 Mistakes owners make: Wanting to be absentee too soon43:12 The real trick: Let your staff learn from their mistakes46:00 Why Dan feels more at home away from the counter47:51 Upcoming events, classes, and golf trips
Related across the catalog
Ep 140: Why Daily Feedback is Valuable with David Boyd
210 - Ask Cecil & Lucas The 5 C's of Effective Vehicle Diagnosis & Repair Documentation
210 - Ask Cecil & Lucas The 5 C's of Effective Vehicle Diagnosis & Repair Documentation July 1, 2026 - 00:59:46 Show Summary: Strong repair order documentation protects the customer the technician and the shop while improving efficiency and profitability. Cecil Bullard and Lucas Underwood explain the Five Cs of repair documentation and why every repair order should tell a complete story from the customer's concern to the final verification. They share real court cases shop experiences and practical examples that show how better documentation reduces liability improves communication and builds customer trust. They also discuss accountability shop culture and why consistent processes create better teams and better results. Host(s): Lucas Underwood, Shop Owner of L&N Performance Auto Repair and Changing the Industry Podcast Cecil Bullard, Founder of The Institute Show Highlights: [00:00:00] – Repair orders protect the customer the shop and the technician. [00:03:00] – Ask better questions to fully understand every customer concern. [00:07:12] – Confirm every complaint before diagnosis begins to prevent wasted time. [00:12:05] – Complete documentation can protect your shop during legal disputes. [00:18:28] – Use a two arrow diagnostic process to prove the true cause. [00:22:10] – Technicians should document the repair plan and final verification. [00:31:02] – Accountability and quality control keep repair order standards consistent. [00:36:08] – Leaders must follow shop processes before expecting employees to. [00:42:18] – Strong culture grows from systems training and customer focused communication. [00:53:05] – The Five Cs create better documentation stronger shops and happier customers. In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry? Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode. 👉 Unlock the full experience - watch the full webinar on YouTube: https://youtu.be/cIbTInGm09Q Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this! Links & Resources: Want to learn more? Click Here Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here See The Institute's events list: Click Here Want access to our online classes? Click Here ________________________________________ Episode Transcript Disclaimer This transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com. Episode Transcript: Lucas Underwood: Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Lucas Underwood with the Changing the Industry podcast. I own an auto repair shop here in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, called L&M Performance Auto Repair. And today I am joined with one of the elite of the industry, Mr. Cecil Bullard. Cecil is the founder and chairman of the Institute in GEAR Group. And one of my very first classes on writing repair orders was with Cecil. And I'm just gonna tell you right here and right now, I know that we just think that fixing the car is about fixing the car, but when I took that class with Cecil, I really understood the importance of writing a repair order. Because not only is it a repair order that tells you what to fix and tells the consumer what's wrong with the car, but it's a repair order that it's a legally binding document, and it helps us explain and convey information to the client, but it also protects us. So Cecil, how you doing today, buddy? Cecil Bullard: I'm great, Lucas, as always. I'm doing fantastic. Lucas Underwood: Very good. Very good. So we're talking repair orders today. The s- the idea of it is the five Cs, but I think that we need to talk through the process of writing a repair order. So many of us show up at work every single day, and we jump in and we start working on cars, and we focus on fixing the car. But who writes the repair order, who does what part of the repair order, and what information is on the repair order is mission critical to the success of the shop. Because it impacts the close ratio, it impacts liability, right? So if you've ever had to go to court you know how important it is to have some information on there. But it impacts the effectiveness of the shop. So I have seen a difference in productivity and efficiency all the way around by getting the correct information on the repair order at the right time. And so Cecil, I'd like you to kick it off and tell us, guys ask me all the time, "What are the five Cs?" You wanna jump in and tell us what they are? Cecil Bullard: So the five Cs so let me get there in a sec. I wanna- Yeah ... step maybe two steps backward. The repair order starts with the conversation with the service advisor and the consumer- Lucas Underwood: Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: the client. And if I have good canned jobs good descriptions of what I'm doing. For instance, if I'm gonna do a mill light, a diagnostic, or a a electrical diagnostic, I wanna have a really good description of all of that builds value for the client and gets information for the technician. So let, let's think about this- it really starts there. Yeah. I've seen techs spend hours and hours go- because they didn't get the good information in the front. Lucas Underwood: For Cecil Bullard: sure. Going after, going after- Lucas Underwood: It's one of the primary complaints, Cecil. One of the primary complaints- Yeah ... is I just spent four hours looking for this- Cecil Bullard: Yeah ... Lucas Underwood: and you didn't give me the information. And then Cecil Bullard: y- yeah, and then they go up to the service advisor after th- all that frustration, and the service advisor says, "Oh, no. That's n- that's not really what I meant," right? Yeah. And so creating really good CAN jobs to start, which gives us a good heads-up on creating value for our client and give- giving the technician the information that the technician needs to move forward is kinda where this starts. And that really is in a way, that's the first C. What is the complaint from the consumer, right? Yeah. The client. So the first C is the complaint, and we need to document that complaint fully and completely. A- so I can't have a car runs rough. That's not enough for my technician, because my rough, and the consumer's rough, and the technician's rough could be three different things. So I really wanna ask the questions as a service advisor, how often, when, is the car cold? Is the car hot? Is it going uphill? Is it going downhill? Is this only on Tuesdays on a certain road at a certain time- Yeah ... of day? I need to be asking questions of the consumer so that I can get my technician the information that will help them create a problem. So I'll give you an example. Consumer comes in. I'm- I happen to be the service advisor, and I used to be the tech, and says, "I've got a rattle." I happen to jump in the car, and, I write it up, and I'm gonna end up giving it to a tech. But I jump in the car to pull it in the back, and there is just the most ungodly rattle in the trunk. And I- I open the trunk as a service advisor, and there's a bowling ball rolling around. Lucas Underwood: That'll Cecil Bullard: do the trick- And seriously ... Lucas Underwood: won't it? Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Yeah, seriously. And so I take the bowling ball. There's a towel in the trunk. I wrap it in this towel, and I put it in the backseat, where it's gonna be secure, and I test drive the car, and there's no rattle. There's no noise, right? And so I basically finish the work order, and the tech never sees the car. And I figure I got her whooped. And so I write the customer up. It was, I don't know, it was probably at the time it was an hour diag. I think I charged him half of the time and said, "Oh, yeah, we got her found, and, isn't this kind of funny? You have a bowling ball." There's actually dents on the inside of the trunk from this bowling ball rolling around. And the consumer pays the bill, drives out, the client, and not three minutes later, he's back in my- ... in the bay in my face. And, you Lucas Underwood: know- This sounds so Cecil Bullard: familiar. And he goes you didn't get the r- you didn't get the rattle." Yeah. And I'm like, "Oh, really?" Could you- Lucas Underwood: How could that not be the rattle? Cecil Bullard: Yeah, how could that... You- you ignored that completely, and now there's some minuscule... So I go for a ride with the guy, and it's actually a squeak coming out of one of the struts. Going over a bump, right? I didn't ask enough questions. I didn't, as the service advisor. And so now, the customer's already paid. They didn't pay enough 'cause I discounted it because it was so easy to, you know- Yeah ... fix, and I felt bad. And now I've gotta give it to a tech and track, put ears on it and track the noise down, and we end up replacing struts. But that's an example of not really understanding the customer's complaint, and that's- For sure ... that's the first, that's the first C. For sure. Lucas Underwood: And look, I'm gonna tell you, this is something that, that I have been through with my team over and over again. We're not just talking about understanding the complaint alone. We're trying to understand their desired outcome. Yeah. We're trying to understand what it is they're trying to accomplish. Yeah. Because if you knew the number of times that I have been working with a client, and they're like, "Hey, I have this noise." And we're talking, and we go all the way through it, and I fix the noise, right? I call them and say this. And I found out later that here I am, I'm on the telephone with them, and I'm talking through, "Oh, the noise. Yep, absolutely. Got this taken care of." Oh, you got this. But I wasn't active listening. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Lucas Underwood: They were saying, "Hey, I'm not worried about the noise, but there's this thing." Yeah. And so i- if we're not active listening and paying attention to what they actually want to accomplish... and Susan just came back from the advisor intensive. Yeah. And she said one of the things that she brought up is that, hey, I've been on to her. "Hey, convey to the technicians what it is the consumer's trying to achieve." Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Lucas Underwood: Like- Yeah ... let's talk about what this is. So Cecil Bullard: maybe we need to, we n- maybe we need to create a sixth C, or maybe it's five Cs and an, a- an A- Yeah ... or something because- ... what is it the customer wants? When they walk away at the end of the, at the end of the interaction, what are they really what are they really searching for? Yeah. And I hope that through the five Cs we actually- Find it, we get it, we confirm it, et cetera. So first C is the customer's complaint. The second is the confirmation of the complaint. Yeah. I need somebody in my business to have felt, experienced heard whatever it is the customer is complaining about. Because, I had a guy who worked for me love... One of my best employees ever, do anything for you. Deaf as a post, yeah. And so if you sent him out on any kind of a noise complaint i- with a car, he'd come back and say, "Not a thing. All this... I can't... There's nothing." And I go drive that thing, and sure enough the, there's a noise. And so somehow I want a confirmation. Whether it's the service advisor that, that drives with the customer and hears the noise. One of my questions as a service advisor was, "Can you duplicate the noise?" Yes. "Can you make it happen-" Yes ... at will? And if the customer said, "Yeah," I'm like, "Let's go for a ride," right? Yeah. I wanna hear the noise, right? Because when it's all done, the, I'm the guy who's responsible as the service advisor for making sure that the customer gets what they expected, and that's no noise, right? The, a solution- ... to their problem. How do we create a list of the right questions to ask? Yeah, that's Lucas Underwood: a... Cecil Bullard: Yeah, that's a great question. And ensure we capture it properly. I think that number one, there's an experience. I think at one point there's somewhere I have a list of questions that would be asked. Yeah. Some of my- A Lucas Underwood: diagnostic questionnaire or something ... Cecil Bullard: some of my shops have a diagnostic questionnaire that they use with the client to help make sure some of that doesn't get missed, right? And I think that as a... I need to be, I don't know, I need to be an investigator as a service advisor and I need to ask probably five more questions than I probably would ask anyway, right? Yeah. I would really like the consumer to say, "Wow, that's a lot of questions." Because I tell my service advisors, I, or I used to "I don't wanna know that it's got a noise. That's simple. What I wanna know is how often can it be recreated? When does it happen? Under what circumstances? At what temperature? Driving on what roads?" Yeah. I'd like to pinpoint it so much so that you could say it only happens on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 1:00 and 2:00, going uphill- Come- On X road. I want Lucas Underwood: every bit of Cecil Bullard: detail Lucas Underwood: you can get me. Yeah. I, you know how many complaints that I get from technicians who say, "These advisors are lazy. These advisors aren't getting me what I need. These advisors are frustrating me. These advisors are causing me extra work. These advisors are running me around like crazy"? Well- And, and- There's a Cecil Bullard: natural tension, right? I mean- Lucas Underwood: There is. Yeah. But just good questions can make all the difference in the world. It can. Getting this information, asking better questions. Because look, it only makes the technician more efficient, and when the technician's more efficient, guess what? You're gonna sell more work, Mr. Advisor. Cecil Bullard: More productivity equals- Yeah ... more money in the bank. And also less frustration, and that's- Exactly ... for me, that's kinda the point. I don't want anyone in my business to be frustrated. Yeah. Frustration you don't work at your best when you're frustrated. Yeah. I don't care what, which job you're doing you just don't work at your best. Yeah. And I want a confirmation. I want in the write-up Someone to say, "I took the car, I drove the car, I heard the noise, I experienced the problem and I need that in the write-up." Yeah. Not just the car has a noise. We replaced the upper control arms, and now it doesn't have a noise. Yeah. I need to... that customer could have another problem six months from now, two years from now. Yeah. Most shops now are y- are probably at least three year, 36,000-mile warranty on most of what they do. And so if that customer comes in two years from now and there's a different service advisor or even myself, I'm not necessarily gonna remember everything that happened. Yeah ... I wanna be able to read that work order and understand not the process, what we went through, what we experienced, why we did what we did. Yes. And I wanna be able to really clarify that for the for my client. I, hey- and it has little to do with court, but I gotta tell you, even yesterday I'm talking to a client and they're like- ... "Oh, I'm in trouble. This customer wants $1,700 back for X, Y, and Z." And I'm like, "Okay. Did you take pictures of the service and the repair that the car was fixed when you did what you did?" "No the tech always forgets to take pictures. They won't take pictures." Yeah. Whatever. And looking at the write-up, there's no clear why we did what we did and what the outcome was. For sure. Lucas Underwood: Absolutely. Cecil Bullard: It's just we replaced the upper control arm bushings. Okay. And if you go to court with that, you're dead. You- Lucas Underwood: Exactly ... Cecil Bullard: don't go. Lucas Underwood: I'm gonna tell you a little story, okay? Years ago, and it was when I first started kinda learning how to run the business, I'd hired my first coach at the time, and a guy came in, and he came from a local rental place, and he was tearing a building down. He was loading the building up, and he was taking it back, and he's kinda like one of these hotshot truck drivers, except he was doing work while he was on site. And if I remember, I'll go post pictures of this at some point. I gotta be careful about it 'cause I don't wanna alert anybody, but so long story short, this gentleman has a brake problem, and I get done with the c- with the truck, and I did the things he wanted done, and I said, "I'm gonna tell you something. I don't trust this thing. It's not stopping right. I couldn't tell you why." And I need to do more testing to determine what that is. You're telling me you need to leave right now, but something does not feel right. Something is not right here. And so I'd driven it, and this was right when I first started learning to write repair orders, and so I put all over that ticket, the brakes are not right, the client declined additional testing, we offered to do the testing for free, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We don't know what the results might be of this. And so few days later, the guy who referred him out here and he said, "Hey man," he said, "Is this that truck that you were telling me about that I sent over?" And it's this picture, and this thing, Cecil, there's nothing left of it. Yeah. It's in pieces. The cab's ripped off of it. The axles are out from underneath it. The bed's ripped off of it. Now, the highway patrol shows up out here at the shop. Yeah. And he walks in and he's asking all these questions about the truck, and I said, "Here..." "Here's what I have, and here's the signed repair order where they signed off picking the truck up, and here's all the information that I had about the truck." He said, "I've never seen anything like this." He said, "I've never seen this written up." He said, "You were in the clear anyway." And I said, "Why?" He said, "Because he went off the top of that mountain with 42,000 pounds on a truck that was rated for 12." Cecil Bullard: Yeah. He said, "There was-" you know why it wouldn't stop, right? He said- I don't know why. Maybe it's 42,000 pounds in the back- ... when it's only supposed to have 12. Lucas Underwood: Exactly. And so he was- Wow ... he was super cool about it, but he said, "Man," he said, "I'm telling you," he said, "That just..." He said, "That's all I need. What you put on there is enough for me-" Yeah ... "to know that the driver was at fault for this accident." He said, "Because you told him as a professional something was wrong." Which, yeah, and- The number of tickets we see that have nothing on it- Yeah ... fixed brakes. I probably see 10 to 15 of those that come into my shop, dealers, independent shops, the whole nine yards, and they bring me their service history and I'm like Fixed brakes Cecil Bullard: So think about this, 'cause I don't think any shop owner understands the liability that they have. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: So I put a fixed brakes on the work order- Yeah ... and I don't write anything else. I don't write what I found, I don't write why I fixed them, I don't write what happened when they were fixed and how it rode. Yeah. I do nothing but fixed brakes, right? Lucas Underwood: Yep. Cecil Bullard: And that guy goes out and drives it off a mountain and all of a sudden I'm in the middle of a lawsuit that could cost me everything I have. And you think, you would think that wait a minute. I'm a corporation, I'm an LLC or a, an S corp or whatever, so I'm protected as the owner." If there's- Yeah ... anything illegal that goes on, your protection is wiped away. Gone. And so- Yeah, Lucas Underwood: buddy. If you've ever- And- ... pierced the corporate veil- Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Lucas Underwood: And then- ... they can find out anything. Cecil Bullard: And then I have the excuses of it takes too long to write the work order." Okay. Charge the customer for it. Yeah. I mean- Yeah ... if I have to document and I have to do a good job of documenting what happened and it takes an extra 20 minutes, then raise your labor rate. Or I don't know- Yeah ... add another 20 minutes to the work order to, so that you can document properly, because it's too important, right? Lucas Underwood: It is. Cecil Bullard: So I- It's too Lucas Underwood: important ... I've got a question though because it- Okay ... this is something that comes up. I've got a lot of shop owners that I talk to about this and they say no, you're better off putting less information on there, because then if you put more information, they could say you touched something. You did something. You took something apart.'" From my experiences, that's not the case. I- Cecil Bullard: I have never gone to court. I've gone to court personally for myself like four times. Yeah. I've gone to court 13 times for clients. I've been asked to go to court probably 50. All right? The 47 times I did not go to court- Were because the paperwork wasn't done right. Yeah. There wasn't enough information. Okay? The 13 times I went to court, I won. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Because the paperwork was done properly, because everything- Yeah ... was spelled out correctly. Because the signatures were in the right places. Because the mileage when it came in was on, and the mileage when it left was on. I had a lady with a Chrysler. It's one of my favorite stories. Really nice older lady. Came in, we did, I don't know, $3,500 worth of work to it. Struts, suspension work, tires, brakes, blah, blah, blah. And as part of what we did, we documented the fluids. We documented that the transmission fluid was good. We documented that the transmission was shifting properly. We documented that the engine was running well, that there were no oil leaks at the time that we were driving the car. We drove the car, I don't know, 22 miles as part of what we did. And 800 miles later, about three and a half weeks later, the transmission crapped itself. Okay? 123,000 mile, 140,000 mile Chrysler. Old Chrysler, yeah. Yeah. And so she came in hot. And I brought out the work order. I looked at what we did. I looked at why we did it. I told her, I said, "Look, see here? We checked the fluid. Here's a picture of the fluid. It looked good. There was no metal in it. See here? We drove the vehicle. We drove the vehicle, 22 miles. It was shifting perfectly. There were no problems with the way it shifted. So let me ask you a question. I just wanna ask you one question." She said, "Okay, fine." "Should we have sold you a transmission At, 800 miles ago when it was, when the fluid was good and the transmission was shifting perfectly as a precaution just because you had 123,000 miles on your car. And she looked at me and she went, "No, probably not." Okay, great. And but if you don't have the story, you can't back up what you did and why you did it. Yeah. Yeah. You have to have the story. And it, I don't know. For me if you're a service advisor in my shop, which okay, I don't have one today but I certainly ran a lot of shops for many years. And you're a service advisor in my shop, and you're not gonna write the story out, and you're not gonna create the right documentation, you're not gonna work for me. Yeah. And if I have to take over for you at 3:00 'cause you got a dentist appointment or you gotta go to your daughter's dance recital or whatever, and there's no information for me, the next day's gonna be a hard day for you, Lucas Underwood: right? Yeah. Absolutely, man. We- Absolutely ... Cecil Bullard: we should get in the pattern. So let's talk C number three, right? Okay. We talked about two. Number three is what's the cause? What is causing the vehicle? And I can tell you in my shops we use what we call a two arrow approach. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Okay? So you can't tell me that the code was whatever and it means that the number five spark plug wasn't firing properly. That's ... Okay, that's, that is not necessarily the cause. That's the out- an outcome, right? And you can't say we need to replace the number five spark plug because the code was here." I want testing done that tracks it to say, "This is what we're replacing, and this is why we're replacing it." Yeah. I want a second arrow. And so- For sure ... all of my guys knew if they didn't have a two arrow approach we, w- I wasn't selling it. Okay? Yeah. Or I might call the customer and say, "Look, we need to do some additional testing." I didn't have a problem with a guy coming to me and saying, "Hey, Cecil- ... I gotta run three more tests and then I need two more hours to, to really figure out what this is." Lucas Underwood: Exactly. Does not bother me a bit. Cecil Bullard: Not even- I'll do it Lucas Underwood: all day long. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. But I do have a problem with the computer basically told me number five cylinder." Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And- Absolutely. Lucas Underwood: 100% Cecil Bullard: Because I know having done this for a million years, right? Look at me, I look like I'm a million and a half. But that's a problem waiting to happen- It is ... if we don't have a clear what the cause is. Lucas Underwood: And I'm gonna tell you something. So there's this new and it relates to this question that's coming up right now, so leave the question up. There's apps now, like WhisperFlow, right? And so I can open this app on my phone, and I can dictate directly to it. Does an- ... excellent job of dictating what I'm saying, and even if I wanted to drop it into AI and have AI clean it up and make it more presentable, and I copy and paste it in, you're talking about 15, 20, 30 seconds of me describing- Yes through voice transcription what's going on with this car. So we're not talking about adding a lot of time. We're talking about converting the expertise of the technician To text on the repair order that the consumer could understand and that if, God forbid, you ever had to go to court the judge could read it and understand it. There are a ton of videos of court cases where- Yeah ... a technician is in court explaining what happened, right? And listen, I'm gonna tell you something, because this says, "Isn't it the technician's job to document all these things on the repair order?" A lot of it is, right? The initial stuff, in other words, where we're talking to the client, trying to understand what's happening, that is the service Cecil Bullard: advisor. Service advisor. St- begins the Lucas Underwood: story. But everything else... Exactly. The beginning of the story- Everything else does come to the tech ... Cecil Bullard: the beginning of the story and the end of the story are the service advisor. Lucas Underwood: Yes. Cecil Bullard: Okay? Lucas Underwood: 100%. Cecil Bullard: The middle is the tech. Today. Now, 20 years ago, that wasn't true. All right? Yeah. We didn't have systems where the techs could go in and put the story, and we still have a lot of shops where there's communication issues with the technician that they don't speak, English as a second language or a third language and they just- Yeah ... don't communicate very well. Yes, I want my technician documenting the tests they ran, what the outcomes were. And by, by the way, if, i- again, if you're working for me, let's say that we got an air conditioning system. I want documentation a problem with the air conditioning. Air conditioning doesn't cool. Blows hot air, right? Okay. When? All the time. All right, great. Now I wanna put the gauges on it. I wanna document the pressures. I wanna document- Vent temps ... the vent temps, et cetera, and I want someone to test drive it to verify that it's got hot air, right? Yeah. And under what conditions. All right? 100%, yeah. And a- and that's the tech is, that, that's going to do that for me. Now, we're gonna recommend we're gonna point to a cause. The compressor's bad, right? And we're gonna point to a cure, the fourth C. What's the cure? We're gonna replace the compressor. We're going to replace the condenser. We're gonna replace the I don't know what they have in POA valves- Orphus tubes ... or Orphus tubes or whatever we got today. And then we're gonna evac and recharge the system, right? That's the repair plan. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And in my opinion, the technician's the one that has to create the repair plan, okay? Yeah. And once we've done that- I want a retest of the system. Lucas Underwood: Yes. Cecil Bullard: I wanna know what's different. What were the pressures today- Yep ... when we drove it? And I wanna show by mileage that we actually drove the car. I don't- Yeah ... I want an in and out mileage on everything. Yeah. I don't care if you drove it just a mile test drive, so it came in at, I don't know, 143,000 miles and it left at 143,001. Yeah. But I want the finish of the story. Here's what happened after we fixed it. Yeah. Here's what it looks like. Here's what it feels like- You're exactly right ... today, right? Lucas Underwood: Yes. Cecil Bullard: And because I'm, what I'm doing is I'm also creating a story for the customer so they understand that I didn't just fix the air conditioning, right? Yeah. And I do that in quotes on purpose, right? Because if all I did was fix the air conditioning, what is that, right? Yeah. Oh, you put a little Freon in it. What does that take? Five minutes? Yeah. They make those little cans that you can go down to Pep Boys and buy, and you just put 'em on and turn 'em upside down- The bane of my existence ... and in five minutes the Freon's in the thing and you're done, right? No. We did all of this testing. We did this. We pulled these parts off. We put these parts on. The cleaner and the clearer the story- Yeah ... the less liability I have. If I have to go to court- The more value in the ticket ... or if I have to defend my... Yeah. If I have to defend myself- Yeah ... the more able I am to. And I, don't get me wrong, I don't wanna create a four-page story if there should be a half a page story. Yeah. I used to tell my techs, if you can tell me the service advisor. So when you're writing the work order, a- as a service advisor I always felt like I needed four pieces of information from my tech. One, tell me what's wrong. Okay? Tell me why it's wrong, right? Brakes are worn and need to be replaced. Okay? They're at two 30 seconds, one 30 second, metal to metal. Te- tell me that. Tell me the parts you need to do the job correctly. So is it pads? Yeah. Is it pads and rotors? Is it pads and rotors and a hardware kit? Is it pads, rotors, and a hardware kit, and calipers and hoses? What is it? And then tell me how much time you think it's gonna take. Yeah, for sure. I get that we have a book, and I understand- ... that the book is write X-tra Mile. But you're the one looking Lucas Underwood: at the car, not me. Yeah. I can't tell you how long it's gonna Cecil Bullard: take. You s- you see the fact that somebody has, you know- Yeah ... narfed up the bolts and et cetera, or there's rust or whatever. Tell me what you think and- Yeah ... and then I can create an estimate. And if I get those four pieces of information, they're clear enough, then I can create an estimate and sell that work to a customer. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: I have an... Here, so you gotta bring me back, man, 'cause I'll go, you know me, I'll go- Down the rabbit hole ... Lucas Underwood: way with Cecil Bullard: it. But I ha- I have customers that just they don't get that from the techs, and then the service advisor can't do their job properly. And what they want is for the service advisor to go out and look at the car. Yeah. I don't wanna go out and look at the car. In fact, there's a whole coaching company that's service advisors should be the ones looking at the car because then they can see..." Service advisor, if you're not a good- They're not the professional ... it's not their job and they're not the person. That's the job of the inspection of the car and the repair- Yeah ... plan for the car is the technician's job, Lucas Underwood: right? Exactly. And look, if you know how many times that I have worked with shops and somehow that advisor ends up walking out to the car, making a recommendation, saying, "We should do this, we should do that," used to be a technician. And it's this desire, it's like a curse of knowledge. I wanna fix this thing. I wanna help. I wanna show them I know what I'm talking about. And they get so overzealous that they end up making a mess. And so I think, somebody just dropped in the comments and said, "Hey, that's the responsibility of the shop to train the tech." Stop the Cecil Bullard: technician. Absolutely. I thought it was a- I got a comment I have to make. Matt Allen, go screw yourself, buddy. Lucas Underwood: I Cecil Bullard: thought that you were saying- I was in business for 27 years, and that whole time I ended up in court four times. All right? I went 13 times for different clients, and I've had thousands of clients. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: So buddy, you know- ... stop trying to yank my crank. Lucas Underwood: Diesel's, diesel does not Cecil Bullard: put up with any of that. And go screw yourself. Have a nice day. Oh, Lucas Underwood: that's awesome. Now, Cecil Bullard: where were we? Lucas Underwood: That's awesome. Okay. Cecil Bullard: Look- you wanted some fire, there's some fire, Matt. Lucas Underwood: You got the fire. Cecil Bullard: You can add that to your- This is gonna Lucas Underwood: be a real, Cecil Bullard: we're gonna chop this up to your internet and get some hits Cecil's a mean guy. Lucas Underwood: He's Cecil Bullard: an Lucas Underwood: idiot That's it. That's it Thank you very much. I, look I'm just gonna say that I think that overall when we look at this process, 'cause I just had a good talk with a friend of mine just I guess two nights ago, and he said, "Man," he said, "My technicians came to me and they said, 'Hey, we don't feel it's our responsibility to put all this information down. That's the front's responsibility.'" And I'm gonna tell you something, I, one of the biggest things that I've learned, and we... You remember Jeremy Hoyum? He's from Phoenix. And Jeremy is just such a phenomenal human being. And he was talking about this a while back, and he was talking about accountability, and he said... A- and let me explain. So he coaches 15, 16, 17, 18-year-olds into leaders, right? Because he was in the military, he came out of the military, and he went into the family entertainment space. And here he is, he's saying all this stuff, and he's trying to teach these kids how to work in a business and how to talk to people. And in today's world, I'm gonna tell you, that's a whole different ball game, right? It's a whole different ball game. Yeah. And he said, the failure..." And listen, he's worked for some massive organizations, right? Like- Yeah ... thousands and thousands of employees. Yeah. And this guy's in charge of training them. And he said, "The problem is that we don't have the conversation when it happens." And he said, "So listen-" Wait, well- Go ahead. Cecil Bullard: We are so great at- At picking up the pieces at the end. We're not really great at fixing the process- Definitely ... in the middle. Lucas Underwood: Exactly. Okay. So he tells this story. It's about taking the trash out, right? And he says so Tim is a new employee." And he said, "So Tim comes in and I trained Tim on how to do all the things." And he said, "At the end of the training, I talked to Tim about taking the trash out. 'Tim, you take all the other cans and you put them in this bag. You tie this bag up, you take it out, and you put it in the dumpster.'" And he said, "So Tim comes to work for me," and he said, "Here we are, it's four days in, Tim's taking out the trash every day, and I come in, and Tim didn't take the trash out." And I said but Tim's a nice guy. I really like Tim, and I don't wanna pick on him. I'll just take the trash out." And he said, so it goes on a little bit, and he said, "Three weeks later, Tim doesn't take out the trash again." He said, "Man, what is up with this kid? I've told him about this, and I need to go talk to him. I open the door and the place is full of people." He said, "I can't talk to Tim right now." He said, "So I forget about it. A few more weeks pass, and Tim forgets the trash again." He said, "Now I'm really upset. I'm frustrated. Why is this kid not taking the trash out? I've, Because I've had this experience, I'm thinking about it like Tim should be able to read my mind and know I'm frustrated, right?" And he said, "So what happens is here's Tim, and we're not taking the trash out, and I'm raging, and I sling my door open. Tim's not at work today. And so now the next time Tim doesn't take out the trash, I go and pull him aside and I rip him apart." And- "What were you thinking? You didn't take the trash out." Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And what I should have done is the first time the trash wasn't taken, I said, "Hey, Tim, what's the process? How do you do this?" Lucas Underwood: Exactly. "How often do you do this?" Exactly. He said there's only three answers. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Lucas Underwood: There's the right answer, a partial right answer, and there's the wrong answer. Yeah. And he said the partial right and the wrong answer are my fault, not Tim's, right? And Cecil Bullard: If you're if you're paying attention- Lucas Underwood: Yeah Cecil Bullard: and you're doing the right things, then your employees are gonna understand you're paying attention. They're much more likely to go ahead and do what needs to be done. Lucas Underwood: Exactly. Cecil Bullard: If you'd handled it in the beginning, you didn't have to get mad, right? Yeah. Lucas Underwood: And we, we- I talk a lot about- Cecil Bullard: Yeah Tim Kite. We struggle. Lucas Underwood: You remember Tim Kite? And I talk a lot about him. I've sent you a couple of his videos, and one of the things that Tim Kite said is, "You promote what you permit." Yeah. And so Tanner is in the comments. Tanner is the shop owner that I'm talking about. Yeah. And it's like Tanner gets distracted, and he goes and he wants to do all these new great big things. Now I'm over here doing this, now I'm over here doing this, now I'm over here doing this. But you weren't holding your team accountable. Yeah. And so if I'm not holding my team accountable, and if I'm not policing the work orders, and I'm not reviewing the work orders, and I'm not doing an audit, and I'm not checking in with my team and saying, "Hey, this didn't meet my expectation"- and if I continue to let it slide- Cecil Bullard: Yeah, and do you have it documented how the work order's sp- supposed to be written up? Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: I don't know. I think mine is like seven pages with pictures of the order, why it's in that order how it's written up, whose responsibility is each piece of it, right? Yeah. And so that, and, is it the technician's job to do all of that? Eh, maybe s- maybe not. You might have a different process in your shop. Yeah. It's management's job to make sure everybody that's involved in the process understands clearly their part of the process- For sure ... and how to communicate clearly. Lucas Underwood: And that the process is efficient, right? Yeah. Like I, that's what I hear from so many technicians and so many advisors is, "Hey, our process does not flow. Our process does not work in our shop." And so nobody's looking at it. It's just we've always done it this way." Yeah. Okay. Let's work together to figure out how the process needs to work. And one of the greatest piece of visi- pieces of advice I've ever gotten was that repair order comes up and it's not right, it goes back, right? Cecil Bullard: Yes. Lucas Underwood: Yes. I'm not moving forward until it's fixed. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Lucas Underwood: I'm stopping right here right now. You're not going on to another car- Well- ... until you correct this repair order ... Cecil Bullard: you put quality control in place as part of your process. Yeah. So in our shop we had a parts guy. We felt like that was a value to us, and so we had a parts guy, so he was the first one to see the work order from the tech. If the inspection sheet, w- again, we're talking a few years ago, we didn't have DBIs, but if the sheet wasn't filled out properly and the estimate wasn't filled out properly, the tech got called in to redo it. Yeah. The work order didn't move. Yeah. And if that means the customer didn't get their car today- Oh right? Yeah. I know I've disappointed a lot of people about getting their car today. Sometimes because of parts, sometimes for other issues. Sometimes it's because my tech wasn't playing the game right, and we had to, send it back two or three times. Yeah. But the other thing is i- if you're willing to put that effort in and make sure that the job is done as efficiently and correctly as possible, and then you have quality control. When I first got to the last shop that I ran, I, for probably three months, I QC'd every work order- ... because it was so messed up. Yeah. At the end of three months, 95% of the work orders were going through fine. Yeah. The stories were good. The stuff was in the right order. The estimates were done. The inspection sheets matched the estimates. The service advisor had written everything up and presented everything, and the work order had the customer did not buy these things, here's why we recommended them- Yeah. Declined repairs ... at this time, right? Yeah. Declined repairs- Yeah ... et cetera. We had a very specific way all that was done. It was documented in a process. It was taught to everybody. It was retaught to everybody. It was quality controlled throughout. So the parts guy's the first guy to look, the second guy's the service advisor, the third guy's the manager, right? Yeah. And as a manager, after three months, I started pulling one day a week. Yeah. I didn't need to look at every work order because I had the other things in play. I only had to pull one day a week and look at them to make sure that we were still on target, right? Yeah. I'm l- I'm looking for pattern failure. I'm not looking for, oops, somebody made a mistake and missed one piece, right? Lucas Underwood: Exactly. Cecil Bullard: And- Exactly ... and so I'm trying, I'm always trying to identify pattern failure because pattern fails then get you in trouble, right? Lucas Underwood: I've got a question for you and see if this resonates with you, because this is something that when I first started really working on my shop and learning about how a shop should run and what a shop was supposed to do, that this was the biggest issue that I had, and I just wanna see if this resonates. When I put these processes, policies, and procedures in place, and I made a video about this just the other day, I oftentimes said, "Yeah Mrs. Smith's in a hurry, so I'm not gonna do that today," or, "This happened, so I'm not gonna do that today," or, "Oh, they can bring their own parts this time because I don't want to upset them And so I put processes, policies, and procedures in place, and as the business owner, I gave myself permission to override them because I- it was my name on the door, right? And I'll never forget, I had an employee come to me one time and "This is asinine. Why are we even, why do we even have rules if we're not gonna follow them?" I'm like I'm, but I'm the owner." And they were like but you put the rules in place, and that they're the, they're making the mess. Like, why are we doing this?" I Cecil Bullard: think, I think- And that made Lucas Underwood: so much sense ... Cecil Bullard: I think we need to be smart about exceptions, and I think there are exceptions. Yeah ... I have a rule that no owner supplied parts. None. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: But I have Mrs. Jones that's been a customer for 35 years. Her husband died five years ago. They brought their oil because, 25 years ago we let people bring their own oil. Yeah. And so she's just used to bringing her oil. I'm not gonna beat Mrs. Smith up about bringing her oil. I'm, you know- ... d- I'm paying back 35 years of a great customer- Of Lucas Underwood: loyalty, yeah ... Cecil Bullard: yeah, et cetera. And I think my staff would understand, yeah, we do have a rule. It is, the only exception is Mrs. Smith. So number one, few exceptions. Yeah. Number two, if you are the owner You have to abide by the rules better and more- Yes ... than anyone else in the business. If you're a manager, if you're a leader in that company, you abide by the rules better than anyone else. Yes. Because they're looking at you and they're saying that's a stupid rule. I don't know if I wanna do that. And wait, Lucas didn't do it." Yep. "If he doesn't have to do it, I don't have to do it." Yep. And pretty soon- Or every Lucas Underwood: staff ... Cecil Bullard: pretty soon there's no process. Lucas Underwood: Yep. Cecil Bullard: And pretty soon- It's not a rule anymore your average repair order's dropped- A suggestion ... your productivity's dropped. Yeah, and you're just not making money the way that you should. You're not profitable the way that you should. Lucas Underwood: And it's chaos, right? Yeah. It's pure chaos because now the standard that we're supposed to be operating by is no longer functioning. And if we continue to break that and we continue to say, "Yeah, but. Yeah, but. Yeah, but." And look I have exceptions too. Yeah. But we've gotten really good about "Hey, let's have a discussion about this exception and make sure we all agree that this exception is reasonable and rational," right? Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Lucas Underwood: I love the- Let's not just jump at it ... Cecil Bullard: yeah, I love the, I'll tell someone, "No waiters." Waiters are not... It's not in your favor to have a waiter in your shop. They're not thinking right, they're not in the right place. But again, I have Mrs. Jones, who's always waited for her car. Yeah. She's got nowhere else to be. Being at the shop is an exciting thing for her. Yeah. Because otherwise she's sitting at home, staring at the walls. And- Yeah ... and so yeah, I'm gonna let Mrs. Jones come in and wait. And that's... And I've also got somebody who, their car broke down on the road and they're with the car, and they don't have an option. They've got a car, they've gotta be somewhere, we're fixing the car, they're gonna sit around and wait. They're... Yeah, I'm gonna let them wait. They... We need to have common sense. Lucas Underwood: Yes. Cecil Bullard: But we also need to have policies and processes that are followed 99% of the time, right? By everybody. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And that's what, that's what creates efficiencies in your business. If it, if done right- It's a ballet, right? Yes. Yeah. The call is answered right, the customer feels good about coming to, they feel like you care about 'em, they feel like you've listened to them et cetera. They show up, you're there to greet 'em, shake their hand, say hi, pump up the shop and why, talk about your unique selling proposition. Ask them questions so that you are sure that you understood what the situation is, what their out- desired outcome is, what their problem is. Document that properly so the technician can pick it up. If necessary, and I can't... If I have to write a five-page story for the tech I'm probably not writing that five-page story. That's the one that I'm gonna write a one-page story, and then I'm gonna go out and talk to the tech about. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Yeah. " Cecil Bullard: Hey, I just wanted you to know, here's some strange things or different things," or whatever. And then the tech gets the work order and knows what to do and documents the stuff properly, beginning, middle, and end. And then it goes to the, in our shop, the parts guy, who then verified that we made our profit and that we stayed within the estimates that we talked to our customer about, and et cetera. And then the service advisor gets it and verifies again that the parts are done right, the margins are there, the stories are correct, the spelling is 99% good, the grammar is 99% good. Yeah. That two years from now, somebody picks this up, they know what happened. If a w- a, a a wife takes that home to her husband and hands it to her husband, he could read it and understand- Yes. Yeah ... not just what was done, but why it was done, and create value there, or vice versa. If a husband takes it home to his wife, right? I'm not being misogynist here. I'm literally saying there are often- Yeah ... other people involved. That work order could go- Yeah ... in any one of a number of people's hands, and Lucas Underwood: my- And they need to be able to understand it. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Yeah, my story. Lucas Underwood: And same for me, right? That's a major thing for me, because there's nothing more embarrassing than that car coming back a year later. Yeah. And me standing here saying, "I wish I could tell you why we did what we did or why I thought we needed to do that," or whatever it may be, but I can't. Cecil Bullard: You know what I r- ... what I really hate? I've got a customer standing in front of me, and the customer says "Hey how are my tire pressures?" And I look down And there's no tire pressure recorded Lucas Underwood: So embarrassing. Cecil Bullard: Or, how are my bra- I thought my front brakes might be bad. Oh, no, it says here your front brakes are good. Well- They're green ... how much is l- how much is left, right? The I don't have the information I need, even right at my counter. I took my truck in the local Goodyear, and I said, "Align it. ... You're putting tires on it, align it. The tires are worn." We put I put brakes with what it drilled and slotted rotors. Yeah. I spent big money and put tires on it at the same time, said, "Align it and check it out w- when you do the service," right? When I come back and the guy says I said, "There, there's nothing here on the inspection. Nothing." And he goes you only have 43,000 miles. It's probably fine." Lucas Underwood: It's probably fine. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And I said, "And you didn't align it." It was close enough." I'm not a close enough guy. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And- Lucas Underwood: Close enough counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And I ended up taking my truck somewhere else, and they did the alignment, and they bought, for the rear part of it, they had to buy whatever to make the alignment work and, the- Yeah ... I don't know, I spent another $1,200 on this thing that... And at the same time, I'm at the Goodyear, they're complaining about how bad business is, right? You could've got another 1,200 bucks out of me- Yeah ... if you'd have done it right. Lucas Underwood: How much of that, though, okay, so let's go back to Michael Smith for a minute. How much of that is culture? How mu- Well- ... like if in your shop, because in my shop I walk out here and I talk to these guys. Their focus is taking care of the client. Their focus is being an advocate for the client, because that's what we talk about. That's what we do. Yeah, and- That's what we believe Cecil Bullard: in ... and do they understand what that really means in the day-to-day operation- Yeah ... have I- ... it's one thing for me to say we're here to take care of the client." It's another thing for me to have the systems and processes in play that get taught and that my people really understand what that means. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. E- exactly, and my thing is, "Hey, if you don't understand this and you don't know why we're doing what we're doing, let's talk about it as a team," right? But you look at some of these other shops, and I've talked to a lot of guys from those other shops, and what do they say? It's the only thing they talk to us about is money and production. Yeah. That's all they talk about. And the advisor's over here saying, "I'm not gonna get my bonus if you don't get this done," and the technician's saying I'm not gonna get a bonus anyway. I get paid flat rate, and you're not giving me enough work," and it becomes this dog-eat-dog thing. There's a whole- As opposed to the focus being taking care of the client ... Cecil Bullard: there's a whole methodology for running an automotive business and making it as efficient and creating the best culture that you can in the business. And then there's, it, there's a lot involved, but there really isn't, right? Yeah. You could say geez, I have to think about hiring and my hiring message, and I need to have, a employee requisition form because I need to know what the skillsets and the traits are that I need from the new employee so they fit into my culture. And I need to have a good interview process and then I need to have a good training process, and I need to have the processes to train on," right? "And then I need this and I need this and I need this." And I think for a lot of guys, they're just trying to get the job done so they can get the money so they can pay the bills. And a- as you said in the beginning of this or in, in early parts of this, we're- We miss the, like we don't fix the problem when the problem should be fixed. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. We- we're really good at saying, "I can't do that I can't have that conversation right now because there's people." Okay. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Then let's go for a walk, right? Yeah ... I'll go for a walk 100 yards away from everybody else. I'll have the conversation about the trash cans and taking the trash out. Yeah. I don't... Or I'll put it on my calendar for tomorrow and say, "Can you meet me in my office at 10:00 so that we can have a-" Yeah. "I need to speak to you for 10 minutes," right? Yeah. We, w- we are so often, overwhelmed with making the money and just trying to make sure that the bills are paid that we miss some of the really important pieces. And it is, once you have the team on track and you have the culture, it makes it a lot easier. Yeah. When you have the processes, it makes it a lot easier. If you create consistent communication, company meetings at the right times well-defined it makes it easier, right? Yeah. And with every little thing that you are able to put in place, everything that you're able to fix, every time you do that, it makes it easier, and you're also more likely to get the outcome that you want. Yeah. Which frankly it isn't all about money. It has to be somewhat about money because if I can't- Yeah ... pay my bills, then I'm working all the time- ... and I'm not home, and my head's not in the game a- at home, and I need that too. Lucas Underwood: I'm gonna tell you something. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Lucas Underwood: I talk to a lot of shop owners. I talk to a lot of- ... technicians, and I talk to a lot of service advisors And they all believe that one of those others is looking at what they can get from them, right? Yeah. The shop owner's looking at how much money you can make me. The advisor's looking at how many hours you can turn and what I can get out of the deal, and the technician's looking at how many hours he's gonna get on his ticket. And you know the interesting thing about it, Cecil, is when I talk to them individually, none of them actually want that. None of them actually believe that. They just want to come to work. They wanna earn a good living. Sure. They don't want it to be stressful. They don't want it to be aggravating. They don't want it to be a mess. They don't wanna get yelled at by a client. They don't wanna get yelled at by a coworker. They just want to live a good life, right? Cecil Bullard: The point i- in a way is first of all, I always say this: automotive service and repair is a team sport. Lucas Underwood: Yes. Yes. Cecil Bullard: The service advisor is not more important than the tech, and the owner is not more important than the service advisor or the tech. Yeah. And the kid that cleans the floors and takes the trash out, whoever that is- ... or the old per- old guy that does. Who knows- Yeah ... I, my next career. That, that person is just as important. I- if we all- Yeah ... play our roles and do our thing, we're all gonna be fine. Lucas Underwood: You're exactly right. Remember what Zig Ziglar said? He said years ago, and he said the CEO could leave for a month and nobody would notice." Cecil Bullard: Yeah. " Lucas Underwood: But if the lady who answers the phone were to leave for a month, the place would fall apart." Cecil Bullard: Fall apart. Lucas Underwood: Because the director of first impressions was no longer present, right? And you need- And we just miss it. We Cecil Bullard: just- Yeah ... Lucas Underwood: don't see Cecil Bullard: it. And you also need to cross-train because you are gonna have people that are gonna be out, and so- Yeah ... it, the- Like I said, to me, running a shop and a successful shop is really fairly easy. Yeah. There's, th- there's always gonna be some issue. "Hey, our car count's down. Hey, our average repair order's dropped." Okay. If you have the methodologies in place to measure and the methodologies in place to manage, then you're gonna be okay, right? Lucas Underwood: That's it. You'll make it through the- As long as you'll learn, right? Yeah. As long as you're willing to open your mind, do a little bit of research, learn from people who have been there before because, there's way smarter people out there than me, and I don't need to- See- reinvent the wheel. Cecil Bullard: You see this flat spot on my head? Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: So that's from banging it against the wall way too many times. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: So we haven't covered all five Cs. Lucas Underwood: Yeah, we got one more. One Cecil Bullard: more. So we have the cause and the correction. I need a confirmation of the correction in my write-up. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: Test drove the car 23 miles, verified that it's running properly, the temperatures are at X degrees. The, the gauges are fine. The light's not on. Yeah. Yada, yada, yada. Because when that customer leaves, if they have another problem, they come back, I want it well-defined what we did, and I wanna know, is that my problem, or is that not my problem? Yeah. Because cars break, thank God, right? They break- Yeah ... and otherwise I wouldn't have a job. I wouldn't have a place to be. Yeah. So I think you're reading- Sure ... the comments. There's a pretty long one that came in. Lucas Underwood: I like that because that is my belief as well, and I know it's yours as well, is I feel like- Yeah Personally feel like flat rate for technicians and commission for advisors are the worst things that can be implemented. And I understand there's gives and takes of that, right? I- Yeah ... I know. But a lot of these guys, and so I posted this in some groups that have a lot of dealer technicians in it- I'm gonna tell you something, Cecil. The only answer I have at this point is leave the dealer, right? Yeah. That's the only answer I have for you. Because a- as I'm talking to these dealer guys, it's not fair. Okay? Cecil Bullard: No. Lucas Underwood: The way they're treated is not fair, there's no doubt about it. Cecil Bullard: I'm sure there's a dealership or two out there- Yeah that do a really good job and treat their people very fairly. There's not enough. And there just aren't enough. Lucas Underwood: Yeah ... Cecil Bullard: every time I teach a service advisor class or a management class, I'll have somebody come up to me and they'll say, "Yeah, Cecil, I know that all sounds good, but my owner won't let me do X, Y, and Z." Yeah. "My owner won't. My owner won't won't follow the rules," et cetera. And I have a comment. Your owner sent you to me. I can't badmouth your owner. On the other hand, you have to decide what you're willing to work with and what you're not willing to work with. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And so if you're... what's the minimum level of, Acceptable ... of incompetence I'm willing- Yeah ... acceptable level of incompetence I'm willing to put up with? And if you are good at what you do, if you're a good service advisor, if you're a good tech, oh, my God- Get a job ... the sky's the limit right now, right? You can go to... I could send you to th- three different recruiting companies that would get you a fantastic job with great pay tomorrow, right? Yeah. And, Pay how Lucas Underwood: you wanna get paid. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Lucas Underwood: In the environment- Cecil Bullard: Et cetera ... you Lucas Underwood: wanna be in. Cecil Bullard: And I would say, you know- The problem with flat rate and the problem with hourly there's problems on both sides of that. There is no pay plan that is perfect except a blended pay plan that allows for as they produce, as they do what they, you want them to, they can make more money. But the base- Yeah ... has got to be a substantial base. We know that from Maslow. If we're not able to- Yeah ... take care of our people and have them feel comfortable working for us, like they're gonna be able to pay the bills and once, maybe once a week get a steak or something then we're not taking care of our people properly. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And we're not charging what we need to charge to do that. Whatever that is, it has to be fixed, right? Lucas Underwood: Exactly. Cecil Bullard: You're- or we're gonna, or we're gonna not attract and keep good people in our industry. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. And, here's what I keep hearing is that, "Oh we've got these warranty times," and, "Hey, I don't get paid for going out. 'Hey, can you go out and check the tire pressure in this? Can you go out and read the codes in this? Can you go do this and go do that?' And it's not on the ticket anywhere, and I'm not... and like I'm compensated by flat rate, so you're basically stealing my time." And Cecil Bullard: that's not right. I would agree 100%. That's why you need- Yeah ... a good base, because if I ask you to, if you need to go help one of your fellow workers, I want you to be able to do that and not feel like you're getting punished, right? Yeah. Lucas Underwood: Yes. Cecil Bullard: And, a- and so pay plans is a whole nother it's another meeting, right? Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: It's another podcast. Lucas Underwood: It's a... I think that we all believe that we have to change this industry. Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Lucas Underwood: We have to make this industry different than what it's been. Your whole belief system is I have to make a change because I want this to be different when I leave it because of the efforts that I made, right? And I think we all feel that way. We want this industry to be better. And here's the thing that frustrates me the most, is that we've got to pull these people along with us. Yeah. So many of them are jaded. So many of them are aggravated. So many of them are frustrated. And so I'm saying, "Hey, we've got to work together and share a message that resonates with everybody, and we've got to move the industry." Because when David and I started the podcast, one of the discussions was is like, we weren't... "How are you guys gonna make a difference? You're not gonna reach that many people." And we said but if we reach one person and we made their life better and they got a little bit better, and maybe they could impact somebody else." If somebody doesn't take action, nothing ever changes. And I think that's where our industry has been stuck for so many years. And so I commend you for what you're doing with everything you're doing right now to genuinely make the change, not just talk about making the change, but genuinely make the change. Cecil Bullard: I got a limited time. I don't know what it is, the older I get, the shorter that window seems to be, and we're not there yet. We got a lot to do. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. And like- Cecil Bullard: And Andrew Andrews, you- if you wanna reach out to me I'd be more than happy to spend an hour and go through pay plans and systems because we have 'em, I have thousands of shops using them. They're fantastic. They're great. Yeah. Technicians make good money. Get the desired result. Yeah. Techs make great money, service advisors, the shop, et cetera. It's not the end of the world. So I... We got the five Cs, right? Yep. The the customer's concern, the confirmation of the concern, the cause, the cure, and the confirmation of the cure. So we- Yeah ... we did what we promised here. And if you guys need to You know, like I said the institute, we're here to help, and sometimes that's... We've got stuff online, we've got stuff on YouTube- Yep ... that you don't have to pay big money. We have we have gear4shops.com. We have, Yep Auto Academy. It's not always, "I gotta pay." Yeah. 100%. A lot of the stuff we do is let's help you, and maybe at some point you say, "Wow, they did a good job helping us, and so now we wanna- Yeah ... sign up for coaching," or whatever. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. And look, I'm gonna tell you, this data is good data for technicians too, okay? Yep. I see a lot of these guys going out and starting their own shops and they don't have any knowledge or any experience. Their dream's to start their own shop, and do this thing on their own, and show the world how to fix the industry by doing it themselves. And so I just wanna say hey, if you're a technician, go consume this data now, right? Even if you don't wanna- Yeah ... start a shop. Go- Cecil Bullard: yeah. Lucas Underwood: Well- Go learn about this right now ... Cecil Bullard: but understand how you're paid, and why you're paid, and how that works, and how what the shop charges, and how what you do makes a difference on that. Yeah. Because i- if you can't understand, then it's gonna be difficult for you, and you're never gonna make the kinda money that you wanna make. You're j- it's not gonna happen for Lucas Underwood: you. Amen. Cecil Bullard: So the more you know, the better prepared you'll be. Lucas Underwood: Amen. Amen. Cecil Bullard: I made a decision 1,000 years ago, when I started to be as, to get as much information and to just know much about this business as I could. Lucas Underwood: Yeah. Cecil Bullard: And it has paid off in spades for me. Lucas Underwood: Amen. Cecil Bullard: Just as a tech, as a service advisor, as an owner, as a consultant. That effort, that choice that I made, 35, 45 years ago- Lucas Underwood: Paid big dividends, didn't it? ... Cecil Bullard: changed everything, so- Lucas Underwood: Yep ... Cecil Bullard: do the same. Lucas Underwood: See- Thank you for being here. Yes, sir. Cecil Bullard: Love you, brother. You know that, right? Lucas Underwood: Love you, brother. Y'all be good- Yes, sir ... and we can't wait to see you at the next AMA. Cecil Bullard: Yes, sir.
Ep 161: The Leadership Lessons Behind Building a Trades Business with Evan Richard
209 - The Real Story of Growing an Independent Auto Repair Shop with Andy Severein
209 - The Real Story of Growing an Independent Auto Repair Shop with Andy Severein June 24th, 2026 - 01:00:41 Show Summary: Andy Severein shares how Andrew's Auto grew from a single shop into a thriving multi shop operation through coaching leadership and a commitment to continuous improvement. Jennifer Hulbert explains how understanding financials improving repair order value and developing managers helped transform the business. They discuss building a strong culture creating opportunities for employees and preparing the next generation of leadership. Their story shows that long term success comes from intentional growth consistent training and serving both customers and employees well. Host(s): Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development Guest(s): Director of Programs & Owner of Service Plus Automotive Owner, Andrew’s Auto Show Highlights: [00:02:29] – Jennifer shares her journey from shop owner to Institute program director. [00:06:11] – Andy explains why he purchased a struggling repair shop. [00:09:00] – Coaching revealed the business metrics Andy never knew existed. [00:11:54] – Average repair order nearly doubled through better processes and training. [00:16:00] – Profit sharing and community support became the business mission. [00:20:10] – Learning financial statements changed every business decision. [00:27:00] – Teamwide coaching fueled one million dollars in sales growth. [00:34:00] – Intentional leadership strengthened culture and employee development. [00:38:02] – A newly acquired second shop quickly doubled its repair order. [00:48:00] – Andy encourages owners to embrace coaching before opportunities disappear. In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry? Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode. 👉 Unlock the full experience - watch the full webinar on YouTube: https://youtu.be/_3LVDHjy2G4 Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this! Links & Resources: Want to learn more? Click Here Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here See The Institute's events list: Click Here Want access to our online classes? Click Here ________________________________________ Episode Transcript Disclaimer This transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com. Episode Transcript: The Real Story of Growing an Independent Auto Repair Shop with Andy Severin 06242026 Jimmy Lea: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, or good night, depending on when and where you're joining us from today. It is a gorgeous day outside. I hope you are able to go outside and breathe in some beautiful fresh air. Hey, today is awesome. Today is going to be amazing. We've got a great conversation gonna happen with a phenomenal shop owner, with a phenomenal coach and trainer from the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence. But before we get into that, let's talk about you and where you're at, and what's going on in your life. This is going to be an interactive webinar. Interactive how? In the comments section, in the questions, in the comments, put in there where you're joining us from today. Love to give you a shout-out here as we are on the live webinar. We're streaming through many different, multiple streams. Multiple live streams are going out on Facebook, and on YouTube, and on StreamYard. So we've got all these avenues that we're reaching out to the industry to, to, for us to connect, for us to come together. So drop in the comments where you're joining us from, city, state, and your shop name. Love to give you a shout-out so we can recognize everybody who is here for this live event. And it seems that everybody is shy today. Which is awesome. That's great. You know where the comment button is. When you find it, put in there your information, and we'd love to give you a shout-out here as we're on our live event. Streaming on Facebook, and on LinkedIn, and on YouTube, and on StreamYard. Oh my gosh, this is so awesome. This is so awesome. All right, for our conversation today Jennifer Holbert is here from the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence. She is a shop owner. She is a a coach, an industry coach, an industry facilitator with the GEAR Performance Group, and most recently moved into the position of director of programs with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence. Thank you so much, Jennifer, for being here. Good morning, good afternoon. Jennifer Hulbert: Thank you. Thank you for having me. Excited to be here. Jimmy Lea: Yes. We're gonna have an awesome conversation. I'm in the good morning part, and you're in the good afternoon part. Jennifer Hulbert: I am. Jimmy Lea: 'Cause you're in New York, right? Jennifer Hulbert: I am. Northern New York. Jimmy Lea: Northern New York, awesome. How long have you been in the industry, Jennifer? Jennifer Hulbert: Ooh 25 years? Yeah, 25 years. Jimmy Lea: So you started sweeping floors when you were, like, five, six years old then? Jennifer Hulbert: Yeah, you could say that. I started filing probably when I was in my teens, but officially joined the business in 2001 when we moved to our new building and started as service advising, accounting, marketing, and then now do it all. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. No, a- and you've had a long journey with the institute as well, joining as part of the GEAR Performance groups, and then moved into being an industry coach. Jennifer Hulbert: I did. Jimmy Lea: What did that... What's that short story look like for you? Jennifer Hulbert: Yeah. I was a group member in group two for about 19 years prior to the opportunity to become a facilitator with the institute. That was four years ago, and just was recently asked and accepted the director of programs position, so I'll be overseeing all of our coaching programs with our owners coaches, our service advisors, and our managers. So just in the infancy of that position right now, and we've got lots of good work to do and lots of exciting things to bring to the industry that I'm super excited to be part of. So yeah, it's been a journey. I, and I know all the things, all the positions, so as, first time coming to a meeting to being an integral part of a group process and looking at elevating our own internal groups and the members that we were talking to, including myself. So yeah, it's been quite the journey. Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. And here comes a shout-out from Downshift with Tanika. "That's my coach, Jennifer." She is. Thank you, T- Jennifer Hulbert: But love Tanika ... Jimmy Lea: Tanika's with Brown's Automotive out of- Yeah ... North Carolina. Yeah. Chapel Hill. David Boy's also saying, "Hey. Yay, Jennifer." And David, are you joining from Minnesota today? Minneapolis? Are you joining from Florida today? Where is home? Where are your feet planted today? Jennifer Hulbert: He's all over the place. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. No, that's awesome. That's awesome. Th- thank you for being a coach. Thank you for being in the industry. You are an inspiration f- to many. You have influenced many, and one of those people you have influenced is Andy Severin with Andrew's Auto. Andy, how the heck are you, brother? Andy Severein: Doing wonderful, Jimmy. Good to be here. Jimmy Lea: Good. Bro, you gotta sit up or something. You look... I got out... We Andy Severein: all these people back. Jimmy Lea: There we Jennifer Hulbert: go Jimmy Lea: I'm so excited to talk to you about this conversation a- as we talk about you and your shop and your business. How long have you been in the business, Andy? What does that look like for you? Andy Severein: I started in this business when I was in high school. I swept floors in a shop when I was 14, 15 years old, and got a job working there right out of... I went to Vo-Tech when I was a senior in high school and and their work work experience program puts you out in a shop halfway through senior year. So I started working there yeah, when I was 17, 18 years old, and was in that shop for, probably till I was about 25, I believe. Wow. Left the industry for a little bit, did some different things with trucks, and was learned a lot about life skills and running a business by owning big trucks. That teaches you a lot quickly. And when I got out of that, I got into the used car side of the business in inventory management, which I had my fingers in the repair side of our inventory. I was... I'd say I was a part of this industry at that part p- that point, that time, that 10 years of my life, but in a little different aspect. Yeah, most of my life I've had my hands getting dirty somewhere. Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. Isn't it funny we all start by sweeping floors? Yep. We got a shout-out coming in from David Boyd. Y- you need... You're sitting low for a tall guy. Reach up there, grab your camera, p- point it down just a little bit 'cause it looks like you're sitting on the floor. Andy Severein: It's down as far as it can go. I'm sorry. Jimmy Lea: Oh, really? That's funny. All right, Da- David, you just gotta get over it, man. Don't worry about it. Hey, so you got out, you went into trucking, you came back into into a shop. Did you go directly into owning another shop, or did you get back into turning a wrench first? Andy Severein: I went into the dealership world and- Yeah ... and purchasing and inventory management. The shop that we 10 years ago we started Andrew's Auto. There was a shop that had been in business for 50 years. It's I could see it from my house. We were that close, and it was a mess. Oh, I bet. I knew the owner. I had a relationship with the owner for years, and I planted that seed at one point. If you're, when you're interested in, in, in getting out that I'd be interested in talking. And I at that point, I don't know if my interest more was in cleaning the property up because I could see it from my house and it's that bad- ... or actually being in the auto repair business. But really my experience, the relationships I had had people coming to me constantly with advice, and had people- Yeah coming to me with looking at... They were looking for advice on their cars, and they were sharing experiences with me, experiences that they had at shops. A lot of them bad experiences. So it really it really it really Made me realize that there was a need in our area for a good, honest repair shop. Yeah. So that was my drive behind it, not having any idea what I was getting into at that point. I just knew how to work on cars. That w- that was really it. But thankfully through my life I've worked for some really good people, and looking back through, all the way back to when I was sweeping floors, what I learned from each one of those employers and even my years in, in being in trucking, what I've learned from each thing really prepared me for where I am today. Jimmy Lea: Oh, Jennifer Hulbert: yeah. For Jimmy Lea: sure. Jennifer Hulbert: In a previous conversation, Andy, you said you- you've always put yourself in front of the right people. Andy Severein: Yeah. Jennifer Hulbert: And I think right from an early age, that was just inherent in your personality to put you- ... in the right place at the right time, in front of the right person, to give you some of these opportunities. Andy Severein: Yep. Yep. Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love that you're learning along the way. At what point as the business grew, at what point did you realize that your role had to change from being involved in everything to truly being leading the business? Andy Severein: Definitely the institute had a, big part in that. I- Yeah. Jimmy Lea: Jennifer, why are you laughing? Jennifer Hulbert: Because we've had this conversation multiple times. Andy Severein: Yes, we have. Yes, we have. So we, I worked from, it was right in December of 2016 is when we started and things went well. We were busy from day one. We grew, we added people constantly. We did our first major addition renovation to our building in the end of 2019. The the, things were going very well, but there was just so many things I didn't know. And when I I was at the Napa Expo in 2022 in Vegas and and was in one of Cecil's classes, and it just it made me realize there was just a lot that I didn't know, and things I needed to know. And w- what he said really resonated with where we were at that point in time. I had no idea. Like I said, I knew how to fix cars. I didn't know what an average repair order was. We were using Mitchell at that point, and I really paid no attention to the reports. I didn't even know what that stuff was, right? We were just using Mitchell so we had a platform to give people invoices. So it taught me right away some of the, key indicators to, to look at, and I thought, "Whoa. We have a long way to go here." Jimmy Lea: Wow, and by that time you had already been six years in the business. Andy Severein: Yeah. Yeah. Jimmy Lea: And- Yep wow, there comes an eye-opening experience. Interesting. That's awesome. What, what- So from that point, you decided, "Oh my gosh, we've gotta change, we've gotta grow, we've gotta develop." What, at what point did you decide, "Hey, you know what? I need to really look at this coaching and training business. I really need to hire me a coach." What did that look like for you? Andy Severein: What drove that and what's still driving me today, I know I'm getting into the future there, but this business, I started it with my son on day one, and the intention of him taking this business over, I hadn't really put a timeframe on when that would happen, but it I think I realized that I need to make this a well-functioning successful business before I hand it over to him. So that, that was really what, resonated to me at that point. "Hey, we have a long way to go." So that that was, why we made some significant changes there right away and adapting to those changes is hard. I tell people that all the time. Being told, "Hey, your ARO should be this," and you think, "Oh my goodness, how are we ever gonna get from $350 to..." I believe our first goal was $550- ... if I'm not mistaken. And, we were inching- And I- ... inching to 500 and all of a sudden it was like maybe we ought to look at things a little different." Now at 600, I'm thinking, "Oh, my goodness." Jennifer Hulbert: I can remember one of those early conversations of, Jen, everyone's talking about this 850, $900 average repair order but you don't understand, my, my customers are different." Andy Severein: "My Jennifer Hulbert: customers aren't going to accept that because I live in an area of the country where we're completely different." And it wasn't until we started to break it down and Andy, you took a really a hard look at understanding the KPIs. We had a lot of discussions on what they meant, what the formulas were, how they're impacted, and that I think opened your eyes to say, "Okay we can do this with a better and a more thorough DVI, and some sales training for our advisors, and a different marketing strategy and conversations with our customers." So I, I was joking with Jimmy before we started this that's typically the first conversation that we as coaches get is, "Oh, wait a minute, you don't understand, my customers are different." And what we've found is what most people realize is no, they're not. They're, they're- ... Jennifer Hulbert: They will respond to the presentations and the information that you're going to give them. And I have some statistics in front of me. In 2022, your average repair order was $367. End of last year it's 732, and I think this year we're knocking the $800 range. So again- ... with some systems, process changes, ideology changes, training, this is exactly what's possible. Andy Severein: Yep. Jimmy Lea: Absolutely. So I have a coaching question for you, Jennifer. How often- are shops coming to you as a coach or you as a facilitator and singing the exact same song that Andy was singing? Jennifer Hulbert: Often. I would say probably 90% of the time. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Jennifer Hulbert: And it's because we're fed, there, there's a lot of noise out there. There, there's a ton of noise of what the industry should be. There, there's news articles there's all kinds of news report of what our industry's reputation is, and it's not positive. So we look at this differently. We wanna educate our customers on what's best for you and your vehicle. Nowhere in our sales process that we teach at the institute or that we coach is a hard sales process. We're gonna look at your situation, your vehicle. We're gonna be open and honest about everything that we see, and then work a plan that's gonna work for you. Andy Severein: I Jennifer Hulbert: love that. So when you address it with honesty and true humility, it, it becomes a different conversation than one of a hard press sales, and I'm gonna sell you services that you don't need. It... That, that's not what we do. That's not the integrity of the institute, that's not the integrity of the coaches, and that's not the integrity of the shops that we work with. So a lot of times it's you don't know what you don't know. True. So you don't understand the power of a DVI process. You don't understand the power of an actual structured sales process. And that's exactly what Andy started to realize, and then really took a deep dive in, is, "Okay, I see things differently now, and I can see where we're benefiting our customers from doing this." "So I'm gonna put all the effort into training staff and making sure that we're starting to work towards those different key performance indicators." Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Andy, did you feel called out, just Tanika? She's wondering if this is a setup. She feels like she's being called out right now. Did you feel like you were being called out, Andy? Andy Severein: No. I would say not. No? No Jimmy Lea: When you were first starting, you didn't feel like you were being called out, you didn't feel like you were being spotlighted. And you know what? Now let me tell c- build up a little bit more, clarify a little bit more. I enjoy the process that we have at the institute where we're here to meet you where you are as a business and as a shop owner- Yeah and we're going to start from there. What does it take to run your business? What kind of business do you want to have? 100%. Now- Okay. If that's- Yeah, I do ... the kind of business you wanna have, these are the steps we need to take to get to that business that you wanna run. As opposed to a rubber stamp that says, "Follow this process, procedure, and you'll be successful." Okay you don't understand my clients or my customers Jennifer's laughing 'cause yeah we're gonna meet you where you are. What, how do you wanna run your business? What do you, what does success look like for you? 'Cause Andy, your definition of success might be different than Jennifer's, might be different than mine Andy Severein: Sorry, I dropped out with just a moment there. It was just about a five-second window where I had s- Jimmy Lea: For just the most important Andy Severein: point ... in the meat of that, I lost you. Jennifer Hulbert: He- he was saying what success is to you is not the success to someone else. And I'll use something that's very important to you, and that is compensating your staff very well with your profit sharing plan- and your community involvement and sponsorships. So Andy and I have had the conversation of the effects of that on his, to overall net profit- ... but that's his why. He wants to give the best financial outcome to all of his staff based on their efforts towards their success with a profit sharing plan. And then be a very good leader financially in the community to, to support those organizations that are supporting him. And that's much different than my why, and that's gonna be much different than Tanika's why as well. So we've looked at what's important to you in creating that profitability level so you can carry out that why. Andy Severein: Yeah. Absolutely. That why is something that we've figured out over time. We didn't realize going into it what our true why was. I just wanted to build a race car. I thought, "Hey, I have a shop. I can deduct all these parts and, it'll be great." And it took a few years of doing this until we figured out what our true why is, why we're here, and it's awesome. I love that. I'll back up just a minute, though, Jimmy, to your question, if I felt called out, and maybe I misunderstood what you were saying, but I'd probably share with the people that are listening that are thinking about coaching no. I went in there new to everything that was happening, and I never felt called out, put on the spot "Look at this guy." The group has been awesome from the first time I was there with helping me to feel comfortable and share their, their struggles and successes. I never felt called out in a way that I was uncomfortable. And I'm not sure if that's what you meant, but hindsight, that's what I was thinking. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. No. That's exactly it. You weren't called out in an embarrassment point of view, but you were- No ... enlightened into, "Oh, wow, these are some things that I can do. These are the steps I can take and need to take so I can run the business the way I want to." I love that. That's awesome. Now, question for you here about pricing and parts and parts GP and labor rates. This can be very emotional for shop owners. This is an emotional subject. What helped you move from being emotional about these topics and these subjects to becoming more logical in those areas? Jennifer Hulbert: Besides peer pressure. Jimmy Lea: Peer pressure is positive. It can be. Andy Severein: Definitely that emotional attachment that, that, as shop owners you have that. When you're working in the shop, you're, you're turning the wrenches you're hands-on with the vehicles, you're talking to the people at the customer. You're talking to the customers at the counter, and there's people you've known forever, and you know their, their families and their financial situations. There's a huge emotional attachment to that, and it's not bad. Yeah. But it definitely it, it definitely is a hindrance to the growth and success of a business, and I... It took me a while to, to learn and understand that. And it's still why I stay away from the the counter, and the, the service advisor role is so important, and I realize that. I'm so blessed to have the people we have now that are really good at what they do, and they get it. They understand. They're coaching with the APT programs, and I keep putting plugs in for you, but it's been very powerful for us. But overall the growth of the business is dependent on that, so we... I've learned to just stay away Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. Andy Severein: I, of course. Jimmy Lea: You know your strengths and your weaknesses. Go ahead, Jennifer. Andy Severein: Yeah. Jennifer Hulbert: I think you also had an understanding of the overall effect o- of what a labor rate increase will do. So that impacts labor gross profit, which impacts your total GP, which impacts your overall net profit. So- ... when we first started to talk about what is your why, and that you wanted it to input this profit sharing and your community involvement we need- those net profit dollars to be able to do that. And we get those through parts and labor GP. So no, it's not just a 10 or a 15% or 10 or $15 labor rate increase, it's going to overall impact that labor GP, which will help the net profit, which is gonna allow you to do what you want to do. Andy Severein: Absolutely. Yeah, that's so true. Absolutely. Yeah, being in the upstairs your knowledge teaching me initially how to read my P&L. I'd never looked at a P&L. When I started to enroll, I didn't even know how much money we had in the bank. I didn't care. Yeah. Bills were being paid, it was great. But now the composite reporting, which was really hard for me, and you remember that, it was super hard for me in the beginning. And now I'm I'm not gonna say I enjoy doing it, but I see the I see the... I do enjoy doing it. I enjoy the results of it. But the the understanding of how we're getting to net profit and why that net profit is so expensive is so important, Yeah that- It's critical ... that's not being downstairs, but w- my offices are upstairs staying up there and keeping an eye on that is is, it's been my the key to, to, to the growth here. Absolutely. Yeah. Jimmy Lea: And let's break this down for those that are watching that don't understand what a P&L is. They hear the word all the time. They hear P&L. This is your profit and loss, pro- P&L, profit and loss. Most shop owners will look at their P&L, they really don't understand it. They're looking for that last number. Is it red or is it black? If it's black we know we're good, we know we're making money. If it's red We're losing money, and that's what the understanding of most shop owners are. At the institute, we also have a financial intensive that helps you as a shop owner to understand how to read the entire P&L, how to get it set up properly with your accountant so that you are getting the right and correct information when you need it most. And a P&L should not take months and months for your accountant to put together and g- and- No ... deliver to you. W- what's the average? How long should it take, Jennifer? Jennifer Hulbert: To, for, to start to make changes? Jimmy Lea: Oh, no. J- In order- Hey, Mr. Accountant or Mrs. Accountant, I would like my P&L. Jennifer Hulbert: You should get that once a month. M- minimally, I would say, our require- our reporting requirement is by the 20th of the month. So you should be getting that by the 15th or the 18th from, for the previous month from your- ... accountant or your bookkeeper. Jimmy Lea: So if you're only getting a P&L once a year, you may wanna either ask for more and get a better understanding, or m- perhaps you need a different- accountant. So if you need a different accountant, we know a guy. Come talk to us. We know a guy. Jennifer Hulbert: We do. Yeah. We do. A- Yeah ... and it, knowing where you're at from a profitability standpoint tells a tenth of the story. So where do we need to put our focus? Yeah. Is it in gross profits for parts? Is it in gross profit for labor? Is it in expense control? Because, so many times- ... we have a lot of members who have really good gross profit percentages, but they're not controlling their expenses and they eat away, their profitability that way. Yeah. We break down our expenses into, what, 30 categories probably, 35 categories individually, and have benchmarks for individual expenses. So th- that's what our owner coaching and our group process does, is we- ... we focus on not only systems and processes within your shop, but the understanding of your financials, so you know- ... which specific areas to target and to make some improvements on. Andy Severein: Yeah. Jennifer Hulbert: And Andy, that's where I credit you because th- we had some, many meetings where he's "Jen, make me understand this. I really need to understand how all this works together," and we probably worked for six months- ... u- until you had that understanding and now you do, and, your profitability is, has increased ex- ... quite a Andy Severein: bit. Jimmy Lea: That's awesome. Yeah, and I think there's a lot of shop owners that are out there that are just like you, Andy, that are in that same position that says, "I don't know what I don't know, and this is definitely one area that I need to know more. Help me understand it." And you dig into it, and you dig into it, and you dig into it and the more you learn, the better you are. Our last financial intensive, I think we had 40 plus people here at, in Ogden at the financial intensive. So next April, if you're wanting to understand your income statement and your profit and loss and your balance sheet, come here to the institute. We've got a phenomenal program for you. You definitely want it. Whoa, that was cool. Now, oh, Raleigh. Props, dude. That was your dr- that was mic drop. Scan the QR code. Get in on our next financial intensive. Yes, that is going to be awesome. We'd love to have you here, y- and you will learn tremendous amount. I want to go back to another acronym you dropped out on, on everybody here. You mentioned the APG. N- our industry is full of acronyms. APG stands for the Advisor Performance Group, and that's with the institute. So Andy, you have your advisors in the program right now? Andy Severein: We do. Jimmy Lea: What have you seen with your advisors? What's the change that they've gone through? Andy Severein: Probably the biggest thing I've ... The biggest thing I appreciate that I that I'm getting directly is, their understanding of the numbers that they're achieving and ... But also, the way the program's put together, allowing them to see the big picture of what the business looks like, what it should look like, what it could look like, whatever your circumstance is. But doing that from a different perspective than myself talking to them, I think allows them to grow. And it's one thing for me, for an owner, for somebody to say something to somebody, but when they're hearing from an actual coach, it's like, "Hey, that guy's not just full of hot air. He knows what he's talking about." Now that's been powerful, but aligning all of our people, Yeah ... through those different programs has been really powerful for us. And that growth that we've really seen in the last, what, year or so I can directly attribute to, and I'll drop another acronym, the MPG program, as well as the APG program. Jimmy Lea: So what's the MPG? Andy Severein: The Manager Performance Group. Yep. We have two managers here now, Nate and Brian. My son, Nate, one of them. They just got back from Utah. We've been so busy, we haven't ... We've done some quick debriefs, but we haven't had time to really sit down and put everything together that that I brought back from the group five meeting last week, or the week before last, and then they came back from Utah with their normal plane delays. ... Oh, no. Jennifer Hulbert: Dang. Andy Severein: But they made it. Jennifer Hulbert: And let's talk about what that growth looks like. So in 2023, you ended the year at 2.1 million. 2025, you ended a million dollars up at 3.1. And you- you've entered the managers and the advisors into the program along with working in the owners of- Yep your performance group program. But like you said, you've aligned your entire staff in the direction that you want to take it- ... with training and opportunities and information of to align to that direction. So just you talking to your staff and coming back from one of the GPG meetings, Gear Performance Group meetings- A- and it's like them trying to absorb what your understanding of the training is- Versus now I'm getting it from a coach who is aligned with that ideology, and now we're gonna move everyone in the same direction. So I think for you, Andy, that's been the biggest change. Now, has it cost you some money? Yes. Coaching is not free. Sometimes, people say, "I want cheap coaching." You get what you pay for. That's what you get. And you're gonna get the results that you pay for. A 30%, 32% increase in two years in sales is the... you could attribute that directly to the coaching. And again I know this sounds like a sales presentation for the institute. It, it's not meant to be that way. I just know that Andy and I have had these discussions over the past three years of how, what can I do to improve? And because- ... you have dedicated the time and the energy to some coaching programs, you've got some very good results. Now, you've set some of that standard. I expect X out of you, service advisor, from a gross profit and an average repair order- ... and an effective labor rate standpoint 'cause you've held those standards high- ... and communicated those expectations, which is also very important for results. But y- you've done a very good job at communicating what the expectation is, and then your team has followed up with those results. Andy Severein: Yeah. Yeah. Jimmy Lea: I love it. Y- there's, the saying is you were talking about the expense of training. Training is so expensive. What what if I train my guys and they leave? What if you don't train them and they stay? Andy Severein: Yeah. Yeah. Jimmy Lea: Andy, have you ever had a situation where you've trained someone and they left? Andy Severein: I have not. We have very little turnover So that's Jimmy Lea: the benefit of training today, is your people will stay. Andy Severein: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. No, we have very little turnover of people. In fact, I think there was only one advisor I had that was, he was here for a short period of time and he had come from managing an entire operation and had another opportunity to go back to what he had been doing. So I don't fault him at all. So he's the only person that I had in training and I hope that the things that he learned, he can take into his future. So- Jimmy Lea: Yeah ... Andy Severein: great guy. Yeah. He's a great guy. Oh, Jimmy Lea: I Jennifer Hulbert: totally agree. And let's talk about why your staff stays. What makes you different from some other shops that have some high turnover? And, and- Yeah ... we've talked about this. Andy Severein: Yeah. Jimmy Lea: Well- What are you Andy Severein: doing, Andy? Jimmy Lea: Is it pizza on Friday? Andy Severein: Wednesdays. Wednesdays. And we try not to do pizza too much. That really gets old, right? We have a big old grill here. I like to make food and do different things. But we really try to take care of our people in many different ways, not just, in their, problems that are going on in their life. We try to speak into their lives as, as much as we can and just be there for them. And, they're our family. We s- we spend more time with the people that work for us than anybody else. I'm careful who I allow into that family. And I feel we've done very well. In fact, we had somebody start here just recently, and his comments are just like every person I've heard in the past. Everybody here just gets along. Everybody helps each other. It's it's, it makes me... i'm really happy of that, and I'm really happy about that, because that's what I want. I wanna treat our guys really well. I want them to be excited about what they do, try to keep them motivated and and try to... My goal has always been to try to have a place that the word on the street is, "Hey, you wanna work for this guy, because they'll really take care of you in every way, not just pay." So it's extending a lot of grace regularly, that's that's part of it. Managing that grace can be tough. But but we... it's a blessing overall. It really is. We have a great staff of people here. Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. I love it. And what those people are talking about is the company culture, the culture that you have created in your company. They're j- it's, they're just so impressed by it, that this is a great company culture. So I... That doesn't happen by accident What are you doing today as a leader that is different than what you were doing three years ago, four years ago, five years ago? What are you doing different Andy Severein: I can't- honestly don't know if I'm really doing anything different. I hope I'm not, actually. I've always tried to connect with everybody regularly and just, listen to their needs and keep an open atmosphere that they can come to us with whatever's going on, if it's a problem at home or just, bumped into another car in the parking lot, don't be afraid to come to us with anything. And I... so to answer that, yeah, I don't feel like I'm doing anything really differently. I have the help of my wife now. She's a huge part of it. She was here in the beginning for the first five years, and she was working the front desk and it wasn't quite five years. It might've been three or four years and she just couldn't do it anymore. It was way over her head. She's a people person. And she had an opportunity to go work in a restaurant for some friends, which she took, and that opened the door for my, my, my front desk guy, Jimmy, to come in here. Jimmy's just an awesome person. He's just a light. He's always smiling. He's a lot like you, Jimmy. He- Jimmy Lea: It goes with the name. That's, Andy Severein: that's- You're both Jimmy. But yeah, Lori came back here in the beginning of '24, I believe. Nice. And she's been here a little over two years now. I convinced her that her skills, while she was much appreciated at the restaurant, the effort that she was putting in there would be would be very beneficial to us and our staff as we grow here. So she is a huge part of it. Plays Jimmy Lea: defense. Yeah. Jennifer, what are you seeing that Andy does different today? And by the way, Andy, you're constantly improving, so to say you're not doing anything different, it's not exactly true, because that constant improvement- ... is changing and you are becoming better. Andy Severein: True. Jimmy Lea: That's true. So as Coach, what are you seeing different that Andy does today that he didn't do when you first met? Jennifer Hulbert: I would agree with him. I think, hi- his heart i- is in the right place in wanting to do- Totally agree ... what's best for his staff. So that's just who, Andy, you are. I think today you're a little more intentional with that I- in some of the conversations and, interactions with the staff from discussions that we've had. I'll give you a recent example that they've just acquired their second shop months ago. Andy Severein: A couple weeks, three, four weeks ago. Yeah, beginning of May we started. Yep. Jennifer Hulbert: And the advisor there, they're looking to, w- we're gonna look to bring her to the service advisor intensive that's happening right now. She's never- Yeah ... flown before, so Lori says I'll go with you." I will join you on the plane. I will go to Utah with you. I will, get you all set up, make sure that you're completely just at peace with this. But that's who Andy and Lori are. So to say- Love it ... that they've done a lot different I would agree with you, Andy. I don't think you have. I just think you're a little more intentional- Yeah ... w- with it today than you may were three or four years ago. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Andy Severein: Yeah. More clarity. Jimmy Lea: See, Andy Severein: and Jimmy Lea: That's to the core of who you are. That's to your heart. Your heart has always been in that right place. And that constant improvement are things that you're doing, the things that happen, you don't, probably don't see that you're doing it. But a coach, someone on the outside looking in would say, "You know what, Andy? You are becoming much more intentional. You are having these great conversations. Your heart has always been there," and it's something that you don't see because it's second nature to you, Andy. But a coach is gonna go, "Hey, you know what? This is unique. This is s- this is special. This is awesome that you do this." That's pretty cool. Andy Severein: Yeah. Jimmy Lea: That's pretty good. So what is the future? You just added a second shop. Does that mean that there's a third one, or is it too soon to ask? Andy Severein: I've planted the seeds for the third one. I did that a while ago. That might have been the second one, but this one just kinda flew in there quickly. But it's in a neighboring shop. I can see it. It's just one, two- Two buildings over? ... two buildings away. So they were our closest- Wow ... competition. Jimmy Lea: Wow. Andy Severein: Interesting. So we had the opportunity to buy that. The owner was was wanting to retire, and hap- wanted to make it happen quickly, so he we were able to work a deal out there. I acquired all of his employees and and, it's been a, it's been really good so far. We- I'm really excited about where that is and I've said this to Jennifer to take a business that has not been run well for years and apply, what we've learned we- we've learned and applied it here slowly to try to apply it to a business like that is, it's a pretty exciting challenge. And, seeing that ARO, it was 200-some dollars when we started it and I think we're substantially over that. We haven't advertised it yet. The building needs a lot of work, and we- we're looking forward to doing that work over the coming weeks and months. So we're really excited of what the possibilities are there. We really just needed some overflow, honestly. We're almost at capacity here where we are, and having a little bit of of option for more base space to send some work over there, customers we can't help in our time, in their timeframe with our busy schedule to be able to capture them is high on my priority list of what to do, love it. Always kinda looking for ways to, looking ahead to, what is our next, next, way to grow. To have... If there's more shops I don't know if that's- If that happens, fine. I'm, I've no problem with that. I'm not focused on that. I wanna... I still see a tremendous amount of improvement we could do where we are, and we'll try to, we'll try to continue to focus on that. But our pattern's been about every three years we do, what's the next step? 2023 we did a pretty large addition to be able to handle heavier pickup trucks and the dually trucks, construction pickup trucks. We were doing a lot of that stuff, so we put an addition on there. So here we are three years later, buying another shop. That's our that's- this is the next step and, what's the next in three more years? That's been our pattern. We've got some ideas, Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love it. It- What's gonna come in 2029? That's, you Andy Severein: got to be sweating. Jimmy Lea: Exactly. Andy Severein: Exactly. Oh, that's awesome. Got some pre- got some pretty cool ideas. We'll keep focused keep focused on what could happen there and work towards that goal. Jimmy Lea: Yeah, for sure. I- is it too soon, or can I ask this? You only bought this other shop at the beginning of May, so we're looking at six, seven weeks, eight weeks now that you've- owned the s- the second shop. $200 average repair order. Where are you now? In a very short time period, has it increased significantly, or are you still hovering in that 2 to $300 range? Andy Severein: No it's climbed. I think we're in the $400 range right now. I'm sorry, I haven't looked at that lately. I just realized- Yeah ... as you're asking me that question. So we've about- Yeah ... doubled that. Jimmy Lea: Doubled it in less than six weeks. Andy Severein: Yeah. Jimmy Lea: Implementing proper process, procedures. You intro- did you introduce a DVI program to them? Andy Severein: We did. Yep, introduced that. So that's been good. That's a... W- we're trying to... We have-- There's so many customers there that were the customers that that you don't want, that, we're trying to get rid of 'em. They, you tell 'em what their car needs, they take it home and fix it, and then bring it back and get an inspection sticker. We have state inspection here in Pennsylvania, an annual inspection, so that's a huge part of what we do and so yeah, that's been... working those customers out of our system is the goal here. Make way for good customers. And we've really seen a, an upturn just in the last few weeks of busyness. So it's it's exciting. Jimmy Lea: Oh, that is exciting. That's awesome. Congratulations. So a- as we, we look in towards the future here what leadership skills are you working on today To help you strengthen yourself, strengthen the business as you continue to grow, what are you working on yourself or the business in your leadership realm? Andy Severein: Oh, goodness. I'd love to say that I read a book a week or even a book a month, but that doesn't happen. I, and I could I, probably said it to Jennifer and I'll say it again. What we're doing in the GPG groups right now is so good. What we just did in the group five meeting in Indiana the other week our two main presentations are things that are so relevant to me right now, and that's, defining where in the business, where we need to be and what those roles are, and focusing on those things. That's, it, we're... i, it's funny I still struggle with basic things sometimes it feels even what my roles need to be, but that clarity is huge to me, and we're really, as a, we as our mana- myself and the managers really, working on that stuff. But, I'm, I personally, a- and I'll radiate where I started in, in this business, my goal almost from the start was to work my way out of this and create an opportunity for my son to move into which will probably at this point looks like it'll be my son and Brian together, the two managers. And presenting opportunities for them is exciting to me. They're both going to the to Michael Smith to the leadership- Leadership intensive ... in Washington, DC. Oh, yeah. There's another plug. You'll see the thing come across the bottom of the screen right now. Yeah. But Jimmy Lea: it's not- Leadership intensive in July in Washington, DC. Is that the one? That, oh! There it is. Look at that. There Andy Severein: it is. Oh, Mike Johnson. Jimmy Lea: There it is. Yeah, Raleigh, way to go, brother. He gave me a thumbs up. Andy Severein: But I did that course two years ago, I think it was in Ogden, and I really feel like I could do it again 'cause I'm at a I'm... I've learned so much in two years, but I'm really happy to be able to give those guys the opportunity to do that, to let them grow. Because I look at this now as "Hey this is gonna be for you to run." Yeah. And I want them to outperform anything I've ever done. I just wanna set the stage for them to be able to hit the ground running. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And attending another leadership intensive, you're gonna learn even more because you've had two- Andy Severein: Yeah Jimmy Lea: years of runway under your belt that you have learned and developed and grown. Now when you attend it again, you have such a solid foundation. Now you're ready to build that building. You're ready to build upon what you've already learnt, implemented, discovered, rewrote as your truth tapes. You know what those next steps are gonna be, and y- you'll go to leadership intensive. You, your brain will still melt, we'll still have to pour it back in your head because of the learning that will happen And now the development and growth you'll have for the next year as well will be just tremendous. So Andy- ... Jimmy Lea: Get to the DC, get to the leadership intensive. You need to be there Andy Severein: I'll consider that. Jimmy Lea: That's a good idea. Yeah, take that into consideration. Anybody that's watching this as well, and you see it go back to that QR code, get into that Leadership Intensive. It really will change... thank you. It really will change the way you think about yourself, about your business, about your life- Yeah about why you think the way you think, and then you can help to discover why other people think the way that they think. Andy Severein: Absolutely. Jimmy Lea: Oh, so powerful. So powerful. Jennifer Hulbert: And one, one of the things that I really wanna point out to the listeners is, typically when we have a new client coming into our individual coaching program is they see people like Andy, and they're intimidated. But hearing Andy's story, that he started off, fixing cars in a very small shop himself, building it to now a multi-shop owner, not having to be an integral part of the day-to-day of the business because he has put people in the right seats, grown the business to a level that you can have a mid-tier manager- it's totally doable. Now, does it require blood, sweat, and tears? Absolutely. I own a shop. I was a service advisor for two years full time. You don't get to this point without going through some of those steps, but it is doable. A- and- Yeah ... sitting saying I only have 500 or $600,000 in sales this year," that, that was Andy at one Andy Severein: point. Jennifer Hulbert: And, now we're in a completely different scenario because of the changes and the improvements and the attention you've put to these improvements and your leadership style. So I, I get a lot of new members and I was actually at a group two member, or group two meeting a couple weeks ago, and then had a meeting with a member, and, she said, "Jen, you don't understand what we come back to because you have two managers in your shop." And I said, "Hold on a minute. I was you 15 years ago." So i- it does take time, and it does take attention but it is totally doable, and we can take you from opening your own shop, I have two members who had, have started to work with us prior to even purchasing their shop, to now owning their shop, to becoming a multi-shop owner. So the, all of those steps and processes we have the ability and the knowledge and the training and coaching to fill all of those steps, but it is a process. Yeah. You're not gonna go, from Andy opening your shop to $3.1 million being pretty much a hands-off owner in two years. It- ... had taken 10 or 14 to do Jimmy Lea: that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You... If you keep doing what you've always done, you're gonna keep getting what you've always got. You- Yep ... you've gotta do something to change. And so Jennifer, to this specific scenario, a shop owner that you would have worked with that they went from a bucket and a wrench and a computer to multi shop owner what did their timeline look like? So maybe others who are listening can go, "Oh you know what? In six years, I'm gonna be six years older. I'm either gonna be still with a bucket and a wrench, or I can invest in myself and improve." What's that look like? So Jennifer Hulbert: the timeframe differs be- because of this. So it's your ideology, it's your mentality, it's where do you want to go and how are you going to take the steps to get there? We can give you the information. Again, one of the reasons I've suggested Andy being on this podcast is because he's done a lot with the information to get to where he is today. So if you enact it if you take it home and you actually implement some of the things that we talk about, you're gonna move much faster than someone who is, "You don't understand, my customers are different." Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Jennifer Hulbert: Two, two totally different types of shop owners. That's true. So I would say the timeframe is different for everyone, but five, six years to go from small to large, Maybe Yeah ... if I had to put a timeframe on it. Jimmy Lea: And I think you hit on the two elements that must be implemented in every situation. You talked about the attention. You've gotta give it attention. You've gotta give it the attention it needs because it doesn't happen by accident. It needs to be it needs your attention. And the second one is that you have to be intentional- Yes ... about what you're doing. Yes. If you don't know what you're doing, you could wander in the forest and be walking in circles because you don't have that compass. Compasses were created before time, before clocks. Why? Because we needed to know where we were going. So compasses are more important. You need a coach, you need a direction, you need some help to make sure you make- Jennifer Hulbert: And some accountability. That, that's what the premise of our whole GPG program is. Is it's not only the facilitator and the coach holding you accountable, you're being held accountable by a group of your peers. Jimmy Lea: Yes. Jennifer Hulbert: Yeah. Jimmy Lea: Yes. So if you're listening to this and you are the shop that's at that 500,000 or 600,000, let's start that journey together. We can do this. We can do it together and make it happen for you that in four, three, four, five, six years you're having the same conversation with somebody else who's doing a podcast to talk about your success story, and it's gonna be similar to what Andy has. Andy, final question from me and then Jennifer, a question from you for Andy if you want to pipe in here. And in fact, I might have two. My first question is gonna say what advice would you give another shop owner who is thinking that there's gotta be a next level? Andy Severein: There absolutely is, and I can say from experience to figure out what that level or what your goal is, what do you want to achieve and how can you achieve that? It, it-- That's true to anything in life, but it's having the understanding or the understanding of what tools you can use to, to get yourself to that point. Once again, in my case, it was I wanna work my way out of a job, what does that look like? And but certainly doable, with some input, some coach. People, most shop owners that I've found are pretty close-minded, don't wanna be told what to do. You know- ... they're doing it great, don't tell me. And that's why I was at an auction earlier today for a shop that closed down because, they just choose to just do the same thing they always did, and at the end of the day, they got nothing left. No business and just a bunch of tools to sell Jimmy Lea: Wow ... Andy Severein: doesn't have to be that way. Doesn't have Jennifer Hulbert: to be Andy Severein: that way at all. No way. Nope. Jimmy Lea: No. No. Yeah. They're getting pennies on the dollars for those tools and assets. Jennifer. Jennifer Hulbert: I don't think I have a question for you, Andy. I, and you're a pretty humble guy, and I want you to really hear this, so thank you for being an industry leader, and thank you for setting the tone and the example of what success can really look like. And, I hope you're an inspiration to those who are watching and listening to this because you've done exactly my why. My why is to help elevate individual shop owners, and because of your attention and intention to the information that we've been discussing you've climbed to that level. So I want you to really hear that you are an industry leader, and I thank you for being here, and thank you for being a part of the institute. Andy Severein: Yeah. Thank you. That means a lot to me. I certainly don't see myself that way. I I still hear Parker Branch telling me maybe two years ago, "With a few changes, you'll pass me." I'm like, "Yeah, whatever" Jennifer Hulbert: You're getting close Andy Severein: You are Jimmy Lea: getting close, yeah. Andy Severein: Yep. By the end of 2027 when shop number two kicks in, watch out, Parker. Jimmy Lea: You'll join him in that million dollar net club. Yeah. Andy Severein: That's the plan. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. That's the plan. Yep. Yep. All right. One final question coming from Tanika and then a final question from me. Did you get any pushback from your technicians, the technicians you acquired implementing a DVI program, changing their process, procedure, moving their cheese? Andy Severein: Honestly, if you're asking about the shop we just bought- No? ... not a whole lot because they knew that their leadership was terrible. They knew that there was better way to do things. They're a neighboring shop. They saw our parking lot full of cars all the time and their parking lot empty, right? So- Jimmy Lea: Ouch. Yeah ... Andy Severein: that was, for them to be shown How we do it. They understood right away that it worked. They knew that. So it's, it is it's been... Certainly has its challenges, but it hasn't been hard at all. Teaching them the processes has really been the hardest thing, but the understanding, the knowledge of it the knowledge of, the why we're doing it I don't wanna say it's one of the easier parts of taking over that business, but I think it has been. Jimmy Lea: It kinda sounds like it. It sounds like they were definitely primed and ready for you to step in there and take over. Andy Severein: They were all really hungry, yeah. They knew that our leadership was bad. I don't know why they didn't all quit and walk Jimmy Lea: out. Yeah. No, congrats, man. That's awesome. All right, last and final question. Years from now, years down the road, don't know what that number is w- what do you want people to say about your shop, about your team, and about the owner who built it all? Andy Severein: Boy, I, I hope it's, I hope it's what our goal's always been, and that's that we are just awesome people, trustworthy give back to the community, the same things we've always been. I I hope that can be our legacy here. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. For sure. I hope so as well 'cause you are awesome people. Andy Severein: Yeah. Thank you. Yes, Jimmy Lea: they are. Andy Severein: You guys are too, so that means a lot. Jimmy Lea: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for everybody who's listening. If any of this has sounded interesting or information that you wanna pursue even further, get out your cellphone 'cause as soon as we go to credits, there is a QR code. Let's meet. Let's talk. Let's sit down and review your business. What can we do to help you? Our goal, our core, is to help build a better business for you to... which results in a better life for you, which our intention is to build a better industry. So we are all about building a better business, a better life, and a better industry. With that, my name is Jimmy Lea. I'm with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence, and thank you. Thank you, Jennifer. Thank you, Andy. Really appreciate you guys being here. Andy Severein: Yep. Thank you. Jennifer Hulbert: Thank you.