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.
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The Technicians Who Get Ahead Do THIS | Bruce Bolen - Ep 40
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Young Technicians Aren’t the Problem. Bad Mentorship Is. | Phil Ubinger & Hunter Jackson - Ep 39
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Shop Owners: Maybe YOU'RE the Problem | Tristin Sweeney - 38
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Are You Running Your Shop… Or Is It Running You? | Darin Johnson - Ep 37
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Host(s): Jimmy Lea, VP of Business Development Guest(s): David Boyd, Founder & CEO of Callinbound Tonnika Haynes, Owner of Browns Automotive, Downshift with Tonnika Haynes Show Highlights: [00:04:00] – Listening to real calls reveals missed opportunities that owners rarely see. [00:10:00] – AI identifies coachable calls without hours of manual review. [00:14:00] – Consistent coaching creates awareness before advisors answer each call. [00:17:00] – Replace a hard no with a plan focused on customer needs. [00:24:00] – Help advisors self coach instead of simply pointing out mistakes. [00:28:00] – Every missed appointment can represent significant lost customer value. [00:34:00] – Asking for the customer’s name immediately creates a stronger connection. [00:39:00] – Scheduled call reviews make coaching normal instead of threatening. [00:43:00] – Asking for appointments helped turn successful marketing into a fuller calendar. [00:49:00] – Call tracking connects marketing performance with actual appointment conversion. 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/fv9ewVBoSks 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: Jimmy Lea: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, or good night. Thank you for joining. So excited for us to have this conversation today with some really good friends. Everyone, this is to be an interactive webinar. So you're sitting there, you've got questions, you've got concerns, type them into the chat. We wanna be able to ask those questions of our panel today as we are talking about a very interesting topic. And with us today, first, is our good friend, Mr. David Boyd of Inbound Communication. David, how the heck are you, brother? David Boyes: I'm great. I, I, uh, I fully intended to have my jacket on, Jimmy. Jimmy Lea: Man. David Boyes: So excited to be here. We Jimmy Lea: coordinated on this and everything. David Boyes: I know. I, uh- Next time ... I, I was, I was lucky as, as busy as we've been at Call Inbound to, uh, uh, get up and, and organize and dress today. So I really, uh, it's always great to see you and of course, um, uh, we got to visit a little bit out at, uh, Worldpac STX and, uh, man, I tell you what, your wardrobe is always top notch. Jimmy Lea: Hey, thank you. Thank you. We're glad you are dressed today, just don't stand up. Thank you very much. David Boyes: Great. Jimmy Lea: And joining for us in our conversation today, David, is Tanika, Tanika Hayes with, uh, Haynes with Browns Automotive. Tanika, how the heck are you, sister? Tonnika Haynes: I'm doing good, guys. What's going on? Jimmy Lea: Staying alive. Good to see you. Great to see you. Also at STX, what did you think of the, the conference there with Worldpac? Tonnika Haynes: It, it was really, really good. I was not prepared for the size of it. There was a lot of people. People were peopling. So, um, once I got adjusted to all of the crowds and everything, I enjoyed it. I hadn't sat in a class in a really long time, like at an expo. Ooh. I'm usually just walking around and being nosy, but I picked up some good nuggets, so it was great. Jimmy Lea: Beautiful. That's awesome. Well, if, if the STX was a large conference to you, I would suggest that you really prepare yourself months in advance if ever you come out to SEMA and Apex in Las Vegas. Tonnika Haynes: I will be there this year. Oh, good. I keep hear- hearing that, so I don't know what meds I need to be on to take, To take it all in. But Jimmy Lea: we'll- You- Tonnika Haynes: I'm excited about it ... Jimmy Lea: we, we will talk about that because there is more than you can see within a week, and you really only have three days at Apex, four days at SEMA. You want to map out where you're gonna go, who you're gonna talk to, who you're gonna see- And for you, Taneka, schedule some time to sit down and chill Tonnika Haynes: Yeah. I'm gonna have to definitely do that. You're talking about, um, scheduling times. I'm gonna schedule time to go sit in the corner and recoup. Uh-huh. So where's Taneka? She's in the corner. Jimmy Lea: Yep, and, and I- It's David Boyes: scheduled time ... Jimmy Lea: I, I'm gonna work with you on that because I know the corners, I know the places where you can go and, and find some solitude. Tonnika Haynes: All right. Jimmy Lea: I am. Well, our conversation today is in preparation for making your shop better David, I'm gonna kick it over to you, brother. Let's start this conversation with Taneka. David Boyes: Yeah. Let's, uh, let- let's kinda move into this. You know, we're, uh, talking about communication, and there are so many facets that impact the customer experience. I think that it's important to know that, you know, there are tools and there are, uh, from an owner or, and manager's perspective and from a service provider's perspective, there are ways that we rally around making communication better. Um, you know, one of the things that is common at all shops is, uh, the customer phone call. Tonnika Haynes: Oh, yeah. David Boyes: So you winced a little bit. Tonnika Haynes: Yeah. David Boyes: Uh, how many times do we, you know, talk about our phone skills, uh, getting better on the phone, understanding the customer, understanding their needs, addressing their needs? And there's so much, you know, revolves around, uh, the phone calls and, and the way that our advisors and our front office team handles these. Maybe you have a CSR, maybe you have, you know, a service manager. Um, but people are, are answering calls all day long, and this becomes important that we understand who's answering the phone- Mm-hmm ... how they're communicating, what, what's the message that's being shared. Every time that phone rings, uh, that, you know, we like to say that's money calling. So Taneka, let me just ask you, you know, what, what are some of the challenges that you see or the, uh, the successes that you have with your team when it comes to managing and, and, uh, getting better on our phones? Tonnika Haynes: I wanna start by saying, um, I think I listened to my first phone call at my meeting with Jen- Jennifer, with the Institute. I'm currently coaching with the Institute, and that is life-changing- Yeah ... to listen to your team answer the phone. So if anybody's out there and they have not done that, they have not listened in on a phone call, figure out a way to do it. I don't know if it's gonna be a little paper cup and a string, but figure out how to do it. Um, and then I, listening to my own phone calls, and I- I'm the boss, right? I still cringe. And so you never know what's missing from those phone calls, what, what, what is standing out. You know, my team, we would not even ask for the appointment. Like, "Would you like to bring this in today?" You know- Oh ... you ask all the questions, they go through the scripts, but then we found that they were not saying, "Hey, would you like to get that done? Would you like to bring that in today or tomorrow? What works for you?" They were leaving it all to the client to say- Jimmy Lea: Mm-hmm ... " Tonnika Haynes: What's next? What's next?" Hmm. So they were answering the phone, and they were s- being very polite, but they were not closing. They didn't have a lot of words with closing. And so with inbound, I've been able to coach- You know, when you listen to yourself and you're like, "Ooh, ooh." And you can say, "Do you see what you did there?" Or even, 'cause you know, the team can listen to their own phone calls. "Oh, I see what I did there. I see where I dropped the ball." So that was, opened up a whole bunch of eyeballs around here. Well- It's like, "Oh, it's Monday, it's time to listen to phone calls." Like, "Ah." But you just increasingly get better over time. Jimmy Lea: Oh, it's so true. And, and the ability, Taneka, the ability to have calls from today- Tonnika Haynes: Mm-hmm ... Jimmy Lea: or from yesterday or, or even the day before. Uh, there was a time a decade ago when we would have to listen, as coaches, we would listen to calls. Listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen. We're trying to find a coaching call, a call that is coachable, and this might be a call from two weeks ago, three weeks ago. Mm. The advisors are going, "Dude, oh man, that's forever ago. No, man, I, I don't do that anymore. I'm not like that." But David, I, I think you kind of solved a bit of that problem with your phone services. David Boyes: Yeah, thanks. It, you know, it's, it's important to, to recognize. I think every owner I've ever talked with has a similar issue. It's... And a lot of it rev- revolves around time, right? Are, are we aware of what's actually happening- Jimmy Lea: Yeah ... David Boyes: on the front line? Mm-hmm. And, uh, some of it is, uh, I wanna keep this a little bit at arm's length because I, I can tell you as an owner, I will have an emotional response when I listen to that phone call. And Taniki, you brought up a great point. For owners and managers here that are on the phone, please listen to your own calls. Yeah. Do it at least one time. Tonnika Haynes: Yeah. David Boyes: Well, twice. Have to Tonnika Haynes: bite the bullet. Just do it. David Boyes: Yeah. Just do it. And, Tonnika Haynes: and, and be ready. Just like- ... just like, "Oh, that is me." Yeah, that is you. David Boyes: Do it- Yeah do it twice because the first time that you listen to a call, uh, it's gonna just be weird, right? So listening to myself on recordings is always weird, but there's this heavy lift of time, right? Am, am I aware of what's actually happening on the front line, and how are we interacting with customers? And then do I have, do I have a mechanism to understand what's my expectation? As an owner, um, you know, it, it's important to establish that expectation. Maybe you're working with a call coach, maybe you've been in trainings yourself. It's, it's ideal to have a method by which you're going to measure your call handlers. And, um, you know, we wanna be professional. We want to build confidence and, and build rapport with these customers. It doesn't have to be fast, but typically- Mm-hmm ... you know, an incoming call from a customer is likely an appointment setting call or a status call. We're gonna set that status call, uh, bucket aside for a second 'cause we wanna be in front of, uh, status calls instead of having customers call us. But if you're listening to these and you have that rhythm around it, uh, we understand how these small habits can build on one another. Am I, am I smiling when I answer the phone? There's something physically that hap- When I, when I physically smile, there's something that is noticeable in the way that I'm communicating. And, uh, am I, am I clear? So what are the expectations? You know, uh, if you watch your advisors, I have, uh, my little cordless handset here. If they tuck their phone in like this, and, and you know, they're, they're trying to multitask Listen to those calls because likely it's very, very difficult to hear on the other side of this. So listening to calls, uh, helps us understand how, you know, how we conduct ourselves, how we conduct business, how am I representing the business that I, you know, that I'm working at as a professional. But also, what is the customer hearing and what is the customer's experience? So, um, these are, uh, important points, and it starts by listening. Jimmy, you brought up a, um, an important aspect here. Historically, we would listen to call after call after call after call to try to find something I can use to coach. So Taneka, you might do this. You've got a call recording system. It doesn't do much but just record those calls, and now I have to go through this, this process to identify a coachable opportunity. And this is now I think where we can move effectively into technology, right? We all hear so much about AI today, and what's really nice about, uh, having, you know, a, a phone system that records is now you have an asset, and you can use that asset to do something more with it. And we can use AI to help that heavy lift of time and, you know, take 90% of the time requirement off. So instead of having to spend 30 minutes, I might have to spend two or three minutes to take that call, sit down with my service advisor, go through this, and have a meaningful, constructive conversation about the things that work well. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. I, I love, David, that your software makes it so easy to find these coachable calls so much faster. A- and Taneka, that's just gotta be a lifesaver for you as well, coaching your service advisors. Tonnika Haynes: It is. I remember, um, speaking with a friend, fellow shop owner, and he's like, "I need you to set aside a time." And so what I did is on my calendar, on Wednesday, that's the day that I sit down and we go over phone calls. And so, you know, you got the dashboard, and that dashboard will say, "This is a coachable call. This is a coachable call." And it is a habit for me as the owner/manager, um, to make sure that I'm staying on top of it all the time because we'll slip into old habits, right? So me listening to the calls and bringing the service advisor or, um, or bring Jay in and say, "Hey, let's listen to this. Let's see how we can get better." You know, you continuously improve on it, and you don't slide back into old habits. Because I'm not on the phone as much anymore. If I have to answer the phone, I know personally, and everything's at stake for me, I slide back into old habits. So we all are capable of it, and so having that dashboard in front of us and said, "Hey, this is a call you need to look at," the service advisor or the person answering the phone does not feel like they're being picked on, but they're being improved upon. So, "Look, I'm just lifting you up. This is what we can do. Do you see how we can make this better?" And it's a we, it's a us, it's coachable, it's there, it's real, and, um, I really enjoy th- that part of the dashboard. Jimmy Lea: Oh, I love that. How often, Taneka, do you send, "This is a really good call"? This is a really good call. I Tonnika Haynes: like a really good call How often do you send that to the team? You know what? Yeah. I probably should do that more. But when I see a good call, I, I, I like to share it. And when I get a good review, like I l- literally just got a good review based off of a bad situation that we were able to turn around with proper communication, and the customer l- literally said, he's like, "The communication... The problem was still there," he said, "but the way they handled it and the communication was key." So he was not satisfied when he left, but the way that we dealt with it afterwards, and that recording of how we guided him through the process, and how we, you know, we apologized, we came up with a plan, apologized again, and kept it moving, and that was a great coachable call. It's like, this is how you handle a bad situation. Look how we won here. So yeah, those are just as important as the, as the losses, as the bad calls. "Hey, this is a good call. G- this is a good call." That balance is super important. Yeah, it balances it. Yeah. And then, you know, it's like, okay, I did that right. Even when that client is a client that does not belong to you, and you can hear them tell the customer, it's like, "Hey, you know what? Appreciate your call, but this isn't the place for you." And that's not the word for word, but, "Hey, you handled that good. Thank you for saving us from a nightmare." Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Tonnika Haynes: Amen. Share it with your team. So you gotta share the wins and the, the misses. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. And, and, uh, for a lot of people, I think they struggle in the creative. So if they can hear it, that it's already been done, they can duplicate. Sure. They can mimic. They can do the same thing over and over and over again. So the more we send these beautiful calls, "Oh my gosh, you guys did so well on this phone call. I, I love this part, this part, and this part," they're able to duplicate that, and they'll do it over and over and over again. And then, then you're- The mistakes that are being made become much less because you're showing, you're, uh, mirroring to them these are the really good calls that we wanna hear. Tonnika Haynes: And, and sharing that when you're going over a call, you got the good call here, we can work on this call, but this is another good call. You know, we talk about giving that sandwich. Yeah. And so that's another opportunity you can give that good sandwich. So when it's time to come in on Wednesdays and listen to your phone calls, you're like, "Ooh, I know I got one coming and I think I know which one it is." And then you're like, "Yeah, but you got this one too, so you won here, and, uh, we missed on this one, but next time it's not happening." Right? Right. So it's, you know, it's all in coaching. Jimmy Lea: Oh, David Boyes: it's so true. You just said something that's super important, and, uh, ooh, I think I know which one this is. Tonnika Haynes: Yeah. David Boyes: Um, there, there's a lot to unpack there. I, I, I love the, the good with the bad. We'll talk about that more too, but, um, creating the awareness. So consistency wins, and, um, I'll say it again, be consistent with the process because consistency wins. And when you have that rhythm where it's familiar and it's expected, we're gonna sit down and we're gonna listen to calls, we're gonna go through this, identify the opportunities, um, it's not good and bad calls, it's, you know, it, it, uh, we call them top calls or champion calls and coachable calls. So a coachable call isn't inherently bad. Maybe we even got an appointment. Tonnika Haynes: Mm. David Boyes: Right? But there's, there's opportunities. So, uh, when we have that rhythm and it's expected, what's really important about what you just said is the awareness. So when I go to pick up that phone, is this the call that Tanika's gonna be talking with me about tomorrow or, you know, Wednesday, whatever our rhythm is? It, it will begin to create that moment of pause that as an a- an advisor when I'm picking up that phone, I can take that breath. Yeah. I can, I can, uh, let that, uh, you know, that technician that just blew me up Tonnika Haynes: Let 'em David Boyes: go. I can let that slide off. I can shake that off. Yeah. And I can focus for a moment to make sure that that customer knows right at this moment they are absolutely the most important person to me right now. Tonnika Haynes: Mm-hmm. David Boyes: So that's an important message to convey over the phone, our, uh, the, you know, the way that we speak, the words that we use, my en- excitement and enthusiasm about being on that call all comes through. So as we get through this rhythm and we develop the consistency and it becomes normal, now I've got that awareness on my team that, hey, this next call I'm taking, I'm gonna have the moment of pause to focus because this might be the next one that, that we're reviewing. I want this to be a positive call that, that Tanika's coming to me and saying, "You did really well on this one. Let's continue to develop this," and, you know, replicate the things that are working well. Instead of, "Hey, there's some opportunity here. You know, you didn't ask for the appointment. You were, you know, pricing over the phone. You said 'no'." No comes out in a lot of ways, doesn't it, Tanika? Where- Tonnika Haynes: Oh, yeah ... we, David Boyes: we might be telling somebody, uh, "You know, I'm really busy right", or, or, or "W- we, we're really busy right now, I can't get you in until Friday." Tonnika Haynes: Yeah. David Boyes: That's, that's, we might as well just say, "No, I can't help you." Yeah. Tonnika Haynes: Yeah. You, that's, that's all they heard was the no. Um, even if you give... And, uh, everybody knows that I'm, I'm big on nos. Like, I can give you a no where there's some healthy nos, but then there's some nos and you have the customer saying, "Hey, um, m- my brakes are making the noise and it just started." And he's like, "Oh, no, I can't see you till Friday." He's like, "Yeah, but I'm gonna die before Friday. I wanna see somebody now." Um, so you don't, you have to learn how to coach them and say, "Yes, so bring that in. Let's take a look at what you've got, and then we'll come up with a plan." You didn't promise that it was gonna be today or tomorrow, but you said, "Bring it in. I'm worried about your safety. Let's see what you've got." Yeah. "Let's see if you should really be concerned about that check engine light. It might be a EVAP code." They don't know that, "But go ahead and bring them in." So and then you, like you said, the cadence in it. This, I'm not gonna make you any promises over the phone, and I would literally say that. "Hey, I don't wanna disappoint you by making a promise that I can't keep. So don't- Yeah ... don't make me, don't put me in that hole. But I need you to go ahead and bring that in to me as soon as you can. Um, and let's scan it. Let's see what you've got, and let's see if you should really be worried, if you can make that trip or we need to bring you in right away. We will help you come up with a plan." So just that solid no. "No, I'll see you Friday." Jimmy Lea: He, " Tonnika Haynes: Meh. No you won't." Yeah. Like, so that's support. That's Jimmy Lea: my- David Boyes: It, it becomes very collaborative in what you just said. Hey, let, let's make this about you, let's make this about your safety and your confidence to drive that vehicle. Maybe you gotta get across town and your commute is 30 minutes. Let's make sure that your vehicle is safe, and then once you're here and we make sure you're safe, let's talk about, uh, when we're gonna have that on the schedule. We'll get that vehicle in Tonnika Haynes: and prepared. Yeah. What are the next steps? Yeah. So let's go ahead and get- let's get your nerves calm- Mm-hmm ... and then let's come up with the next step. Let's come up with a plan. Us, us, us, we, we, we. So Jimmy Lea: yeah. Yeah. Oh, I love it. I love it. And, uh, you talk about s- building a solid foundation for this, the solid foundation for their skills so that the, the ongoing training you're doing really builds on that foundation. Uh, we've got a three-day service advisor with the institute. We're gonna give a shout-out to the institute here right now. So everybody grab out your smartphones, scan the QR code if your service advisor needs a solid foundation. Thank you, David. If you need a solid foundation- Registered now ... and you need to start with... Yeah, get registered. I know you've been to a couple of these, David, 'cause- I have you've talked about all the skills here just really, really well. If your service advisor needs that and you need to go from zero to hero very quickly, this is an intensive that you wanna send your service advisor to, and it will be at headquarters in Ogden, Utah. Fly right into Salt Lake, and, uh, and we got you set up there in Ogden. So, yes, David Boyes: scan that. It's a beautiful drive up from the airport. This class is, uh, it, it, it will help establish the, the fundamentals to build on. Yeah. So you come here, it's, you know, it's boot camp, right? We're, we're going to make sure that we're establishing the expectation and give you something to build on as the owner. Send your service advisors in here. Uh, they'll get those fundamentals, and then you'll have, you know, these, these mechanisms, uh, to improve them over time. I promise you it'll be a, a real game changer for your frontline. Tonnika Haynes: Well, you know what? Beautiful. I wanna piggyback on that. Um, and I wasn't coached to saying this. If they've already been, send them again. Jimmy Lea: There you go. Mm. Tonnika Haynes: Send them again, because here's the thing that I know, and I'm just gonna make it simple. I want you to think about your favorite movie. Like when, when I was in the 20s, for me it was Friday, the movie Friday. And then we watched that movie every Friday after work with the crew that I worked with, and it was just the most ignorant movie and the best movie for my generation. Each time I watched that movie, I would see a different thing. So I want you to think about your favorite movie and, or v- your favorite comedy. Each time you'd watch it, you would pick up something else. So it was like, "Oh, I didn't see that that last time." So even when it comes to training, "Hey, I did this three-day class and I did it a year ago. I grew." Jimmy Lea: Do it again. Yeah. Tonnika Haynes: Do it again. Do it again. You, you're never too mu- uh, there's never too much coaching. So just do it again and you'll see it from a different angle. I just wanted to say that. Yeah, 'cause, um, there's been some classes that I, I take, and not just this one, but other classes, like, let me take that class again. Yeah. And you're like, "Aha. I didn't remember that from last time." Yeah. I didn't implement that from last time, 'cause we, you guys tell us, and coaches will tell you, "Just go and implement one thing. One thing." I mean, watch those changes, and then the next time you take the class, let's do one more thing, maybe two, and get, get a little bit better. Right. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. So speaking of training, ASTA, A-S-T-A, is coming up here real soon, Taneka. Real Tonnika Haynes: soon. We're less than 30 Jimmy Lea: days out. Let's give them a shout-out. Tonnika Haynes: Shout out to ASTA. Those are the people, not the people that made me, but it's my just one, my just one thing that I took away from there each time has helped build me to where I am. And I am, I cannot say I would not be where I was without them. But I would not be where I was, where I am without them. From those, those people that I met, the village that I met, meeting you, meeting my first coach, just meeting my, my industry brothers and sisters that I can call on at any time when I'm about to flip out, or when I have a win. 'Cause you know as owners and when, when you're a little higher, you can't share your wins with everybody without some jealousy. True. Yeah. So when you have a win and you have that community to call on. Mm-hmm. So yeah, ASTA is the place to be, September 24th to 26th, right here in Raleigh, North Carolina. So I hope somebody shows up. And, uh, I wanna meet some... Well, I know Jim. I'll be there. Jimmy will be there. You will not miss him. David Boyes: He'll have the jacket. Tonnika Haynes: He will have plenty of jackets on. It is a fun atmosphere, lots of community, lots of learning and growing. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. We're gonna have a jacket war, so anybody who wants to play. David, you're bringing your jacket, so David Boyes: who wore Jimmy Lea: it best? Yes. Yeah. David Boyes: Yeah. I, I wanted to make sure that we were gonna f- uh, be able to carve out some time to do the who wore it best. Tonnika Haynes: Oh, David Boyes: always. I think, so B- Benji will be involved. Brett will probably be involved, right? Mm-hmm. And, uh, you, you two- Mike Allen ... Mike, okay, Mike, yep. Tonnika Haynes: I, I, I feel like we should have a girls version of this, 'cause you know, if the women got involved- Jimmy Lea: We always lose Tonnika Haynes: I mean, we would just throw you guys under the bus. Jimmy Lea: It's true. We tried that, Tanika, and you swept it. Yeah. You swept it. There, there was no- Tonnika Haynes: I don't wanna do that to you guys ... competing with Jimmy Lea: Tanika. Tonnika Haynes: I don't wanna do... Yeah, I don't wanna do that to you, so we'll, we'll figure it out. Maybe I'll make a f- couple phone calls and text messages and see what's up. David Boyes: Yeah. Speaking of phone calls. Speaking of phone calls. Tonnika Haynes: Throw that back in. David Boyes: I have a question for you. Yeah. Yeah. That's, hey, I couldn't have asked for a better softball there, but that's great. Um- ... thinking, thinking about the coaching process, you know, I, I, I had mentioned before it can seem a little uncomfortable, even as an owner. You know, listen to two calls, because that first one, you're gonna be so- Mm-hmm ... consumed by how weird I sound on the phone, right? So, but when you, when you started this with your team, what, how was it received? What were some of the, the challenges, uh, do, you know, h- what feedback did you get about listening to calls and going through the analysis? Tonnika Haynes: So I wanna say that when I first did it in, in coaching, so in a group setting, and you're listening to your team, so they call in, they have to do a call and they'll record a call. And so it's like, "Oh, well this time she did this, and this is the excuse." You wanna come up with excuses. You wanna defend- Right yourself. I wanna defend my shop. And so that service advisor's gonna wanna defend him or herself. Like, "Oh, well, you know, that customer and this was that." I was like, "No." So you get past that, and it's like, okay, like I said, you give the sandwich. Okay, so this is a great call. You tell me what you could have done, could have done better in this call. Right. 'Cause I don't wanna be in... 'Cause if you go into attack mode and say, "Oh, you should do this better, and you didn't follow the script, and you, you, you, you, you," you're gonna get somebody that's gonna put up a guard and be like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. I did my best." So I'll say, "I know you did your best on this, this one call, and you did a great job on this call. What happened, brother?" Balls in your court. Tell me how you can improve on this. Mm. What do you need from me to help you improve here? Was there a distraction? What was, what was the problem? So I kinda feel like I can teach them to self-coach. Jimmy Lea: Yep. Tonnika Haynes: I'm, I'ma give you a whole toolbox. You've got this toolbox. You know what a good call to- sounds like. Like, you also have a mirror. There's a mirror right there. Look at yourself. You've got reminders. I've got sticky note reminders on each, each person saying, "Don't forget to ask for the sale." What happened? "Oh, man, I was distracted, I sh- I should've..." Yep, you should've put the mouse down. You should've put the mouse down. So usually people will first get defensive, same. Mm-hmm. Um, then the defense mechanism starts to come down. Say, "All right, okay, so how do we fix this so next time I cannot find a bad phone call?" Jimmy Lea: Bingo. David Boyes: Yeah. Jimmy Lea: I love it. It, yeah. I love that you have a mirror there and you have sticky notes there helping as well, Taneka. Tonnika Haynes: Yeah. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. That's, that's so good. ' Tonnika Haynes: Cause we forget. And- And it's okay- Oh, we do ... 'cause we get busy. But the Jimmy Lea: more Tonnika Haynes: we work on it- And I, Jimmy Lea: I, you... I'm certain that you guys have heard this before, that a fake smile is better than a real frown. Tonnika Haynes: Yes. David Boyes: Yep. Tonnika Haynes: Yes. And I'm really good at that. And so I've learned that because I've been doing it a very long time, so people know that I can really make you... I could, like, really fuss you out, and I would sound so sweet 'cause I'm smiling at you the whole time. "Well, you know what, Jamie? I think that was the stupidest thing you've ever said." Jimmy Lea: And if you do it with a smile, you can Tonnika Haynes: get away with it. And you're doing it with a smile and, and when you're shaking your head. So that smile makes a difference. And when I'm- It does ... picking up the phone out of an emergency, if they are busy up front and I'll see that phone ringing, and I pick it up and I'm not ready personally, I'm not ready to answer that phone, and it's a client that knows me, and I'm not smiling, I will get a, "Hey, Taneka, what's wrong?" You Jimmy Lea: okay? 'Cause Tonnika Haynes: they, "You okay?" And I'll say, "Oh, I'm sorry. I was distracted." 'Cause that's usually what happens, you're distracted, or that service, that, um, technician just rubbed you the wrong way or something's happened at home. So but once you put that smile on- You just fake it till you make it. And now you, I usually don't like to say that, but sometimes you do have to fake it till you make it. Like, yeah, absolutely. And use those words of, those positive words. Absolutely. Let's look into that for you. Yeah. Yeah. Jimmy Lea: Sure. I love it. Love it. We talk about the phone call and how much it's worth. Uh, Bimmer PhD Motorsports is saying, "Can we dig into that a little bit?" How much does it cost to get that phone to ring? How much does it cost to acquire a new customer? You talk about the mindset and you talk about the service advisor- Mm-hmm ... and the smile that's needed to be there, fake or real. How much is that phone call worth, Tanika? Have you analyzed any of that in your shop? Tonnika Haynes: So that was actually a, um, something we did in the 20 group with my coach Jen. We went through that and we calculated how much it costs to sh- get that phone to ring. And I really wish I was prepared and I had that number for you. But once you realize that number, share it with your team. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Tonnika Haynes: And then, uh, the institute probably has, um, a blueprint on how to figure that out. So you're looking at how much your website is, your Go- Google ads, any form of marketing that you have out there, down to the phone bill. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Tonnika Haynes: How much does it cost to make that phone ring? And once you see it as the owner, you're gonna be like, "Whoa." And you share that with the team. Like, every time that phone rings, it costs me this. And then also think about your ARO. Jimmy Lea: Mm-hmm. Bingo. Tonnika Haynes: And every time- Yep, yep ... we do not get a y- yes, and we don't get that client through the door, we lost $850. Potential $850, potential $1,100. Jimmy Lea: Yep. Tonnika Haynes: So once we start thinking about, you know, everything, everything's not about money. It is That Jimmy Lea: we keep score. Tonnika Haynes: It is how we keep score. Yeah. Like, you know, we, we talk about we've got the metrics on the dashboard. Numbers don't lie. People do. Your emotions will. David Boyes: Yeah. Tonnika Haynes: It costs me $75 every time that phone rings. Mm-hmm. And when you ring it, and when you land that deal, that's a potential 850, or whatever your ARO is, or whatever- Yeah ... that's what it is. And that's, and how long does it take to get that one client to get through the door? Yeah. And also think about how long you can hold onto them as a client. How many years Jimmy Lea: are you gonna- Tonnika Haynes: What's the lifetime value of the client? What's the lifetime of that client? Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Tonnika Haynes: So that smile when you answer the phone, yeah, that's worth a lot of money. Jimmy Lea: Tens of thousands of dollars. Tonnika Haynes: Tens of thousands. So go ahead and put your Vaseline on your teeth- Jimmy Lea: Mm-hmm ... Tonnika Haynes: and, and start a- smiling. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. That's an old theater trick. Yes. Are you a, are you a musical theater person? Tonnika Haynes: No, but I just know about- Where are you pulling that from? ... Vaseline on your teeth and, 'cause you get tired of smiling. You, you know, at the conference, you have this whole muscle thing. You're like... Jimmy Lea: Uh, yeah. Tonnika Haynes: Keep s- keep, just keep smiling, smiling, smiling. Jimmy Lea: That's right, David Boyes: Dorothy. Those are important numbers, uh, to know how much does it cost to get that phone to ring. Tonnika Haynes: Mm-hmm. David Boyes: Uh, in some cases it can be, uh, you know, several hundred dollars depending on really all of those factors around generating those phone calls, and then what that ties into when the phone does ring, um, and we don't ask for the appointment. Has that $850 or $1,100 just walked over to my competitor across town? Yeah. But it also sets the stage when we're talking about coaching and development to bring it back to what's in it for me. As a service advisor, you know, most high performing shops are incentivizing their advisors on these, you know, these GP numbers and, you know, there might be other metrics on Google reviews, maybe have spiffs for these different things. It all requires us to generate the appointments and get those vehicles in so that we can have an inspection and we can, you know, generate the, the estimate and ultimately have a sale, and then make this an amazing experience for the customer so they're gonna come back next time. Tonnika Haynes: Mm-hmm. David Boyes: Uh, at the very front end of the phone call, you know, it, it takes X number of dollars to make the phone ring. When that phone rings, the customer, if they're a first time caller- Uh, they're likely y- we as, as a business are likely setting the stage within that first 15 to 20 seconds for the length of our relationship. So based on those initial interactions, we're going to begin setting the stage of how well this customer visit is going to go, uh, how much that we're developing trust with this customer. Do they trust me as an advisor? Do they trust this business, that we're experts and we're gonna help them, and we're gonna do so in a, in a fair and meaningful way? And then also, uh, we're going to set that basis for a repeat customer. Jimmy Lea: Mm-hmm. David Boyes: So that, that's where we get into the, the longevity of our relationship. Interestingly enough, so much of this happens at the very first moments of that very first phone call. And when we acknowledge that as a service advisor, I'm like, "Oh, that does tie back to the paycheck I get." As a business owner, "Wow, that ties back into the stickiness of my customers." I love, you know, repeat customers. I love repeat business. So we wanna drive these skills up front. Uh, Taneka, you talked about, you know, sitting down and going through, um, some of these calls and the, the service advisor reaction. Have you really developed and, you know, share your expectations on how you'd like the, the phone answered? I'm not asking about a script. Tonnika Haynes: Mm-hmm. David Boyes: But like that flow, right? We don't wanna create robots. Right. What have you done at, when you, you know, train and develop your team on here's what I would like to hear from you? Tonnika Haynes: So I haven't honed that in 100%, but I, I do know that we wanna thank them for calling. David Boyes: Mm-hmm. Tonnika Haynes: We wanna know how did you find out about us? Great. Is this your first time calling? How'd you hear about us? So, so we can track that, right? Yeah. Was it a repeat? Was it a neighbor? Was it a Google? How did you... Was it a postcard? How did you hear about me? Um, what can I help you with, and how soon can I get to it? Can you bring that in today or tomorrow? And, um, and smile. So I have these little things that I want them to say that's on the side- Yeah ... of their computer, and I don't want you to sit there and read and just say, "Oh, well, yes, sir, how can I help you today?" I want it to flow naturally because that's who we are as a shop. We- we're not a scripted shop. We're, we're a bunch of goofy people, actually. People. We just happen to fix cars. Um, and that's who we are. Yeah. And I want that to come through. I want you to be friendly. I want you to re- when they come in with the cat or the dog or whatever, please not a cat, but the dog. I want you to put in the notes, this is, this is that customer's name and this is what their dog's name. If they refer to their, their car, "My car's name is Pearline." If you called my car by his name, I'm not taking it nowhere else So I want you to build that relationship. And so I don't have a script and I don't have a formula yet, and maybe I should work on that. And, um, we do have like a SOP. Yeah. Probably should do a better job at that. But then what you just said made me raise my eyebrow, like, I should do better with that. But we do have some things that I'm, that are non-negotiables. David Boyes: You've got your flow there, which is great. Mm-hmm. And I think you're, you're doing better in that than, than- Yeah ... uh, some owners that, that we talk with. I encourage, I encourage everybody to have a flow, right? Yeah. We, we wanna kind of go through the conversation. I'll tell you the number one, um, deficit that I hear within the first probably 10 seconds of a phone call is asking for the customer name, right? So- Right ... "Thank you for calling ABC Automotive. How may I help you? Um, yeah, I can help you with that. My name's David. What's your name?" Jimmy Lea: Mm. David Boyes: It's so simple. Yeah. And, uh, I listen to call after call after call. I mean, these, they, they pop out because of our AI call analysis, but where we go through this whole process and we've had a 90-second call or a two-minute-long phone call, and at no point ask the customer name. Tonnika Haynes: Right. And then you assume that the name on a caller ID is their name. David Boyes: Mm-hmm. Right. Tonnika Haynes: That, that's a problem, too. I know that we were doing... I was doing it as well. Yeah. I would do it as well. David Boyes: Yeah. Tonnika Haynes: But, um, and, and with that, I had a little challenge saying, "Hey, I want to see you guys' name on the, the review." Yeah. And it really bothers me when a client calls to check on their car, and I have to, have to answer the phone, "Hey, who was your service advisor?" "Uh, I don't know." What? David Boyes: Mm. Tonnika Haynes: They need to know your name. David Boyes: Mm. Tonnika Haynes: So I had to make sure that everybody had their own business cards when the car was dropped off. "Hey, my name is Stuart. This is who you should call to check on your car. Everybody here can help you, but I'm the main person." So I think a lot of people just don't do that, and say, "Hey, well, my name's Tanika. Who am I speaking with?" Great. "Have you been here with us before?" David Boyes: Mm-hmm. Tonnika Haynes: You know, if it doesn't pop up on the caller ID, "Have you been here with us before?" Yeah. But the caller ID pop up, that's a game changer. Am I skipping ahead? Should we not go that far yet? David Boyes: No, you're fine. Yeah. Tonnika Haynes: Thank you, David. Yeah, just be ready. Yeah, be ready when, when David Voigts calls Brown's Automotive, and you call and say, "Brown's Automotive. This is Tanika. Hey, David, how can I help you today?" What is that? What are you doing? You knew I was calling. You know, like- Yeah ... yeah, caller ID exists. People forget about that. David Boyes: Yeah. Tonnika Haynes: But- They do. They do. But it, it's just extra special. Yeah. And that's what the caller ID... I know one thing I do when the customer's walking in, and if I know I have a blue Toyota Coro- Corolla coming in at 9:00. "Who is this coming in?" Yeah. "Hey, Mrs. Such-and-such. Good morning. Oh, hey." Instead of saying, "Can I help you?" Yes, you can help me. That's why I walked through the door. David Boyes: Mm-hmm. " Tonnika Haynes: Hey, M- hey, Mary David Boyes: Jane." Or, "Hang on a second. I'll be with you in a second." Tonnika Haynes: Yeah. No. David Boyes: Don't do that. Tonnika Haynes: Don't do that. David Boyes: Yeah. Tonnika Haynes: So, um, there's a lot to be said about customer service, and there's a lot to be said about s- calling people by their name. Jimmy Lea: Amen. Tonnika Haynes: Yeah. David Boyes: It creates familiarity. Yes. And, uh, when, when we have familiarity, we have a relationship. Mm-hmm. It's in- it's potentially implied. But people love to do business with, with the, the folks that they have a relationship with. Mm-hmm. And they're inclined... You know, this is the fun thing about consumer behavior and human behavior, is when I have a great experience, I wanna rally my friends around that too. I want to include them in the joy that I get to experience when I come see Tanika and her team. Yeah. So I'm gonna- I, I'm gonna be much more likely to tell folks about it. If I have a meh- Meh ... average experience, it's probably not gonna come up in conversation. I'm not gonna stick my neck out there. But, um, how do we do that? Well, we address people by their name. We know when they're calling, right? I might even be pulling that up in my shop management system or my CRM. Just the s- the second the phone rings, it's gonna pop and present that information. "Yeah, I saw you were in three, three months ago, and we had looked at, you know, X, Y, Z on your vehicle. Should we add, add some additional time to take care of that this time?" Right? It, we have an awareness. They have confidence in us. We know them as a person. We know their vehicles. And now we're, we're joining together with our customers. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, at, at a common goal, right? And it comes back to their safety. Well, Tonnika Haynes: so what'll happen is you'll get a client, and, um... Sorry about the background noise. That's all right. You'll get a client, and they're not thinking about their car. They, they, they've grown to love you. They've grown to know you. They know you by your name. And then you made the recommendations last time. They trust you enough that they are just gonna be like, "Okay, whatever. I'll talk to you about it next time. Tanika's gonna remember that for me." Say, "Hey, Miss Mary Jane, you remember we talked about..." "I don't remember we talking about." "Well, here's a copy. I'm gonna send that over to you. We're gonna look at it, these things again." Yeah. It's just like having a whole system, and then you become that person. It's like I don't have to remember what my car needs 'cause Tanika and her team have the history, and they know me by my name. David Boyes: Mm-hmm. Tonnika Haynes: Right. And they're gonna take care of me. David Boyes: The paradigm shift there is I, you know, as a service advisor, I'm the expert. Tonnika Haynes: Mm-hmm. David Boyes: As the service manager, I'm the expert, right? You've come to me because of our and my expertise, and I'm sharing the belief that you wanna be safe and you wanna care for your vehicle. So allow me to make these recommendations. Allow me to, to keep that, those notes about our previous interactions so that when we meet to, when we meet again, we can make sure that w- you know, we're, we're not starting from zero- Tonnika Haynes: Mm-hmm David Boyes: that we already have this information available, and we're going to improve that experience. Tonnika Haynes: Yeah. David Boyes: Um, on the, on the call coaching side of it, um, you know, I, I think at some level you've kinda normalized it in your shop, and I'd love to learn more about how, you know, how did you do that? It's, it's not typical, I would say, that people are just, like, rallying around, "Let's listen to calls," right? 'Cause part of it is, you know, the exposure or this kind of fear of judgment. But once you normalize that and make it consistent, um, I'd love to know how you've done that and, and keep the, uh, the Big Brother mentality out the door. Tonnika Haynes: Well, I don't, well, we've got cameras, and we've got these things recording the calls. And, and first of all, these calls are not being recorded to get you. These calls are recor- Yeah ... recorded to cover your butts from that crazy person that swear they didn't say it. Mm-hmm. These calls are recorded to make you better. Um, I remember Chad say, "Hey, just put it on the calendar. Just put it on the calendar." It's like ha- having that one-on-one for the first time. Nobody knows what to say or to do. I'm not trying to attack you. I'm just trying to make you better. So let's just... I listened to my call. Be vulnerable. Me. Hey, Jimmy Lea: Yeah ... Tonnika Haynes: you don't wanna listen to your call. I didn't wanna listen to my own call. But let's, let's do this. It's just on the calendar. And like I said, the defense will just break down a little bit at a time, and I found that with my one-on-ones again. Like, we do a first Monday one-on-one. If I was late or if I skipped the one-on-one, they're like, "Well, why did, I didn't get my one-on-one. Am I in trouble?" They look forward to it. Everybody wants positive reinforcement. Amen. So if you keep it positive, and then some- like, "Hey, I looked at 10 of your calls, and out of the 10, only 3 of them were coachable." Or, "Hey, you remember when we started out, how you would have, like, a 11 bad calls out of 20? Dude, you only got two this time." So make sure we measure it, okay? Schedule it, measure it, keep it going. Know you're uncomfortable, they're uncomfortable, and just say- I don't wanna do this. Nobody wants to do it. Nobody wants to lift that... Well, a lot of people don't wanna lift the heaviest weight for the muscle gain. Mm-hmm. It's gonna be painful, but it's gonna get easier. It's gonna be easier for me and you as the coach and the coachee, or is it a coachee? Whatever. So, I mean, it, it's... I don't know if there's an easy way to put it, but I just know that you just keep doing it, you be consistent, and you let them know if you're uncomfortable. Like I hear shop owners say, "How do you start this one-on-one stuff? How do you start this coaching stuff?" You just start it. And you're just like, "Ooh, hey, I don't know what I'm doing either. Let's do this together." Yeah. "Let's, let's get better together." Like, I'm listening to my calls too. We're all getting better together. So I would just say start it, put it on a schedule, make it, make it pop up, show up. Yeah. Wednesday, coaching calls. Jimmy, one of the- Schedule it. It's ready to go. David Boyes: Yeah. That, that's perfect. I, I, I love the perspective too. And Jimmy, one of the, you know, the things that I share with owners consistently is be consistent. Mm-hmm. So I think the, the technology drives that, right? We're delivering an email with, you know, here, here's a, a top call, here's a coachable call. Here's some additional information. So delivering that is important, and the technology really helps us drive that consistency in this case. So, um, when that, that email comes out, here's a call example, you don't have to do anything with that today, or you can. If you don't, there's another one tomorrow, right? Mm-hmm. And we wanna create that normalcy. And th- this is the part that drives change, is one, you know, we're, we're making this normal. Yep. And Tanika, you were just talking about that, right? We're gonna put this on the calendar. People begin to expect it, right? It becomes normal for them, and that's a super important milestone in the coaching, training, and development process, is that sense of normalcy in the shop. And then, um, u- understanding the expectations and, you know, where do we have the opportunities. Um, Tanika, you know, one, one thought that comes to mind here is, you know, you'd mentioned at the beginning, like ask for the appointment. As you began doing this, you know, what, what did you begin to understand and, and see happening across, you know, the phone calls and across your organization? What patterns began to emerge? And really, what's that aha moment you had where you're like, "This is bringing value to me while I'm bringing value to my team"? Tonnika Haynes: Ooh, that's a good question. So when we start asking for the appointment, you know what? The calendar filled up. David Boyes: Yeah. Tonnika Haynes: Yeah. So the marketing was working. And, um, but the big aha moment... Ooh, that's a good question, Dave. You got me on that one. Should have text me that before you asked me that one. I'd been ready. David Boyes: My Tonnika Haynes: apologies. Phone with you. Aha moments with phone calls. I don't know. I, I really, I can't answer that one for you, but what I do wanna say before I forget the chance, don't get the chance to say it, when they're sitting beside each other up front and they're lis- 'cause they're, everybody can hear everybody's phone calls. Mm-hmm. I can hear them say, "That was a good one. What was that one about?" Or like Stuart would tell Hailey, he's like, "She's, she's had a lot of good phone calls here lately. I can hear the change in the way she's handling the phone calls." So again, um, may have got a little bit off subject, but them helping each other and encouraging each other. Maybe they can only hear one end of the phone call, but there's some key words like, "Oh, you killed that one." Jimmy Lea: Yeah. " Tonnika Haynes: You killed that one." Or making that sale on the phone call. Yeah. "I heard how you delivered that BVI. I heard that delivery. You gave them the good sandwich," and they said yes. Like this morning, she was like, "She said yes to everything." It's like, "God, it's working." Imagine that. Love it. Imagine doing a training, following the instructions, and it actually working. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Gotta David Boyes: love that. It really is the aha moment too, right? Tonnika Haynes: Yeah. David Boyes: You're, you're going through, you're driving consistency. You have, you know, some form of flow and expectations, and you're learning from one another. I love the fact that- Mm-hmm ... they're listening at least to one side of each other's conversations- Right ... in real time. Tonnika Haynes: I David Boyes: think I'm lucky Tonnika Haynes: with that- And then getting to populate from that ... with my team. David Boyes: Yeah. Tonnika Haynes: I think I'm lucky with my, 'cause they're, they're not in competition, and, um, it's like how do you keep them... I don't know. God blessed me with that, but I'm just lucky that way. But encouraging each other- So. Jimmy Lea: It's good. That's good, Tanika. You, you've set up a solid culture there, solid people. They've got great results. You're listening to the phone calls. Consistency, like David's talking about. You know, um, hearing one side of the conversation helps a little bit, but if you, if you, as an owner, if you're only listening to half the conversation and you are not booked up three, four, five, six, seven, eight days in advance, chances are you're missing the other half of the conversation, and you need to listen to it. So you do need a device, a program, a, a hardware. You need a, a phone system that allows you to listen to all sides- Mm-hmm ... of the conversation. You've g- just gotta be able to do that. You gotta be able to do that. Now I'm gonna give another shout-out here as we work in our marketing. So a lot of times I hear shops talking about their marketing. "Well, my marketing's not working. I'm not... It's not working. It's not working." A lot of times it comes back to the phone call. Mm-hmm. How well is the phone call being handled or treated from an advisor? But speaking to the marketing part, we've got a shout-out here for the institute is holding a marketing intensive this October 26, 27, 28. Tanika, I just got off the phone with Brett Faidley. He is signed up. He is coming out for Mars Conference, so if you wanna get signed up as well, sister, we'd love to have you out here. Tonnika Haynes: I gotta get a real flashy jacket for that one. Jimmy Lea: Uh-huh. Tonnika Haynes: Pull out my Jimmy Lea: rhinestones. Right behind that Mars Conference. So if you got your smartphone there in front of you, grab out your smartphone, turn on your camera. There's the QR code right there. Oh, man. Flash the QR code and get registered. The, the, uh, the Mars Conference is going to be awesome. It is a conference where when you are done with the workshops, it's a three-day conference. When you're done with that three-day conference, you have 2027 mapped out, ready to go, and you know what you're gonna be doing month to month throughout that whole next year. It's super awesome. I, I love the Mars Conference. David Boyes: I do too. So Jimmy Lea: come- David Boyes: I was at the last one. Excited to be there. I'm, let me just say I was there as a participant at the last Mars Conference. Tonnika Haynes: Mm-hmm. David Boyes: And, uh, one, getting to, you know, to interact with so many, uh, friends across the industry was great, but also, uh, you know, I, I, I don't own a shop. I own a, uh, communication business. I took so much away from that that I immediately applied. I can speak from my own experience. Uh, and I know, uh, you know, many of the participants there that took those components right back to their shop and made immediate changes. So it is, uh, it's not just a, um, it's not just a workshop where you're gonna come away with a flashy workbook and put that in a dusty cabinet somewhere and never do anything with it. I promise you, you attend the Mars Conference, and, uh, you will come away energized and ready to make a real difference in your shop Jimmy Lea: Yep, for sure. For sure. Tonnika Haynes: All right. Like I s- I'm never gonna be at work if I keep coming, following you around, Jimmy. David Boyes: Just imagine your wardrobe, though. Tonnika Haynes: Oh, I know. It'd be so good. Jimmy Lea: It'd be so good. Tonnika Haynes: But no, we'll see. I, I'm thinking about that. I thought about what we talked about the other day, but we're not gonna get off subject 'cause I do that a lot. David Boyes: It can happen. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. David, what else? What else can we talk about with phones, phone systems, programs? Um, can we track our marketing using your phone system? David Boyes: Yeah. Uh, just on that very note, you know, the, uh, uh, we'll talk about this a little bit this year at Mars as well, but, you know, market tracking is important, right? We, we spend a lot of money, and understanding the performance, uh, is important. So with our phone system, you know, we can provide, uh, market tracking numbers if you have different campaigns, mailers, text messaging, website, uh, related, uh, leads that you're generating. Um, we can certainly provide unique numbers. The customer experience is the same, and the, um, you know, the shop experience is the same, except you have all of this additional data about, you know, how many calls were generated. So that's important to know, and, uh, it's also important to, uh, use that as a, you know, a good baseline of information about your capacity to manage phone calls in your shop. So when we look at some of the, uh, the other performance metrics, how long does it take us to answer the phone? Are we answering the phone, right? Jimmy Lea: Mm. David Boyes: In order to ask somebody for the appointment, we have to first answer the phone. Uh, and if you're spending this money on marketing campaigns, there are a variety of reasons, and I'll just tell you one example that I hear often from owners is, you know, they put out a marketing number and they, you know, advisors, uh, might believe that it's, you know, it's generating bad leads, something like that, so they won't answer that phone. Um, but we wanna, we wanna understand, uh, the behavior of what's going on. Is it something that we can control? Um, are, are we effective in the marketing campaign? What information do I have around that? And then additionally, uh, running that into the call analysis, uh, so that we understand are we, are we converting these, right? If we're generating the leads, are we actually generating appointments? And then, uh, from that point, if you know you have the appointment, you can measure your performance, uh, go forward. So there's a lot of data that we can capture, um, other than just sending in all of these phone calls to the main number. Jimmy Lea: I love it. David Boyes: Mm-hmm. Jimmy Lea: I love it. I love the, the phone is such a powerful tool. I love when we can multitask that tool and do multiple things with the, the same tool. Very cool. Very cool. But i- if there a- any questions, comments, concerns from our audience, we would love for you to type those in. If there's questions for David or questions for Tamika, go ahead and type those into the comments section. While they're doing that, I will say if you are trying to keep up with me, good luck. But you can find it on our website. The website page is, uh, wearetheinstitute.com/events. That's all of the events that are coming up here in the very near future where you will see the institute participating and locking arms with the industry to help elevate the industry. Our motto, our mantra is, better business, better life, better industry. We're gonna lock arms with you as a shop owner so that you have a better business. The net result of you having a better business is that you have a better life. Tonnika Haynes: Mm-hmm. Jimmy Lea: And not just you have a better life, your advisors have a better life, your technicians have a better life. Your, uh, your partners have a better life. Your spouse Your advisors' significant others, their spouses, uh, their, their technicians and their spouses, the, and their children. Everyone elevates, everyone breathes better, everyone sees a bluer sky and greener grass when we have a better business, a better life, and our commitment is that we will help this become a better industry. Looks like there's a couple of comments that did come through. Oh, no, that's Raleigh posting out the webpage for the events. Yeah. Uh, super awesome. Super awesome. Uh, last final thoughts, final ideas. David, we'll start with you. Tanika, then to you. Yeah. That we can help this industry grow. David Boyes: Tanika, thank you for joining today and, and sharing your experience. It's super valuable for, for me as a provider to our industry that, uh, we understand how we're driving impact. So thank you again for that. Thank you for your trust and support. For the, uh, the audience, uh, Call Inbound is our company, callinbound.com. Uh, we provide communication services, uh, call tracking information, uh, advisor call handling performance metrics, and AI call analysis. But above all, we're part of the industry, right? So, uh, I got my start with, uh, with the institute in a 20 group. Got, you know, very ingrained in the industry, uh, while I was building my company. And, um, you know, I'm proud to say that I'm part of the, uh, not just the automotive aftermarket, but the, the service repair industry. Thank you, Tonnika Haynes: gentlemen. I wanna make, make sure you know that I appreciate your company. Um, I don't know how many employees you have, but it seems like they're all just sitting in the same room waiting to help. I can send an email and I get a response so quickly, and it's always been consistent great service, so I do appreciate that. And, uh, anybody that's on the fence, whether you, you know, I'm like, "I don't wanna listen to phone calls, that's just another thing for me to need to..." Do it. Listen to the phone calls. Start with yourself. Start with yourself as the owner. I always say start, start with yourself. I always assume that I'm the problem, then I can work from there. Listen to your phone calls, and if you think you're good and then you listen to them, you realize how bad you are, think about how bad your team is if you're not coaching them. So get them in coaching call services or what- whatever. Listen to the phone calls. Get everything in order. And not only will you make better sales and better connections, more appointments, but I really truly believe that it could save you a lot of heartache. Yeah, they record bad calls, too. Bad calls from the other end that you're, you know, that you need, I hate to say for court, but anything. It's like, "Hey, sir, we've got that call recorded and that didn't go quite the way you're saying it's gonna go." So that's another part to it that could, that could be very important in your shop. We call that David Boyes: the replay booth. Tonnika Haynes: Yeah. Jimmy Lea: Yeah. Yeah. David Boyes: We'll take that to the replay booth. Tonnika Haynes: Yeah. Jimmy Lea: It, it, it's an important to CYA. Exactly. You gotta cover your own behind. Tonnika Haynes: There's a great... That's a great tool for that. Jimmy Lea: Yep. Yep. Yep, for sure. Well, with that, thank you very much. David, thank you for being here. Taneka, thank you very much for being here. Tonnika Haynes: Any Jimmy Lea: time. Look forward to seeing both of you very soon at our next conference, and to give you a big hug and say hello. Uh, bring your best jackets, David. Say Tonnika Haynes: less. Gotcha. Say less. Back in the David Boyes: studio. Jimmy Lea: Yes, yes. Very much looking forward to working with all of you in the very near future. And for everyone that is listening, thank you so much for joining us today as we talk about building a better business, a better life, and a better industry. My name is Jimmie Lee. I'm with the Institute for Automotive Business Excellence, and we're here to lock arms with you and make a difference. Click on it. Come find us. We're here to help. How can we help you? Let's make a difference. Talk to you soon.
Top 5 Qualities of a Genuine Service Advisor [RR 1106]
Thanks to our Partners, NAPA Auto Care and NAPA TRACS Watch Full Video Episode What makes a good service advisor great? Levi Linseman, performance coach at Autoflow, shares the five human qualities that separate a good service advisor from a truly trusted professional. With 25 years of automotive experience, including 15 years at the service desk, Levi explains why eye contact, a smile, warmth, caring, and humility can turn everyday transactions into long-term customer relationships. The conversation also explores sophisticated professionalism, the role of AI in the customer experience, proactive communication, hiring for coachability, and why the best advisors know when to simply say, "I don't know." What You'll Learn The 5 qualities that define a genuine service advisor.How admitting mistakes can actually increase customer trust.Why AI should support the service advisor, not replace the human connection.How digital vehicle inspections can improve transparency and communication.Why coachability and continuous learning are essential for advisors.How proactive communication reduces customer anxiety.Why setting clear expectations can dramatically improve the customer experience.What shop owners should look for when hiring their next service advisor. Great service advisors do more than sell repairs. They build trust, reduce anxiety, communicate with honesty, and make customers feel cared for. Technology can make the process more efficient, but genuine human connection remains one of the most powerful advantages a shop can offer. Levi Linseman, Performance Coach, Autoflow Learn more about the benefits of being part of the NAPA family by visiting https://www.napaonline.com/en/auto-care NAPA TRACS will move your shop into the SMS fast lane with on-site training and six days a week of support: http://napatracs.com/ Connect with the Podcast: Download Our Mobile App:https://automotiverepairpodcastnetwork.com/app/Website:https://remarkableresults.biz/YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/carmcapriottoFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/RemarkableResultsRadioPodcast/LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/carmcapriotto/Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/remarkableresultsradiopodcast/Join Our Virtual Toastmasters Club:https://remarkableresults.biz/toastmastersJoin Our Private Facebook Community:https://www.facebook.com/groups/1734687266778976Join our Insider List:https://remarkableresults.biz/insiderBooks Page:https://remarkableresults.biz/booksOur Classroom Page:https://remarkableresults.biz/classroomEpisode Collections:https://remarkableresults.biz/collectionsBuy Me a Coffee:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/carm The Automotive Repair Podcast Network: https://automotiverepairpodcastnetwork.com/ Remarkable Results Radio Podcastwith Carm Capriotto:https://remarkableresults.biz/Automotive Field TheorywithMatt Fanslow:https://mattfanslow.captivate.fm/Business by the NumberswithHunt Demarest: https://huntdemarest.captivate.fm/The Auto Repair Marketing Podcastwith Brian and Kim Walker: https://autorepairmarketing.captivate.fm/The Weekly Blitzwith Chris Cotton: https://chriscotton.captivate.fm/Speak Up! Effective Communicationwith Craig O'Neill: https://craigoneill.captivate.fm