Detective Mind Mapping: A Forensic Approach to Automotive Diagnostics [RR 1089]

0:00This is the Automotive Repair Podcast Network. Hey everybody, Carm Capriato, Remarkable Results Radio. We're at the TST Big Event, the 23rd annual. This morning I had the honor to listen to Andrew Fisher. You all know I'm not a specialist. I don't own a toolbox, although I have a lot of really cool tools to keep the house in order. And I was really fascinated by all the things that he was covering.

0:28And I know a lot of you know Andrew Fisher. We're going to talk to him here in a few minutes. Don't forget about the cool— we've been working on it for about a year, our app for your smartphone. Please put it on there. All the episodes that we produce, which are 7 a week, and all the shows, they're all on there. You can save, you can share, you can watch video all at once.

0:48It's a singular home for some of the best content in the automotive professional repair industry. And also, thank you so much to our great sponsors. Are you looking to take your shop to the next level? With NAPA Autocare, you can deliver unbeatable customer confidence through the Peace of Mind Warranty. Learn how to upgrade your service and grow your business. Connect with your local NAPA rep today.

1:12Hey, for over 30 years, NAPA TRAX has made selecting the right shop management system easy by offering the best, most comprehensive SMS in the industry. We'll prove to you that TRAX is the single best shop management system In the business. Find Napa Tracks on the web at napatracks.com. Hey, welcome back. I'm with Andrew Fisher. Hello, Andrew. How's it going, Carl? Good. Shop manager out in Northwest Indiana.

1:41And the name of the shop is? It's Curgissons Automotive. So think of Ferguson with the C. Curgissons. How long you been there? I've been over there almost 3 years now. 3 years. I've been there 3 years. And you're doing all this traveling, all these training. I mean, you just did a 3-hour seminar here at the TST Big Event. What was the title of that that I just watched?

2:01I did OBD Diagnostics with OBD. So we went back to kind of bringing back technology that was talked about a lot 20 years ago, but I feel it, it needed to be talked about again. You know, we got a lot of young technicians coming up. The feedback in the room was really off the charts. Yeah, it was amazing. I was— it's humbling because they grab you, they talk to you about it, and I was really nervous.

2:20I didn't know how well received this was gonna be. I have a lot of takeaways from what I heard you say. And no, this isn't necessarily gonna be an episode on technology except for the fact that Andrew believes in continuing education. He'll tell you how many hours he thinks you should have and the methodology that Andrew uses to solve problems, to come up with a great diagnosis.

2:46You landed in almost every great point today that I think top shops need to know and understand and respect. You started off your speech by honoring someone who has been a great mentor to you, and we're going to interview Ken while we're here. That's awesome. Who? Ken? Who? Ken? Ken Zanders. Uh, you know, he's a gem of a person. I'm sure you guys could hear the emotion.

3:09He's just, you know, I wouldn't be where I'm at without Ken. 30 years I've known Ken. So basically I asked Andrew before we started, I said, So if you're in this business for 30 years and you don't look a day over 38 or 39, how did that happen? And he told me. Go ahead, tell us. So my grandfather was a shade tree.

3:28So he worked at a paint manufacturing facility in South Chicago Heights, but he loved cars. But more importantly, he loved the diagnostic end of cars. So he ran a makeshift shop out of his garage. And I don't know how it ever came about, but he got linked up with Ken when Ken was still teaching for Delco out in the Chicagoland area. And Grandpa was a old school Pollock.

3:48He couldn't read his own handwriting. So you have 5, 6-year-old me with not much better handwriting go and take notes. And the rest is history. I mean, it's surreal when you think about it and you think it's been this long, but Ken's, you know, just been a, just a huge influence in me, the way I present. I always joke, you'll hear Kenny-isms when I speak.

4:07Yeah. It's just great. There's really no words to put my affection for Ken. One of the most humble guys in the industry. And so many of the things that it seems to me that you're out there sharing— you're not the sage on the stage. I just look, you're the most humble guy. You say, hey, you may have better answers than I, but let me share with you how I interpret, how I diagnose.

4:30But you said some like important things, like you can't become a top-tier diag person without continuing education. And it doesn't matter how you get it. Tell us how many hours you believe in. Tell me of all the input areas that you can get your education from. You know, I'm a big believer of 40 hours is always thrown around. You hear a lot of us technical trainers talk about it.

4:53A lot of shop owners do. I feel that's a minimum. 40 hours minimum a year for continued education. But it's not always your butt planted in a seat either. You get a new tool or you get a new product you've never seen before, you put in 10, 15 minutes a day trying to get better. I mean, think of it like a musical instrument.

5:11You spend 15 minutes a day getting better. At the end of the year, how much better are you? Between all the other resources— I mean, Scanner Danner, you can't speak enough about Paul. You know, you've got those resources. You hear the excuses all the time. I don't have time to train. I don't have time to go to these events. The amount of online stuff that's given out for free.

5:31I mean, WorldPAC does their Lunch and Learns an hour a week and it's free. I mean, you're talking outside of holidays about 48 to 50 free events, 50 hours that you can attend just doing that during your lunch break. Okay, let me stop you for a moment. You told a great story about you go into the bathroom, you do your 20-minute throne thing, and if you were watching Paul, for example, Scanner Danner, then get it onto your chart for that.

5:56You spent 15 minutes in a learning curve. Part of, I think, was your point is if you're going to do your own personal case studies, and not as because you want to go out and be a teacher, but if you record the things that you're learning, you could always search and go back and find out maybe there is a quick shortcut in how I diagnose this particular vehicle.

6:17You got to write down the kind of education that you're getting, number one. But number 2, where's the shop owner in this commitment to education? Listen, 40 to 60 hours. Is the owner on board? Are there enough owners on board to make that happen? I think so. You hesitated. I did. I did. So, you know, it's as a trainer that I'm blessed.

6:39I get to travel the country. So being at these events, you see the exception, not the norm. So from what I see from my perspective, I think there's more of it out there than we realize. But we still got a long way to go. You know, continued education. Jim Morton says it best, training doesn't cost, it pays. But then you hear, how do you measure ROI on training?

7:00I think the ROI is on the comebacks. If you're doing continued ed, your comeback ratio drops. You know, obviously we need more on board, but I do think, again, from my perception, because what I see, I think it's starting to get there. You hear it all the time. We don't have technicians. We don't have this. We don't have that. Well, you don't have techs because you've never wanted to improve them.

7:22I think this technician shortage is kind of forcing a lot of shop owners to rethink the training aspect. We've got to lift the people we currently have. There's a shortage and there's not any good people out there, but as an owner, wouldn't you want to make your people good? Yeah, you got to build them at this point. I taught high school for 2 years, and my observations were they still push college, and I'm not knocking college.

7:46I think that's a great Don't get me started on college for a lot of people. Don't. But the problem is, is we oversaturated. We look past the trades and, you know, Northwest Indiana, Chicago, we're built on trades, we're built on the tradesmen, and we've lost sight of it. And until we improve there, we're going to continue to have a shortage. So it really takes us, you know, and I get on a pedestal all the time, you know, I tell shop owners, I tell shop foremen, other technicians, if you're not part of your advisory council screaming from the rooftops at your local community colleges or high schools, what it is we do, we're gonna continue to

8:21have a shortage. It's not the same perception that we've had for the last 30, 40 years. We've gotta make the change. Now don't get me wrong, when I talked about college, my argument against college is to go to the 4-year bachelor's program and that basically gets you the high school education you, they were usually giving about 30 or 40 years ago. Yes.

8:40And then you gotta go for your master's in order to get a real live college education. And all the debt. And I loved your point, and I believe in the word career versus trade because I'm an advisor on our local college. We're working so hard. In fact, we're getting ready to have a waiting list for our freshman class. We're excited about it because we've made so many important inroads in recognizing young people who want to work with their hands but not join a trade, but get the kind of career that this industry can offer because We, and you know this, and we don't promote it enough, we're a high-tech industry.

9:19We are. To the point where all the presentations that are going on here at the TST Big Event is all high-level dieg stuff. And when you take this stuff away and you commit to wanting to go to the next level, whatever that is for you, And that is to be a top-tier Diag person so that you can learn from what you've done and maybe figure out, like, great point, you did this great case study.

9:5050% of the room knew the answer to your case study and the other 50% didn't. And so I'm talking, well, I knew exactly what Andrew should have done. And it says, God bless you, great, you're a top tier. And this is what your entire 20 years ago you wouldn't have known, right? And maybe even 5. But every day that you continue to grind away and do this continuous education thing, you're adding to the value that you bring to the shop you're working for.

10:23And I guess this whole rant that I've been on is the owners need to step up and bring continuing education to the highest degree of the culture of the company. And to say 60 hours, we're gonna track it. A lot of the honor system. I'm gonna bring in some people. We're gonna go to major classes together. And one of the thoughts, this is the great thought, and I'm gonna shut up here in a minute.

10:48We were doing some episodes recently on NAPA's team tool rebate. And one thing that just recently hit me was if you can meet your educational training goals of ours, when we get our tool money at the, uh, in October of every year, We're gonna slice it up amongst every hour that you've trained up 40 and over. 40 and over, you get a slice of that pie because who is it saying, how many scan tools did you say?

11:14This case study says, I put these 5 scan tools on it to continue to prove that they were all right. So anyway, I said my little piece here. Go again. I'm in a different situation because we get to see the people that are committed. You obviously hear it, you hear from your peers, you know, some of the issues running into, but at the end of the day, the shop's not training, I see them shutting down.

11:37The reality is you're seeing a lot of shops shut down and it's not because they can't employ people. That might be what they tell you it is, but it's because they're not willing to make the investment. The shops that are flourishing are the shops that are committed and they know that in order to progress, we've got to train our guys. And it may not just be diagnostics.

11:55We put a lot of emphasis on this, but you speak on the specialization all the time. Yeah. You know, that's the other thing we got to be careful. I think Matt says it best. We over-romanticize sometimes the diagnostic stuff, but at the end of the day, I need a specialist in brakes and suspension. Yes. I need an alignment specialist. I need an engine teardown, a trans— we need these specialists.

12:16And the only way we're going to create that is we have to train and build them in-house. And we have to seek that level of professionalism and speak that to our clients.. And the more we tell our clients about our calibration specialist and our thermal management specialist and all these people that we continue to work hard to train so that we can give your car its due.

12:39And whatever that due is, we're, you know, I guess there's a point where you just can't be experimenting on every vehicle you get, cuz you have no clue what to do. Yeah. Yeah. It happens. You know what? And it'll happen again next week for you because something will come in that you've never seen before. You're smart enough to know that it's not gonna take 3 hours to figure it out, maybe an hour versus maybe 3/4 of an hour on one that you really know.

13:04You know, Keith Perkins, I interviewed him earlier and he talked about the 700,000 or so specialist tech technicians that we have out there. And you said it, you got in front and you said, listen, we're in New York. There's like 400 and some people in the class. There should be 10,000s. There should be thousands. Thousands in this class. This thing, we should have had one a week for the next year to train in this, if you will, greater New York, New England area.

13:34Where are they? And I know it's a Saturday, and I know we have a very difficult life, but if— here's my point— if the owners were committed and involved in a continuing education program and knew TST was going on and say, You're going, I'll be there with you. Let's go. The education that they would've received to bring back the shop pays tenfold.

13:57Maybe not tomorrow, but over the course of maybe 2 or 3 next months, they're gonna go out and say, oh, you remember Andrew said this? You remember that screenshot? Remember Kenny said that and Keith said this and Tracy's keynote about communications and we're doing a terrible job. It's Every day you need to learn something new and not sit behind the job, no matter what it is that you're making, and think that you know everything, because you can't.

14:24You're the guy who says, my God, I can't wait to go out and learn something new next week. Yeah, I mean, why did you get into this? It's not— I could have went to work at a steel mill, you know, we got the steel mills back home, Northwest Indiana. I could have done that. But, you know, most of us that get into this trade, we do this because we want something different every day.

14:43And I do think a vast majority of technicians that are in it are after the chase to get better, to prove themselves. There's a little bit of ego involved, right? Like you have to have some ego that I can rip the shirt off once in a while and you see the Superman logo and that's the chase. And I think it exists. I think over time technicians get jaded, they get burnt out.

15:05Maybe they've sat in classes that they felt were sales pitches. I mean, we don't— maybe sometimes we're not doing a good job vetting what we're putting our technicians to as well. I think there's a lot of layers to it. It is definitely an onion that's got to keep getting peeled back. I think you're starting to see the shift. I think you're starting to see more owners commit.

15:23I mean, I know I get a lot more phone calls now than ever about coming in and doing in-house training versus going to the big events because what it costs to bring their guys. So they want to bring the technical trainers into the shops and do in-house stuff. One flight in versus sending 4 or 5 people out. I get all that. I asked Keith about that today, and I'm a very big proponent of, if you will, in-shop training, localized training.

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18:06And we offer remote refresher training 10 times a week, and customer support is open 6 days a week. Give us a call, visit the website, or join our Facebook community today to learn more. We'll prove to you that TRAX is the single best shop management system in the business. NapaTrax is always customized and tailored for you, whether you're a one-man shop or a large multi-bay or multi-location company.

18:31After all, it's your shop, so it's your choice. Visit us on the web at napatracs— that's N-A-P-A-T-R-A-C-S—.com. Do you find that when someone books you, they reach out to their network to help reduce the cost? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. You know, how's that working? I've done maybe a half a dozen or so far, but it seems to work really well. The other thing I usually try to do is, you know, I'll get involved in some sort of charity event.

19:03So Sherwood with Royalty, you know, he was trying to help out a client, get them a new car. I made an offer, hey, whoever's the highest bidder shop owner that does this, I will come to your place, train for free on my dime. Wow. And unfortunately, we had to reschedule the one and we're still working on the other. But you figure they put up some money, they put up thousands of dollars to help this cause out.

19:24It's paying it forward. It goes back to that whole if not me, who thing. Maybe this changes their perspective. They bring me in, I do, you know, a day of hands-on intensive training of where they're struggling that maybe I'm decent at, I can help them. Well, they see this works and now they're reaching out to Brandon Steckler, they're reaching out to Keith, they're reaching out to whoever to bring them in to figure out what they're teaching that's going to produce the best results for them in-house.

19:51I do think it's the way to go. Getting other shops involved is huge. And the cost isn't nearly as much as it is sending them to a Vision. And, and I'm not taking away from these events. This is an amazing— No, I totally agree. I think there's a combination, yes, of all kinds of training that we need to have, be it leader-led, be it conferences, be it in-house and video and lunch and learns.

20:13It's not just one thing to accumulate your 40, 50, 60 hours. And I love that the minimum is 40 And we pay bonus on the above. Yeah. And like in our shop, I pay my guys for every minute they are in any type of training that goes towards their pay at the end of the week. I will pay them for every amount of training that they do.

20:32You mentioned a favorite player on the Chicago Bulls. Uh, Jordan. Michael Jordan. Tell us about that. You mentioned in class, he's a great quote. Yeah. So, you know, being a Chicago kid, you know, I grew up in the '90s and I remember Michael Jordan, I think it was for Nike. He had a commercial where he talks about success and, you know, I'm kind of paraphrasing here, but he says that the only reason he succeeds is because he allowed himself to fail.

20:57The only reason I succeed is because I fail. Well, that really coincides to what we do. I mean, we go through the school of hard knocks. We learn by mistakes. You know, I state this at the beginning of every class I teach because I was the student in these classes watching the Ken Zanders and the John Thorntons, Scott Mannas, and like, It would kind of become demoralizing a little bit.

21:20And let me be clear on this, extremely intelligent people here, but you would see them and you would see what they do and you're like, how did you get there? Because I don't feel we've ever shared that it was mistakes that got us to that point. So I always feel now for me, I always make sure everybody knows we made mistakes. We're standing on a pile of manure to get to success.

21:44And as long as we understand that we failed and because we failed, we allow ourselves to succeed. It's a great point. The manure, when I was way deep in it, it smelled pretty bad, but now I'm on top of the pile and I respect its smell. You're gonna fall back in it once in a while. Every once in a while. I know you also said this, knowing good so you know bad.

22:07God, that was just brilliant. Yeah. I mean, it, again, I'm big on sports and sports analogies, you know, and again, Michael Jordan fan, so it was hard for me to get behind Kobe Bryant. It kind of goes back to, I watched an interview after Kobe's passing that he talked about, and it was him and Michael, I believe, together. And they talked about they practiced harder than what they played in the game, because if they practiced harder, the game became easy to them.

22:31Well, it's the same concept, you know, getting those knowing goods on the easy stuff or even the hard stuff and having reference later makes your life so much easier. Collecting that data. The argument always is, I don't have time for it. Well, we're talking data. I can click screen record or record data on a Snap-on tool, save it, put it away to my cloud later, take that vehicle on a test drive that I take every vehicle on.

22:56And now when I got a car that I'm not familiar with or I'm like, ah, that doesn't quite look right to me, I've got reference to go back to. I practiced harder than I'm getting ready to play the game. It's the same concept. So you're the pre-scan king? Self-proclaimed, but yeah, pre-scan king. Yeah, again, just covering yourself, you know, the pre and post scans.

23:13I don't think we press it enough, but prepares us. It allows us to set our clients up for success too. If we see case in this class, we're talking monitors. If I see a bunch of monitors that aren't set on a car, I need my client to understand there's a possibility maybe they were suspended because of the problem we're dealing with, but as they're now going through and completing, other codes can arise.

23:37It goes back to what Tracy was talking about, communication. We set them up with proper communication on the front end to prevent comebacks or an ever since ya type concern on the back end. It's just preparing yourself for that. Do enough specialists use a systematic approach? I don't think so. Yeah. And I hear it all the time. You know, I got a lot of people that take my classes that been in them for a couple of years now and they're like, all you talk about is process, process, process.

24:05Well, yes, the shop is built around process, or a good running shop is built around SOPs. Yes. Why are we not incorporating those into our service bay? The process is never going to fail you if you've built it correctly and adapted it over time. You will fail it when you go rogue. So if you have a process built out for any type of situation you run into, I feel you build yourself up for success.

24:31You stick with a systematic game plan. You don't go rogue on it, I feel it sets you up for continued success. So problem vehicle comes in, I'm going to jump in on it, I'm the DA guy. Should I approach every problem in my head as I am creating a case study? Yes and no. I do that this way. I might not turn it into a case study, but at the end of the day, you keep it the same, right?

24:57So what I mean by that is Every car that comes in, in my shop, for me, with a check engine light on, the initial inspection process is exactly the same until I pull the codes. So let's say I pull a misfire code and that's the client's concern. They've got a runnability problem. It seems like it's not running right, bucking going down the road.

25:19My misfire process after my initial intake analysis is the same all the time. And as long as I don't deviate from it, I feel I can get through that process quicker than I could just start testing things all over the place. And I know you guys are good friends with Justin Morgan. Justin Morgan, a few years ago, I sat in one of his classes and from a flat rate perspective, he said, we sell our soul 6 minutes at a time.

25:47And I love that. Like he said that I've used that line. I give him credit every time, but I've used that line ever since because he's correct. So if we're set up right, we're selling our souls 6 minutes at a time. Every tenth is worth something. Yeah. If I can be more systematic getting through it, I'm more efficient for the shop. You know, maybe I am in a flat rate situation.

26:09I'm more efficient for myself. Again, I'm setting myself up for success and the shop. The whole systematic thing goes to what you talked about, Detective Mind Mapping. And when I've been listening to you this morning and you're saying that I recently wrote a blog about forensics, and my thought is, if you've ever watched a Forensic Files or any one of those types of shows, and you look at how they approach this immediate crime scene and how they look in deep, then they back out and they collect all this evidence— this whole mind mapping, please explain it to us.

26:45Seems like, and maybe what we need to do is to change our approach as a diagnostician says, I'm going to do forensics on this car. Well, we are, and I wish I could take credit for this. I gotta give credit where credit's due. My good friend Hocken Light, when we first met, he started talking about mind maps, and, you know, he explained the whole process of the way he does things, right?

27:06And it made sense. And I think of it like this, like you said, you watch forensic shows, you know, I'm married, my wife is always watching some detective show. Yeah, pretty sure she's plotting my death at this point, but And she's not going to get caught. She's not, you know. But now listen, we're going to go back to this episode. We're going to listen to it.

27:23Yeah, you know, with 4 kids at home and her raising a 5th and me, I— and she's a school teacher too, I get it, right? But I remember walking in after talking with Hawken one day, and she's watching, I think it was like CSI or something along those lines. And I watched them on the bulletin board, and they've got the crime scene and they've got pins and strings and pictures, pictures running to different probabilities.

27:48Well, I now do that at the shop and, you know, there's— they got— you buy a book on Amazon that has mind maps already pre-built into it. You just write them in. But I will mind map on a whiteboard what my problem is and write out— I'll link it to the probabilities. Is it fuel? Is ignition? Is it whatever? And then the other things that could cause that problem related to that system.

28:11And very systematically with data acquisition, I will go through and start picking out what it can't be. Another guy I respect the heck out of, Mr. Jim Morton, the funneling effect. I wanna funnel that car as quickly as possible to come up with my conclusion as fast as possible, or at least the system that is causing that, and I can narrow my attention to it.

28:32And putting it on the whiteboard, you know, running the shop all day, I'm pulled off stuff all the time. You know, client relations, technician needs another set of eyes. Whatever. So by writing it out, I don't lose where I was at. And that's a big thing for me too, because, you know, you get in the middle of something and maybe an emergency happens or another car rolls in.

28:53I know exactly where I was at because it's either on the whiteboard or I keep little Amazon whiteboards with the cars. Tell us more about those little whiteboards on don't turn the car on. I love that concept. Yeah. Yes. I've been doing that, gosh, probably a good 10, 15 years now. It started with don't start because there's no oil in it. But you put that little mini whiteboard on the dash right there.

29:16So if anyone gets in and thinks that, oh, let's go move this car, don't start. That's the rule. Yep. Or, you know, cars partially apart because we did some testing. We're waiting on further approvals. That way when it goes through our quality control process, my QC person that jumps in, it sees that whiteboard on there and knows, hey, we got to grab the technician.

29:35Something's still apart, but maybe the client declined the repairs or has to bring it back later. We don't have a situation where we look like fools, right? We make sure that vehicle is completely ready to go back to the client, and that's key. Andrew, do you know the stat of the amount of time it takes to restart something when you're pulled away?

29:56You're into something pretty deep, Andrew. I know for me, I'm starting from scratch almost every time. Every time. But if you didn't have the whiteboard and you didn't have some mind mapping, maybe you're using different color pens or ink if that discipline allows you to know where you've been, maybe even something down here. There's no string attached to an idea, but you thought of it and you want to get to it.

30:20And instead of losing that fleeting moment in your mind— I don't know about you, but the older you get— oh yeah, yeah, I forgot what I had for lunch and it was just 20 minutes ago. Yeah. And I just told them out there, I'm Dory, I'm a goldfish, I forget things in 5 minutes. That's part of the reason I do this, but It's such a time saver.

30:37I love it. It's key. You know, we try to push it with our technicians in the shop. I try sharing it with everybody that's willing to listen. It's a great resource. How do you learn deductive reasoning? Through the School of Hard Knocks. I think technicians by nature, people that get into this career path, really, they have it, right? And you don't get into this, in my opinion, just by chance.

31:00There's something that drove you.— and I think it's one of those things you're kind of born with. You either have it or you don't. I don't think deductive reasoning is something you're able to teach. I know there's some that'll argue with me on that, and that's completely fine, but from my standpoint, you either have it or you don't. Like, I'm sure you've talked to people and you're like, wow, they have a really great mindset of piecing puzzles together.

31:23Mm-hmm. And again, you either have it or you don't. That's why there's some that flourish really good with drivability. And there's some that just flourish really well with, you know, hanging suspension parts, and there's nothing wrong. And shouldn't we as owners take a look at the talent that we have and get them into the right chair, the right role? That's the biggest issue.

31:45We talk about this as technical trainers all the time. Like, you know what the hardest part of writing a class is? Who your audience is. The title. Oh. Okay. Yes. Basic Electric. Nah, I got that. And so give us your slit on changing the name so people will come. So I don't do that. I'm not knocking. I know Keith has done that.

32:05It's worked out really well. Like, I don't do that because— but what I do do is if anybody's willing to listen, I always tell them I really like focusing on foundational stuff. Okay. Because in my opinion, the technical phone calls, the cars that come in from other shops, heck, even a lot of times case studies you see in classes, It's really foundational.

32:29It was an oversight, a simplistic oversight. So I always tell everybody, like, what happens— I believe, again, this kind of goes back to ego— if it doesn't say advanced in the title, they don't want to sit through it, right? Well, we got to get past that. I mean, I'm willing to take any class that says basic anything because I know I'm most likely— and I've never had it not happen— I'm going to learn something.

32:54I'm going to get one thing bare minimum from it. That's going to improve me, whether it says basic in the title or not, but it's the hardest part in my opinion of writing a class, because you're asking yourself, I'm writing this because I struggled with it or something I'm super interested in. And I want people to reduce the pain points they're dealing with because of the pain points I had.

33:20Right? And a lot of times it's basics, and I want them to be able to sit in it. But if I call it like— I've got a class, Foundational Mechanical Conditioning, through WorldPac. We had to change my title up on it to put people in the seats, because if I kept it foundational, which I run it personally through my own company as foundational, but they know in order to put people in the seats, we got to change the title.

33:43They wanted a sexier title. Yes. So let me ask you this next question. How often should I, as a mechanical specialist, a technology specialist in the shop, no matter what it is that my specialty is, what I love to do, should I every 2 years at least get to a class to see what's special, what's new, to verify that my learning curve continues to be strong?

34:10Every couple years? I say once a quarter if you can. Oh, okay. I'm being honest. Like, wow, everybody's different, right? Every Every market's a little bit different, but what I see a lot of, it's not this crazy case study that you've only seen once every 6 years. It always comes back to a foundational aspect. And let's be honest, we learn so much through our careers.

34:32We forget some of the foundations. So I'm a big believer, especially if you're doing online training, you're doing it through NAPA, you're doing it through CarQuest, whoever you're doing it through, if they offer something foundational, I feel once a quarter your butt should be parked in a seat going back over the basics. Go back to— and don't be personally— don't be bored.

34:52Don't say, 'I could have taught that class,' because something— you're going to pick up something. That's the thing. We hear this all the time. Oh, that was so easy. I could have taught it. Well, why aren't you? And I'm going to tell you why you're not. Because you don't understand it. You think you do, and I don't mean that being harsh. I guess maybe I do., but you're not the one up there teaching it because you don't truly understand it.

35:13You think you do. Matt talks about it all the time, the Dunning-Kruger effect. I know. You think you know about it, but you truly don't. And that's why you're not the one up there. And again, you're going to take something away as long as you go into it with an open mindset too. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I tell everybody when I pull up, I've gotten to the point now, I don't tell them on my quote unquote advanced classes what type of car we're dealing with.

35:39So when I do mechanical class, like mechanical conditioning, cylinder pressure analysis, I don't tell them upfront what vehicle they're working on because you're always gonna get the guy in the background, guy or girl in the background going, oh, it's a '36 Chrysler, it's always this. That's not what this is about. It's about building that process to get you to be able to identify this no matter what vehicle it is.

36:02Maybe this is the only one that was broke in my shop that day that I was able to grab some data on. But that's what happens. You don't want people to stand up and go, I already know what's wrong with it because this is always the problem I see. And that happens so frequently in classes. It honestly, again, from a training aspect, it's disheartening for me when that happens.

36:22I can listen to you talk about this stuff for hours. It was the first class I attended. I wasn't there 100% of the time cuz we were in here doing some interviewing, but when I was out there, It was so genuine, so easy to listen to, and you're a humble guy. And I know you've been on Matt's show. I call Matt and I says, I'm interviewing Andrew Fisher.

36:42And he goes, you lucky guy. So thanks for being here, man. You might have to flip him $50 for that one. Yeah, I know. Andrew Fisher, shop manager, industry trainer out from Northwest Indiana. And you're here at the TST Big Event doing a training thing. Thanks for coming to the studio and Giving us your insights. Well, thank you guys. I mean, thank you for the kind words.

37:03You know, it's not— I'm sure if you guys are watching this, you see my face. It's hard to take stuff like that. So I really do appreciate it. One of the most humble guys in the industry. Thanks, man. Thank you. Thanks for being on board to listen and learn from the premier automotive repair business podcast, Remarkable Results Radio. Get your episodic education on the ARPN listening app at automotiverepairpodcastnetwork.com.

37:26Also enjoy the podcast on our Carm Capriato YouTube channel. Carm is all for advancing the professional automotive service industry. Until next time.