Is Your Shop the Problem? Hard Truths from the Voice of the Technician Survey Results [RR 1084]

0:00This is the Automotive Repair Podcast Network. Hey everybody, Carm Capriato. Good to have you here. Remarkable Results Radio coming up to our 11th year. We're so happy you're here. You know, if it wasn't for you, we wouldn't keep doing this thing. And I will tell you this right now, you have tuned in to a very, very important episode that just you need to hear about.

0:26I have Jay Ganinen, founder and president of WrenchWay, who Does this annual WrenchWay Annual Voice of the Technician survey. He just recently did a great webinar on it. I hung out for about a half hour. Surprisingly interesting information that if you're a shop owner, you need to hear. And if you're a technician that I like to call a specialist in our industry, then you also like to need to hear that too.

0:54And oh, by the way, listen. Our app. It's going strong. We're having so much fun. Took us about a year to build it. You've got to get it for your phone. TheAutomotiveRepairPodcastNetwork.com/app. Everything in one place. Playlists. You can set favorites, create your own categories, download for later listening. A lot of great links. You can read all the show notes there, and we just love having it for you.

1:18So thanks for being here. Let's, uh, give great homage. If we couldn't do this without our sponsors. Hey, take your NAPA Autocare Center to the next level with the NAPA Autocare Gold Certified Program. Increase car count, build trust with customers, and stand out as one of the best. Talk to your local NAPA representative today. Hey, 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.

1:48We'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. Let me introduce to you Jay Ganinen, co-founder and president of WrenchWay. Hey, Jay. Hi, Carm. How are you? 11 years. Congratulations. I know. Isn't it amazing? Sometime in March of this year, I don't quite remember, but yeah, I never would have thought.

2:17And I just don't know where all the time went. Jay, I just don't. Because I guess I loved everything I've ever done in my entire life, okay? From owning the shop and the bulk oil plant and the automotive distribution and all the stores in corporate America and down this incredible chain of, I would have to say, success that I've had. I've enjoyed this the most, and you're pretty darn good at it.

2:42I, uh, always enjoy listening, always enjoy when I'm scrolling through Facebook and you you having a panel out there talking. It's always so educational. I think you've got a gift for being able to bring kind of the best and brightest together to talk about a lot of the industry's real, I think, pressing issues and best practices and just everything. I've learned so much over the years and just give you a lot of credit for it.

3:08Thank you for that. Like you, the best and the brightest coming on the show, and we're talking stuff here. Yeah, we are. So first of all, let's just set this up front. How can anyone get this survey? Yeah, so they can go to wrenchway.com. There's a resources tab, and then the report is there for download for free for anybody. So anybody that wants to go out, check out the report, it's all out there.

3:34I would do exactly what Carm did there, which is print it out, because there is so much in it to be able to dive into. I see you've got your sticky notes in there as well, and there's a lot in there. There is so much in there. I have to tell you, it makes you stop and think very deeply about what's going on from a technician's perspective and point of view.

3:57The research that you've done is off the charts. The depth of what you know about the people that took the test and where they work You know, the needs, the wants, the education, the benefits, it's all there. So if you're one of the top people in the industry, super successful because you worked at it to get yourself there, you gotta read the report because it could confirm a lot of the moves that you made and continue to let you think through tomorrow.

4:27And if you're struggling, you may wanna look at this thing and say, pick one or two out and say, I gotta do this stuff. Yeah, you know, it's funny, I give our team so much credit. My co-founder, Mark Wilson, our VP of Marketing, Sarah Wilson, and then just our marketing team, Val, everybody on our team that contributed to this, they really put their heart and soul into it.

4:51And it was for that reason, right? And I talk a lot about how if the report makes you have a conversation internally with your team, I think we've done our job, right? Because That's the intent. We want to uncover blind spots. We want to be able to allow people to use it for productive good, even though there's things in the report that aren't necessarily positive, right?

5:14There are a lot of things that I think we need to take seriously as an industry and try to change our luck with some of this stuff. And a lot of it isn't rocket science. Like, a lot of it is stuff that we can do in our shops to improve the livelihood of our technicians and really hopefully understand them a little bit better.

5:34You just gave me a great idea. I always cling on to every word my guests say, and then my mind kind of processes and it goes off on its own. Jay, did it ever happen? Your mind goes off on its own? Oh, all the time. Ask my wife. So it just went off on its own, and I thought of having a— bringing a panel together, Jay.

5:54And looking at a couple of these critically important, you can't ignore this stuff, and then ask the panel, how are we going to overcome that? I love that. And I'm guessing there's a lot of shops that are probably doing some of this really, really well. But in a lot of cases, some of this that we detail or that we talk about, I feel like the ones that do it really, really well are in the minority.

6:18And if I'm a shop that's out there, what I would say is that's a big opportunity for me, right? Because if I'm doing it better than others or I have the ability to do it better than others. That gives you an advantage. You know, everybody's looking for talent. If you're doing some of these things really, really well, you become a magnet for that talent.

6:37And if it's kind of talked about with your team and it becomes common knowledge amongst other technicians, you'll have people that want to come work for you. It's just finding those things that you can do really, really well that others can't that will make you stand out. Great stuff. I just had another crazy thought. The subtitle of this report could be "The Unicorn Speaks."

7:00Oh yeah, if you think about it, it really is in a lot of cases the unicorn that everybody's looking for. And I think if we open our eyes and open our ears a little bit and are open to changing— I know if we've been in that shop for a long time and this is something that we just kind of, you you go in each day and kind of check the box of working, right?

7:22You go in and you put out the fires, and at the end of the day, you close up shop and you're out of breath and you just need to go home and chill out, you're not doing it right, right? So I think if you view this, and not just this report, but if you listen to Carm's podcast, if you listen to Matt's podcast, if you listen to anybody's podcast and you get ideas in ways that you can implement and make your operation better, you're gonna have more fun doing your, like being in business.

7:49And I think you'll have better relationships. Yeah. Thanks for bringing that up. Way back when I started doing this, Jay, I come up with a slogan called Listen to Learn Just One Thing. And what hit me a couple of years ago was that I needed to add another couple of words to that slogan and implement it because we can listen to things and write 'em down.

8:09And I'm a perpetual writer. I have to-do lists and ideas lists that would, you know, they're so big. I don't even know what to do with 'em. Right. And every once in a while I go through 'em and say, oh, I did that. I did that. I did that. Right. When I think about being able to implement something is, I think seriously, one of the most critical things you could do with any really great idea that you end up owning and buying it.

8:31Oh my God, I gotta do that. You know, finally I gotta push over the edge that made me buy in. I finally heard one thing from someone that really ping. Now, don't let that bing go to waste. Use that as motivation. And when you look at this, and I mentioned earlier the importance of having a conversation with your team, I think that's where some of those bings can come from, right?

8:55Because if you're talking with your team and maybe your team disagrees with something in the survey and they're like, well, that might be important to what they're talking about, but for me, that doesn't really matter. At least having an understanding of what's important to your team. And even if it's different than a lot of the stuff that we've got in the survey, I will say I think a lot of it, from what I've had conversations with technicians about, I think it's very on point with a lot of it.

9:20I'm sure there's some variances and some differences of opinion if you're talking to your own team, but if nothing else, it drives the conversation so you're listening. And then maybe something comes up to where you do get that idea and You know, I do think that's the power of podcasts and reading and everything, is that a lot of times maybe you won't even use it at that exact moment, but maybe you're having that conversation with your team and you're talking about the survey and they say, well, you know, this kind of stinks, this isn't how I would want this at our shop.

9:52Well, then you have something to refer back to, an idea to go back to on how to fix something. Or if you can take that and do research online and try to figure out ways that People are doing whatever it is that your technicians want. There's shops that are doing it better than you. Find those things and then hold yourself accountable to getting them done.

10:11So as you're talking through what you would add to that slogan, I think that's spot on. The execution side, holding yourself accountable and allowing your team to hold you accountable to making changes that are best for business and best for the people is only going to put you in a better position. Get the report, wrenchway.com. Get it, read it, look at it, take your pen, take your highlighter, go over it.

10:33And in one of your weekly huddles, and maybe it's the big Friday morning workflow thing, say, hey, listen, there's a survey that came out. Look at this stuff, guys. I printed it. I want you to take a look at it. Are we in this? How bad are we? How good are we to what this survey is saying? You wanna learn? Now, they may not tell you directly, but the thing that I love about having a survey and putting it in front of people It's already been answered.

10:58It's public. There's no shame in trying to say, I want to, yeah, I agree with that number one position, or, you know, we could do better there. I always think instead of asking clearly an unknown question to people, if they saw a survey in front of them and saying, how are we with this? They may be more forthcoming, Jay. Well, and at times, if you can brainstorm with your team and talk through things, you know, one, thing that I think came through clearly in the survey was that there is more of a desire for work-life balance.

11:32And it was surprising to me to see that it was ranked higher to have 4 10-hour workdays than it was to have 5 8-hour days. And, you know, so as you're talking through these things with your team, you know, maybe it's not so much of, you know, this is just the way we do business, it's the way it's going to be. It's Okay, if you guys really wanted 4 10-hour days, maybe we still have to stay open 5 days a week.

11:54Maybe that opens opportunities for the shop to even be open longer then, or allows for more opportunity there. So, you know, just stuff like that where you can brainstorm with your team and say, that's a cool idea, let's talk about it. Is that realistic, or is that not something that's going to work with us? Great. Hey, let's jump in. Look, number 1 is the job role technician, which I like to call specialist, came out at 59%.

12:16So 59 or 60% of all the answers in here The other people that replied were instructors or educators. I like to call them management or owner students and service advisors. I just kind of almost wish there were more service advisors because I think that is becoming the single, you know, it's as critical a role as our specialists in the back. Years experience in the industry, while between 16 and 21 years, 71%.

12:41So you got some very solid, if you will, loyalists that are inside of our industry. I love that. And I just highlighting this so that we can get into some of the other, the shop styles. One of the things that I was really surprised about was how many from dealerships replied. It's 51.8% versus independents 27.7%. We gotta work on that. I agree.

13:07We need more help from the independent side, but I do think as you look into the numbers, there are some things that spoke highly of the independent side versus the dealer side. Right. And there's some really fascinating stuff in there. To really, I guess, for the independent side to pat yourself on the back for, but then also things that maybe we could improve because then you're, you're comparing automotive to diesel and diesel seems much happier than the automotive world for whatever reason.

13:34So yeah, a lot to dive into there too. I know. And if you're looking and reading the stats, you realize it's tainted, like 51 to 27%. That's got to open your eyes to what they're saying they want, they need, they have. So that's really critical. And I just did a blog. I just wanna do a podcast on this. There was this big ad from a dealership talking directly to the mechanics technicians in the industry, and they listed everything that they have for them.

14:03They says, we do this, we have equipment, we have laptops, we have the state-of-the-art, we have paid training, we have PTO time off, we have retirement, we have blah, blah, blah. And I'm sitting there saying, ooh, that's gonna hurt. You know, at a sports game in the city of Buffalo, they're just going for the main artery. And that, in my mind, that's a wake-up.

14:24ASE certifications, 74%. I love that. Yeah, I did too. It's funny, when we first launched the survey a few years back, I was deathly afraid it was just all going to be students. Like, we put it out there and I'm like, this is all going to be entry-level folks that respond to it and the data won't be what we want it to be.

14:43It was quite the opposite. And I think our friend Tanner Brandt had pointed this out to me at one point when that first came back, that it was very reflective of what he saw when he walks into a shop as a diagnostician, where he is walking into shops of all shapes and sizes. And he says, in most cases, you're walking in and you're seeing a lot of very experienced technicians in the shop.

15:07You're seeing a lot of entry-level techs and you're not seeing a lot in the middle, right? Like there's almost like a gap where we're missing that 10-year technician in a lot of shops. And so something that I thought was interesting in our stats when they first came out versus what somebody like Tanner, who's in shops every day, saw and reflected on. And I think it's a worry at some level, but it's also great to get insight from people that have been doing it for a long time.

15:34Totally agree. What technicians and students look for in employers. Here's the top, I think, 6: proper equipment in the shop, which is It just makes me worry. I'm on page 8. Maybe they have it and they just don't wanna lose it, or there's a weakness in the industry, but then paid vacations, retirement funds, paid training, no weekends. No weekends. Yeah. I mean, God, no weekends.

15:59And anyway, that is this outrageously open discussion that we can have inside the industry about, you know, 4, 5, 6, 7 days. But really good stuff. I'm moving over, Jay, to page 11, and I know we've got some specific talking points, but I just want to go through my yellow tabs here. Please do. I'd rather. Yeah. Thank you. A preferred pay structure, page 11, by the type of shop.

16:28It was interesting. Hourly salary with bonus was tied between dealerships and independents. Saw that. I thought that was interesting. And so it looks to me— tell me I'm right or wrong— that the, the flat rate— is flat rate loved by all of our senior people and the hourly salary bonus coming up from our younger people? What do you see? I don't think so.

16:53I've heard a lot of A-level, you know, diagnostician-level technicians that hate flat rate because if they get stuck on the tougher jobs, if they're always getting pushed the, the hard diag jobs, it's hard to— it's hard to make money that way on flat rate versus if you're that undercar tech that can just plow through work and you can make a really good living on flat rate.

17:20I do think that's where just general awareness from a shop— if you're playing, if you're one of those shops that's paying on flat rate Having some general awareness around, you know, how are you treating your best people? Because not only is it important that you retain your best people, and a lot of times those are the ones that are getting pushed the tougher jobs, but that also shows that young person coming into the industry how they're going to be treated someday.

17:45And if, if you're not treating your best technician, your best specialist with the ultimate respect, and really taking care of them, what does that look like to that person just coming into the shop? If you're showing an example of how they're treated and it's not very good, which I don't think is the case anymore. I really, really think most good shops, if they have good people, they're taking care of them and they're bending over backwards to try and take care of them.

18:11So I do think that shows a shining example of how the rest of that technician's career is going to go. And we need to be really, really mindful of that. Are you a NAPA Autocare Center ready to elevate your shop? Then it's time to step into the premier tier NAPA Autocare Gold Certified Program. Gold Certified Centers are recognized as the best of the best, delivering a consistent, trusted customer experience nationwide.

18:39Now, that consistency means more repeat business, more referrals, and more opportunities to grow your car count. Now, when you're Gold Certified, you unlock advanced resources, maximizing technology, boosting your local marketing presence, and keeping your team fully trained on the latest trends and tools. In short, Gold Certified status separates you from the rest. So what does it take to be Gold? To qualify, your shop must be a NAPA Autocare Center for at least 1 year, have been open for 2 years or more, employ an ASE Master Technician or hold ASE Blue Seal status, co-brand with the Pro Image program, maintain a 4-star rating or higher on Google, Yelp, or NAPA CSI, use digital vehicle inspections, offer

19:25NAPA consumer financing, purchase $7,500 or more in NAPA parts monthly, and participate in a NAPA Business Development Group. It's a true partnership, and in return, NAPA rewards Gold Certified shops with premium benefits like free priority placement, on the NapaOnline.com locator, annual marketing funds, enhanced warranties, rebates, training opportunities, and a whole lot more. Are you ready to take your shop to the Gold level?

19:55Well, contact your local Napa sales representative today to see if you qualify and start your journey to Gold Certified. Increase car count, build trust with customers, and stand out as one of the best. Talk to your local NAPA representative today. Let's face it, your shop management system is the single most important tool in your shop, period. NAPA Tracks was built from the ground up to make your business more profitable and efficient.

20:23We provide an extensive set of tools to increase and track profitability in real time. NAPA Tracks offers the industry's best post-sale support, hands down, and we train your people on-site Yep, on-site, and 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.

20:47We'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. After 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. I'm doing a Masterminded Vision this year, and the people that are attending, they got a survey from me on the top dozen hot topics in the industry.

21:22And I just looked at the results so far this morning. And one of the number one categories is communication front/back of shop. And what you just said, what we have just been talking about is if you're flat rate, don't bother me. I gotta get this thing done cuz I'm trying to beat the clock. If you want a client experience that solves problems and deals with all the pressures of, you know, the DVI, the presentation, the pricing, the yays, the yeses and the nos.

21:54The communication between front and back is critical. And if you take an individual off of their game, and I'm not saying that this is good or bad because there could be systems designed around making it work, but when a top A technology specialist or mechanical specialist needs to stop for a moment, maybe lose their, their rhythm and work with a service advisor or customer service advocate in some capacity to discuss, you wrote this up in your DVI, blah, blah, blah.

22:24It's a problem in the shops, but it also could be a problem on that pay program. If that pay program didn't say you gotta knock that, that 2-hour job out in a, in an hour so that you can make coin. And so we can be pro productive. And I get the productivity side. I get that. Maybe there's something there. I'm seeing more and more shops adapt their pay plans based on what their technicians want.

22:45And so if they do have technician that's been in the shop for 35 years has a wealth of knowledge and is just slowing down with their body, that maybe they need to look at something different. You know, you and I have talked about that before, where I'm such a fan of your specialist system and what you've talked about in the need for specialists.

23:06When you go the specialist route, I think that opens opportunities for somebody that's a senior-level technician that has all the smarts, but their body's starting to break down a little bit. And then maybe you look at it in a little different lens and find a fit for them to where maybe they're training that next generation of technicians. Maybe they're, you know, doing— running mentorship.

23:26Maybe they're helping with workflow in the shop as a whole. You know, there's just so many different things that you can do that I think takes care of your people. And really, it's not even paying it forward because they're still providing a great level of value if you put them in the right position. So I just think it's really, really smart. Thank you, man.

23:45Hey, you're working with David Johnson with ASC on some stuff. Talk to me. Yeah, on top of everything we're doing here, this is actually co-branded with ASC, that the survey we had just released a program called ASC Connects, and that's more of how do we attack this whole shortage situation at its core How do we try to fix some things that are lasting instead of trying to duct tape everything together?

24:10So we teamed up with ASE. It's ASE's program that we're running for them. It introduces pieces of our school system that we've got. Just a really, really cool program. And looking at it foundationally, we kind of broke it down into 5 pillars, but the first thing is we did not have a good grasp of the amount of schools in the nation. So when we talk about that, We're talking through, you know, it started with a conversation around how many ASC-accredited schools are there.

24:40We know that, but how many could be accredited that aren't? And so trying to understand that number, well, then we started digging into more and more school numbers as a whole, and you started to see that there was not a lot of really good data out there, even at the state level. And so we wanted to build a directory of every school in the nation.

24:59So every high school, every tech school, and then try to figure out if they have a program. If they don't, what do they have? Maybe they just have a general woodworking shop if it's in a small town, or maybe they've got a consumer automotive class, you know, just understanding what they have for programs and then who a contact at those programs are.

25:18And so we're really working hard at that piece, trying to get an understanding of the automotive climate as a whole, what we can do to help. Try to streamline that communication so that when a school needs help, we get there before they're closing their doors, right? I think a lot of times we come in too late as an industry, so we're trying to get out in front of that.

25:37Trying to build data around it, right? So we know what enrollment is in all these classes and, and try to get an understanding if there's a school struggling with enrollment. That's a lot of times the number one factor of why a school's going to close, right? If they don't have interest in the program, If they don't have a teacher, that falls off.

25:55We need to put our arms around that school as an industry and really try to attack it. So a lot of school-facing things that I think are core to our industry, and we've got another data component that's coming where we'll be able to get really, really granular, not only with the school side, but some of the industry pay information, some really cool stuff coming with ASC Connects.

26:16Congrats for this. I give you every high five that I possibly can. I'm on an advisory panel for our local college. One of the things that I've noticed, Jay, just as a quick now, we went from having an AAS degree, science, English, and math, to an AOS that they didn't have to have that. And we have added to our enrollment like never before because our students weren't ready to go out and do English, science, and math.

26:43Shame on us for not giving them those kinds of skills, which I think are important. But some of the competing colleges in the state of New York up here were AOS degrees. In automotive. And so we made that change, and it really had a very positive effect on graduation rates because that was important. And I got to give kudos to our chairman of this curriculum, very passionate, former instructor, continues to be, works inside the community, visits shops all the time.

27:16That is a key component to drive The improved curriculum, the ASE relationship, the new equipment, getting the money. And so programs like that don't have to go away. There's a whole lot of secrets on how to make them work. Well, in our job as an industry, I've talked a lot about this, but we've got to figure out how do we focus on the one program more than just the one student.

27:40And I think a lot of shops will focus on getting that one student out of a program and then figure they're done with that relationship for a while until they need the school again. And what happens when we do that is a lot of times these instructors will suffer in silence. I just had one on our Beyond the Wrench podcast today that talked about how he feels like he's inconveniencing industry when he's asking for things.

28:05And so many of us in industry want to help these schools out. And so that's really what we're trying to get to is we wanna make that instructor feel comfortable to start an advisory committee. We want them to ask for things so that we can get out in front of it. And really, we don't want them living on an island because when they do, that's when they go away, when they don't have support from the industry.

28:27It's an expensive program to run regardless of what program you're running in a high school or a tech school. A lot of times it's not just us bringing donations. It's actually being involved with the program so that there's visibility. So if that administrator walks in and the dean of a tech school walks in and sees that you've got all of these shops in there that are supporting this program, it makes it a lot easier for that administrator when they're looking for extra funds.

28:56Hey, we've got a lot of support for this program. We need more money in the budget. We need more support from the school as a whole. And so it's just, uh, there's so many benefits to it. And sometimes it can become very, very secondary when you're trying to put fires out in your shop every day. It becomes back of mind. But we really, really need to focus on this because if we want this to change— I've said forever that I want our industry to be in better shape when I leave it than when I got into it, right?

29:22And so it's just going to take a lot of effort. Thanks for your passion on this. I so appreciate this. You could think back, and, and I could go back when they had more cars than they knew what to do with because they got all these clunkers sent to them. And then there was this period of time, say in the last maybe 8 years.

29:38The cars weren't coming in. Why? They're so expensive, right? But it's happening. We're starting to get vehicles, and the suppliers— we haven't stopped asking, but I think the tide started to change, Jay, of just recent, the last, say, year and a half, where the vehicles are starting to show because we need them to look at, to play with, to fix, to show new tech.

30:01And the suppliers are starting to give tool cabinets and All kinds of stuff. So don't stop asking. The whole reason that we're having this little mini chat about education and what you're doing with ASE Connect is that I always want people to listen to this and say, I'm gonna get off my ass and do this. I'm gonna go to the college. I'm gonna knock on the door and find out how I can help.

30:22If an individual's bashful inside the college to ask, then you need to not be bashful and go out and say, how can I help? Internships, all kinds of stuff. Come in and be a guest lecturer. If we don't fix the educational piece, you know, we got this great shortage. We're going to work ourselves out of jobs, especially when you see, like I told you, those ads being put out by a dealership saying that, you know, they've got everything.

30:48Yeah, I think this is where what we're doing through ASE Connects is so impactful, and just our partnership with ASE in general, is that the survey is really meant to make you aware of where you can become a better employer, right? Because we want you to retain your people. We want you to be able to treat your people so that they don't need to go look somewhere else.

31:08And then we can really focus on that school side of bringing more people into the industry. For the longest time, it felt like we were in a leaky boat, right? We just kept adding people and then the water kept coming on and we're losing people and just— it's just very chaotic. And so the purpose of the retention side is that we have to do a better job retaining our people.

31:29And then when we do that, you start to get more net positives, right? Where you're starting to add on to your team and you're starting— it's not just that you're trying to plug holes all the time, you're actually building a culture because you're finding the people that fit who you are. And it's not just because they have technical skill, you're really identifying those people that fit your culture instead of just technical skill.

31:50And I just think it makes for such a happier life and a more productive shop. Totally agree. By the way, the secret to retention, Jay, is sitting inside this survey. There's a lot of it in there. Yes, it's in here. You just got to get it and you got to read it and you got to say, is that me or not me?

32:09Let's go to page 18, Jay. Satisfaction with current employer by shop type. Wow. This one's tough. I know. Talk to me. What do you see here? First and foremost, if you really look at the dealership versus independent, there's only one thing that dealerships ranked higher on, and that was that they provided adequate paid trainings. Dealerships were at 65%, independent shops were at 44%.

32:33It's so easy to do. It is. And it's one of those things where we look at it like I'm pointing out the one negative thing here out of the independent side, right? But then as I go through it, just because we rank better than dealers does not necessarily mean we're in a good position. One that always drives me crazy is that one, shop management communicates well, 44% for independent shops, which is good compared to the 28% of dealerships.

33:01But that's still over half of technicians telling us that their management doesn't communicate well. Right. The other thing is, and this one I think is the most telling stat on here, I would recommend the shop to a friend. Only 36% of dealership technicians said that they would recommend their shop to a friend. The opposite of that, literally 63% say of independent shop technicians would refer their shop to a friend.

33:25So that's a good sign. Still shows a lot of need for improvement and a lot of things we can work on. So just in general, while it's not great still, there are some positives to point out here. And, you know, even the one that might have surprised me the most was the shop provides good benefits. Independent techs responded at a 51% rate, dealerships 42%.

33:49So what they're telling us is that the independent sides are actually offering better benefits, which kind of blows my mind. And that commercial that I saw. Yes. And that blog that I wrote saying, open your eyes, if you're doing all this thing, great. And so here's the point, Jay, you mentioned it earlier, the top shops. You know, I continue to talk to so many people in the industry that says, you know, there's 20% that are really good operators, and there may be that top, top 5 out of that 20, and then there's that 50 in the middle and 30 at the bottom.

34:21And so we have to stop and think if the people that are answering this survey are in the top 20% shops, maybe we're not surprised because they're doing so many things right. And I want that middle. You see, you got that 50%. That's, you know, the bottom 30 may just go away. Maybe they're, Acting as hobbyists. But I look at the top section of that middle 50.

34:46My listeners have heard this over and over again. This is my audience. This is who I want to drive these changes. He's implementing these great ideas to get off their butt, look in the mirror and say, you know, maybe I'm the problem. Or sit down with your team and says, let's fix this place. Listen, we're gonna come up with some brand new great idea each and every week.

35:06By the time we're done with this, we got 52 ideas. We're gonna work this stuff. You gotta be with me. Processes, systems, protocols. We gotta do all this stuff. We gotta be a top shop because we got opportunities. We got opportunities like never before in fixing all these older vehicles and people just don't have the money to buy new. And even at our family shop, we hear that over and over again.

35:29Feels like every day now where people are, kind of weighing, am I going to pay this $3,000 repair or— and keep this vehicle, or am I going to trade it in? And so many times now they're like, $70,000 car makes this $3,000 bill look pretty cheap. So they go forward with the repair and keep driving their old car. Do you remember 60-month payments?

35:54No longer. I do. Right. Oh my goodness. 84. 7 years. I mean, like a house. Yeah. 7 years to pay for a vehicle. Can you imagine having a $300 to $400 payment for 7 years on a thing that continues to depreciate and needs service? Well, and I think $300 or $400 is underestimating it now. I think the average payment's like $600 or $700 now.

36:24It's crazy. I'm sorry. I may be right. That is, if you want to go and buy the $85,000 F-150. Oh, it's so much fun talking to you, man. Let's go to page 20. Recommending the technician profession, the Net Promoter Score. Recommending. Wow. This one's got some headlines. This one is something that I think is the— it's the easiest to point to and say, we've got some concerns, right?

36:53Because this is something that— and I'll explain Net Promoter Score for those of you that don't understand it or aren't all that familiar with it. But basically you take the people, you say, would you recommend this industry to a friend or family member? You take the 9s and 10s, those are promoters. You take the— what is it, 7 and 8s that are the kind of middle ground?

37:15I'm sorry. Yeah, 7 and 8s and then 6 or lower that are the detractors and subtract the detractors from the promoters, and you end up with a score. And this year, 2026, our score as an industry was -60, meaning we've got a lot of detractors versus promoters. 2024 was -24. 2025 was -52. 2026, -60. We're trending downward, which is very concerning. And to your point earlier, Carm, I think the frustrating part is you see so many shops that have adapted and so many great shops out there that are treating their people well, but you also see the ones that either think they are treating people well but really aren't, and then maybe some that just

38:04don't care, right? Like, there's still shops out there that just could care less. They just want to make money. They'll turn their staff over and over and over again, and it just To me, it's frustrating because there are so many people in this industry, and it's a beautiful, great industry, that are working hard to try and change this. And to see this come back is a little frustrating.

38:26Thank you for explaining that. And it is very worrisome to you and me and so many other people in the industry. But if you're in the top tier, you probably don't even fall into this category. And what I always tell people, if you're looking to build your bench, then some of the people that are in that -60 score range, if you will, that aren't happy, they may be great new people who want— they just don't know how to get off Top Dead Center and want to come and look for you.

38:56You know, they may not go on Indeed, they may not be on social media to see what's going on. But I think there's a lot of talent out there that's wasted. I do too. And I look at it from the sense of they don't go to a shop that treats them well. I think they're deflecting the industry completely. There's a good industry friend of mine by the name of Chris Craig who has a gigantic social media following, and he had actually gone out and made a post about the fact that, I forget what it is, 77% of technicians, something like that, like don't believe our industry's headed in the right direction.

39:31They don't think that there's that light at the end of the tunnel. They, you know, we're not painting the picture of hope here, right? The technicians aren't feeling like we're moving in the right direction. He put a post out. I think it's got nearly 3,000 likes on the post, but the comments, it probably has more comments than that. It's just an insane amount of comments.

39:52And it is heartbreaking to read all of the comments, technician after technician that says, "I wouldn't recommend this industry." And how many of these comments come through and say, I'm a technician that's spent my entire life in this industry. I've been in it for 30 years, and I tell every single young person that comes in not to— like, go be an electrician, go be a plumber, go do something different.

40:13And so there's so much heartache in our industry right now, and it's across the board that it's hard to ignore, right? Like, when I read these comments, it's one of those things where I think we've not only got to keep driving that conversation, but there has to be some execution from the shop side. There has to be some understanding of what is making these people so uncomfortable working at your places of work.

40:40And we have to be realistic enough to know that nobody's going to be perfect, but there's a genuine anger that you can sense in the comments as they're going through Chris's post and as you're going through some of the comments that we see when we're, you know, lot of press coverage on this. It's one of those things that I just hope someday we open our eyes and say, guys, we got to do this better.

41:04We got to treat our people better. We got to figure out some way to treat them better. You're laying right in my lap here because Respected, it goes back to the language shift, the paper that I wrote on changing this language in our industry. And it's just not the word specialist to bring it in, you know, Think about engineers. There's civil engineers and there's bioengineers, all these people that do kind of the same thing that our people inside of our shops do, but they have this really cool title that's been respected forever.

41:33I was on a cruise ship. This whole thing started by me realizing that chefs were so well respected and had to work their ass off to get the title of chef and how many different kinds of chefs that exist in a kitchen. And how hard you have to work and the education that you have to have. I'm traveling through the cruise ship, big hat, you know, chef hat with the thermometer coming out of his pocket with the beautiful white chef jacket on.

41:58And I said, hi chef, thank you. The food's been great. And the person stopped and thanked me. Can you imagine walking down, you're going into a restaurant and saying to a mechanical or technology specialist, thanks for working on my car. Thank you for all that you do. But I'm just a mechanic and I'm dirty and I'm dark and I wear, you know, dark blue Shoes with, and so this whole thing has been, so, okay, I'll stop rambling.

42:21Remarkableresults.biz/downloads, or go to my downloads page on my, and get and download the Declaration of the Rise of the Specialist and read it and say to yourself, do I need to get part of this? We just created a brand new poster. We're ready to post so that we can put it in front of not only the clients, but in the back of the shop.

42:42So our people realize as we've made this language shift. What's the creed? What's the values of why we did it? And if we could lift a little bit what we call each other and how the client, our customer base looks in at us, we may have more people say, I can recommend our industry. Carm, you and I had a conversation at Apex and it changed my views.

43:06I had read through all of this and the specialist thing really stuck out to me. And in our own family shop, you'll be happy to hear this. I just hired a service operations specialist for our shop to help us with workflow, to help us with a number of different things. And it was a new position that we created, but a lot of that stemmed from our conversation.

43:29And he's a wonderful, wonderful person, and I'm really, really excited to see what he can do. But I wrote the job advertisement as that, right? I wrote a job ad for a service operations specialist. And to be honest, I wrote it in a way we weren't desperate for it. We didn't need a tech. This was a new position that we were creating.

43:47Wasn't desperate. I sat, I wrote what I consider a really good job advertisement using Service Operations Specialist as the title. And I was able to draw like just what I would call a unicorn, right? Just checked every box. And I did not, even me that's been in staffing for the last 9 years, Did not think that I would find this person. And we just had the most wonderful person.

44:13I was moving back to Wisconsin, come and apply, and we hired him. And I think he's going to be great. Wonderful. Glad to hear it. Thank you. I really do believe that. Yep. Well, Carmen, it's just a title change. No, there's a new believability in the value that I bring to the business and how the outside world looks at us, that we're— specialists save lives in the medical field.

44:36Engineers, they're classified as brainiacs and they, they really make things happen. Well, so do we, and we can call ourselves mechanics or take the lazy language of tech versus technician, but there's technicians everywhere. Now we've got beer technicians, we have nail technicians, we have roofing technicians, but okay. So we have mechanic technicians or auto repair. No, we have auto repair specialists. And you know what?

44:59When we go to that school, And we have that paid training and we're doing 80 hours a year. We've got the right equipment that I can do my job in a very big and good way. And I've got all the data points and computers that I need. I'm a damn specialist, man. Anyway, thank you for letting me get up and you up on your box.

45:19I appreciate it. Listen, so get the survey so that you can kind of, there's probably another 25 pages we haven't even covered. It's crazy. And I would do exactly what Carm did, right? Which is to print out the report. It's going to cost you some ink, right? That's about all it's going to cost you. Print it out. I've gone through this report so many times.

45:42I have so many notes, so many different things that I've pointed out. Every time I read through it, I learn something new. And it's our company that did this, right? It's just one of those things where there is so much to be had there, and hopefully it opens your mind to things. Hopefully it makes you think about something a little differently. And again, if it just drives a conversation between you and your team, I think that does such— it delivers so much value for everybody.

46:11It can allow you to do a deep dive evaluation of your business based on the survey results too. Jay, thank you so much for doing this, for coming on the show. And, uh, wow. Keep up the great work at WrenchWay. Co-founder and president of WrenchWay. You got the family business, you got the podcast, a lot of good stuff going on with you, bud.

46:31Thank you, my friend. You've always been an inspiration for me and everything that we're doing. So I just really, really appreciate everything. Likewise, man. Thanks. 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 listing app at automotiverepairpodcastnetwork.com. Also enjoy the podcast on our Carm Capriato YouTube channel.

46:57Carm is all for advancing the professional automotive service industry. Until next time.