Stop Hiring in Panic Mode: Build a Recruiting Pipeline for Your Shop [RR 1094]
Now playing — Remarkable Results Radio
About this episode
Thanks to our Partners, NAPA Auto Care and NAPA TRACS Watch Full Video Episode Host Carm Capriotto welcomes Chris Lawson, founder of Technician Find, to…
Key takeaways
- —Proactive hiring prevents the 'fire alarm syndrome' when a technician leaves.
- —Building a talent bench allows shops to have candidates ready when vacancies arise.
- —Consistent marketing and branding can attract potential employees long before they are needed.
- —Respect, growth opportunities, and a positive culture are key factors in technician retention.
- —Using social media to showcase shop culture can enhance both employee recruitment and customer trust.
Frequently asked
- What is the 'fire alarm syndrome' in hiring?
- The 'fire alarm syndrome' occurs when shop owners scramble to hire a technician only after one leaves, often leading to poor hiring decisions due to stress.
- How can shops build a talent bench?
- Shops can build a talent bench by consistently engaging with potential candidates, even when fully staffed, to ensure they have a pool of qualified technicians ready when needed.
- What are the three main factors technicians look for in a job?
- Technicians prioritize respect, opportunities for growth, and competitive pay, with respect being the most crucial factor.
▸Full transcript
This is the Automotive Repair Podcast Network. Hello, my friend. Carm Capriato, Remarkable Results Radio. 11 years in, having more fun than I ever, ever have. We appreciate you being here. You know, we're committed to delivering for you authentic, actionable content that evolves and helps your challenges that you have each and every day. And And we know that there's an awful lot of top shops that constantly listen to hone their skills and grab new ideas.
Glad to have you here. Oh, by the way, just in case, you know, we have a YouTube channel at Carm Capriato. Like and/or subscribe. You can, so you can basically see if you're listening through audio only, then we sure do appreciate that you may listen through and watch the video. And don't forget about our great app, the Automotive Repair Podcast Network app.
It's so cool. All the episodes in one place, all the shows in one place. You can watch the video, you can create your own playlist, you can share great episodes with people. We spend a lot of time fine-tuning and honing all the details. Anyway, please do that. Look at— I'm with Chris Lawson, the founder of Technician Find and Easy Bench, and we are going to talk about why the smartest shops never scramble to hire.
God, that's a problem that I seem to have every minute of the day. Yeah, you're right. Hang out there. We got some really cool stuff to talk about with Chris Lawson. 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. 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. We'll prove to you that Trax is the single best shop management system in the business. Find Napa Trax on the web at napatrax.com. Hey, welcome back. Hello, Chris, how are you, my friend?
Hey, I'm doing fantastic, Carm. Always love hanging out with you. Yeah, me too. Hey, look, Chris has spent nearly 8 years helping independent auto repair shops hire technicians, specialists, through hundreds of conversations. God, I'd love to be a fly on the wall with that stuff with shop owners and technician specialists. He's identified a pattern. Smart man. He basically says the shops that never panic when the tech leaves aren't doing anything complicated.
They're just doing something consistent. And one of the things that we're going to talk about here in this episode is what's called EZbench. It's something Chris just recently launched, and I'm so excited to hear a whole lot more about it. And so the listeners should walk away with our goal, Chris, the difference between reactive hiring, like a fire alarm approach, and proactive bench building, or, as you call it, the heartbeat.
We're gonna talk about the 3 reasons technicians leave shops, a dead simple system any owner can start this week, the concept of becoming 10-mile famous. I love that. I can't wait to hear about that. And why the best technician specialists are not on Indeed. Ooh. So let's do this thing, my friend. We've had hundreds of conversations with shop owners about hiring. What's the one pattern, Chris, that you see over and over that most owners don't realize they're stuck?
That's the question, right? I would say that it is the, the fire alarm syndrome. It is when a technician leaves or when one of their employees leaves, it sets off a fire alarm and everybody scrambles. And that's a problem for a bunch of reasons. I mean, stress aside, I mean, it's very stressful, but it's also a problem because when you're in stress, and I've talked to, I mean, hundreds of shop owners at this point and GMs.
When you're in stress, you don't make the best decisions. And that's when the poor hires happen. That's when you hire a warm body or somebody that can fog a mirror. And then what ends up happening is if you're lucky, they'll stick for 6 months and then you're in the same position all over again. You said that the crisis isn't the tech who leaves.
Uh, what do you mean by that? Yeah, it's not the technician that leaves. It's having no one to call when they do. I can tell you, when you've got a deep bench and you've got half a dozen people that you can call, if that happens, it completely changes the whole perspective of that situation. It's not— and, and not only does it change the perspective if the technician leaves, but it also changes the perspective when you're fully staffed.
If you're fully staffed and then you've got a bench, then what ends up happening is you're not worried about being, you know, held hostage over raises or people threatening to leave, it puts you in a much more calm and more confident position. So there's shops that don't scramble at all. That's right. If you're treating it like— we call it passive recruiting. You know, it's passive recruiting has been around forever.
Big Fortune 500 companies have known this for decades. They do passive recruiting. They do branding ads that just are out there all the time to attract good employees. But it's not something that's really embraced with smaller businesses, with shops, with independents. And we're trying to change that because it puts you in a completely different position when you actually have people to talk to.
And you can think about it. I have this conversation a lot with my marketing buddies. You can think about it like marketing. If you're consistently marketing, if you're consistently out there and you're talking about your brand, you're talking about what you do and the results that you've received, and you're promoting your good reviews. Then customers see that and it's consistent. And you don't want to start marketing when your car count is way down, you know, you want to be marketing all the way through so that you can have deep roots in the community and you can have a consistent flow of business.
It's the exact same thing with employment. You're marketing your shop to potential employees that are maybe 6 months, maybe 2 years, maybe 5 years down the road. So this always be recruiting is, you know, ABR is something that I think top shops really get and know. And by the way, I love the word scramble. It really does define I'm in some deep doo-doo because I haven't planned ahead, right?
Well, that's exactly it. You know, it's the old saying, you repair your roof before it starts raining. This is exactly the same situation. And the best time is when you've got everything fully staffed, you've got everybody in place, and then you can just do it very incrementally. I think of this also like the train. I mean, if you've ever seen a train start from a standstill, one of these big long trains, it's a mile long and has coal and everything, these really heavy trains, and they've got 6 or 7 engines, it takes so much pull to get these things moving.
But once it gets moving, the momentum keeps going. And it's the exact same thing. If you can build that momentum while you're fully staffed, then you're in a much better situation when someone leaves, because now you don't have to start from zero. A perpetual wheel. Yeah, flywheel. And I don't know if that flywheel should be named recruitment or retention, but probably both.
The R&R wheel. R&R. I love it. Yeah, the R&R perpetual wheel. You can use that anytime. I love it. You have a story about a tech who watched a shop's Facebook page for 2 years before they applied. That's so interesting. You know what, it's funny, I've heard this story now several different times from several different shop owners, and I'll tell you what, the first time I heard it was On April 27th, 2024, when we spoke together, we had a panel and it was shop owner Rory Neamey had mentioned that there was a technician that watched his Facebook business page for 2 years before he applied.
And I've heard different iterations of that. And here's the deal. The deal is they are watching you. Your future employees are watching what you do. And it's important to have culture pieces out there. And what I mean by culture pieces is show what a day in the life looks like. Show when you recognize your technical specialists for ASE certifications. Take a picture of them, recognize them.
Show what it looks like when you go out as a group and do team outings. Show what it looks like when you dress up the waiting room for holidays and decorate. Show what it's like to work on a regular basis, and then it gives them an idea of, hey, this is a shop that really cares about what goes on. And I'll tell you, extra bonus points is if you can show how you are taking care of your employees' lives inside and outside of the shop, you get extra bonus points.
That's something I can tell you right now that big chains and dealers are not doing. And that is one of the ways that you can really differentiate yourself as an independent shop against other larger shops in your area. It's a point well taken. And I think a lot of the marketers get that the culture that we have inside the shop, that's indicative to being happy and excited, come to work happy, leave work happy.
And I'm not saying everything is peaches and cream on a daily basis, but at least the attitude should always be uplifting and to get that out and in the face of not only a potential client, but someone who may want to come to work for you. You've talked to hundreds of technician specialists directly. What do they actually want? I think a lot of owners assume it's all about money.
That's the common thought for sure. And how much of a sign-on bonus do I have to offer? I take a different perspective on that. I never lead with a sign-on bonus. I think sometimes it's important to have because it's just because of competition. If you've got a bunch of shops in your area that are offering sign-on bonuses, you've got to be competitive.
But by this point, technicians that I've talked to, they understand that a $15,000 or $20,000 sign-on bonus is— they're never going to see it. They understand that that's just kind of a carrot that's dangled in front of them, and there's going to be so many hoops and strings attached that that it's just not believable. But I would say that what they're really looking at is it falls into 3 different categories.
And the first one is respect. I can tell you of the conversations I've had, what ends up pushing a technician over the edge and getting them looking at other shops is when they get disrespected or they get disgusted with themselves and the situation that they're in, and it just becomes too much to bear because Technicians, they have broad shoulders and they take a lot of crap, but there gets to be that one point in time where it just gets pushed over the edge and then it's done.
And it usually revolves around respect. The second thing is growth. Is it— are they able to grow? Are they getting new training? Are they getting new opportunities to be enhancing their skills? These are the things that also— is there a pathway to growth? Is there a roadmap to advancement? I mean, are there opportunities for, you know, lead techs, shop foremen, you know, going up into management, doing things like this, shop ownership?
Are these pathways out there? I actually created a GPT that helps map out the career path of a technician because that's a really, really effective retention and a really effective attraction tool is to say, hey, look, Where do you want to go? Let's build you a plan. Let's show you what your toolbox needs to look like if you want to get to this level.
Let's show you what ASE certifications you need to get to. Let's plan this out. Let's figure out what— let's map your growth. So 1, respect. 2, growth. 3, money. Notice how I put money third. Yeah. You talk about a mental culture shift for a shop owner to think that the person sitting across from me and all these people that I've hired in my entire life and since I You know, started turning wrenches at 25.
This is important today. And I love how you outlined it. It is the, if you will, the most sophisticated way to build a great team. And I love your point. I wrote a blog a few weeks ago because I saw a TV ad for a local dealership straight in everyone's face. Hell, to housewives and you name it, whoever had a chance to watch that ad.
During one of the sports games, and it said, best in class pay and benefits. It said cool in the summer, warm in the winter. I'm reading this off my screen. Pay training, plenty of repair orders, all the tools you need to do the job right, a laptop, modern, clean, comfortable facilities, and state-of-the-art equipment. And that's what they said straight away to the community population of Western New York as they're looking to recruit.
New people. And I am sure the wife could be saying, you don't get that over at Bob's place, do you? Boy, you've always been complaining about that. Look, if you go there, you're gonna get that. And so if we're paying attention to what's going on in the real world, and I know that there's an awful lot of upheaval going on at the dealerships, they're losing people to a big and high degree.
And I think it's segmented around the country in certain areas. But Chris, the perpetual wheel, recruitment and retention, and I love— but is some of this knowing change that you continue to preach to shop owners, this outreach, does it help them? Absolutely. To your point, one of the things that I've started doing is every Saturday I post in my school community an independent intelligence briefing, and it's about the roll-ups, the PE activity that's happening in different areas.
And, you know, within EZ Bench, we talk about this a lot too. There are specific things that you can do to position yourself when a roll-up firm comes into your area, when a private equity behemoth comes in and starts purchase— buying up independent shops, because a lot of times it just destroys culture and it goes from an environment that's a family environment or a nice team supportive environment to a corporate environment.
Where there's 3 or 4 levels of management between the technical specialist and the decision maker, where all of a sudden they become a number, all of a sudden they are forced to compete against their peers, and they just, you know, lose their humanity. And it's a prime opportunity to start promoting what makes you different as an independent and attract these folks that will be looking because these corporate management teams are coming in.
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That's N-A-P-A-T-R-A-C-S dot com. Let's talk about the school, the FreeSchool community at school.com/technicianfind. It's cool. I mean, I love your posts. I'm there and sometimes I just can't stop reading. You do such a good job. Tell us what it's for. I started this community a few years back, and so I started actually Technician Find in 2017. Carm, you know my story, but I really had to be a quick study because I didn't know anything about the industry.
Some very, very generous shop owners took me under their wing. They taught me the industry and invited me to join a board of directors in the Twenty Group. And what ended up happening is we started working on what has now become TechnicianFind. And we did a lot of trial and error to figure out what exactly attracts technicians, service advisors, and everything. And part of the process, I found out that 20% of the shops we work with, they were getting really outstanding results.
They were hiring within 2 weeks. They were doing everything right, they had systems in place, they knew how to, you know, sell the dream and communicate the opportunity, they had their offers dialed in, everything was really great. What I wanted to do is I wanted to share those best practices with everybody else. I wanted all of our clients to get results like that.
So that's why I started the school community. And what we do is we drop in all the best practices Shop owners can talk with each other. Right now we're at 486 members, um, all independent shop owners and general managers, and we have great conversations. And that's what it's all about, is sharing what works. Interview questions, standard operating practices, templates, GPTs that help you write ads and do things like that.
I love the whole GPT thing on and using that. We're getting ready to do an episode with, uh, the great guy who, who's very much into software technology, Chris Cloutier, and he is all over AI. I mean, we've done episodes on AI. There's, there's more discussion in our industry about AI good, AI bad. Where's it going? How's it getting there? But I recently read a book, The AI Thought Experiment, and I got it.
It just rocked my world as to how you can use it. And I think there's a benefit. I also think that there's an awful lot of junk going on about how bad unemployment's going to be because AI is going to cripple our world. I'm not worried about our industry. I, we need people to work with their brains and their hands. And yes, can AI help us in some of that heavy diag?
Sure. It may be able to look over things, you know, so quick, all these resources, but you know, I don't wanna go backwards in our discussion, but hey, the FreeSchool community, school is skool.com/technicianfind. We'll make sure we put that link in the show notes. So, Chris, Indeed, we're always going to back up and move into, well, I got to post in Indeed.
Woe is me. Yeah. You know, all roads seem to lead there and, you know, they do some things very, very well. I mean, they're the world's largest resume database. I mean, there's hands down, there's no denying that. And they have a phenomenal interface. It's very easy to use. But the problem is it's just a different pool. It's a job board. You know, if you're hunting a blue marlin, you're hunting somebody that really is maybe not particularly happy, but they're not looking for work.
They're not going to be on a job board if they're not looking for work. And if you're looking for someone that's experienced, someone that has a good attitude, that wants to work, you need to go somewhere else to find them. You know, that's the bottom line. And that's what we built Technician Find on is, hey, look, We need to find technicians that are already working, so we're not gonna do that where they're looking.
I have told, I'm sure it's a story I heard from you. Um, by the way, Chris has been on the podcast 9 times. I just recently counted, and I so appreciate you've been on panels. You've been, you and I, one-on-one. You're so smart. Go to my website, remarkableresults.biz, and just type in Lawson in any of the search features there and and catch some additional stuff from Chris.
You said something so big and so important, and that is the great quality people that aren't on Indeed that seem to be happy, but they're not, seem to feel they have a great career, but they're not sure. And I'm not talking about how to poach them, but I'm saying there are some that are good, so good, and they're stuck and they just need a really great owner to bring them in and pull 'em up and, you know, and, and show 'em, bring that continuous education, show 'em the right tools that we have, show 'em that we have enough work orders to make them fruitful every week.
That is, I believe, where you're going with all of this. Absolutely. What's really vivid to me is a conversation I had with a shop owner. He said, "I really want to change the perception of an independent shop." And he said, "What the perception is to a dealer technician is it's some guy with a potbelly and a cigar hanging out of his mouth and a dirty rag in his back pocket."
And I thought that was a really vivid way of saying that. And he said, "It's not." He says, "Look at my shop." I mean, it's immaculate. He picked up his laptop and he pointed to the base and it was immaculate. I mean, you could eat off the floor. I mean, it was sparkling clean. And he's like, what do you think of this?
And I was like, wow, it's beautiful. It doesn't have to be that way. I know. I hear you. You said something really big there, perception. And golly, the word professionalism kind of connects with that. Everyone knows that I'm crazy about this whole language shift in the industry and how important that I know that it needs to be. And yet we have too many people, you know, that just don't want to realize that the perception from the client looking in at us is so critical in how we look and what we do and what we say.
And so if we would just consider how we can grow the professionalism of our business, I know it's a heavy lift. There's probably 30 things to pay attention and look at, If you don't wanna be a strong strategic thinking entrepreneur, then you're just gonna be a hobbyist. But if you want to get up and go and grow, you need people like Chris and all of these great things.
We cover all this stuff on the podcast. If you're listening, by the way, for the first time, you know, we've got you covered from A to Z over the last 11 years. Okay. So let's talk about this 10 Mile Famous thing. I love what it really, in concept, if you know this whole, what it looks like in practice of my shop owner listening right now, what do I actually do to become 10 Mile famous?
Yeah, 10 Mile famous is something that I really coined because it's an idea of getting what you're all about out there and keeping it out there. And it's not from the perspective of your customers, it's from the perspective of potential employees. And it's as simple as just putting $5 a day into a Facebook ad, but these aren't ads for hiring. This is different.
And this is something that we found out the hard way. A lot of, in the early days when we were trying to help shops build their bench, what we would do is we would run employment ads and then they would build their bench. And what happens is when an employee sees an ad and they apply for the ad and they find out that you're just collecting resumes, It creates a lot of bad blood, so you don't want to do that.
This is different. What you're doing is you're doing culture ping ads, and the call to action isn't, hey, come and apply. The call to action is, hey, raise your hand, tell me, you know, comment respect if you really believe that respect is the most important thing in your shop. Comment growth if you think that having a pathway to growth and becoming more and a better version of yourself is important.
So it's just getting these conversations started and then nurturing these conversations with adding value. You don't want to be bugging people all the time. And I see this done the wrong way all the time. It's like, hey, when are you going to come to our shop? Hey, when are you going to come to my shop? No, you want to stay in touch with value.
And that's a big challenge that we had to come across is how do you stay in front of somebody, keep the conversation going, keep adding value and not be a pest? That's powerful. Stay in touch with value. Oof. Absolutely. Will these kinds of ads even help car count and new, new clients? Yes. As a matter of fact, funny you should ask. Couple times a month when we are talking with our clients, they'll say, you know, it's funny, Chris, our car counts go up when we're running these employment ads.
And they say, why is that? It's weird, cuz I'm not running an, you know, an oil change special or, you know, anything that has a direct call to action that's service related. And I say, What it is, is they see that the ad is so well-written and that you care so much about your employees and they're showing what's going on inside of your culture.
They think, you know what, if that shop takes care of their employees that well, they're going to take care of my vehicle. I'm going to say something. Don't crush me for saying this. Never. But what you just said seems like A warmth, and, and that's the word I just started to think about. I'm gonna go there because there's something really warm going on between their people and their clients and what they do and, and the, the value that they have.
So I don't know why, just boop, the word warmth came to me anyway. Okay. Because Carm is the kind of a guy that I listen so intently to people and then all of a sudden I form my own shape of what I just heard and keywords. And then I say, what does this mean? And what about that word? Anyway, let's jump into EZ bench.
I love this. I mean, where did this thing incubate from? Yeah, you know, over the years I've been asked over and over again, hey Chris, we're fully staffed, but we really want to have a bench so we don't have to start from zero. Can you do that for us? I tried. We did a lot with that, but it's like this, and this is how I describe it now.
Let's say you wanted to get married. You hire somebody to go on a bunch of dates for you and you say, you know what, I'll show up when you're at the altar, I'll bring the ring. You can't do it that way. It doesn't work that way because you're building a relationship. You're building a relationship with the technician. You're building that relationship with the service advisor.
You're building the relationship over time and it has to be you building the relationship. And so when I made that shift, It all changed. What we do is we remove as much of the heavy lifting as possible. We have pre-printed messages that you can grab and that are proven, that you can grab and you can send. We have a dashboard that's set up so that you can keep track of all the individuals and you can keep track of the last time you had a communication, the next communication, and what you should be saying.
And then we have weekly implementation workshops where we troubleshoot. Hey, what happened? I got ghosted. What did you do? And we troubleshoot and we figure out, okay, let's get through this issue. What I call it is, I call it, it's staffing insurance for independent automotive repair shops. Staffing insurance. Staffing insurance for automotive repair shops. I thought of the word portal, a bench portal, a hiring bench portal.
Yep, we do. It's actually a portal that you get to through the Technician Find School community. And there's a lot of resources in there. There's swipe and deploy ads. So the ads that we're talking about, about becoming 10 Mile famous, you just come in, you grab the text, you grab the image, you boost it, and you're done. You're good to go. And the cadence is what's really important, is continuing to do this.
And it only takes 20 minutes a week. The idea is that you want to keep 5 to 10 pre-qualified texts warm on your bench so that when that inevitable happens, you're not starting from zero. So it's kind of like an easy button and some— I'm thinking it's almost like a reliability thing. I know I've got tools there and I sense, I feel I'm going to grow.
I need somebody. I sense, I feel I have a problem in the shop and I need to do something about it. And all of those particular feels that you have, those moments of, oh, what do I do now? You can go back and rely on the EZ bench because a lot of the tools that you need to start a drive for a new person is there.
Any success stories from someone that's been using this? Yeah, absolutely. The service is relatively new, but I'll tell you one that, I mean, it was very dramatic. What happened is we had a new shop owner join in during the launch. I shouldn't say new shop owner, he's been in the business for years. He's got 2 stores, he's an MSO, he's got a 3rd store on the way, was fully staffed when he joined, but he said, you know what, this is really what I need because I don't want to have to start from zero if I lose someone.
7 days later, we hop on one of the first implementation clinic calls and he lost 3 technicians in that 7 days, all for different reasons. And quite frankly, none of were he had any control over. But he said, you know what, we were able from the first implementation clinic to the second implementation clinic to add 17 names to our bench board. We've hired 3 techs.
So he ended up hiring 1 B and I believe 2 A technicians based upon what he had the tools that he'd used inside of the bench and the fact that he had 17 technicians on his bench board within that first 2 weeks. Man. Wow. It had to excite the hell out of you. It certainly did. And I tell everybody, I say, you know what, this is what happens when you work it.
I mean, he went in and he got 17 technicians. He did what we talked about in the meeting. He had 17 techs on his bench board. And then he worked with the tools and his outreach was solid. The big thing is a lot of shop owners ask me, hey, how do I keep from getting ghosted? And I say, that's all in the messaging.
You're saying the wrong things at the wrong time in the wrong way. And once you have that dialed in, you don't get ghosted as often and your offers stick. Ghosting. Oh, so if someone's listening right now, Hey, I need this. What should they do next? Join us over at the SKOOL community. We, you can see, get a feel really quickly what it's all about.
There's a lot of detail on it, and you can also mix it up with all other shop owners in the community. And you can sign up right through the Technician Find community. There's a link right on the right-hand side of the homepage, and it's very simple. So it's SKOOL.com/technicianfind or technicianfind.com, and you've got links there. I do, yes. We have links directly from the main website.
So if you had all the clients that were in our listening, uh, listening audience, what would you tell them to do next? I would tell them to come check out the community. I'm really proud of this community. I'm proud of the shop owners that are participating in there, and we're just putting some really good content there. And there's so many— what I love most, and I think I'm like you in this respect, Carm, is I love it when people take my ideas and run with them and get results.
And I see that every day inside the community, and it's just so amazing. That's why I do what I do. You're a giver just like me. Here, free-flowing thoughts. Enjoy them. Do something with them. Okay. I love this episode. Thank you so much. I learned a lot, but I want to go one step further on something you said about, about 10 or 15 minutes ago.
Allow me to ask this question. We were talking about sign-on bonuses, okay? And you were going with some crazy, crazy numbers. Are there any hooks to a good sign-on bonus that you know of? Yeah. In a sense of putting teeth in them so that they don't get abused. They're not outlandish that someone's, well, well, 15, 20 grand, you know, they just want to get me in a seat and interview me.
And if someone does have, say, a $5,000 sign-on bonus, but there's probably hooks to it, you know, we need to accomplish so many things. Is it an immediate? Is it a 6-month? What do you hear about those kinds of things? Between $3,000 and $5,000 is really the spot. It's believable, it's achievable. And then from there, most of the time when I'm talking with a shop owner, what I'll say is what you want to do is you want to put some teeth into it..
And you want to, if you have a probationary period, have it correspond to your probationary period. If you have a 30, 60, or 90-day window, you can do it that way. I've seen shops that say, okay, we're going to pay out over a year, you know, and you got to stay for a year. I've seen tools, you know, that will give you tools and will forgive a certain, you know, percentage of that, those tools over, you know, certain periods if you meet certain benchmarks.
Here's what you want to do though. You want to have it in writing and you want to have it up front because people's memory gets fuzzy. And I can tell you, I've seen this personally. What ends up happening is the technician thinks that they're going to get this money and you think that you're going to get this production or you think you're going to get, you know, these benchmarks.
And the technician doesn't remember the benchmarks, but they remember the money. You always want to make sure that you have this in place and that you're monitoring it. That's the other thing that I see is If you're not having regular meetings and you're not monitoring the progress, then it's a problem because it all goes out of existence. And they'll say, "Oh, remember, you had to do a certain amount of training," or, "Remember, we needed you at this certain level and be able to handle these specific skills or these specific jobs by yourself, and you're not quite there yet, so we can't release this portion of the bonus."
It's however you wanna structure it, put teeth in it. Makes all kinds of sense, Chris. Thank you for that. And the thing I think about is you said it in writing, it's gotta be well thought out. If say it was a 6-month payout and at 90 days you're ready to part ways, but that individual says, hey, you owe me the rest of that money.
If it's not written and signed, then you probably will lose. Everybody's memory gets fuzzy when it comes to that. I know that's what happens. Hey, look, thanks for all the great things you're doing for the industry. Thank you for being my friend and thank you for working so hard. I love the EZbench concept. I love the idea. I think it's probably the next level in this whole recruitment thing that we're doing in our industry.
And thank you so much, Chris Lawson, the Technician Find and EZbench, technicianfind.com. Thanks for being here, my friend. Thank you for everything you do for the industry, Carm. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Chris. 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.
Also enjoy the podcast on our Carm Capriato YouTube channel. Carm is all for advancing the professional automotive service industry. Until next time.
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Thanks to our Partners: NAPA TRACS, Today's Class, KUKUI, and Pit Crew Loyalty Watch Full Video Episode *]:pointer-events-auto scroll-mt-[calc(var(--header-height)+min(200px,max(70px,20svh)))]" dir="auto" data-turn-id="request-WEB:8e59eec7-a235-4fa3-a072-956fea3fe478-7" data-testid="conversation-turn-4" data-scroll-anchor="false" data-turn="assistant"> *]:pointer-events-auto scroll-mt-[calc(var(--header-height)+min(200px,max(70px,20svh)))]" dir="auto" data-turn-id="request-WEB:49a777bf-d263-4496-bf0b-2eb3a46ac96a-11" data-testid="conversation-turn-24" data-scroll-anchor="false" data-turn="assistant"> What if the best time to recruit your next technician is when your shop isn't looking to hire? Lisa Coyle, CEO of Promotive, and Sam Freeman, Partner Manager at Promotive, reveal why automotive recruiting has a cycle, and why understanding when technicians are looking can give shop owners a significant advantage. Lisa and Sam explain how recruiting data, market timing, candidate behavior, and consistent relationship-building can create a much more proactive hiring strategy. Download the 6 Month Promotive Hiring Insights Report for FREE: https://info.gopromotive.com/RRR What You'll Learn Why technician recruiting has a cycle and why timing matters.Why “post and pray” recruiting puts your shop at a disadvantage.Why finding a top technician can take 60 to 70 days.How local market data can improve your job postings.Why you should recruit even when you don't have an opening.What may really be behind candidate ghosting.Why a counter-offer doesn't have to end the relationship.How consistent communication can prevent first-day no-shows.Why complicated hiring processes can cost you great candidates.How the F.O.R.D. method can make interviews more personal and effective. Great recruiting is about timing, data, and relationships. Don't wait for an empty bay to discover you need a recruiting strategy. Understand when technicians are most likely to consider a move, know what candidates in your market are searching for, simplify your hiring process, and stay connected with good people even when the timing isn't right. Your next great technician may not be looking when you're ready to hire. The opportunity is to build the relationship when they're ready to listen. Promotive has over 40 years of recruiting and automotive experience. If you need qualified technicians and service advisors and want to offload the heavy lifting, visit https://gopromotive.com/ Meet Paige: The Auto Repair Industry’s First 24/7 AI Recruiter [THA 481]: https://remarkableresults.biz/remarkable-results-radio-podcast/a481/ Lisa Coyle, CEO of Promotive Sam Freeman, Partner Manager at Promotive NAPA TRACS will move your shop into the SMS fast lane with onsite training, six days a week of support, and local representation. http://napatracs.com/ Optimize training with Today's Class: In just 5 minutes daily, boost knowledge retention and improve team performance. https://www.todaysclass.com/ Stop juggling multiple marketing tools. KUKUI’s integrated platform delivers 4x better website conversions, automated follow-up, and real-time ROI tracking. https://www.kukui.com/ You’re probably tired of chasing new customers who never return. Pit Crew Loyalty ends the one-and-done cycle, turning first visits into lasting, reliable revenue at https://www.pitcrewloyalty.com/ Connect with the Podcast: Download and Listen on Our Mobile App: https://automotiverepairpodcastnetwork.com/app/Visit the Website:https://remarkableresults.biz/Subscribe on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/carmcapriottoFollow on Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/RemarkableResultsRadioPodcast/Follow on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/carmcapriotto/Follow on 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/insiderAll books mentioned on our podcasts:https://remarkableresults.biz/booksOur Classroom page for personal or team learning:https://remarkableresults.biz/classroomBuy Me a Coffee:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/carmSpecial episode collections:https://remarkableresults.biz/collections The Automotive Repair Podcast Network: https://automotiverepairpodcastnetwork.com/ Remarkable Results Radio Podcastwith Carm Capriotto:https://remarkableresults.biz/<a href="https://mattfanslow.captivate.fm/" target="_blank"...
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Daily Habits That Build a Stronger Auto Repair Shop Culture [THA 501]
Thanks to our Partners: NAPA TRACS, Today's Class, KUKUI, and Pit Crew Loyalty Watch Full Video Episode *]:pointer-events-auto scroll-mt-[calc(var(--header-height)+min(200px,max(70px,20svh)))]" dir="auto" data-turn-id="request-WEB:8e59eec7-a235-4fa3-a072-956fea3fe478-7" data-testid="conversation-turn-4" data-scroll-anchor="false" data-turn="assistant"> *]:pointer-events-auto scroll-mt-[calc(var(--header-height)+min(200px,max(70px,20svh)))]" dir="auto" data-turn-id="request-WEB:49a777bf-d263-4496-bf0b-2eb3a46ac96a-11" data-testid="conversation-turn-24" data-scroll-anchor="false" data-turn="assistant"> What does a strong shop culture look like when you’re the people living it every day? Bree Wismer, Service Advisor and Frontline Culture Leader, and Trevor Hinds, Operations Manager and Dispatcher at Empower Automotive in Traverse City, Michigan, take us inside the daily habits and communication practices that keep their team aligned, productive, and focused on the customer. Rather than approaching culture from the owner's perspective, Bri and Trevor share what happens on the front lines. They explain how Empower Automotive breaks down the traditional divide between the front counter and the bays, keeps everyone on the "same bus," and creates a workplace where every person understands their role, respects the team around them, and contributes to the same goal. What You'll Learn Why the front counter and specialists must operate as one team.How daily huddles and short training sessions keep the team aligned.Why the 1:00 PM check-in can prevent late-day customer surprises.Why a "no-update" update can be one of the most valuable customer communications.How to respond when customers arrive with AI-generated or parts-store diagnoses.How respect, communication, and accountability create confident professionalism. Building a world-class shop culture doesn’t require a massive budget or a complicated organizational overhaul. By committing to these small, consistent actions, you can transform your shop from a high-stress environment into a thriving, unified business that both your team and your customers enjoy. Bree Wismer, Service Advisor, Frontline Culture Leader, Empower Automotive, Traverse City, MI Trevor Hinds, Operations Manager, Dispatcher, Workflow and Culture, Empower Automotive, Traverse City, MI NAPA TRACS will move your shop into the SMS fast lane with onsite training, six days a week of support, and local representation. http://napatracs.com/ Optimize training with Today's Class: In just 5 minutes daily, boost knowledge retention and improve team performance. https://www.todaysclass.com/ Stop juggling multiple marketing tools. KUKUI’s integrated platform delivers 4x better website conversions, automated follow-up, and real-time ROI tracking. https://www.kukui.com/ You’re probably tired of chasing new customers who never return. Pit Crew Loyalty ends the one-and-done cycle, turning first visits into lasting, reliable revenue at https://www.pitcrewloyalty.com/ Connect with the Podcast: Download and Listen on Our Mobile App: https://automotiverepairpodcastnetwork.com/app/Visit the Website:https://remarkableresults.biz/Subscribe on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/carmcapriottoFollow on Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/RemarkableResultsRadioPodcast/Follow on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/carmcapriotto/Follow on 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/insiderAll books mentioned on our podcasts:https://remarkableresults.biz/booksOur Classroom page for personal or team learning:https://remarkableresults.biz/classroomBuy Me a Coffee:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/carmSpecial episode collections:https://remarkableresults.biz/collections The Automotive Repair Podcast Network: https://automotiverepairpodcastnetwork.com/ Remarkable Results Radio Podcastwith Carm Capriotto:https://remarkableresults.biz/Automotive Field Theorywith Matt Fanslow https://mattfanslow.captivate.fm/Business by the Numberswith CPA Hunt Demarest: https://huntdemarest.captivate.fm/The Auto Repair Marketing Podcastwith Brian and Kim Walker:<a...
Rapid-Fire Automotive News: AI, EVs, Autonomous Vehicles, and the $19B Trade School Boom [RR 1107]
Thanks to our Partners, NAPA Auto Care and NAPA TRACS Watch Full Video Episode How quickly is the automotive repair industry changing, and are you ready for what's next? Tom Ham, shop owner and founder of the Automotive Management Network, joins Carm Capriotto for a fast-paced conversation covering 12 major trends shaping the future of auto repair. From autonomous vehicles and solid-state batteries to the changing value of trade careers, AI, government regulation, 3D printing, and vehicle reliability, Tom and Carm explore the technologies and economic shifts shop owners need to understand. What You'll Learn How autonomous vehicles could reshape vehicle safety and the repair industry.What advances in solid-state batteries could mean for EVs and vehicle range.Why trade careers are gaining momentum as technology changes traditional employment.How the technician shortage is creating new opportunities for shops to develop talent.How government regulation and emissions enforcement could affect vehicle owners and repair shops.What current vehicle reliability trends reveal about today's automotive brands.How 3D printing could help shops solve parts availability challenges.Why AI is becoming a powerful tool for reducing friction and improving efficiency.Why shop owners need to stay curious and adapt as automotive technology continues to accelerate. The automotive repair industry is changing faster than ever. The shops that thrive will be the ones willing to understand emerging technology, embrace new tools, develop their people, and continually rethink how they operate. The future isn't coming someday. It's already showing up in the service bay. Tom Ham, Automotive Management Network. Tom’s previous episodes HERE. 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
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Shop Owners: Maybe YOU'RE the Problem | Tristin Sweeney - 38
Running a shop is hard enough—you don't need your software making it harder. 😂 If you're ready for more clarity, better organization, and a smoother experience for both your team and your customers, check out Tekmetric HEREConsistency is key - heard that! But, consistency is HARD. That's why I gave up on trying and let the experts handle it. Detect Auto. Let them clean up your estimating process and raise your ARO - like they did for me! CLICK HERE TO BOOK A DEMOAt 29 years old, Tristin Sweeney is running an auto repair shop, building automotive technology, and questioning some of the industry's favorite excuses. In this episode, Tonnika Haynes talks with Tristin about his unconventional path from the startup world into automotive, acquiring Honest Automotive, building Shift, and why owning a shop became the ultimate testing ground for solving real industry problems. But things get spicy when they tackle the supposed technician shortage, outdated hiring practices, shop owners blaming younger generations, and why good employees may be leaving shops that refuse to change. They also dig into AI, technician training, communication, leadership, burnout, and why new technology should solve problems instead of creating more work. If you're a shop owner who keeps saying, “Nobody wants to work anymore,” this conversation might make you look in the mirror.Timestamps:00:00 Why automotive has become unattractive to work in00:23 Downshift intro00:42 Meet Tristin Sweeney: 29, busy, and obsessed with automotive01:23 Audi, Volkswagens, and where the car obsession started03:15 Can you be a great service advisor without knowing cars?04:40 There are more automotive careers than turning wrenches06:26 From tech startups to the automotive industry07:17 Getting laid off, joining ShopGenie, and finding his industry09:17 Running TWO automotive businesses at 2910:11 How Tristin bought Honest Automotive after finding it on Facebook14:01 Has shop ownership given him gray hair yet?14:32 Building a shop around passion and customer experience16:21 Honest Automotive is also Tristin’s “laboratory”16:48 How Shift Automotive was born18:19 Building software from the problems that drive shop owners crazy19:10 Technology problem or people problem?20:17 How does someone working 60–70 hours a week avoid burnout?22:55 Success isn’t worth burning yourself out by 3023:19 Tonnika gets VERY personal about Tristin having kids 😂25:32 Why Tristin is committed to automotive for the long haul28:53 Shift grows to more than 150 shops30:02 Why simply SHOWING UP can change your career31:21 The “Gen Z stare” and learning how to communicate33:34 Get in rooms where you’re uncomfortable37:04 What will automotive look like 10 years from now?41:11 Shop owners who ignore AI WILL get left behind42:43 How should shops prepare technicians for new technology?43:27 Does every tech need to understand the newest cars right now?45:48 Why the next generation matters more than ever47:58 What does a technician actually need to “look like”?48:48 Is the technician shortage actually a hiring problem?49:48 How many great technicians are shops overlooking?50:48 “I hire people. I don’t hire jobs.”52:00 Why automotive can be an unattractive place to work54:18 Great shops generally aren’t struggling to find applicants54:51 The talent is out there—and some of them want to leave their current shop55:55 If recruiters can steal your technicians, that’s a YOU problem56:04 Most shop problems start with the owner57:30 Accepting criticism from your employees—even your own son58:03 Old-school leadership vs. the way Tonnika leads today59:33 The macaroni-and-cheese recipe for evolving a family business1:01:47 Is treating every employee differently “coddling”?1:03:50 Why one universal pay plan doesn’t work for everyone1:04:39 Flexible schedules, flat rate, salary, and what actually motivates people1:07:08 Shop owners who refuse to compromise may lose great technicians1:07:56 Bad bosses create the next generation of bad bosses1:08:21 Why leadership and communication have to be learned1:13:00 Stop micromanaging every detail of your shop1:14:22 “Granddad did it that way” isn’t a good enough reason anymore1:15:28 The Carfax data debate gets spicy 😂1:16:24 What Carfax actually gets from your shop1:17:47 Tonnika’s grandfather discovers OnStar and thinks “they’re coming for him”1:19:03 Technology fear usually comes from misunderstanding1:19:45 Tristin’s legacy: Leave automotive better than he found it1:20:00 Where to find Honest Automotive and Shift Automotive1:21:22 Closing, AI hot takes, and what’s next
216 - Coach the Call: Using AI Insights to Develop Stronger Service Advisors
216 - Coach the Call: Using AI Insights to Develop Stronger Service Advisors August 26th, 2026 - 00:54:51 Show Summary: Strong phone skills can turn more incoming calls into appointments while building trust from the first interaction. Consistent call reviews give service advisors a clear path to improve without making coaching feel like punishment. AI call analysis reduces the time required to find useful coaching opportunities and helps owners identify patterns across their team. Positive reinforcement also matters because great calls give advisors examples they can repeat. Simple habits like smiling asking for the appointment and using the customer’s name can dramatically improve the experience. Better phone performance ultimately supports stronger customer relationships higher appointment conversion and long term shop growth. 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.
