Why Auto Repair Specialists Leave Our Industry (And How Shop Owners Can Keep Them) [THA 490]

0:00This is the Automotive Repair Podcast Network. Hey, it's an afternoon. It's a morning. It's an evening. Good to have you here. Carm Capriato, Remarkable Results Radio. In our— we're starting our 12th year of doing this, having too much fun, actually more fun than an individual is allowed to have fun. We bring on, you name the kind of guests and the topics that we have actually sitting behind stage right now is Matt Fonzlow, Chris Lawson.

0:26You both know them. And we're going to talk about not leaving our industry or how to keep people in our industry and what makes our industry desirable to people. And maybe it's something to do with hiring and interviewing and, or the individual finding the place they want to have a long-term career at. So they're both qualified to talk about this. And we thank so much our great, great sponsors we've had for a long time now.

0:55Hey, did you know that NAPA TRACS has on-site training plus 6 days a week support? It all starts when a local representative meets with you to learn about your business and how you run it. After all, it's your shop, so it's your choice. Let us prove to you that TRACS is the single best shop management system in the business. Find NAPA TRACS on the web at napatracs.com.

1:20Hey, how well does your team know their stuff? Test their automotive skills with the Today's Class basic, advanced, or service advisor quizzes. It's a quick, effective way to spot gaps and grow stronger teams. Take the quizzes now at todaysclass.com/tcquiz. Shop owners, stop juggling multiple marketing tools. Kukui's integrated platform, they deliver 4 times better website conversions, automated follow-up, and real-time ROI tracking. Get industry-leading customer support with Kukui.

1:52That's K-U-K-U-I dot com. You're probably tired of chasing new customers who never return. We understand. Pit Crew Loyalty ends the one-and-done cycle, turning first visits into lasting, reliable revenue. On the web at pitcrewloyalty.com. Look, we want to, uh, get going here, but first, don't forget about our app. I know if you listen on Spotify or Apple, you can download at this website, arpn.app, the Automotive Repair Podcast Network app.

2:27It's for your smartphone, the ultimate professional automotive repair playlist. Read show notes, save apps, share these podcasts with your friends. It's really a cool thing. So Matt and Chris, you guys are extremely qualified to discuss this. And I wanna say this, that as a listener, you need to hang in here for every waking breath that Chris and Matt are gonna take. Matt Fonzlow, of course, technical specialist and shop manager, Riverside Automotive in Red Wing, Minnesota.

3:00Hello, Matt. ASE, uh, subject matter expert, industry educator. Created Tech Talks at VISION, and I hear you're doing them at ASTA this year. Yeah, I got a green letter or whatever they called that saying that they're gonna let me try it again, and then STX 2026 as well. And that would be new for you? I did STX a couple years ago. Did you do Tech Talks though?

3:27Yeah, this year I think— I don't know if Tech Talks is in, uh, Worldpack, but PicoScope hands-on classes there twice. Oh, is that what you're going to do there? Okay. All right. Yeah. With Scott Shotton. And then I think we're doing a key class with Andrew Sexton. Nice. Good for you. The podcast Diagnosing the Aftermarket A to Z on the Automotive Repair Podcast Network.

3:49Matthew and Chris Lawson is here, the CEO of Technician Find. He's been on a whole bunch of times with us. Nice to see you, Chris. Great to be back. Always a blast. What's going on with you? You got the pulse of hiring and firing. Oh boy, I just finished those reports that you sent over and they're amazing. And hey, before I start anything, I just want to congratulate you on the 27th version of The Rise.

4:13I just finished it and every time I read it, I get more fired up. There you go. It's outstanding. I also watched your podcast with Brett Bechler, Craig Noel, and Tom Palermo. I love to hear how it's being applied. And that I think is really important in terms of raising the the perspective and the idea of what it is to fix vehicles that are so complicated.

4:37And I think that's a big part of what we want to get into today is how do we improve the perception of the industry? Well, thanks, Chris, for the shout out for that episode. And one of my biggest takeaways from that episode is from Tom Palermo. And Tom saw me give the speech to ASE Board of Governors when I had my chef's jacket on, and then I took it off and I had this really cool ASE all the badges on it.

5:03He gave the RISE to his people a while back now. I want you to read this. I want to get together. And the first thing he did to open up his meeting with his team is they are going to move this language shift is he said to them, wanna be a cook or chef? And that nailed it for them. And what I've done in my keynote, I've added a lot more about the chefing business and you have to do to qualify and what a, you know, a Michelin 3 and a James Beard chef thing is all about.

5:31And in that industry, it's exalted if you're a chef of any level of quality and where you're working, what your title is. And that should be no different than in our industry. Either the level of professionalism in our industry needs to rise. It's big for me. And the word specialist, I think, is the anchor that will help us get there. Well, thank you guys.

5:50And Matt, thank you for always saying the word, you know, specialist in your show when you say it. And I listen to every one of his shows. Okay, so we have a lot of issues here on the table and they are of, we don't want people to leave our industry, but what are we doing about it? And Matt, I know you interview people and you've seen people come and go in the industry.

6:14What can an owner do in an interviewing environment to find the kinds of candidates that want to come to work in the positive culture, looking for long-term career? The most obvious thing is to either hire, collaborate with an entity such as Chris's Technician Find. I think there's other ones out there. In fact, I know what they are. There are, I'm just not positive what the names are off the cuff.

6:41I think typically it's word of mouth, tool trucks, and Indeed, those type of entities online. Job finding type apps or websites, companies, stuff like that. I would say most shops rely very heavily on word of mouth and the tool trucks. And the tool truck guys, the salesmen are, I think, hesitant nowadays, especially with giving names of people because now their reputation's a little bit at stake where it's like, "Oh, hey, Bob over at so-and-so's repairs, sick of it and he's looking."

7:16"Oh, you know, I'll send them right over." But it'll get out if they're a loose cannon out there. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the assumption has to be that they are loose cannons because everybody— and most everybody is probably a stretch, but most people do use them like— and you're the most common question they get isn't, hey, what's on sale or what's new for a product?

7:38It's, you know, any good techs looking for a job or, you know, technical mechanical specialists looking for a job. That is the number one question they get, and it isn't even close. Or do you know who's hiring? There's the others. You run into people, of course, ask them how things are going and try to angle conversations a certain way. And then if we're going like really young and kind of a grow-your-own mentality, then you're doing things with the local high school or advisory boards or just the college itself or technical college or trade school to try to get the young people.

8:13And I shouldn't even say young anymore. That's a gross misnomer. It's not. It's people looking for different careers. And I got to level with you, I think the quote-unquote blue-collar jobs, especially ones like ours, is moving up the ladder of attraction because we do have a certain level of insulation from primarily automation, but a little bit of artificial intelligence. And we're a high-tech industry, no bones about it.

8:40Well, I think high tech, it's important, but also it's such a wide variety. If we step back and just look at automotive or automotive light truck, then you go from designing, building them to selling them, to maintaining them, to crushing them. The other thing is just in our world of auto repair, so much from maintenance or whatever we would consider gravy work or low-level work all the way up to the highest levels of diagnostics and, you know, programming or whatever you would like to call that, circuit board level repair.

9:16I mean, it just doesn't stop where you could go. More people find out about that and more attraction there is to people that would never have considered working on cars in their life. Is the individual who's not doing that level of high-tech, but they're just master Mechanical specialists close their eyes, do a brake job in 20 minutes. They just know it. They got it.

9:37They're kinesthetic learners. That's what they do. They work with their hands. Are they happy doing that stuff? And are we paying attention to their needs? I stop and think about, don't leave our industry, but the people they work for care. One of the things is, are we paying attention to our people and the world around them and this harmony that needs to exist?

9:57Because it's a tough world out there, Matt. I think yes and no. I think people think they are. I think we think a lot of things. I think we do genuinely care, but the amount of investigation we do and do to it— and I'm not implying we have to become like private investigators, but it's usually, how are things going? How are you doing?

10:21And then, yeah, doing fine. It's high level, quick. Yeah. And then Nobody's complaining about anything, or they're just complaining about the same things, and then, you know, it largely gets ignored. I don't know that a ton of effort is going into what you're talking about, where you do have a mechanical specialist who is completely happy taking things apart, putting them back together, specializing in certain systems on vehicles.

10:49But the somewhat of an abused term, just like communication, is culture. But it's the word that describes it, is something is not quite right with the culture of the shop or the culture that they're experiencing. Therefore, they're looking for a way out. And unfortunately, it's rarely going to another repair shop because their idea is, and it's not necessarily wrong, it will be a lot of the same but different.

11:14How do I get out? And oh, by the way, I have the skill set that translates to other skilled professions really, really well. And, you know, not too long ago, I think there was a lot of those professions that paid you better to use a fraction of your skill set. I don't know if that's quite the same, at least across the board.

11:34There's certainly people that are wildly undercompensated, and that would be a tangent for a whole different— I got to ask Chris a question based on what Matt just ranted about. Do opportunities for you to find a job for a specialist, Chris, come to you? And does that individual say, Chris, I don't want this, but I want that. Can you help refine the place that I'd like to work?

11:58'Cause I'm not happy here. This is what's going on here. And I have some friends that are working at some really cool places around the country, and this is what I want. Do you hear a lot of that? Absolutely. Typically when somebody has a mechanical affinity or they're just good at it, they know, you know, they've been doing it forever. And ultimately, at least the specialists I speak with, they would really love to stay in the industry, but it's just that it just seems onerous to create a living doing it.

12:24The big things that I see over and over again usually fall into 3 different categories. One is respect. They just don't feel like they're getting respect where they are currently. And respect has a lot of different faces. Respect can mean, hey, do you listen to ideas? And that's actually a great question if you're a technician or, you know, mechanical specialist, if you are a technical specialist, If you go into an environment and you're in an interview, that's a great question to ask is, hey, how many one-on-ones do you do?

12:53If I have an idea, does it get implemented? You know, when a lift breaks, how long does it stay broken? You know, it's these types of questions that really will point out what type of environment it is. And the second thing is, are there growth opportunities? Is there a pathway to growth? Is it well thought out? Can you show me if I'm a strong B technician or, you know, strong B, Can you show me how to get to, you know, a master?

13:17Is that— do you help? Do you pay for training? Am I going to be on the clock when I train, or do I have to do it at night, you know, and take time away from my family, or on the weekends, or do I have to travel, you know? All of these things are questions that are really important. And then the third one is, what does the compensation look like?

13:34And I always put the compensation third because I've seen folks take cuts in pay to go to an environment that was better. And when I say better, I mean, it just fit better. They offered 4 10-hour shifts. Wow, this is great. 3-day weekends every weekend. I get to spend time with my family. They would actually listen to ideas. They have a situation where if they need to take off early, they can go to their son's ball game or their daughter's soccer game.

14:02These are the type of things. And the cool thing about this is these are environments where an independent shop can really shine. They may not be able to come out with these huge sign-on bonuses. They may not be able to come up with these huge salaries, but they can shine in these other areas and they can be highly, highly competitive. Is it all about the money, Matt?

14:22It's never about all about anything. I mean, you got to make enough money to exist, right? There is a cost of living for where your people are going to live. They have to make at least that. You know, and we can split it up between, you know, or, you know, they're married and dual income, stuff like that. But the reality is, is there is a number that they have to be able to make to be able to live within a certain radius of the shop.

14:47Game, set, match. If they can't make that, they're going elsewhere and it doesn't matter what job. After that, yeah, now it becomes, you know, am I working to live or do I live to work? I think we kind of want to help everyone be able to work to live and enjoy life outside of the shop. Now, granted, anybody can spend more money than they make.

15:08That's just the way it is. And maybe that's part of the perks too, is some financial counseling. But we have to get them into a position to make enough money to live. And then I think maybe on top of all of it, it has to be deemed fair. I think we put a lot— as human beings, we put a lot of weight into what we deem fair.

15:30I think there's even studies about this, kind of like a, almost like a variation of the marshmallow experiment, kind of a variation where they'll give, there'll be two actors, two people, and one gets some money. They both know about this. And it's a, we'll just say $100. That first person can decide to give the other person however much money. And it turns out if it's not pretty close to like 40%, the other person will not take any money.

16:03They'll basically tell them to cram it, even though if that other— the person that got the money offers them like a dollar, which is a dollar more than they had when they got there, because it is so wildly unfair, keep it. You have to keep that in mind, not just with your compensation plans, but the way things operate. Do people deem it to be fair?

16:22Are there completely fair systems that people deem to be unfair? Absolutely. But it's not as often as the other way around. That's a brilliant point. And I think the key to that is transparency, because if something is opaque, then it's just by definition, it's unfair because I don't know if you're screwing me or not. Yeah, right. So I think that at least in the shops that I've seen that really want to bring everybody in and show them, hey, look, this is what we did.

16:50This is how the P&L works. This is your part of it. And this is why you get this part of it. And the other part about this is I tell shop owners and GMs this all the time is, you know what, you have to really understand your compensation structure and you have to explain it in 2 minutes so that someone leaving your office can explain it to their spouse.

17:11If you don't do that, you're gonna get ghosted. You know, I don't care how elaborate the pay plan is, you have to be able to explain it very concisely and you have to be able to show them how to get to that number. Again, that's transparency, and that's when people think that it's fair. I'd like to build on that. I don't know, I'm sure everybody will love this, but if you look, there's a video going around, and it's legit, of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, the professional wrestler talking about a contract coming up with the WWE back in the peak of the Attitudes Era with Stone Cold Steve Austin and him and

17:49The Undertaker. His contract was coming up. And so the owner of the company, Vince McMahon, asks, you know, what are you looking at? And well, how much does Stone Cold make? Oh, he's guaranteed $1 million a year. And then, you know, they have different things for merch and stuff, bonuses. He's like, I need— I think I need $3 million. And Vince, instead of going, giving him just this hard no, goes, tell you what, I want you to spend a month in the front office with my people.

18:20I want you to learn how everything works. I want you to see what makes this company go and how we make money and all the things, what it costs to run this company and stuff like that. So The Rock's like, yeah, I want my $3 million. I'm going to do it. Two weeks later, he holds a meeting with Vince and says, I'll take $1 million.

18:38Because he got to figure out how things really were. That transparency, just like Chris brought up, changed his attitude about everything. So I think there is a lot to transparency. I think there is a lot to everyone learning a little bit about what makes a business run, what it costs to do it, what it takes to do it financially, managerial, economically, all the things.

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21:55When people get a chance to look at a profit and loss statement that they've never seen in their entire life, and you spend a little time actually taking the P&L and putting your highest expense in the expense area down to the lowest, and they start seeing what it costs to really run a business. Okay. Hey, let's just say there's 20% on the bottom line, which is what the coaches are really striving for, for all the top shops.

22:1820%, you do $1 million, there's $200,000 on the bottom line. If they're not being paid anything but a really low-level wage, it's a very difficult thing to do. But if you're paying your people really well, market value, even maybe above, the respect of saving money, not overspending things, you know, waste, it all comes out, especially if your people are engaged in some form of bonus.

22:46Now it could be on profit, it could be on gross margin, it could be on effective labor rate. There's a lot of things that we can build into the engagement, and maybe that's the word we're looking for. Why do people want to leave? Because they're not engaged. Yeah, they may be engaged in the bay, in their job, but they're not engaged in the business.

23:04They are a spoke of that wheel, and yet we don't care to tighten them and put them in play. Absolutely. You know, one of the big things that a lot of folks in the industry talk about now is the younger generation. I love to pick on the younger generation, but being a Gen Xer, I have my opinions. But it's really interesting because what everybody, regardless of what generation you're a member of, is you want to be part of something bigger.

23:30Being part of something bigger is really what a leader's job is, is to set that vision and to keep reminding people what the vision is and to bring everybody on board and just to keep pointing that direction. Every good leader, throughout time has said basically the same thing that Steve Jobs is, is my job is to come in and point to the horizon and make sure everybody is headed in the same direction.

23:53And he says, I will do that 1,000 times because people forget every day, people forget. So that's a big part of what's going on in terms of being a leader. And when you can create that, then you get people contributing ideas, you get people taking ownership, Couple years back, I was talking to a shop owner that was talking about the difference that it made once they finally started sharing the numbers with everybody and then doing a gross profit bonus.

24:22And now all of a sudden, the shop supplies stopped being, you know, lost or misplaced or given away. You know, all of a sudden everybody's, you know, watching every clip and everything that goes on. And that's what happens when people understand what's going on. They take ownership and it just changes the game. Yeah, understanding the system. You know, it's economics, it's ecological, it's— you have an ecosystem.

24:47That's what a business is. It's an organism. It's a bunch of separate or seemingly separate symbiotic systems working together. Human body is to stay alive in general, and for a business, it should be to profit ethically. And, you know, in our case, generally fix cars or repair, maintain vehicles. And I think when people understand how that system works and they trust— and that's the other thing, I think that if I had a big rant, and I know I've said it multiple times, so I fear of being a broken record— that if there could be just this understanding between ownership management and employees, we'll just say, or producers, however you want to label them generically and

25:31across the board, is that As management, as an owner, I am going to try to take care of you. I'm going to try to pay you as much as I possibly can or compensate you as best I can or as best the business can. I'm going to equip you to do the things we need to do, the stuff we say and advertise we're going to do.

25:52I am going to give you— put you in the best position possible to do that as well as you can, as productively and as efficiently and as safely as possible. On the flip side, as the other end of that, as being a producer, if you will, I'm going to do everything I can within the aim of this organization's— whatever we're saying we're doing, in this case probably maintaining and servicing vehicles— to generate you as much ethical profit as I can.

26:21Making stuff up, I'm not lying, I'm not saying this is leaking when it's not, or I'm not making a leak for it so that we can When work, I'm going to ethically generate you as much profit as possible. And if we could trust each other to do that, to do that and do that, a lot of these problems start subsiding. I agree 100%.

26:42And, you know, the other thing that this brings up in my memory is how frequently it is that I'll be talking with, you know, a mechanical specialist or a technical specialist and they'll say something or they'll post on Facebook It's just funny watching them just tear apart my posts on Facebook. And there's a couple of things I can say about that, but one of them is just the misconceptions about what it's like to be an owner.

27:06And there are a lot of them that just think, well, you know, you're charging this, this is your door rate, so why don't I get half of it? You know, it's that kind of thinking and they don't understand what goes into it. So having transparency eliminates all that. It's like, Yeah, here's what I have to pay. You know, here's everything that it costs to keep the doors open and insurance and this and that and everything else.

27:25And the other really interesting thing is when I see posts, a lot of people will post and they'll say— they go on a rant. Mechanical specialist, technical specialist will come in and they'll go on a rant. And then somebody else will say, yeah, that's why I'm a plumber now. Or yeah, that's why I'm, you know, this now. And to Carm's point about, hey, are people talking each other out of the industry.

27:50That's a big part of what I see as well, is because they've had an experience that was a bad experience and then they left. And then now they're talking to, you know, they're basically— one of the things is I don't know why they're looking at these posts if they're in another industry and they're doing something else. There's something about that, you know, that kind of, you know, they're gluttons for punishment because they're just looking for all these posts so they can go in there and needle these guys that are still in the industry.

28:17And, you know, I don't know why that, you know, why they would want to do that, but it still happens. And, you know, these are things that they can be overcome if you're just running the right industry. And I want to say, or running the right shop. And I want to say one more thing about that. And that is, I started a school community called Independent Wrench Jobs after having a conversation with a shop owner that I worked with down here in Southern California.

28:41And he really inspired me. He said, you know what? "We don't do flat rate." He says, "What we do is, I came up as a mechanic, I came up as a technician. What I wanted to do is create a shop where we could really make sure that we took care of everybody equitably. And my goal is to provide a view of what it's like to work in an independent shop."

29:05And he said, "Most people coming up," and I was the same way because he was a dealer tech for like 20 years. And he said, "You know what? My view of an independent shop owner was a fat guy with a pot belly and a stogie sticking out of his mouth and an oily rag in his back pocket. And he said, that's not at all what a lot of these independent shops are all about.

29:25So it's perception and it's changing that perception. And Carm, I love what you're doing about changing that perception. And there's also, what does it look like when you have this interview? What kind of questions are you asking? Are you hiring for culture fit? Are you just checking boxes on skills and experience? These are all things that are, they're clues. They're little clues of, hey, how am I gonna be treated over here?

29:49What's it gonna be like on a day-to-day basis? And quite frankly, they're watching you. Do we have enough questions? There's a sheet. We have all these questions and I'm an owner and I'm asking generic old level, old class questions about this. So how long you been there? And you know, how many tools do you have? And where'd you go to school? And blah, blah, blah.

30:15Instead of getting into the culture side, hey, tell me about a great experience you had just 3 or 4 weeks ago at work. What's going on, uh, at home? Positive things, you know, what kids play sports. That opens up a conversation to find out if an individual can be a fit because I believe we can teach them the competency if we find the right individual.

30:40And if you are building a stronger level of culture and a team that wants to come to work every day, and you don't ask those types and kinds of questions, what's going on with time off for life? How do you treat that? How much do you need? And then you start hearing this stuff coming in, Matt. I can't imagine you trying to zero in on the people that come to work for Riverside, but you're such a great judge of character that you would probably within 10 minutes figure if you got the right person just by how they sit and how they talk and maybe their first question.

31:16Yes and no. I wish I was really, really good at it. I think the younger they are, the less questions they know to even ask. And the older they are, the more galvanized they are anyways. So it's really, really difficult to put people at ease. The young person because they don't know what to ask and the older one who's got every guard up.

31:41And even if they like what they hear, they're going to be hesitant to move just because of the change. The fear of change is real. I guess I feel like the best recruiters we have, the best interviewers, if you will, we have are the people that work here. That I guess, you know, when you're pitching this to us, you want something called like talking points, and I don't know what those are, but when we're talking about this subject, something came to mind.

32:08And if we take a little bit of a tangent down the road, you know, Matt's tangents. You're known for that. Go. I think I have a reputation building. And if you didn't bring a tangent to me, I would be really pissed. We'd have to start over and So if we talk a little bit about game theory and very specifically something called behavioral game theory, which is kind of the current evolution of it, and game theory just quickly is the study of interactions more than anything.

32:37It got started in actual games, namely poker and chess and stuff like that, but it's translated quite well to economics and behavior, stuff like that. They use game theory to track how or predict how birds fly. Together as a flock. Okay? That's where it goes to. And for the sake of this conversation, there's two things in game theory. One is known as the official game.

33:02That's kind of the game, that's kind of the culture, if you will, that as an owner or manager, you think you're running. You think, I'm taking really good care of my people. I empower them to do what they need to do. I create a comfortable working environment and I want stuff fixed the right way. And I have all these systems in place and all of these plans in place to perpetuate that, to cultivate that culture.

33:31That's the official game. That's what you think it is. That's what you tell everyone it is. That's what's in the employee handbook. It's all over the place. It's on posters on the wall. But then there's something called the shadow game. And that's the things that you don't know you're incentivizing. Those are the things you don't know are going on as a repercussion of these ideas, these— really not ideas, of these plans, of these procedures, of these rules, of these incentives.

33:59You don't know that they're having this other effect. You probably can't even see it. The ones that can are the ones working in it. So that's why I think it's really, really important that if you're an interviewee, that you're going in to be interviewed, that you get to talk to people that work there and get them off to the side a little bit and say, "Give it to me straight.

34:21How is it working here? How long have you been here? What do you really like about it? What would you change?" Or stuff like that. "What don't you like? What's the owner really like? What are the managers really like? How do things really go? They're telling me I can make all this money if I do this. Is that even realistic?" On the flip side, As an owner-manager, the— or the one doing the interviews, if you believe that your official game and shadow game are very close to one another, you try to get that person you're interviewing to talk to the people that work for you and ask them questions just like that.

34:54You hope they do it. As a quick side note, Chris, how many do that? How many owners do that? Not many that I know of, but I wanted to unpack a little bit because Matt said just, uh, just a wealth of— just unleashed a wealth of wisdom, I should say. There's a lot of things here. One is the unintended consequences. No matter what you do, there's always going to be other things that kind of squirt out the side that you didn't expect.

35:17So you have to be aware of those. And then there's a term in Neuro Linguistic Programming that's called sensory acuity. So you have to be aware of what's going on. And how do you become aware of what's going on? Well, you know, some owners just have a sixth sense. They can kind of feel it. But I like to take a more systematic approach to that.

35:36And this again goes back to one-on-ones. It goes back to asking them. I worked with one shop owner and what she did was she asked everybody, if you were in my shoes, what would you change first? Think about how that question is structured. If you were in my shoes, so it changes the perspective. And then what would you change first? Because if you just ask, if you stop, what would you change?

35:57And they go, oh, nothing, you know, everything's fine, you know, because they're trying to please. People pleasers. But if you say, what will you please first, you're expecting an answer. What would you change first? Now all of a sudden, and that's kind of another little NLP thing, that the way that that question is phrased, and now all of a sudden you get the inside scoop on what's going on.

36:16And it's so important to have that inside track because I've also worked with shops that have a horrible reputation in the area among technicians, among tool truck drivers, and the owner doesn't know it. And when we go out and we do an exhaustive search, an exhaustive reputation search, and we turn up all this stuff and you show it to the owner, they're going like, oh my God, I didn't realize it.

36:42And that's a tremendous headwind for trying to hire, trying to bring on talent. And it's also a tremendous headwind from trying to get everybody to march forward in the same, you know, be part of the same page. In building your business. Are owners in denial, or they just don't know? They don't know. Most of the time I find that they don't know.

37:03They're so busy, they've got so many things going on. It's like, you know, the old saying, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Well, if none of your wheels are squeaking because they don't want to offend the boss, then no grease is applied. So I think it— you have to really be proactive. And again, I don't see a lot of shops that are that proactive in sitting down, doing one-on-ones, asking questions.

37:28I mean, I work with another shop. Every Thursday they have a lunch, they buy a lunch, and it's not just a, you know, a BS session. What they do is they go around the table and they say, hey, what would make your life easier here? Everybody has to say something. You can't pass. You can't say, oh no, I'm good. You can't do that.

37:44Everybody has to say something. And the best ideas come out of that. And then here's the most important part. The most important part is the— everybody votes, the very best idea gets implemented next week. You don't say, "Oh yeah, that's nice," and pat them on the back and then go away and just go back to business as normal. Because what you're training is you're training people that their ideas are respected.

38:08And when you train people that their ideas are respected and they're going to be implemented, then they respond over and over again. And it's just like training. It's just like, you know, Pavlov's dogs. And of course, your employees are not like dogs, but everybody gets trained the same way. You're getting positive reinforcement, then that behavior, that behavior that's being reinforced positively will occur in the future.

38:30I just see it as positivity, improvements, caring. I just don't know how an individual who has a career, and that's what a— it's not a job, it's really a career in this industry. Why would you want to leave such a high-tech industry? Why would you want to leave it? Well, you're not happy with something, and that's what I think we need to find out.

38:53And again, some owners may be pretty hit upside the head when they find out that it's how the business runs. It's their particular attitude, it's their non-caring. Forget about the money. Let's just put the money somewhere else, Matt, right? And let's just talk about everything else that takes the burdens that we live in life from home that we have to bring to work because it's very difficult to escape it and how that integrates into— it's not great right now.

39:21It's not great here. We're missing stuff. We got comebacks. We're not happy. It goes back to your great article that you wrote for NAP Insights. Q2 in 2026. If you're in Napa, open your Napa Insights magazine, look for Carm's Corner, and find Matt's article, Your Shop Might Need Marriage Counseling. It's a slap upside the head about the crazy parts of life and how we do and don't do right, the right things to make this environment congeal.

39:51Yeah, I mean, definitely want to have a safe environment for people to be able to come to you with problems. Particularly feelings, but let's be honest, most of us in this profession, we're not good at that. We'll come to you with problems and we won't probably assign a feeling to it, but it's the same general idea is you want people to feel safe doing so.

40:11And the other thing I was thinking is that it's not a Western thought. Like in the Western world, we don't think this way, but it was very important to somebody by the name of Dr. W. Edwards Deming In his 14 points of management, one of them was that you want to give people the ability to take joy in work. That's a really powerful mindset because it isn't motivating them.

40:39You're not out there motivating them. You're not out there just dangling the carrot to produce more, to make more money. It's, what can I allow you to do what you already— you took this job presumably because you love to do whatever it is. Whether it is work on vehicles or solve puzzles, whatever that motivating factor is internally, what is it that I can do to remove the obstacles from you growing that, cultivating that, maintaining that over decades?

41:10Instead of what we kind of do, kind of like our education system does to kids wanting to learn, we kind of do that to our people wanting to work. What am I doing by taking away that internal drive, that, you know, whatever that is, internal motivation? And that's a hard question to ask yourself. And it's a hard question to try to find the answer to, because it's probably going to involve eating a healthy dose of crow or whatnot, ego.

41:41But it's a big deal. It's a really, really important thing to do, not only for hiring, but I mean, keeping good people, right? That's what we want. We want to hire a staff that eventually ends up all good people and good for our business and good in and out of the business, and we want to keep them as long as we reasonably can.

42:00Absolutely. You said so much there. I want to unpack a little bit of that too because you're just spot on. And Deming, I mean, the architect of the Japanese miracle. I mean, they sent him over there and he just like completely transformed everything, just a tremendous genius. And removing obstacles, I think, is a big part of this. When I was talking about leadership before, a big part of being a leader is removing obstacles for your team.

42:23You can't have these obstacles in the way. And I think when I see shops that really work well, it's because they're thinking about removing obstacles, not only in the shop, but outside the shop. What I see a trend happening now is hiring life coaches. And getting those things so they don't bring those things in. Because I mean, again, I mentioned I'm a Gen Xer, and when I started working, it's like you leave your stuff at home.

42:47You know, once you go through that door, you're here to work and you leave your stuff at home. But that's just not the way things are these days. People bring their stuff to work. And I wanted to say one other thing about that tool truck relationship that we were talking about in the beginning of the conversation. The tool guys are getting beat up by everybody.

43:06And the strategy of saying, hey, if you ever hear of a technician that's, you know, looking, tell me, that doesn't work so much. It gets them in hot water, you know. But what does work is if you have a great relationship with them. And I worked with a shop and she told me, she said, you know what, Chris, I was talking with the tool guy and he told me that one of my ATECs was leaving.

43:28He said he was applying at other places. And she said, that notification, that heads up gave me enough time to go back in, have the conversations I should have been having, like we're talking about right now about, hey, how can I remove obstacles for you? Hey, why are you looking? What's going on here? And it gave her the opportunity to save that relationship.

43:49So again, it's that sensory acuity and knowing what's going on and having your ear to the ground so that these things don't blindside you. And don't wait until it's too late. Put that up above the board, the door in your office. Don't wait until it's too late. Go out, be engaged, ask some questions, reevaluate, pay attention. I, I've been writing tons of blogs about all this stuff lately that we need to reboot or reinvent ourselves.

44:14And let's not wait till the first Q of 2027. You start doing it now. And some of the best to, I think both of your points is the stuff we're going to find out, it's going to come from our ranks. Very much so, if you listen and ask the right questions. Yep. Well, we can go on for another 2 or 3 hours.

44:33My God, you both could do Deming for me. Should do a Deming— I didn't realize I was going to run into a kindred spirit. Yes, I know. Great stuff. Before we turn the mics on, Chris is reading this incredible— I think it's a book almost, Matt, that you've written. It's close. What is it, 90 pages now? Yeah, 87 pages. Yeah. I've had this bright idea of taking some ideas that I've mentioned here and there in different episodes on my podcast and on Karm's podcast, and I think others, and I don't know, I see this convergence of different ideas like game theory and economics, and it's particularly behavioral game theory, which gets into some psychology, and

45:14then just Deming, like Deming kind of had the answer a long time ago. We've had these answers for a long time and just how, I don't know, I just see this big convergence. And so I just thought I'd write an article maybe for a trade magazine and then maybe it could be a series. And now I don't know what it is. It's a book, a book.

45:34It's turning into a book. It's turning into a book. It's heavy. It's great. It's strong. I've not read the entire— Chris, you haven't read the entire one either, but every time I think I'm getting done. Matt says, there's another 20 pages. I don't know where you find the energy to sit down and do that, but the man's so smart. What does it just pour out of you, Matt?

45:56I think about it a while and then I like have separate documents going with these ideas. And then when they kind of get together, I'll try to find a place to put them. And a couple of times I like Chris Claudier had to call me up or message me like, oh, This doesn't make any sense. It's like, oh, gotta move this. I remember, I think I may have seen that conversation somewhere along the line.

46:19You have to stop, be careful where you insert anything. Yeah. Craig O'Neill, he did a really nice job of commenting. He had not editing, but he had comments about, and that helped immensely. Well, Chris, I know you're doing a great thing by helping owners and specialists get together and try to find them some gainful employment or people that come to work there.

46:43But I just worry that the industry says, I need to find somebody, Chris, find me somebody. That's the conversation. And that somebody is more of a, a butt in a seat than it is a part and partial, I need someone to come inside and work in our business. Yeah, absolutely. I use the story of what I don't like and the hardest shops we work with are the ones that say, "Chris, go find me talent," and then they sit back in their chair and they fold their arms and they wait for that unicorn to come in with, you know, 25 years of experience and $60,000 worth of tools and all the ASE certifications and all this

47:25stuff. And it's like, "Go find them for me." And they don't realize that this is a partnership, and the partnership is you've got to do your part. Yes, we can find you folks, and yes, we can find you that person. If you're gonna wait for the long enough, we can find you that exact person. But on your end, there are things that have to happen.

47:46And here's a great story. I was talking with a good friend of mine. He actually owns a diesel shop in Iowa. And we were talking and I said, what was the strangest story that ever happened when you're trying to hire a mechanic for your shop? And he said, you know, I had this guy pull in And he said, I was standing in the front office and I was looking out the window and I saw him pull in with his truck and he pulled into the lot and then he parked and he sat there for about 2 minutes and then he backed up and he drove out.

48:11And he said, I couldn't figure it out. So I gave the guy a call and I said, hey, we're supposed to have an interview. What's going on? The guy goes, you know, I drove into your lot and I looked around and it was just a bunch of junker cars. And I said, you know, this isn't a place for an ATEC. And he said, that was a gut check.

48:29He said, wow, I've never had anybody tell me that before. And he said, that day I realized that I don't own a business that will attract top talent. Wow. What can I do to fix it? And he did, you know, he said, took me about 12 years, but I fixed it. Now I can attract top talent because I did the work. And that's what I would say to you, Carm.

48:51I would say, you know, You know, there's work on both ends. Me and my team and my staff, we're gonna work hard for you, but there's work on your end too. When we get somebody in front of you, you have to be able to talk about your opportunity. You have to talk about your value proposition, and you have to talk about why that tech should go with you instead of the other 2 shops that he's talking to or she's talking to down the street.

49:15And a lot of owners and GMs, they can't answer that question. Wow. You know, Chris, and again, I, I'm going long here, but what about a grading system for the owner? He says, listen, this is not for me. This is for you. Just listen, sit down with yourself. You know, spend an hour. I got a grading thing. Uh, I grade 1 through 5, A, B, C of all these really key components, including what's the place look like from the outside?

49:40You know, where's the appeal of not only the client, but the employee? Maybe it gets a person a chance to do soul searching. I'm ready to fix and change my business and I wanna hire all these great people, but I'm not attractive to them. Maybe at the end of this survey, there's a why statement there, why you're not. Maybe. Anyway, just, just my crazy think because I love to speak to people in the industry to get my juices flowing.

50:08Matt, thank you so much. Appreciate time out of your busy day. Anytime. Matt Fonzlow, Diagnosing the Aftermarket A to Z on the Automotive Repair Podcast Network, and Chris Lawson from technicianfind.com. Always a pleasure, guys. I hope the industry can have fun, learn something from this. And don't forget, listen and learn just one thing, but the key is to implement it. Thanks. Thanks for being on board to listen and learn from the premier automotive repair business podcast, Remarkable Results Radio.

50:40Get 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.