4 Non-Traditional Ways to Motivate Your Technicians (Part 1)

Welcome to the big show. I am Chris Collins. Adam is here. Hoagie is here. Today we're going to talk about ways to motivate your technicians, part 1. And we talk about why I'm going to become a libertarian. Is that what it would be, Adam? I'm a libertarian. Like, I believe my land is my land. No. And I don't want the government messing with me. What do you call that?

Oh, isn't that a song? My land is—

no, I don't know.

I'm the song guy.

Go ahead.

I want to hear it. We have an exciting announcement also and much, much more coming up right now on Service Drive Revolution. So Adam, tell everybody why you're excited.

I'm excited because, uh, turkey season's right around the corner.

It's not turkey season.

Yes it is.

No, we just had Thanksgiving.

In a week it will be. They, they're having youth turkey season right now, and I just saw 3, uh—

that's how, that's how ready you are, is you eat turkey all year round, not just on Thanksgiving?

I thought I saw 3 huge toms today, dude.

What are—

I just, uh, they're male, male turkeys. Jakes are the young ones.

Murder the male turkeys?

Yes.

Wouldn't it be funny if you're not allowed— we're not allowed on YouTube for saying that.

You're not allowed to— you're not allowed to hunt any hens. Okay, but there is— there is a bearded hen. You ever seen a bearded hen?

Same. It's the same as like normal society. All the men go to war and get killed. All the men do the dangerous jobs. Men are disposable, man.

I think the beard thing is just a Missouri thing. I don't think they have those everywhere.

No, for sure.

Oh yeah, neck of the woods.

How many, uh, how many times—

that's a you problem, not a we problem.

How many tags do you get there?

You get one tag in the lottery, which I did not win the lottery, so, uh, oh, I'm hoping to lose my tags are given out. Uh, it all depends on who's got in that lottery. I'm sure there's several thousand, but you're only allowed to one tag, one limit, um, per season. It, uh, Illinois has them really pretty tight, but landowners get their tags shipped to them every year. So I'm hoping that my father-in-law might let me—

hold on a second, let me get this straight. I own, like, let's say the amount of land that your father-in-law owns, which is what, how many acres? 200?

Uh, combined it's about a couple hundred. Yeah.

So I own 200 acres and they tell me who and what I can kill on my land?

Uh, yes, when it comes to hunting season.

What? Yeah, that's where we're at.

Yeah, Illinois, uh, that makes no sense. I wouldn't say it's the worst, but yeah, every state has some sort of limit.

What if, what if I have chickens? I have to get a tag to have chicken tacos?

It's not— it's— no, it's not a, uh, I don't know.

I'm sure there's some sort of special about a turkey compared to a chicken on my land. This is my land.

Well, first off, it's a wild turkey. It's a wild— yeah, public land, it's the same thing.

If my, if my, uh, land is fenced in, it's not wild. I mean, the difference between wild and not wild is a fence. And I had 200 acres. I'm pretty sure I would have it fenced in. So explain to me this, this government that you've elected there that tells me on my land what I can eat.

All right. So first off, I could be speaking totally out of turn. So I'm sure somebody will mention something in the thread on our video here. Hopefully they can correct me if I'm wrong, but some folks actually do raise not only chickens, but they'll raise turkey.

Yeah. So I think when you're raising turkey to the grocery store, somebody is raising those turkeys.

They don't just appear.

There isn't a 3D printer somewhere.

I'm going to tell you right now, right?

This turkey—

those turkeys, dude, Chris, this turkey that I killed behind me was definitely not the size of the turkey that you would eat.

No, they're healthy, right? They don't— they're not full of hormones. Right.

There's very little meat on them too.

Yeah, well, that's what happens. But like, if you, if you go to Europe and, you know, you butcher a cow, it looks completely different than these things that we have here that are full of steroids and hormones and whatever we do.

Well, even if you don't do steroids, like even if you give them feed, right, they're not eating the kind of like feed or the majority of the feed that if you're trying to raise them, it's all of that, as in they're eating all the grubs or whatever.

I'm just still— I'm sorry, I'm stuck on This is my 200 acres. I bought this 200 acres. I'm paying taxes, probably crazy taxes there, property taxes.

Oh yeah.

And I can't kill my own livestock.

Well, technically it's not your livestock because you're not raising it.

It's my land and it's on my land and I can't charge it rent. The turkey isn't paying rent, it's eating.

That's exactly why it's a good job to hunt. They're not paying rent or paying taxes. Okay, I didn't, I didn't make the rules, bud. I just—

setting to me, I could tell you right now, like, Mr. Green Jeans ain't gonna deal backwards as it can be, but I'm pretty sure that if I have 200 acres here and I have turkey, if I'm raising turkeys Or there's, you know, a turkey from my neighbor's 200 acres gets on my 200 acres. I can shoot it. I'm pretty sure.

I bet the turkey has more rights on that land than you do in California.

Yeah, let's be real, dude. I don't know.

You're going to have to sign it over.

Dude, you'd have a better bet, like trying to hit it with your car and then claiming it.

Man, that's nuts. We, we are excited to talk about one thing that I, that I want to bring up before we get to, to this list that we've been working on for a couple of days, how to motivate your technicians. We are going to launch here coming up at the beginning of June, something we are going to call— what did we decide we were going to call it yesterday? We were originally calling it SDR Live, but now we're going to call it something academy. Do you guys remember?

SDR Academy, maybe?

Service Drive Revolution Academy.

Yeah.

And we, we are going, this is something we've been wanting to do since last year, but we're going to start going live weekly and we're going to go through different modules and train on, hey, here's, you know, pricing strategies. Here's how to hire and recruit. Here's how to read the financial statement. And we're going to certify whoever's in the academy on those. So they're going to get a certificate that they participated and passed that section. And the way that we're setting it up, which for me is super exciting because I love hanging out with our audience and getting to know them and help them and kind of get vested in them. And I know you guys feel the same way. Is Hoagie is going to do the kind of more vocational side, and then I'm going to do leadership. So every other week we're going to go back and forth because I think like the leadership stuff can be kind of heavy. You need a little time to think about it. So 2 weeks of like processing and thinking about it is good. And then the same thing with, with the vocational stuff, the pricing strategies, how to read a financial, you need a little time in between. So we're going to go every other week. And we're going, we're going to help you, help you get some incredible results, help you become a better leader, help you understand the business in a different way, show you where the leverage is, how, you know, there's so many things that you can do in a parts or service department to increase the profit and the sales and the customer experience tenfold, like And that's going to be the, the focus is how can we make you more effective? How can we weaponize you to be the best version of yourself? Now, the good news with this is this is just going to be service. Our SDR On Demand is what it's going to be. So if you're in On Demand right now, if you have our On Demand, you're going to get this. If you're in our coaching, you're going to get it. If you're not, I I would encourage you to sign up for on-demand as quick as you can because we might do some early stuff. And we also might let people in the academy that like hit some benchmarks come to Top Dog, which you— if you've ever heard our Top Dog event every year is a pretty big deal. We, we always have some incredible speakers. We already have locked in one incredible speaker for this year, Jefferson. Who Adam and I met at an event we were at. He's pretty cool. Can help you talk your way out of any argument with your wife.

He doesn't start there, but he definitely ends there.

It applies for sure. But, um, yeah, I'm, I'm really— I don't know if you guys are excited because you don't seem that excited, but I'm really excited about this. I'm excited to be able to teach the leadership stuff.

Yeah, I was just thinking about it and most of these episodes come from our audience, right? We get a lot of ideas for the different things we're going to talk about.

The one today is from somebody.

Yeah. And so what I'm most excited about is we get a lot of great feedback from these episodes and things like that. But these questions come and we take them and we do an episode on them, where people call in and ask a question and we field those. But the way we're setting this up is we'll help you set up a system where these different topics, when you isolate them by themselves and try to execute on them, are really hard. But when they're put in context for you and we're going through them one by one, it's way easier to put that puzzle together, right? And so I was just thinking about that because of a couple conversations I was having. But no, I'm super excited about it for that reason. And more. And I think it's important just for the audience to be able to have some dialogue with you on some of these leadership topics because that's always pretty profound and there's a ton of great feedback from that. So yeah, I'm excited about it for multiple reasons, but that's a couple for sure.

Yeah, the leadership stuff is my favorite just because human behavior. And there, there is, I will say this too, there is this backlash internally in our company that we aren't charging enough for this. So we charge $250 a month for on-demand. We price it there because, you know, unfortunately in our industry, a lot of dealers won't invest in their service department. They'll invest in sales, they'll invest in training and F&I, but they don't invest in service. So a lot of managers pay for that themselves, and it's affordable enough that they can pay for it themselves, but get a ton of value. You can put your advisors on the training, you know, you can put your techs on the training in there, all of that. Like there's modules in there for everyone. But you know, there is this undercurrent that we want to charge, you know, twice that, which would make it a little harder for managers. So I would just say the way that we always do things is we kind of start out with a low price and add value and gain momentum, and then we'll raise the price. So there is a benefit to getting in early because eventually we will raise the price because the value is going to be pretty incredible. I mean, to, to every week be able to get on, have a community that you can, you know, share what's going on. Let's face it, it's lonely to be a manager a lot of times. And so you have a community to get the training that we're going to provide and to be able to ask questions and participate in it actively isn't something that exists on this level in our industry. And we love our industry and we want to make it better. We want to improve the leadership, then that will improve the industry. All ships rise, right? When we get better. Yeah, go ahead.

I was just going to say, like, what really excites me, I think, is the piece of the community. I think that this is— I want to emphasize on the, on the opportunity for our, our current clients on the platform or future clients that are thinking about getting on the platform, having a tribe that you can openly share and discuss. It's just like a 20 group. That everyone tries to focus to be a part of that's out there. I think this is the networking piece of this and having opportunities to openly discuss or bring up things that they maybe don't have the opportunity to bring up internally. They can have this here, and that's giving them that voice. And I think that's what I'm excited mostly about, is giving people that opportunity to have that environment.

Yeah, it's good. You can just go to chriscollinsinc.com and sign up for on-demand. And I'm sure we'll do one or two practice ones leading up to the beginning of June, but it's going to start in June and we're thinking about doing them on Wednesdays. Is that what we decided? We'll do them 11:00 Pacific. So doesn't matter the time zone you're in, you can take an early lunch or a late lunch, but you'll be able to do it on your lunch, which will, will help everybody. So super fun. Yeah. And, um, so what we're going to talk about today with ways to motivate your technicians, this topic, like, uh, Hoagie was saying, was brought up by somebody actually that I was interviewing for a coach position. And she was talking about how much she loves SDR and how it helped her because she moved from being a warranty administrator, kind of a lot like Vicky. One, you know, one of our coaches that, that I have, I don't know, it's been over 20 years that I've worked with Vicki and she's one of my favorite people. But she was a warranty administrator, became a manager. And the same thing with, with this person I'm referencing. She was a warranty administrator, became a manager, had no training. Dealer wouldn't invest in any training. And SDR was, you know, a place where she could go and learn and get ideas and ask questions and that sort of thing. So This is from her saying, you know, one thing that I always wish I was better at and had more tools is how to motivate technicians because they drive everything. They're the, you know, they're the heart and soul of what we're doing. And I was like, okay, well, we'll do that. Now we started outlining this and kind of brainstorming what we have seen be the most effective over the year in motivating technicians. And it's a two-parter because this would be a probably a 2-hour episode if we went through the whole list. I think I counted 15 things that we put on here. So we're going to break it in half. So today we're going to go through half of it. We tried to kind of make it so the, um, 2 lists will stand up on their own in a way. So you're listening to part 1 and then the next episode will be part 2 on ways to motivate your technicians. Now in the frame up front talking about this, I think we should, we should really make it clear that the most important part of building a team of technicians that are productive, that are team players, that are growing and advancing with, with the company, is the culture that you have. And too many times, the thing that we see is there isn't a lack of good technicians that we can recruit. There's a terrible culture that we're bringing the technicians into. And so the culture that you have determines your success probably more than, than anything else. Your, your leadership is, is the other part of that, right? So the culture and your leadership and the expectations you have drive everything that we're going to talk about on this list. And without a, without a strong culture, without you becoming a better leader or being a good leader and having clear expectations, clear intention on what, what it is you're trying to do, all of this is for naught. Because too many times we go into a shop that the technicians are quitting and leaving. So like, you you know, we'll come in and the, the top 2 techs just left and quit, or they're, they're quitting and we're trying to get them to stay. Uh, you have the rest of the technicians aren't very motivated. The production is very low. So the production might, you know, be 50 or 60% in the shop, or, you know, even 70 or 80 isn't, isn't very good. And that all comes down to, it isn't clear what it is we're trying to do there. There isn't a strong, culture and there's no leadership. The person in charge, the manager and the dealer, the general manager are in a position where they are such terrible leaders. They're begging technicians to stay. They're begging technicians to work there and everything is out of whack. It's not a collaboration between the techs. And the customers and the leadership in the business. It's a one-way hostage situation that nobody is happy. Like, I've never seen a situation where the technicians are holding management hostage and the technicians are happy. They're always miserable and it always just gets worse because unfortunately, you know, at the end of the day, people want to work somewhere where there's a, there's a strong culture. It's constantly improving and getting better. And there's, you know, there's optimism for the future. It isn't just like survive today. And unfortunately in our industry, there's just too many survive today shops out there. And so everything on this list is valuable, but it isn't as valuable as you understanding that if you don't have clear expectations, you're not becoming a better leader and you don't have a strong culture, all of this is for naught. It's all for naught. You could just turn it off right now and go do something else because it requires, you know, clear intention and leadership at the top in order for there to be a shop that's, you know, producing quality work and constantly growing and getting better. And that's, you know, that's what this list is about is how do we create a shop where where the technicians are thriving, they want to be there, they're participating and active in the business, they're, you know, they're growing and getting better, and the business is seeing those benefits, right? The customer is seeing that, the profitability, all of it. Like I said earlier, all ships rise. Do you guys want to add anything to that part, the culture?

Um, I think, you know, a question we'll get from time to time is little things. Like an example with technicians would be, hey, Hoagie, do you have any tips on how do I get my techs to clock in on tickets? Right? Like, do you have any tricks on that or anything? Or like, how do I do that? Or another one, I know one of your favorite ones, Chris, is like, how do I get advisors to do walkarounds?

Yeah, it's the same question.

Yeah. So it's a symptom of your culture, right? Like kind of to your point. So if you're hearing this and you're thinking of things like that, when we're talking about culture, we're talking about structure and holding people to that structure that you set up and design for your department. And if you get key things correct with your culture, behavior-wise and performance-wise, a lot of the little things like that take care of themselves. And so I think just again, I don't think you can emphasize that point enough that the foundation of all of this is definitely culture and how intentional you're being as a leader to set up a framework in your department to set people up for success, right?

Yeah. Maybe just unpack what culture is.

Who'd you say?

No, unpack what culture is.

Oh, okay. So culture, well, I always start with what culture is not. So what culture is not that it commonly gets mistaken for is free lunches. Or, or, uh, you know, yeah, like back in the day when I worked for Tesla, everybody was like, what's the culture like there? It's like, you get, you get free lunches and there's ping pong tables. And I'm like, Google, um, yeah, you do. Well, it's Silicon Valley, it's right down the street, right?

And, um, and, uh, you're like, no, I get a coat hanger and bubble gum and I gotta fly to Oklahoma to fix a car.

Yeah.

Yeah, I was like, no, it's like the standards are crazy. There's a huge vision. Every person in that place you could walk by, you could ask them what the purpose of the company is and they could recite it to you that we're here to advance the advent of electric vehicles, blah, blah, blah. And there's just clarity all the way around as to what you're doing and everybody is running on edge. Figuring out what the thing is, but there was free lunches and ping pong tables, but it's not the thing. If there's clarity on what the standards are for me to do my job and you as the leader are helping me meet those standards, there's a lot of structure with that, right? And a lot of times as leaders today, one of the most common things we see in the service department is there is no standard or people are hard to find, so they don't hold people to the standard, things like that. And then what you have by definition, if you as a leader are not setting a standard and bringing people to the standard, is chaos and like it's anarchy. It's literally the definition of anarchy.

A lot, a lot of shops out there are anarchy.

And if you look into service today, it's closer, you know, closely more related to anarchy than anything else. And culture, our definition for it is the opposite of that. It's the opposite of chaos.

Yeah. So it's law and order. It's having standards. Yeah. Clear expectations and a clear vision. Go ahead, Adam.

I was just going to add into that, like, based off what Hoagie's saying, the clarity, and then just having the minimum standards. A lot of the shops, like, especially from, for me in the commercial truck space, is that I almost felt like because they were mostly hourly, um, paid techs, that, um, it was kind of that, that added to the anarchy piece of the tail was wagging the dog. And then there was no oversight or leadership to actually have that structure of like what it should be. And that's a lot of times just with just blocking and tackling, setting some framework. Like, I personally, being a technician, pretty competitive. So most technicians are. So if you give them some sort of minimum standards, some framework and something to shoot for, they definitely don't want to be below that. That what did we call it? The murder line. And when we go in to have those discussions, it was like, oh, I really don't want to be below that. I'm that bad. It's like, no, no one comes in there and saying, I want to suck or waste time. That's why, like, when you get into the discussion of a flat rate or an hourly rate kind of thing, there should be structure and systems in place to foster that. But when you talk about in the culture, it was really kind of just set a standard, have a minimum standard. Don't be afraid if technicians don't want to be there, but also show them the pathway and how they can be successful and achieve. It's kind of the same way I look in a similar fashion. You brought up advisors, but some of the cases where I'd see in service managers, they don't really know what they're shooting for if you don't show them that pathway of success.

Yeah, it's good. So that's the setup. Now the first one that we have on the list, ways to motivate your technicians is not to treat them like a number. Understand that every technician is an individual. They are human. They're special. There's things about them that they bring to the table that are great. There's things about them that they probably need to work on. But as a leader, as a coach, you need to see them as humans, not as numbers. And this is manifested in the way that you treat them, not in what you say. Like, I think most people, if you said, well, hey, technicians aren't just a number, they go, oh, of course not. But the way that they actually treat them and their behaviors and where they spend their time says something completely different, right? Yeah. And so, you know, really getting to know them on a personal level, sitting down with them once a month and doing goals. Taking your top performers out to lunch or dinner. Hoagie had a great example that, that he brought up about when somebody has a technician that has been there a long time, there's a, you know, there's a value to that person, but they've kind of gone sour. They've kind of gone wrong. The, the way to kind of work around that, that I have found is to take them and their spouse to dinner and really hang out with them socially and get to know them as a person, get to know them in kind of context of their actual life. What is that like? And really listening and paying attention to what their goals are, what their needs are. And it's hard sometimes for some of these techs as they get older and they don't see where things are going. They don't, they don't see any improvement, and they're, you know, their bodies are starting to break down. It gets hard. And so, you know, not treating them like a number is the first one on the list.

Yeah, I think, I think some people struggle with that too, uh, because they, they— there's this thing throughout the industry, um, that I've heard over and over again is like, you can't be friends with your people. And so they really shy away from getting to know them and stuff. And you can have a strong culture, you can still care about people, know their kids' birthdays, like you said, take them out to lunch, stuff like that, and learn about them and be invested in them and still hold them to a standard. Those two things can happen and be true at the same time. And I think people kind of shy away from that for whatever reason. But Yeah, it is a funny thing. I've watched you, Chris, do that over the— what made me think about that is I've watched you over the years at different meetings. People a lot of times will bring up a question of, hey, I got this cancerous tech, or hey, I got this tech, he's really difficult. And you always ask them one question after you let them tell you all about this person for 5 minutes. And you're like, hey, are they married? And they're like, yeah, I think so. And you're like, what's their wife's name? They're like, I have no idea. He's like, okay, why don't you go get to know him, take them out to dinner, you know, whatever. Um, yeah, it's always amazing what you, what you kind of find there.

Um, it's also amazing how intuitive the wives are and how much you learn about somebody when you can talk to the wife, you know, because, um, they know, like, they're going home and telling the wife how they really feel, right? They, they're probably not vocalizing that to us, and so It, you know, gives you a perspective. Now, for this to work, you got to care and you got to, you know, really be interested in people and, you know, want to invest and grow people. It's because it's not an easy path. Like, it's, it's certainly way easier to be indifferent. It's certainly way easier to just use the excuse of it's just business. Like, that's the easy path. But that isn't the long-term path. That, that path puts you, puts you at a dead end frequently because people don't want that anymore. And especially we're talking about older techs. The younger techs don't want that. The younger techs think a lot of times that they're legends in their own minds already. Like, I remember, uh, Hoagie, I don't know if you remember this, but maybe you were one of the kids that, that everybody was talking about. But when I was a general manager of a BMW store, we were buying all these step kids, which BMW did a really good job of recruiting these kids into school. They would tell them they're going to make $100,000 a year and what a great thing it is. They go to school for 6 months or something. I don't know. It wasn't very long. Maybe it's a year. How long was STEP?

27 weeks.

What is that in years?

Half a year? 7 months.

7 months. Okay. 7 months. They come out and they're a C-minus tech. And, uh, they're legends. Like, they think they're gonna make $100 grand. Like, and everybody would complain about it, like, oh, these kids. And I just had a different approach. Like, you just get to know them. Like, you, you, uh, you know, it's just a process. There's no shortcuts. But, uh, you have— there has to be a certain kind of deprogramming that happens with anybody coming in, especially if you have a strong culture. Your culture has to be stronger than whatever it is that they've been programmed for previous to coming into your, you know, to your environment. So yeah, that's so that's the first one is not treating them like a number. The second one, and this is a big one, this is a big one for the young techs, the quick loop techs, but it's a big one for the older techs that have been there a while too, is you got to have a career path. And a career path requires you having it, you know, documented. Like, this is, this is how you move up. This is how you get promoted. This is how you make more, right? This is your career path. This is, this is how you gain equity in this marketplace. And that requires you to kind of like really understand the first one, which is you got to know them as people. Like, in order for somebody to buy into a career path, you have to tell the story of the career path in reference to them. So if you, if you got a kid that just wants to go dirt bike riding and hunting, like, let's just say, like, you know, we have Adam and we have Hoagie. They would be two completely different people motivated by two completely different things. If I'm talking to Adam, I'm talking about, you know, the time off he can get. How he can afford guns, how he can afford to go hunting and that sort of thing. With, with Hoagie, it's, you know, it's more technology. It's more like working in your shop with, you know, building something sort of a thing. In a sense, they're two completely different people. The story that I want to tell about a career path has more to do with how they see the world than how I see the world. I can't impose my view on them. In a sense, you got to know them. You got to know their ambitions. You got to know their personality and what they're like, and then drawing out a career path. But we have seen over and over again, internally and externally, that shops that start technicians off with easy wins of moving up. And I don't know, what is currently, what is the quick lube tech career path look like? Is it 17 steps, Hoagie?

Yeah, something like that. Right around there.

Yeah. Like you're quick lube plus, plus you're— it's like karate. Like you're a yellow belt with a hash. You're then, you know, you're a green belt or what, but you just are moving up. But having a clear, clear career path and then that requires you to constantly be meeting with them monthly about where they are on the path. I mean, all of this is kind of connected, right? We're painting a Picasso here. None of this works in a silo. It all has to work together, but knowing them, meeting with them monthly about their goals, learning about them, and then having a path that they're moving. And then the other part of career path, and I'm just going to kind of move this one up on the list because I think it's connected, is you got to have a hierarchy in the shop and the hierarchy in the shop and the culture and how you gain influence is by performance. It's by flagging hours and not having comebacks. It's not by being the loudest. It's not by, you know, being the funniest. It's, it's not by being the biggest pain in the butt. It's based on performance. Now, the fun thing that, that you find when you start operating this way is a lot of times the high performers kind of are the quiet ones. The high performers are kind of a little more introverted. They're not these extroverted, crazy, complaining types. But what happens invariably in these broken shops that don't have a strong culture is the low performers that are the ones that vocalize things that have a negative context, that are conspiracy theorists, that, you know, you would call the cancers in the shop. Are the ones that have the most equity and the most influence because when they talk, we avoid them. When they talk, we run. You have to go to a lot of work with the career path, with taking them to lunch. Like if, you know, you have a lunch every day, whether you take it or not, if you were taking the top performing techs to lunch and everybody saw that, it would tell the people in the shop consciously or unconsciously, hey, the thing that's important here is flagging hours and, you know, being a productive member of this team, because that gets rewarded with attention. Not, you know, not the bad kids, because the bad kids will act out to get your attention because it works. People want attention and it works. And if you train them—

controlling the narrative—

yeah, if you train them that that gets attention, they'll misbehave. And then in a scenario where you need them more than they need you, Here we go. You know, every day's a roll of dice basically. And there's zero culture. So, you know, really understanding how all of that works and, you know, putting it on your calendar that the first week of every month I'm sitting down for 30 minutes with all of the techs or the foreman is, and you're, you know, in on some of them, just depending on the size of your shop. But the technicians need to feel that you care. They need to feel that there's a plan for them. And that you're vested in them succeeding. Yeah.

Yeah.

And there's a key thing you said there that I want to make sure everybody catches is that if you're not having these monthly one-on-ones and going over where they're at on the career path, where they're at on their pay scale, what bonuses they're hitting, like all that stuff, just a one-on-one. When you're not forcing yourself to have that communication with everybody, to Adam's point, you're not controlling the narrative. And then it leaves a vacuum. And when you leave a vacuum, the squeaky wheel will get the oil. Like it's, it's that. So a lot of people are experiencing what you're talking about, but they can't put their finger on how to corral that. It's not by trying to put more oil on the wheel. Like it's not going to fix it. The ones that are giving you trouble, don't give them more attention. You know, start those meetings right away. And it's amazing how just starting tracking a number with an individual, that number and that individual automatically gets better. Like, but if you're not doing that, like, that's the vacuum you're leaving and that's why that thing exists. But when you're in it, I get it. Like, I know it's a hard thing to see when you're in it and you're fighting that battle every day, but it is the truth.

Hey, Hoagie, when you talk about one-on-ones, there's one little tip that I learned earlier in my career. Doing an unsuccessful one-on-one. So it's good to go through some of the numbers, but I would also suggest to folks to make it about them, less about you, have them being able to open up and share a little bit more of like some opportunities that they would like to see maybe differently within the shop. Some of the idea sharing, that was some of the things that was very hard for me earlier in my career, just in any sort of one-on-one. Because it's really easy in management or leadership to start talking about the things that we need to do to improve. And then it just kind of— the narrative of that fostering of an open-minded one-on-one really kind of gets tampered. And then it's like they dread the one-on-ones rather than, hey, I'm excited to share some ideas, go through some numbers, and seeing that path. That would be the only thing that I would say on that because you just kind of brought the light on there. But yeah, I think Getting early, getting in-depth on those is crucial. But I also want to share, when we talk about connecting with our technicians, one thing that I really saw that was really cool with— when you say leadership or senior leadership, but owners, some of the most successful dealerships that I've seen is that owners actually spend the time. Some of them even made it a personal choice that they would park in the back of the dealership and walk through the back and meeting and talking with every technician and then getting up to the front of the store and greeting and talking to folks. And they did that intentionally to build that rapport with their technicians. And I know just, dude, technicians, you want to talk about a recruitment retention tool, but you, Chris, like you said, you have to care. That went a long way just from a cultural standpoint in treating them more of a human being.

Yeah, it's great. I would say when I do goals with technicians or advisors, I have a folder for them and more than 50% of the conversation is about their personal life. And then the goals kind of come in at the end. But I'm writing myself notes on their previous goals because I have like a spot where I can write, you know, saving for a house, wants to buy a boat, look, you know, looking to learn this, is day trading on the side, you know, whatever it is they're interested in. I'm writing that down so I can, you know, hey, how's the day trading going? Or how's your mom? Whatever it is like. But it's, it's 50. It starts with the personal stuff and it's 50% that. And then I think the way to come out of the personal stuff and get to business is So how are things going in the shop? How are you feeling about things in the shop? And I'm asking them for their— I want, you know, I want their feedback. I want to see where they're at. That's a good way to take the temperature and understand how they see things. What, you know, what the world is. And, you know, if they're super negative all the time, that's something that I'm going to address there. And I'm going to point out, I'm going to say like, hey, Adam, do you ever notice that like, you know, when we, when we have these meetings and we talk about this, you like, you're very negative about things. And sometimes, you know, they're like, oh yeah, I guess you're right. I never realized that. And it's like, like, you know, this is a pretty fun place to work and you're a pretty good guy. Like, couldn't we, couldn't we see this a different, you know, and just start chipping away at like, you know, how you think and which just segues right into the next one. Which is number 3, is educate them. And when I say educate them, the most, the most important part, which would seem like the obvious part, but you don't see this. It's crazy. Like, I've gone in to buy sells numerous times with a current client. So we'll have a client that's like, hey, we're buying a dealership and can you help us with the buy sell? And I remember this dealership in Vegas that we went in, we did not have a technician in that shop of 12 techs that was certified to do warranty work for this brand. I had to hire somebody from LA, put them up in an apartment and pay them an ungodly amount of work just to have somebody that was certified because I couldn't get anybody into the classes. And you know this, Adam, from your previous experience that You know, it isn't like a guy isn't certified on transmissions and you can get him in tomorrow. They're only offering that class 3 times a year and you just missed it. Like, that's how luck always is. And so it's—

and you're begging them to put you in it.

Yeah, 3 months from now you're begging them to put it in and that class is already full. And so like, just imagine a, a shop of 12 techs and I don't have one that's been certified and, um, the previous owners never sent them to training and they couldn't do warranty work. And this was something that we figured out, you know, on the fly as we're going. And so we had, we had to get technicians in and recruit them from out of town because this brand, you know, in Vegas, there's only one of each of these kinds of brands. Yeah, it was crazy. But I've seen over the years where we don't invest in training technicians. Now, if you're a technician, And you're not being sent to training and nobody's investing in you getting trained. What does that tell you about how important you are? What does that tell you about your career path? And then the second thing I would say about this is it isn't just about the technical side. You need to invest in your people and training them on life. You need to invest in your people and training them on finances, on, on training them on, you know, whatever it is they're interested in. But many times I have been in dealerships and a technician will stop me and say, hey, why isn't there any training for us? And I'll be like, what do you mean? And they'll go, well, we took, but by the way, there is training for technicians, but sometimes it just isn't communicated or for some reason it isn't used. But, um, they'll say like, hey, I went through the advisor training and I want to learn about the business. And so we've made a module in there for the technicians explaining how the financial statements work. Now, just think about what happens to discounting and productivity when your technicians understand that we're selling time and how efficient they are on that time and how we charge for that time and how slim our margins are of profitability. Like, when they really understand, just like when the advisors really understand the financials, your discounting goes down, your productivity goes up. but you're also like, you're investing. Like, I, we named that module in on-demand, you are the future. Like we are saying like, hey, you're the future manager. You're the future leader in this business. Why don't you understand the numbers? Why don't you understand what the advisors are doing? You're, you're going to be better at doing inspection sheets. If you understand the process and how the advisors are presenting in our system, you're also going to want to do them quicker in the process instead of waiting until the end. Because the, you know, you'll see very clearly that the sooner you do an inspection and get it to the customer, the better chance we have of selling that work. And so all of those little things add up, but not just training them on, on the technical side, but having people come in and speak or doing a book report on, you know, leadership or just personal development of, of some sort, watching videos together, you know, for 15 minutes and having a conversation about life. You know, especially, I know that there are females in our industry as technicians, but for the most part, it's males. And a lot of these younger kids coming up, unfortunately, have had terrible parenting. Like a lot of you listening to this are the parents that have raised these kids. That they have a fear of things that causes this anxiety and—

Or entitlement.

Well, yeah, that too sometimes. But training them on those sort of things and talking about it and becoming, unfortunately, you're a parent figure in a way, but you got to accept that role and you got to understand that when you have young kids, it's on you to help them become better humans, not just technicians. Just back to the point one is if you just see them as a number, that's a, that's a recipe for disaster. You have to treat them as a human, as a whole. And it's not just about the shop. They have lives outside of the shop too. So number three is educating them. And it's not just on the technical stuff, even though that's very important and that sends a strong signal to them. It's also having conversations, reading, have books, books, or having a book club, videos, having speakers come in and talk to them, you know, whatever it is. But investing in them as humans.

Hey, Chris, can I add something into that? It might not necessarily be truly educational, but like opportunity outside of the four walls. So in a lot of cases where I'm familiar with in the truck space, it's like technician rodeos. There's several different organizations or even some of the larger groups that would host their own tech rodeos to showcase and compete and then have some sort of scholarship to go back into whatever type of school or continuous learning. I think from an educational standpoint of like just that piece and having an opportunity has been huge. So like, Even giving back to local communities to help drum up the future leaders, like just in all of that, I think that's just a huge cycle that just furthers more the educational piece.

How are the rodeos set up?

So typically, depending where they're— like, so if you're a multi-branded dealer, they would have multiple brands of the vehicles bugged. They'd bug them or they'd have to do different skill competitions within that. Whole tech rodeo. So there's a timing element of finding and diagnostics. I mean, I'm sure you could even do an advisor piece of the rodeo, right? Walkarounds and how you actually deliver the message to a customer. But typically within truck, like even when I was a technician, I did a disassembling Ford actually sponsored event where you had to disassemble an engine and then you had to put it all back together and actually turn it over. So a lot of times those are certain pieces and just showcasing. And like, I still have the jacket that we got, like almost a letterman jacket, the sponsorship from when I was in high school. And I still have our photos. So like some of those things we talk about trophies, sometimes it's really the trophy and that experience. Like, I'll never forget who sponsored it, who did all that. But the technician rodeos, they still do them all across the country. Some of the larger groups, like Just coming back from TMC, they have their own technician rodeo. So it's from fleets and service providers that get together, break bread, but it's also sharing of that knowledge as well. It's, it's really cool to showcase technicians in that element. So it's not like when you say more than just— I look at it just the standard OEM training. I think that's really good to be putting them out there. But suppliers have training, they have software and those type of things and understanding the the full big picture and rolling them in. I think I would sum it up as that we have the opportunity to provide the future, like you said, management of the dealership. So when we get into these pieces where we say, man, this manager really didn't know the financials or the numbers, and I feel we feel for them, right? They've been doing that role for 10 or 15 years and we show them like kind of that pathway to leverage based on you know, the financials, and they finally get it. And, and Hoagie and I, you and I talk about it all the time, like in some of these instances they like start breaking tears. We could avoid all that by doing exactly what we're just talking about of the future management of a dealership, by just starting and working with technicians on understanding the business, giving them further opportunities. That's just what like kind of full circle in my mind.

Yeah, it's great. I've never heard it called a rodeo. We always called it a technician challenge, but I love— I like That the rodeo part is fun. Okay, we'll do one more. It's funny, Hoagie said this is going to be a three-parter, not a two-parter. I think he was, he was right. So we'll do one more. The next one that I have is having a good parts department. And that starts with the parts manager and the people in the parts department having a system for how things work. But too many times we see that the parts department is indifferent. They're behind a wall. Nobody is really caring or listening to the techs. Nobody's driving that side of the business. It's a necessary evil, but it's half dead in a sense, right? And so, like, how many times, Hoagie, have we gone into a shop and we literally are putting a parts person out in the shop?

Yeah, way too many. Way too many.

And how many times do we go into a new building and they've completely cut the techs off from the parts department thinking that everything can be delivered and, you know, that they're wasting their time at the back counter or whatever it is?

Yeah, yeah, um, yeah.

I've always found that to be like, you're just— you're looking in the wrong place. Like, yeah, technicians can make time and be productive in many ways, but having a relationship with the parts department, having a good parts manager, that cares, that's, you know, that understands how important the technicians are to the business and treats them that way. It's not just talk. And then everybody else in the parts department sees the technicians as an asset, not as a necessary evil. And too many times these parts departments are just like, they're anti-technician and it's the oddest thing ever. But, you know, a lot of times in parts departments, they're not commissioned where the technicians, if they're flat rate, they are commissioned. And so there's just this incongruency As far as, you know, motivation and what is driving things, but motivating your techs can, uh, can be dramatically affected by the tone and the culture of the parts department and how they are treated and how parts come out or don't come out, how, how mistakes are treated in parts, like all of that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Uh, I mean, like I've, I've seen several times too, a technician you know, kind of go into a parts department in a certain mood, kind of bebopping around or whatever, you know, kind of has their groove going for the day or whatever, and then come out completely different, right? And I've been in a lot of great parts departments too, where they're, you know, they're working with you. They have a lot of ingenuity and passion to find the part if they don't have it. Like, like thing, you know, just basic things like that that you would want out of a parts department. But I think you said a key thing too, Chris. A lot of times if there's these big silos between the departments like that, one of the first things I'll do is get a laptop and put a parts person out in the shop and make them a part of the shop. And then working with that person too, right? Just those disgruntled parts people aren't completely dissimilar at all to a disgruntled technician. Usually nobody's sat down and listened to them and then taken the time to explain to them, you know, why I need your help in keeping these technicians productive and explaining the math to them and all those things also. But yeah, it is, you know, way too common the case where the parts department is just a necessary evil and they're not given any attention either. And if so, it's, you know, You know, again, you leave a vacuum that's filled with something that you don't want.

Yeah, just go bring them a cup of coffee and, you know, just bring it together. You know, that's it. Sometimes it's just that.

I agree. I agree. It doesn't take much for sure.

And my note for parts was empathy and speed. Like, you got to care and you got to move fast. Like, there— and I would just kind of clarify that there's kind of two schools of thought with parts departments. And both of them work. Sometimes you'll run into a parts department that's running a hybrid and they don't know what they're doing. But like, you kind of have the old school way of parts where the tech would come to the back counter and your back counter parts people were really talented. They knew the parts, they knew what they were doing. And then over time, because people didn't know what they were doing and it was hard to find talented parts counter, people that the idea of, well, we'll have one really talented parts person or the parts manager that knows everything and then we'll have runners. So we'll just have, you know, low-paid runners that are making minimum wage and they're just running parts to the techs. And so there's like kind of two paths, the runner path or the, hey, we have veterans kind of on the counter. Well, on the runner path, what happens most of the time is they don't have a back parts counter. Like you're ordering it through, through the system and then the parts are coming out because a kid can go to a bin and pull apart. They don't have to know what it is. And then, you know, sometimes you have the hybrid in between. Both of them can work, but the, the one with just the runners not having anywhere the techs can go to a back counter and ask a question is not great for productivity. It's not great for morale. You have to have some sort of way that when there's a problem or a technician has a question, they can talk to the person who is, you know, experienced and has some wisdom or can figure it out for them versus just a kid who's running a part. And, you know, a lot of times what happened is the dealers got excited about having runners and saving that personnel expense. And so they cut off the back counter. And I don't know how many dealers I've heard say like, oh, the techs are just hanging out talking about football. All at the back counter. It's like, uh, maybe a little, but they sound exactly like that. They need to be friends, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And, and I've seen a ton of shops start one-on-ones and minimum requirements in those conversations and seen huge boosts in hours and efficiencies. I've yet to see where they cut everybody off from the back counter and efficiencies go through the roof.

No, it's the other way. And morale— if it works, yeah, yeah, morale goes down. And then that, that silo happens where you just, you know, you're not a part of the team anymore. You're behind that wall and you only come out and, you know, 1 out of 10 times you come out, you got the wrong thing. And I know, like, maybe that's a good batting average, but to technicians, it, it, you know, just like with an advisor, you don't remember all the good customers. You remember that one that yelled at you. And you don't remember all the times it was right. You remember the time it was bad. And if you don't have a personal connection with the people in the department, you start to see them as the problem or the enemy versus a friend who made a mistake. And same thing is when you're attacked all the time, you don't care as much about fixing the mistakes versus if you actually care about the people you're helping or serving, you try to get better. You want to improve because you don't want to let them down. Is created through relationships and, you know, empathy and speed. Yeah, it's good. Okay, so we got through 4 of these. The first one was, you know, not treating them like a number, taking them, you know, out to lunch, getting to know them as an actual person, having a career path for them, educating them and educating them not just on the technical stuff, And then having a good parts department that has empathy and speed. And that's the beginning of our list of ways to motivate your technicians. And I hope you have a good week. For Adam and Hoagie and myself, we'll see you next time on Service Drive Revolution. Thanks so much for watching this episode of Service Drive Revolution. We're uploading new stuff every day, so make sure you subscribe and click the bell icon so you don't miss out. If you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show, call 833-ASK-SDR and we'll answer your question on the show. That's 833-ASK-SDR. For special deals on our books and training, head over to offers.chriscollinsinc.com. Now that's offers.chriscollinsinc.com. Chriscollinsinc.com. I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video.