Are You Paying Your Techs Enough?

Today on the big show, we're going to talk about. Are you paying your tax enough? It's a question that everybody needs answered. Are you paying your tax enough? We're going to go through it in a deep way.

Punch it right in the face.

And much, much more. Coming up on this edition of Service Driver Revol.

Sometimes I just feel old. I went to Home Depot over the weekend, and I get that. Are you wondering what I'm doing in Home Depot?

I'm trying to figure that part out and how that connects. You actually go into a Home Depot. Okay. There's.

There's two reasons why I'm going, but this isn't the story. I need a rotary sander for this thing I'm doing. And I was thinking about getting a toolbox.

So I go for the new place. Yeah, okay.

To put the tools in. Right.

That makes sense.

And keep everything organized. So I go and I get there and then I realize I don't have my readers and I can't see anything without my readers anymore. There was a time where they. They would help when I was reading a book. Now I can't read the. The ingredients on the back of a solvent can, which are. Home Depot. Yeah.

Like the price thing.

And so then they have this stupid thing on the iPhone that's like a magnifying glass, but it never lines up with what you're trying to look at. I just felt so old. Like, I almost drove home to get my readers and come back.

Yeah, I have. I'm having the exact same experience. And for years I had 2020 vision. Like, I just didn't. Oh, yeah. Any glasses at all. And then in the last few years, I. I got, you know, like, bought the cheap readers. It was when I moved out here. So it was 2020 when I started using, like a reading glasses. And now reading glasses are just kind of becoming glasses. And where it hit me is that you and me and a couple of people went out to dinner last week. And my thing is usually when I look at a menu because it's kind of a dark place in a restaurant. Right. So I turn the light on on my phone. Me being the technical moron that I am, I didn't know there was some sort of a magnifying glass thing, but I might download that. But I usually can turn the light on and then I can see the menu and I turn the light on and I still couldn't read the menu. So I just went with the steak. But. But, yeah, so that's been happening to me more. And More like I even feel weird now that I don't have my readers in front of me. Cause I know that if I try to read something, I'm in.

I have readers in every drawer of every place I exist. I literally have, like, 15 pairs.

Yeah, you never know.

Yep. I have them in my bag. Like, I never want to not have them around.

Yeah, they are.

But for some reason I don't have them in the car. And like, why I would go to Home Depot without them, I don't know. You just don't think about it until you need them.

Yeah. I'm starting to think I'm probably going to end up with bifocals in the next year or so.

October 23rd and 24th is a very special day. Tell everybody what it is.

Oh, that would be our annual Top Dog event. And there's something special about this event.

What's that?

It's going to be the best event ever that we've ever done.

For sure. I'm convinced.

Yeah.

Chris Voss is going to be one of the speakers. But we got some. Some fun speakers.

You watch his master class?

Maybe. I'm in a. I'm in a mastermind with him.

That's right. You know him, don't you? Yeah. Yeah. So you're in a mastermind with him. But I thought that his master class was really well done. But he's pretty great. Yeah.

And I could listen to him talk.

All day, all day long, and all the stuff kind of makes so much sense. But, man, talk about a guy that practices what he preaches.

It's a lot of psychology.

It's all mental. I love it at the highest level. Like, if you. If. If you don't negotiate right from his thing, people die.

We're working on getting in and Out Burger again, too. That was a huge hit.

Terrible to have to have in and out burger.

That was a big highlight. Yeah, it'll be fun. So mark your calendars.

Don't you think in and out is a California treasure?

They left California, but they started. You know, every business has left California but us.

Except us. We stayed just waiting for you to give me that.

Give me the wink.

Pack up and go.

It's time to move. But. But yeah, that's gonna be good fun.

Anything in the news?

Let's have a look.

See 4 and how to recall.

We should just do bets.

All right, so let's see. So this is interesting only because I didn't even think that they would have this position, but Tesla, they had their. They had a North American service director that was just in charge of all the service all around. Piero Landolfi has left. So I didn't even think that they cared about service at Tesla that much, but they actually had somebody that was in charge in it, so. So he took off and left. I don't think that they've named his replacement yet, but it's super interesting to me because, like, if you're a service director, where do you think someone who goes, like, somewhere else in the automotive industry? Nope. This guy went to a place called Nimble, which is a robot company. So he's a tech guy basically that was in charge of service. So I thought that that was really interesting. Man, this whole thing is just kind of fun. Let's see, there's some good deals going on. Ford, not a recall notice, but they're putting. They're releasing 2027. I always think that this is a new thing, but I don't know, maybe it's not. They're calling these things bevs now instead of just EVs.

What's the B stand for?

Battery.

Oh, but I'm just.

Now, I don't know. I don't know why they had to add a letter, but it's going to be a $30,000 battery electric pickup coming out in 2027. So I think that that's interesting that people are still kind of moving forward. There's also in the news kind of like a. A thing that looks like it's becoming a theme. A lot of the auto manufacturers moving production into the United States.

I wonder why.

I. If I had an idea, I would say that it's, you know, it's. That was expected.

But Toyota, Nissan, Honda, isn't it.

Do you ever. Hyundai, do you ever think about the fact that this stuff that Trump is doing is not historically stuff that a Republican would do, that he acts more like a Democrat?

Yes. And I think that you would offend people by saying that, but it's just a fact.

Oh, I'm sure you offend people just by talking about it, but I still find it fascinating.

So I didn't think about it until you said it, but there's definitely certain things. I'm assuming I'm okay to say this on the thing, but, like, his approach towards marijuana is Democratic more than Republican. There's.

Is he undoing that?

So I think so. I think that that's. He's at least working on some of the legalization. Just for the record, I don't smoke weed. It's not my thing. You like that? I did the turn to the camera to say that, just to make sure, in case they wondered. But. So I think there's a few things like that.

You don't drink.

Yeah, so I don't. I don't do weed either.

Yeah, you don't do anything.

I do In N Out Burger.

Which turns out is the most unhealthy of all those things. But. But, yeah, so I hear what you're saying, but I'd never thought about it before then.

Yeah. Like, I think people are so polarized that they. They're not paying attention to what's going on. But.

Yeah, what he's doing is way more what the Democrats talked about doing for a long time, and the Republicans were like, fine, take the jobs overseas, like, corporate profit. And he's like, no, this is. This is about the. The middle class, you know.

Yeah.

Bringing the jobs back.

It's interesting.

It is very interesting. Well, I do think that our country gets better if people are more playing to the political middle, because neither side completely can. It doesn't make sense mathematically that that one side would be right or wrong all the time. The middle's where it lives.

Well, I mean, what's funny is the people that are against him. Well, it's like here. It's like the government here wants to fight Trump. And so basically, by fighting him, what they're saying is we're pro crime, which they kind of were pro crime because of Soros and the D A and all that. But, like, that's a crazy thing to say. Like, we're pro crime. Screw Trump. Like, I don't know, it's just funny.

But if you walk, I mean, you know, it's not just a punch, you know, start to a joke. But, like, I walk home regularly, and the city is pro crime. Yeah, the city is pro crime. Like, and we want.

How do we. How do we get to that and how do we defend that? It just doesn't make sense.

Yeah, I think it's very, very interesting. I'm all for, like, whatever we do to. To have law and order in a world where, like, the working citizen, me and you, like, that we would have more rights than a criminal.

Common sense. We're just talking about common sense. Like, just basic stuff. Not. It's not divisive. Like, how could it be divisive to say we should have rules and stick to them?

No, like, yeah, that's the. All of that. Right. Like, so we live in a world where, like, if I'm, you know, however, like, even I affect, like, the way I Dress based on the lawlessness that exists. We were talking about a couple of weeks ago, like, that I have a watch. And you're like, what? You have a watch? I'm like, yeah, I have a watch. Why don't you wear it? Because I don't want to give it to somebody.

Yeah.

Like, and it's just sad that that's the world where it exists, but, like, law and order, it's a cool place to. To live. I'm in.

Yeah, me too. I miss it. Okay, Talking about our. Our big subject today. Are you paying your tax enough?

So the first thing Christian would like to point out.

Is who's paying for the techs?

The customer. The customer pays the tech.

The techs are the cost of sale. Like, we're selling time that is produced by a tech. So the customer is paying for the time. So techs are a percentage of what the customer is paying. Who controls that pricing?

The service manager?

Yeah, we do.

Yeah.

So the customer is the one paying the tech, in a sense.

Right. If. Don't you think if you just start with that and wrap your head around it, the rest of the list gets easier.

Yeah. I never understand when people are like, oh, my God, It's. You know, I was talking to these techs, and they're making $32 an hour, and it's like, I'd pay 34. Then. I don't know. I don't know what to tell you. Like, I don't want to be the lowest in the market when it comes to text. I want to have good tax that work. And, you know, like, that's where you want to have talent.

Yeah.

And you got to pay for talent. And I just wouldn't. I don't see myself in a scenario where I lose text over two bucks. But more importantly than that is I don't think that the hourly wage that tax make is really the difference. They will say that an hourly rate matters what they make, but don't text, don't quit over hourly rate. They quit over a bunch of other stuff. And so I think the thing that. That we want to kind of help everybody understand is that it's. It's really not about the hourly rate. It's about. About a bunch of other things that add up to keeping good tax and recruiting good tax. The. Is the advisors. If you don't have good advisors, the techs get discouraged. They stop doing inspections, and they leave. They just leave. And, you know, how many times have we interviewed a good advisor? We say, how many techs are following you? And they're like, how many do you want?

5.

Yeah, because techs want to work for good advisors. So if your advisors aren't good, they're not well trained, they're not veterans, and you, and you allow low performance, incompetence, indifference in your advisor staff, you're going to lose techs solar is to it. Then what about the parts department? Like the parts department has a big influence on the techs. Having a parts manager that's proactive with the team. They see themselves as assisting the technicians. And you know, and this is always said like in the, in the office with the door closed, like, well, you know, service is my biggest customer. Parts managers will say that. Yeah, but you're, whenever somebody says that, it's always like, okay, but what you're saying in your actions are two different things. Why don't you just show like, don't show me that without saying it in a, in a sense.

Oh yeah, for sure.

Like.

It'S, it's more about the, the action versus the thought process.

Yeah. The. I've said this before, but I think it bears repeating is that it's the most interesting thing to me when the parts service relationship is analyzed that we will take a 38 cent nut that we're making 7 cents in gross on across town and deliver it to a body shop, but we won't take a set of breakout rotors into the shop for a tech. Yeah, like that's the. If we look at that and like, okay, so that doesn't make sense and then try to kind of blend it all together. It reminds me of what was going on in the early 2000s, you remember when George W. Was president and he had an assistant that came in every day and she gave him like the reports on like the coalition that was working in Iraq. And, and one day the assistant comes in and says, Mr. President, I've got some terrible news for you. Your coalition report today we had a casualty. We lost a Brazilian. And W. Just.

Starts looking down, shaking his head. He turns all white and he says that's terrible. I can't believe it. And the assistant's like, what's wrong? What is it that's got you bothered about this? And he looks at her and he says, how much is a Brazilian?

The next one is systems.

It's a theme in service Drive revolution, isn't it?

Lost keys where they're parked, double parked. Like all of that brain damage. Like the systems affect the technicians and matter. And I, I would contend that most of the time the same.

Ones that Will tolerate indifference and underperformance from advisors are the same ones that tolerate bad systems. Yeah. The next one is training. You got to send them to training. You got to train. You know, that's a big part of it. Culture is a part of it. Having a culture of performance where, you know, actually flagging hours matters that the people in the shop that have the largest voice are the ones that are performing, not the ones that aren't performing. So you know, the culture. Another one too is the warranty to CP mix. What happens a lot of times is managers want to keep techs so they don't add techs. And what happens invariably is the traffic starts to increase and then the only customers that can get in are the ones with warranty.

The.

So then the techs are only working on warranty work and they're booked out three weeks. The customer pay work goes somewhere else.

Yeah. And if you're making a hundred bucks an hour, it doesn't matter if you're buried in warranty work and electrical diagnosis, it's gonna pay a third of what it should. Like you're in trouble. The rate doesn't matter at that point.

The other thing is like good techs wanna work around other good techs. Like there's a certain mindset with that too.

That's, you know, what's my favorite about that is watching the collaboration. Like the way that they work and exchange information so freely. Like I've been in a few shops where you can tell that like it's a. It's like a culture of performance almost. And they understand if they share information with each other, everybody books more hours. The worst aware. It's like you go into a shop and like one person has all the knowledge and then you gotta like kiss the ring to get the knowledge and everything like that. Like, it's funny how that free flow of information between the two tells you what kind of shop you have.

Yeah. And just to kind of like wrap this up is I had somebody ask me a little while ago about should you hire somebody back that left. And I was like, well, who is it? They're like, oh, it's a couple techs that got offered more money. They went to the dealership. The dealership was a mess and they want to come back because they couldn't flag any hours there. It was a disaster. Would you hire him back? And I was like, I absolutely would. I just would, without a doubt. Yeah.

But that happens. Like your systems and the people that you have are what create the environment for good technicians to want to work there and thrive.

100%.

So that's the answer to are you paying your tax enough? I wouldn't think just about the money because the customers are the ones paying the tax. I would think about what are you doing as a leader to create an environment of performance and a culture that the best technicians want to come work for you.

That's right.

And pay is the easiest part.

Yep. And he or she who has the most techs wins.

Amen. And we'll see you next time on Service Driver Revolution. Thanks so much for watching this episode of Service Job 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 8333 Ask SDR and we'll answer your question on the show. That's 8333-Ask-SD SDR. For special deals on our books and training, head over to offers.chriscollinsinc.com that's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video.