The Best Way To Hire Great Technicians!

Should we go to questions? The voice of God.

Yeah, I need the voice of God in my life.

The voice of God is always in your life, my child.

That feels so good.

I love when he says my child. I know.

It's great. You just feel like you're taking care of.

Okay, question number one. Hello, my name is Eric. I've been in the automotive industry since I was 16 years old. Now I'm part owner of two big European shops in Indiana. The hardest part of the profession is to build good teams, especially finding good techs. I think this problem is both independent and dealers. So my question is, what's the best way to find talented mechanics?

Why are you guys looking at me?

We have a course called Technician Tree that'll teach you how to do it. I don't know that. I mean, literally in that course, it's like, probably eight hours of content. There's no way in the show that we could go through that. I think the first step most of the time is stop saying that it's hard to find sex and start getting good at it. And the other thing I would say is basically do the opposite of what everybody else is doing.

Yeah, all the ads are the same, you know?

Yeah, the ads are the same. The approach, the mindset. And so if everybody's saying it's hard to find text and everybody's doing the same thing, then stop saying what they're saying and do the exact opposite.

It'll be easy.

Have we yet to have a hard time finding text?

Not so much. I think there's been a couple of times where it's been a little bit challenging, but never what everyone thinks it is going into it. The other thing, I would say that.

By challenging, you mean that we have to keep trying.

Right. So the other thing I was just.

Gonna say because we never failed.

Right?

We never failed, but you have to mix it up.

But to that point, just know that with recruiting and hiring, what you put in is exactly what you get out.

Yeah, I mean, it's always funny to me. I'll be on a strategy session, and they're like, oh, we can't find text. And I'll be typing it into Google, and I can't even pull up their ad. And then if you do, it's like, it looks like it's written by an HR department. It's on.

What do you call that website?

Indeed.

Indeed. Which is a waste of time because indeed only puts it right in your area, and it's super expensive. Like, do everything different. That's the answer and you can, you can buy our On Demand. There's a course in there called Technician Tree and it will walk through. There's templates in there for you, but basically, you know, that's all you need. In a week's time, you can completely change your trajectory. And I don't know, we don't charge enough for that course, honestly. Because every tech's worth what, 12 grand in gross a month? Yeah. And I think on demand is like 250amonth. So if you gave us $10,000 and we gave you a couple tax, it would be worth it, right?

Well, the headhunting agencies charge like five grand.

We've thought about doing that before because we're so good at tax. Right. But it's not our business model.

So I had a. Just a funny story this morning. A little epiphany came to me and I'm kind of an impulsive person.

Were you in the shower?

No.

Tell us what you were.

I was on the tool truck.

You were on the tool truck?

Yes.

So snap on.

Snap on. So here's what's interesting.

In my four years at Freedom Auto Repair, we've gone through, I think we're on version 5.2 or whatever. So we've been through that many cycles of employees, so hire, quick fire quick, all that stuff. So today I finally discovered that I was looking at everything wrong. Like I'm a business owner and what do I need out of the tech? And it's all about me, me, me, me, me, and what does the business need? I haven't really focused on the tech, so I've hired. We have two techs now and one of the new hires has been with us about six weeks. And I can tell he's probably one of the better technicians we've had. He can troubleshoot stuff. He does really good work. And, you know, after six weeks you kind of get a feel for how things are going to go. So our normal tool, David Snap on, is on Mondays and, you know, today's Wednesday. And the tool tricks are. I'm like, it's kind of weird what's going on? So I go on and I'm like, hey, what's up? And they're like, oh, I wanted to show them this, you know, scanner because he wants a lab scope on it and it wasn't working the other day. And I'm like, you want to buy this? My new technician? And I'm like, hey, you want to buy this? He goes, yeah, I'm probably going to get it. And I just like the Thought flashed into my head and I said, I'll make you a deal. You commit to me for X number of years and I'm not gonna get you that. I'm gonna get you that, which is the big one with the bells, the whistles, the food, cartoon, about 13 grand. So you commit to me for X number of years on that anniversary date, it's yours. Franklr. I'll pay for it.

Nice.

He got the biggest smile on his. And that was like, okay, I've been doing this all wrong. I've been so focused about pay and benefits and this. And it's more about real. If you want to find really good technicians, what do they want? What drives them? What type of shop do they want to work in? Do you have the culture to attract the right techs? Are you the type of owner that can lead them and give them the lifestyle that they want? And if you can't find the text, it's probably because you can't instill the confidence in them that you can provide the lifestyle they want and they're not going to come over to you.

Yeah. And what happens when that tool truck guy tells somebody else what you did? Right. Like, I have a feeling that's going to come back and help you many times over. That's a really cool investment, man.

That's awesome.

You got another question?

God always has more questions.

Question number two, Chris. Man, I love Millionaire Service Advisor. I'm four years in as an advisor and I love my job for many reasons that you mention in the book. I quickly grew to be the number two advisor through consistency and I've recently taken the number one spot and keep busting my ceiling. I'm also being groomed for the service manager position by my director. The biggest issue I have is I don't know how to slow down. I consistently end the month with 50 plus more ROS than anyone else and it leaves me with little time to have good follow through and regularly update. Covid has made it worse as we're down at least one advisor, so I'm left running in circles and most assuredly missing out on sales because I don't have the time. Not to mention leaving customers having to chase me down. I can't stand for a customer to be on the drive waiting and then I just can't get them. I always ask anyone remotely available to get them, but generally end up falling on the proverbial sword knowing I'm already overloaded. Any advice on this or do I just embrace the suck and keep making the money? I Am okay, my excuses are out of the way. I'm going to do everything I can to do as you say and update regularly. It's always been a weak spot for me. You've shown me no wrong word, inspired me to fix this issue and to see how much higher I can push the envelope. Now I'm going to read irreplaceable service manager before rereading Millionaire again. Thanks.

I wish sometimes these, that these were call ins because I have questions. Like the first thing is, are you on dispatch or teams too? Because dispatch creates a whole nother issue sometimes when you're, when you're an advisor. So what?

I have like three things from. Number one, you're never going to slow down. That's just who you are.

So embrace the suck.

Embrace the suck. And the thought that has come to my head is you have to have great systems. So you've got to get a proactive communication system in place that allows you to communicate proactively with all of your client base. Active work in a fraction of the time of picking up the phone and calling people. You just won't do that. And then, man, if I were, I'd hire an assistant. I would hire a personal assistant, pay for it out of my check. And even if it's four hours a day, just have somebody there to help you do thank you cards, you know, make sure your cars are going through just. But if you're at that level and you're producing that much more, for a thousand bucks a month, 1500amonth, you could hire some part time help to come in as an independent contractor to work with you and check with your tax person or whatever. But you probably need an assistant and then you can really break through that ceiling that you have.

So I think that there's a few little things that can help you here. One is.

One of the best advisors that we've ever seen was Hasan. Right. And so I don't know that anybody has ever broken Hasan's record of 430,000 in parts and labor.

Yeah, we got one guy in Salt Lake City that's close, close.

But somebody did break his CP record, his customer pay record. Right. But the thing about Hassan was control.

Like he did the repair authorization. And so you think about these sort of things. Like if you tell a customer up front, hey, I'm giving myself $2,000 to work with, you don't have to call them as many times, Right. Also up front, like if you've connected with those customers and their key throwers.

You can control the experience More and tell them like, hey, I'm gonna need it all day, or hey, I need it until tomorrow. So you can tell them the truth up front if you have that. That relationship with them. So you're trying to save yourself time on how much you have to update. The reason why I'm curious about dispatch and teams. And the other thing I'd be curious about is how do you make your appointments? Because I would spread your appointments out to be every half an hour. It sounds like you might be doing them every 10 minutes. And also, like, pay attention to how many waiters an hour you guys are making appointments. So limit the waiters to 1.1per hour per advisor. Because that's another thing that throws you off is if you write four waiters in a row, a waiter is harder to deal with than somebody that's gone. And at work, you also lower your chance of them adding additional stuff whether they need it or not. If they're waiting, they're going to be like, oh, that takes another two hours. I'll come back. And so if the, if the car is there and they're not waiting, you have a better opportunity and you can manage the experience more. So I would pay attention to, to everything, like how long it takes you to ride them up, how. How much of an interval is between each appointment. 30 minutes might be the right one for you because then you can call in between. We usually do 20, but that matters a lot. So all these little details matter how much you're getting up front, you know, the repair authorization, when, what you're telling the customers up front. Like if you, if you create key throwers and you have a lot of equity with the customers, telling them, hey, we're really busy today, I'm gonna need it until tomorrow. And, and just get that, that awkward thing out of the way right up front. So to save yourself time, you got to tell the truth more. You got to tell them, hey, it's going to be this much, and I need it until tomorrow. And, you know, we're a little behind or the shops, you know, we've had a couple big jobs. But telling the truth buys you more time. A lot of times, instead of always trying to please, and if you have that equity with customers and you take care of customers and you pet the dog and really know them on a deeper level, you can withdraw from that equity.

That makes a lot of sense to me.

It's all in the system. A little things add up.

Yeah. I've also got a question.

Is it really a question?

Well, I Think it's really a question.

I have one more thing to add to that after your question.

So.

Are you ready?

I was born ready.

What did the tin man say when he got run over by a steamroller?

What did the tin man say when he got run over by a steamroller? By a steamroller.

What?

Curse his foil again.

Tinfoil.

I love the let. I love the let down. The other thing, too, with that is your technicians. Like, one thing that I would do with text when I was an advisor is my team lead would diagnose the cars right away. So that was kind of his role was to check them out and let me know what it was. And so I wasn't waiting until the end of the day to have them checked out.

Right.

So whether you're on dispatch or teams kind of matters how you can set that up. But lateral support. And sometimes when you say teams, people think the techs are pulling their hours. So it's really lateral support. But lateral support allows you to take better care of your customers and to create a system that fits your style as an advisor because you're working with them. It's not like, hey, we're putting it in line and dispatch and seeing who gets it. So that was really. When I. When I was an advisor in a dispatch shop, it was really, really hard for me to take care of customers. And all the advisors would cheat it and say theirs were waiters or had an early out time, and that just imploded for everybody.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. You mean not every ticket stamp waiter is actually a waiter? Yeah.

So weird, isn't it?

We all know that.

If I only knew. Knew that. Then another good. Another good one to bypass dispatch is customer request technician number nine.

Remember how I told you my boss used to do blow and smoke weed? The dispatcher, I think his name was Joe. I'd be surprised if this guy's still alive. But literally threw my ros in the alley once. Like, so dispatch was in the alley, kind of. He threw my arrows out in the alley once because I pushed back on him on a couple things.

But one day.

One of the other advisors told me, you know, what's in Joe's thermos? Whatever. And he had gone to break, and we went and opened his thermos. It was literally 50% whiskey and 50% coffee.

Wow.

Like, the guy was drunk all day. That's why he was so angry. He was a functional alcoholic. God, if you could have done a TV show on that disaster of a deal with Shane.

I was just gonna say, like, it's so amazing that you turned out the way that you did because you had some weird crap happen to you like right out of the gate. Like you had Shane the dud, you had Joe the drunk dispatcher. Like you had the guy that worked with you that said I hope you stay here for a long time because you make me a lot of money.

That was a different dealership.

Oh, sorry. I have all those stories in my head are like all kind of together.

But so the dispatch thing does cause a problem. That's what you know that I'd be curious.

So I have two more thoughts on this one KPI that we're tracking now is ATR key performance indicator actual time of repairs. So what is your atr? So if you understand your workflow, your inflow diagnostic flow, where things are at, how long does it take a car to get through the process? That would help. And then also as you were going through your stuff, I was sitting there thinking if I was in that advisor's shoe, I would really just want to maybe take a day and observe and just really work on the business and extract myself out of it so I could fix the problems. Because sounded like the back half of that is they get a lot of drop ins, unscheduled people that just show up and those interruptions can really. You get the best plan. But then if you get 10 drop offs that you weren't planning on, man, your whole workflow just got completely undermined.

Right.

So it's.

There's systems shops that have a high rate of just drop ins is because they allow that most customers would rather have a time that's dedicated to them. And so if you make it easy to make an appointment. But most of the time, you know, especially dealerships, they run shorthanded. The advisors can't even write up the customers, let alone answer the phone. Right. And so you perceive that customers just want to drive in, but you're not making it easy for them to make an appointment. But most people would rather make an appointment. I mean imagine going to the doctor, the dentist or something. You're not having an appointment. It's ridiculous.

Okay, so you just described a private practice versus urgent care or the er.

Yeah, right, right.

We'd much rather be the private practice.

I mean I've had Toyota guys and Nissan guys go, oh, our customers, they won't make appointments. In three months later, we're 80% appointments. It's never been the truth. Their perception is that. But what they do is make it really difficult. But for us, controlling. Controlling what's? Coming in, controls what's going out, and it controls the experience. Right? To say, like, hey, let's just open the doors every day and just see what the hell happens. That's not an approach.

Customers get the logic thing for sure.

Like, you want to figure out how, you know, how many an advisor can write, like three an hour and have time to call customers back. You, you only want one waiter an hour per advisor, depending on the car brand, all of that, get them in early, the whole thing, it all matters. Those little edges add up. So great question.

Was his name Eric? His name was Eric. Great question. Erock. And I think that these things we're talking about are going to serve you. As you go up and become a manager, you can kind of start to understand as an advisor how you're a victim to the systems that leadership puts in place. So I always felt like, hey, now that I'm in charge, I'm going to set the advisors up for success by controlling the appointments, by controlling how much time they have to spend. Because a lot of times we think in leadership that, oh, our advisors aren't very good. And really we've done everything that we can on our end to sabotage them. We think they can write 25 a day, you know, all waiters, and be successful. And it's, it's not the case.

Right.

Thank you so much for watching this clip of Service Drive Revolution. Now you can catch the full episode on YouTube, iTunes or Spotify or wherever you consume your podcast. If you have any questions, go ahead and post them in the comments below. Make sure you subscribe and hit the bell icon so you're notified when we post new episodes. I'm Chris Collins and you can find me on Facebook and Instagram at Chris Bulldog Collins. And I'll see you again on the next episode.