The Truth About Pooled Hours for Techs (Service Drive Revolution Drive By)

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Welcome everybody to Service Drive Revolution in your Friday drive by where we answer your questions. Remember, if we answer your question on the big show, we send you some.

Swag like a coffee cup or a T shirt or possibly a hat stickers.

The phone number to call is 8333 ask SDR. So that's 8333 ask SDR. Now side note, the thing I love about drive bys now and answering questions is you have no idea what the question is. So no jokes are prepared. This is pretty much a joke free situation.

Someone called that blasphemy.

Some wouldn't.

It's true.

Might be a 50. 50.

Yeah, right down the middle. Let us know in the comments.

Let's go to the question.

Hey Jesse from Maine here. I have a good topic. I haven't heard you talk about it and I've experienced it at one dealership. What do you know about and or how do you feel about Team Flat Rate for the technicians? I have worked in a shop, a Chrysler store for almost three years. That's I guess has been run like that forever. And I currently am running a store right now that I was considering maybe doing that. A team Flat Rate pay just based on the way the store runs. So anyways, Team Flat Rate, I don't know if you've ever dealt with it. I would imagine you must have heard of it somewhere along the line. Just curious. Maybe it's a good topic what your opinion would be of it. All right, thanks. Bye.

Great question. What would be the chances we would consider moving the office to Maine?

One in 4,206 high.

Yeah, a high chance. There's a chance we could relocate because there's a major airport.

What in Bangor?

I love Maine. Kind of looks like Washington where I grew up in a sense.

A lot of moose there.

People are nice.

I believe that for sure.

So do you have experience with team?

Never. I've heard of it before but I've never personally had.

You know where. Where a lot of my experience with this is was in Toyota stores. So a lot of Toyota stores that I have worked with over the years have had team Flat rate pay. So let me kind of explain to the audience what team Flat Rate pay is. Is that there'll be a team of technicians. So let's say there's three technicians. But most of the time in a team situation there will be.

Seven, probably six or seven technicians and then there'll be two advisors that write for that group of techs. There'll be a team leader the technicians hourly rates are different.

Usually the team leader will be making a little more, and then you'll have, you know, B. C text. You might have a couple quick lube texts in there. But the idea is that all of the hours that are flagged are thrown into a pool.

Yes.

And then the pool is divided evenly. So say, for example, I flag 12 hours, and Christian flags 2 hours.

Probably pretty realistic.

How much do I get paid?

14.

No.

6. 7.

Bro, first of all, you're good with math. Like, you're always the weirdo, pulling out, like, numbers without the calculator. And you're usually right.

Seven.

Is it seven?

Fourteen divided by two.

Yeah. So here's the thing. I flagged 12 hours. This jack here, Chris Jones flag two, and then how much do I make?

But I did drink 17 cups of coffee.

Yeah. You also were hanging out at the parts counter with that loser Tom.

Oh, Tom.

He's talking about your fantasy NFL draft this weekend.

Can't believe he took Prescott. Oh, sorry.

Well, I'm impressed that you know the Cowboys quarterback. Yeah. So that's. That's what it is.

And I. So also on the Chrysler side. So I've seen it in domestic stores, too, a couple ways. But one way I've seen it is that they will have a group of technicians, and one guy will be like a diesel guy and an engine guy, a training guy, a recalls flash guy, you know, suspension and brake guy, electrical guy. And then they all pool their hours, too. I also worked in a shop when I was an advisor in a Cadillac store where the heavy line guys all pulled their hours. So they were just doing engines all day and trannies, and they pulled their hours. The upside of what we're trying to do never really exists in those situations that the technicians are so bonded and all for one and one for all. In my experience, the efficiency goes down because, like I just pointed out, if I'm flagging 12 and he's flagging two, I'm going to start flagging eight.

Yeah, because you don't want to. You don't want to feel like you have to carry the team.

Yeah. And so it really does not promote high performers. You're. You're going to track or develop and pay attention to the words that I'm using attract or develop.

Mediocre performers. But by having that in place.

You'Re always going to have a couple guys that don't carry their weight, and you're going to always have a couple guys that their full potential is. Is way bigger than what they're doing, but there isn't a huge benefit to them, you know, getting motivated because there's no instant gratification. They're not going to see it in their paycheck. And the more techs that are on that team, the worse it is. And it, it is kind of socialism in a sense. I, I always kind of joke with people that it's communism.

But I mean, I'll tell you, I've had clients where they wanted it, they swore by it, and.

It wasn't super efficient, but.

It can work. You can, you can make it work. The hardest part that I found is recruiting in other high performers. Like they won't do it. So in, in a lot of situations that's been. The thing is they want to keep it. And then we got to add technicians and it's really hard to find technicians that are real performers that want to share their hours with anybody. And so like I said, you have to lower your, lower your expectations of the kind of tech you're going to have. It's going to be more middle of the road in that scenario because a good flat rate tech that's super motivated is used to, hey, I come in, I do my work, I get paid for my work. And they don't want to worry about Christian and the fact that he's more worried about his fantasy football league or whatever. They just don't, they, they, they, they want to see a return for the effort. That's the theory behind it.

So could you imagine that interview though? It'd be like, okay, so here's how this is going to work. You're going to flag 12 hours, we're going to pay you for seven. When can you start? Like, that's just not going to go over well.

I mean, have you ever read any of my books?

One or two.

I think this millionaire service advisor, when I go through a scenario totally true happened to me where I took a job as an advisor and I did not realize that it was a pool, that all the numbers were thrown in a pot and then it was split evenly. And I remember the advisor in front of me said like, I hope you never quit because you make me so much money. And I walked right into the manager's office and I said, hey, yeah.

I didn't, I guess I misread this thing. But no, no, good for you. No, I mean, I think I made like a couple grand less than what I thought I was gonna make. Yeah, I mean, I was a kid, but no, you know, there's no way. And I even in myself. Like, I know that if I had to do that ongoing, like, if that was my only choice, I, I'm not going to be super motivated that I'm making everybody else money. When they don't answer the phone, they don't want to write up customers. They're not getting there to write up the night drops. They, their customers aren't coming back for them. I mean, one of my favorite things is when I would get another advisor's customers and like, you know, they'd never recommended anything in years, you know. Yeah. So.

I don't know, Jeff. I'm not a bit. To me, it's like just one level up from hourly texts. Honestly, there's not a. I can't point to one redeeming, you know, value in it. I wouldn't do it. I would undo it, honestly. In my opinion. But appreciate the question and if you have different thoughts, please call back in and tell us. But it's not. I'm not a fan. Christian is not a fan. Just because of the way that I structured the analogies.

Yeah.

That I was the low tech that stunk.

Got any jokes for that, funny man? No.

But thanks, Jeff. We're gonna send you some swag. Remember, if you have any questions that you would like us to answer on the show, 8333, ask SDR and we'll see you next time on Service Drab Revolution.

Thanks for watching this week's Drive By. I hope we gave you something to think about over the weekend. 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 SDR. For special deals on our books and training, head over to to offers.chriscollinsinc.com now that's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins and I'll see you in the next video.