Top Tips for Training High Performing Automotive Technician | SDR #266

Welcome, everybody, to the big show. This is the third and final episode of. Hey, we got the coaches in town, so let's. Let's talk about some cool stuff. Today's episode, how to be a top performing technician. And now knowing what those are, how. How do you think the list was?

I think the list was awesome. Oh, that's what's so like, I get.

A 4.5 and he gets an awesome.

Christian tells a joke, which is. Okay, 4.6.

4.7 is what I gave it. Although I was thinking about it as we were going. I think I'd make and much, much more.

Coming up on this edition of Service Drive Revolution.

So this is the final in our three part series. So we talked about parts, we talked about service advisors, and then the only thing left is technicians, which is you, Hoagie.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

This is. Have you guys had fun? Awesome.

Yes, it's been a lot of fun.

I've enjoyed it.

Yeah.

You went from Negro Modelo to Stella.

Yeah.

So we're switching it up.

Yeah.

You're still on the Stella train.

I'm still there.

Christian got coffee, which is late in the day to be drinking coffee, but he doesn't care. He's wild. And you're just drinking water.

No, it's coffee. Coffee.

It doesn't keep you guys from sleeping?

No, I'll sleep like a baby tonight. There's no doubt in my mind.

Same here. Wow.

I will too, but it's because I didn't have coffee.

Fair enough.

Like a baby. So the interesting thing about Hoagie is that he finally let us meet his wife.

Yeah.

Last night.

Yeah. And finally let you.

She had to be quite impressed with this gang.

Oh, it is.

Misfits.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, she loved it though. It was. It was great. It was great. That's one thing about, you know, being remote employees, right, Is, you know, she hadn't had the opportunity to meet everybody yet. So last night was great. No, we talked about it last episode a little bit as well, but I think it was really great. It's always, always a lot of fun when we get everybody together. And getting some of the wives along was a lot of fun too. I know she had a great time.

So she's a Chiefs fan, like you are. Kansas City Chiefs.

She's. She's. It's funny because Grant asked her something similar last night. She's like, oh, I'm. I root for whatever, you know, and pats me on the shoulder. I root for whatever he's rooting for. So that, you know, it's a happy home at the end of the game. That's great. That is a great wife.

She is going for wife of the year, man.

Yeah, for sure.

I also thought she was super intently watching the game.

No, she would have had instrument, like somewhere in the.

Yeah. So you don't think she was looking at it for the same reason that Vic?

No, I. I thought she wasn't quite as intense as Grant, but.

No, no, I was.

Vicky, Vicki and the punter.

Yes.

Yeah.

Oh, that could have been too. Okay. No, I think.

Oh, you guys gotta.

You gotta.

Nobody knows context to this. So you guys are talking about the Cowboys punter that was in front of us the whole time.

Directly in front.

Because we were sitting on the visiting.

Kind of visiting, but more Cowboys fans there than the Charger fans. But the visiting side. And so the players were in front of us and the. The puncher kept warming up right there and then. What was Vicki doing?

Vicki enjoyed it.

Vicki was getting.

He was eye candy.

Yes. Yeah, very much.

She was all like.

She was singing his.

His glutes.

Yeah, there's a song about glutes that Vicky. Well, I will say, you may not see it.

You'd have to sing it.

Why? She was getting warmed up.

Yes. Wow. Like, she. I missed that portion of it was, you know, the song All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth, that song.

She was singing that. Just serenading him.

Well, she's saying it to. I don't know who was standing there with me, but she's saying it, you know, sit beside you. Right?

I don't think so.

No, I think you're making this up.

No, no, no.

Yeah.

I swear she can sing it again.

Hilarious.

Yeah.

Okay, so before we get to the. The list, Togi, one of the best stories you ever told me is when you were. Would you say regional technician for Tesla?

Yeah.

Technical title maybe, something like that. Regional.

So back when Tesla was just getting started, you were the Midwest.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Kind of. I mean, you. Yeah. But you would fly different places.

Different places.

World, right?

Yeah. There was eight of us at the time. And they had 22, 2300 cars, something like that in Europe, China and North America.

And then, you know, true to Elon Musk marketing prowess or whatever, he had a lot of celebrities that had bought the. The cars. And you'll kind of explain, some of them were special editions. And then you would get called to go fix them when. When they. They would break in. My favorite story that you have is the George Foreman.

Yeah. 1 yeah, yeah.

So and his brother. Right.

Well it's his nephew, so Martelli he calls it. Martelli is like his estate or whatever on Lake Houston. So it's kind.

What is that, what is Lake Houston like the northwest side of Houston? Kind.

Thanks.

So I think it's just past the airport a little bit out towards that. That way. But anyway, regardless of where it is out there. So anyway, he has like kind of a compound and he has this huge shop right at his. Right at his house and it's got his car collection.

But all of his. So all of George's sons are named George.

George, right.

And then isn't his brother Gary? All his sons are named Gary.

Yeah.

Which is, that's hilarious.

In the South Gary or one of the Gary's or whatever it is, kind of runs his shop, kind of works for him, works for him there or did at the time anyway. And yeah, so going there, car's not charging, going there to look at it. And I've been communicating with Gary and anyway get there and fixing it and stuff and we tried to like get them up to date on services while we, you know, while we were there we tried to contain as much stuff as we can. Right. So we didn't have to, you know, come back to the.

What kind of services, by the way? This is the first Tesla.

It's the first Tesla. The Roadster.

The Roadster. What kind of services would it have been due for?

So they had an annual service that we did which consisted of what you're, you're doing like high pot testing on the. So that's hypotension potential testing for like high voltage cables and, and stuff like that and just kind of some inspections, greasing certain points on the, on, on the car, stuff like that. So just some, just little bits of maintenance stuff. But it was something at the time, I mean the, the back side of it was it was something that we could actually charge for too. Right. There was nothing to offset, you know, at that time, 2000, you know, 10.

You know, I mean they were hemorrhaging money. Right. Like there was all types of different people asking me if I was, you know, going to have a job the next month or whatever because you know, they were just, it was, you know, month by month at that time. But anyway, so, so I'm there and comes time to settle up for that. And so Gary has George come out, look his credit card to pay for it and we kind of got to talking and, and chatting and, and you know, he didn't he seemed a little skeptical on.

Like everyone else at the time, whether Tesla was going to kind of take off or whatever he had.

Well, I think we missed. Yeah, he had the. What were those called? Founder cars.

Yeah, so. So he had a real early.

He invested in Tesla.

Yeah. So those cars, I don't know what they cost. I never found out what they call a million bucks. Substantially. Substantially more. Yeah, yeah. So these. Anybody that had a Founders Club, you kind of knew, they, they had, they had stock. Right.

They were investors.

Yeah. So. So we were talking about a couple different things, and he was, you know, skeptical on whether Tesla was going to be a success or the electric car itself was going to. Whether it was going to be that or hydrogen or whatever it was going to be, you know, and so we're kind of going back and forth and I'm putting my input in.

And have you read Wired magazine or something?

Yeah, yeah. So. Well, there was a, there was a article in Wired that had kind of stirred up some controversial.

Because they had historically been pro Tesla and then they kind of turned.

Yeah.

Their back, which then led to, led to everybody in the news was, Tesla is seconds away from death.

Yeah, yep, exactly. Exactly. So you're kind of. That's kind of the. Yeah, that's kind of what's surrounding it. And so anyway, we're talking through, you know, some, some of that stuff. And, and, and, you know, I'm a, I'm a tech and he's talking to me like I'm, you know, at the board meetings or something.

I don't know, man. Maybe you will.

I'm here right now.

Yeah. I was like.

Were you actually worried?

No. Like, about losing my job or. No, no, I don't think I was ever. I was never worried because even, even when I took the job, a ton of people were. Were saying that same thing to me, you know, because there, even when I, when at that point in time, you know. But like, I said that, that, that whole 9, 10, 11 those years, nobody really knew whether the Tesla was going to make it or not. Model S kept getting pushed back and pushed back and pushed back.

You know, didn't you say at one point like your father or father or somebody was like, are you sure? Like, making.

Just about everybody I talked to and, and trying to keep me to stay as a tech at BMW at the time, they were like, why, why are you going over there? Like, they're going to be gone and like, oh, if they are, I'll come back here.

You'll still take me back.

Yeah. And left on real good. Real good terms there and everything. But so anyway, we're. We're talking and. And, you know, we're going back and forth, and like I said, I really didn't know what else to. To say. And. And.

So he. He, you know, and he was kind of leaving it, like, say, I don't know if the. You know, George has a kind of. If you've ever heard him do interviews or anything. His. He has kind of a. A jolly voice or something, if you know what I mean? Like, and he's very charismatic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so he's just kind of like, yeah, I don't know. You know, I don't know about the electric car or whatever. And so I said. Said, well, you know, I. I don't know. I mean, somebody. Somebody once did an electric grill, and it turned out pretty good. And so he. He started Melly laughing and like, all right, all right, all right, all right. You know, so. Yeah, but. But, yeah, that was. That's one of my favorite stories too. So.

Man, can you imagine what that stock's worth? Have you ever heard the story of Shaq that he. He was like, somewhere at the Mondrian or something in Hollywood, and he wanted to invest in stocks and people. There were two guys talking about they were there something. It was the guys from Google, and they were just starting, and he put like 150 grand or something in invested and forgot about it for, like, 10 years.

Oh, wow.

Oh, my.

It's crazy.

Crazy. So funny. Imagine what that like before it went public, you know?

Yeah, it's nuts.

Yeah. So I'm sure George, unless he sold it at some point, he's probably doing pretty good.

Yeah, I don't know. He's. He's kind of quietly, I think, a really good businessman. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of stuff on the surface that you do see the grill and stuff. Stuff like that. But, yeah, I think it's funny you bring up Shaq, because I don't think he's completely dissimilar to Shaq. I think he's a pretty business spark.

Yeah.

You know, they. The background and upbringing they had, they're. They're both pretty disciplined individuals. And, you know, you see a lot.

Of that, but, you know, very similar. Just talking about business models. And the problem with this, all of us sitting as a team at a table, is we could go for two hours talking about cool stuff because it's so fun. But you know how.

Kim Kardashian now is doing the thing where she's gonna do a brand. She's gonna invest in that brand, and she wants equity. Shaq is doing the same thing now. So he's getting. He's getting equity now. So the days of him, you know, pitching Popeyes chicken or rental cars or what, whatever it is that he's doing, he same thing, he's like, hey, wanna. Because his approach to it was, you know, I'm gonna really work for your success if I'm, you know, hired by you. The outcome of that is they had a lot of success, and so now he realizes his value in the marketplace. Just like George had a piece of the Foreman thing, the grill.

There's supposed to be a really good story behind the grill. Like, maybe he wasn't gonna do it. They were actually gonna get somebody else to do it. Maybe. Has anybody heard that? I thought that. I think there's a really good backstory of, you know, him giving it a shot and the success that came about from that versus maybe they were going to either give it to somebody else or they wanted somebody else, and they. I'm not saying he was the second choice.

I think he's such a great pitch.

Man for that thing, for sure.

But Shaq's the same way. Like, I think I understand now he's bought into. With the pizza thing.

Well, I think anything you see him in a commercial, just know that he's invested in it. So, like, I. I've heard about the ring. You know, that. The doorbell with the camera, all that stuff. The guy. He ordered it one time, and the guys came out to install it in his house, and he was like, man, tell me about your.

What this is.

And, like, the owner of the business was the one installing it. No kidding. And the guy was. He was just asking about it. He goes, well, man, I'd love to help you guys out if you want me to.

Didn't Kobe invest in the ring too?

I think so, yeah. And then. And so he just, like, kind of was like, I'll pitch for you. And, like, if you see. You go back and you look at older ring commercials, the. The guy who founded it and Shacker and commercials together, and they ended up selling that to Amazon.

Well, they got me. That's great.

Yeah, yeah. I got.

I got a couple of them in different places.

Right.

I have one in the kitchen to see if anybody can figure out the drawers were everywhere.

I know. It came out.

It's great.

You have to listen to another episode to find out about.

Yeah.

Well, Hoagie's got great, great Tesla Stories. His Manhattan ones are pretty great, too.

Yeah.

Tell the one about the. The art curator.

Have you entered this one?

I'm sure I have, but it.

You'll recognize it.

So. Yeah, so they sent me to New York, and there was a guy that ended up being pretty good buddies with. Worked with quite a bit, named Will Duchet. And I think Will was originally from Boston, but anyway, we both spent a lot of time.

In New York and we had. They. They were basically kind of setting up service in. In New York City at the time. Manhattan. Manhattan. I think it. I think it was in the Chelsea Arts district is where that original gallery was. I don't know if there. If there's a still one down there or. Or not. A lot's changed in 10 or 12 years or however long it's been. But. But yeah, so we were setting one. Setting one up down there, and.

There was.

They were getting asked to not run the air compressor, you know, like, work on cars, basically.

But you're in the artist district in an art gallery, right?

Yeah.

Did you have to roll the cars in on.

Yeah, yeah. Like. Like there had these metal ramps made that fit the stairs that were like, cut out the shape of the stairs, and we had to set those ramps down and like, drive the cars in and out off those stairs. And. And then there was, you know, just kind of in the back is basically the front of the gallery was kind of, you know, kind of car on demo. And. And then. Yeah, and then you know, kind of tucked Caddy corner in the corner was a lift.

But there were no. There was no dealerships around. There wasn't zoned for no automotive.

Right, right, right, right. So.

So you're using air compressors and normal stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So.

Yeah, so there's, you know, like, all those art galleries around. And.

One evening we're, you know, in the evenings they'll have like, wine tastings and.

At those art galleries and stuff, just getting traffic and stuff. And. And anyway, so we're kind of leaving work and walking past a lot of those and Will hears a. Or we're walking into one of them and he hears a compressor kick on. And, you know, we have been told not to run our compressor. There's like, noise abatements and got complaints and stuff like that.

You know, and in.

New York City, like, there's just all types of stuff, right? Like all types of makeshift stuff. We just paid our parking tickets every day, so there's no parking lot anywhere. So cars that we are working on.

You know, are parked out Front on the street and we're just paying parking tickets just, you know, because it's cheaper than parking and you can actually get the car out when you need it, you know, and stuff like that. Like there just. There was all types of kind of hurdles to, to overcome, but so you're.

Doing like a pop up shop, Like a pop up service department kind of.

No, this was going to be an established New York City location.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah. So it's just, you know, Tesla's kind of model was to go into high end. It still is to a certain extent. To go into high end shopping centers and, and things like that. Not necessarily. What would be the best, you know, service center I got you or whatever. And so, yeah, that's kind of what they wanted to cater to be part of that scene where there was traffic, art gallery like, stuff like that. That was more of what they were going for. So yeah, so we're going through, you know, an art show or whatever, just kind of walking through one of those. But yeah, he hears a compressor kick on and he's like, is that an air compressor? Like where that's coming from? You know, he's asking one of the people at the gallery and they're like, yeah, that's the curator, you know, running his tools or whatever.

He's doing like restoration.

I don't know what he was doing exactly, but. The art curator. Yeah, working on some, some type of whatever, sculptures or whatever he was working on.

So anyway, Will asked to talk to this guy and he's like, hey, how are you? You know, how are you? How are you doing that? They told us we can't run the compressor or whatever. And he's like, oh, you can, you know, you can get a permit or a license or whatever to be an art curator and then you have that abatement or whatever. And so, so, so next thing you know, we're getting 50 bucks.

To be our curator and. Yeah, and the abatement that.

So you are a registered ARC here. Yeah, Manhattan.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Got the permit or, or whatever they call it. But yeah, yeah, yeah, it's funny. But that allows you to. Yeah. Run a compressor. The noise abatement or whatever it was that, you know, gave you that workaround.

But problem solver. That's all I gotta say about that.

What's so fun about that though is that when you're, when you're doing something that's new like that 50% of what you're doing is creativity.

Like you're.

There's no established norms when you're going into Manhattan with a. With a company that's launching in the way that they were. You know, it's just. It's nuts. Like, it's all creativity and figuring you had to solve problems.

Like, you.

If you didn't have the part, if you, you know, couldn't use an air. Whatever it was, you had to figure it out, Right.

Yeah, it's probably. Probably one of the best things that happened to me at that time was being put in that situation where you just figured it out. Like, you know, when you're. When you're somewhere, when you're working for BMW. Yeah.

There's so many, like, just, this is how we do it.

And. Yeah, this is the process. Process. Like, if I can't figure it out, you do a trouble Puma case, you know, or whatever.

But they're trying to control everything. Yeah. Where this is wide open and there are no estab. You're establishing the rules.

Yeah.

In a sense. Like, probably some of the things you did might be norm now. Right. For them.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. And it. But, yeah, it was a great lesson in. In figuring it out. I mean, at the end of the day, that's. That's what it was. Was, you know.

What. Whatever it was that. That came up, and we had a good team of people that helped each other and stuff. So you weren't alone, but at the end of the day, you were alone. Like, I'm the only. I was in someone's, you know, parking garage in Houston, Texas or wherever. And, you know, the difference between me going home to tonight or tomorrow morning is me fixing the car. You know, so then. Then all of a sudden, you start figuring stuff out.

Pretty quick and. And, you know, figuring out what works.

It's a small tool to pull from eight guys worldwide. Like, there's probably eight guys in some manufacturer that's covering, you know, United States, but eight guys worldwide.

Yeah, that's. Yeah, yeah, there wasn't, you know, one wasn't a ton, but. Yeah, yeah, it was interesting. But that, you know, and that really kind of leads into.

To. To one. To my first one. And. And. And that is.

You know.

Well, if you're. If you're forced in situations to figure it out, what you find yourself doing a lot of the time is keeping it simple. Right. And I think that's something really important, especially for texts coming into the field today. It's really, really easy to get lost in a lot of different areas and. And I wish, as techs today, I wish we had better. You Know, like anything in the service industry, I think the training aspect of it is pretty, you know, underserved. Right.

We kind of joke about it a lot. When an advisor gets a job, they just tell them, or even a service manager, whoever, hey, there's your desk, there's your, you know, and I think, I think you get quite a bit of technical training. But the technical training, it's funny because.

It'S the way the industry has it set up. But it's set up for the industry to get frustrated as service managers, as service advisors, to get frustrated with the technician because they have the technical know how, but they don't have the application yet. Right. So you got all these new techs coming into the field. We get frustrated because they are a little bit prima donnas and you know, get frustrated. They can't diagnose their way out of a wet paper bag. But one, you know, but one. A high hourly rate or whatever. So there's this weird frustration with them and they have some of the books, book smarts, maybe they have some of the factory credentials, but they don't have the application knowledge. And, and a lot of it comes back to just, just keeping it simple, you know, And I think that's a, that's a really important lesson that I learned is when you're forced to figure things out, when you're kind of on an island, when you're kind of, you know, by yourself.

Most of the time. Some of the most complicated things that I was able to figure out, figure out ended up being pretty simple problems. Right. And, and a number of times I wish that I just would have kept it simple, you know, from, from the beginning. Right?

You mean when you're, when you're saying keep it simple, are you talking about all aspects of, of being attacked or are we talking about, give us an example. Diagnosing.

Yeah.

Are we talking about just so.

So diagnosing or, or doing a job for the first time, you know, especially when you go on flat rate, there's a lot of anxiety about making hours and making a paycheck and all those things. So you speed everything up and the speed of the game gets really fast. You make more mistakes. And so.

No, that was actually a perfect segue, Cliff, because what I was going to say is this bleeds into a lot of different things.

Well, yeah, like advisors, for example, like how many times can we show an advisor if you write 10 a day and really do a good job with that 10, you'll make more than if you write 20 a day and shortcut and don't call people back and miss stuff. And so walking before you run in a sense and doing it right.

Yes.

Kind of thinking about that keep it simple thing. What I've seen a lot of times with text is that they glance over the symbol because they're like, it can't be that easy. Like they almost. There's a. There's a weird thing. Thing about them that they know so much and they know so many things. It's like they skip over. I can't tell you how many times, like, because I don't know anything about cars. I don't know if you guys knew this or not. But like when it comes to the mechanics of it, I don't know anything.

Or computers or we could, we could.

Make a long list.

But. But so many times a tech could come to me like, I can't figure this out. And I'd like, I'd pull a. Up the little manual and I'd be like, did you check the fuse? Yeah, it's not the fuse. And I'd be like, did you check the fuse?

Yeah.

And they go back and then they'd have to come back and admit that they didn't check the fuse. And it was like that simple the whole time.

Yeah.

And then the flat rate thing is a combination of like if you want to make flat rate, keep the simple simple. And then when it gets complex, you embrace it. But you learn every single time.

Yeah.

Do you think that's. You probably get off so that. So I'll be careful about that.

We never get off the subject flat rate, especially now.

He's now five of us. Oh my good Lord.

But do you think with the flat.

Rate thing that the reason why that that's become such a polarizing like it's such a been a polar. Polarizing thing is because it's not just simple thing like you know, work on three cars and do really good on the MPIs and inspections and keeping it simple that way. I mean, is that kind of.

I think, I think a part of it too is like these kids, when they go into school, they're promised to, you know, because kids don't want to go in. They're promised they're going to make all this money and that it's going to be easy. And. And then reality, when you hit a dealership, like think about you're 22 or something. You're you. You think, okay, I'm gonna make. Make six figures. And well, and then you get into the dealership, it's like, oh, I Got. There's a production element to this. So I think, kind of like Kogi was saying at the top is a lot of this, too, is in the education. Like, they're not, they're not, they're not necessarily promoting that in some of these schools in the sense that if they were, then the kids wouldn't want to be there. So I, I see that all the time. That there's just a gap of. Yeah, well, okay, now welcome to the real world.

And you eat humble hot pie for.

The first six, which is a failure in, in the training. Really?

Yeah, yeah. It's. It's a, It's. It's a sign of the time. So it just, It. The pressure just transfers. Right. So, you know, what is it now? Seven techs are leaving the field for everyone coming in.

Yeah.

And if not more, that. That stat's probably behind already. And so just like we know that stat to be. Be true for us. And what's not as well known is that a lot of these trade schools.

Their enrollments are down, closing locations down, all that stuff. Right. So they're, they're, they're, you know, trying to draw these guys in. And to Chris's point, they're telling them, hey, you can make a million bucks a year. And all you got to do is learn how to plug this laptop in. It's going to tell you what's wrong with the car. And the car. Car is going to fix itself. That's, you know, so they're kind of sold this bag of goods and, you know, and then you get to the, get to the dealership and, you know, there's a lot of hard work attached to it to, to be.

Yeah, you got a hot engine with hot liquids and like, all that. It's not, it's not a joke.

Right, Right.

So when remembering back and some of the guys that were coming in.

Because of where I'm located at, we have the NASCAR tech there, and that was a big thing. These guys would go in and, you know, they would come to the store and I can rebuild a motor and I can set up a nascar. I just need you to change oil and tighten a drain plug and make sure the lug nuts are tightened, and it was that stuff. So I think, you know, when you're talking about keeping it simple, even the basics, like, just do the basic stuff. That's great.

Yeah, yeah. And all those simple things. If you do all those things well.

You know, it just, it leads to other things. Right. There's a starting point for all of it. But there's definitely some disconnections there. And.

You know, I started with that one because it's as number one, because it's as deep as it is wide. Obviously, just opening this conversation up. But one of the things I think that's important to segue and is for number two, kind of on this same subject, is a focused hustle is the right speed.

Oh, yeah.

Focused hustle is the right speed. It's very, very important. Right. So, yeah, you don't want to be the guy that doesn't care about his production or his paycheck. Right. And then when you go to flat rate, there's this urgency, you know, to. To make all you can. But most shops have that guy in their shop where they're like, man.

Cliff, I don't know how he does it. The dude's a machine. No, no, look at him. It doesn't even look like he's doing anything. Yeah, but he's a machine. Like, I don't know how he does it. The guy makes, you know, 8 million hours of pay period or whatever, but I don't know how he does it. Well, the thing is that, you know, there's a focused hustle. Right. And. And, you know, little things that you'll notice about that guy is you're not going to see him at the back parts counter very often.

He's not getting coffee five times a day.

Yeah. He has a morning routine. He comes in. Cleanliness is godliness. His stall pretty much looks the same way every night when he goes home. There's always something on his rack when he goes home at night.

You know, you're not ever walking around asking where he is.

Yeah. His tools are clean and put away, you know, so.

Yeah, he doesn't have time to talk about a lot of that.

Right.

He's not up on the local gossip.

Yeah.

Most people think he's rude because he doesn't.

Yeah.

Hang out and talk to anybody.

Yeah.

Gets it done.

Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, when you look at those guys, that's. That's a common trend for. For sure. And. Or girls. Yeah. Or girls. For sure. Yep. And. And yeah. And honestly, I'm seeing a lot of really good female text nowadays.

Only if they got the right uniform.

I'm so glad you guys are being politically correct because often on this show.

Yeah. It's really.

It's a different dynamic.

Yeah.

Do you see what this feels like?

Yeah.

Just consider it almost uncomfortable for me.

Yeah.

If they get the right uniform or what I'd heard.

Don't get him started.

Uniforms wonderfully formed.

Remember?

What. What did we say? If you have to ask if you can say it on the show, you shouldn't.

Yeah, right, right. Yeah.

So let me get this. You're asking him about female text uniforms.

No, no, I'm not asking him to. To make them.

Here we go again.

This might not be the question to ask.

Yeah, I know.

But we were going really good with the politically correctness and I guess then you're serving up a T ball.

Yeah.

It could go the other way.

So she doesn't just have hearts hold and just let him.

Yeah.

Where's the way it's headed with it.

Is number two, a lot of these things I was talking about female texts a lot of times are. Are highly organized. You know, a lot of these things we were talking about good reset. A lot dissimilar to a lot of really great female advisors are the same way. Right. They kind of have that more naturally.

Managers. Some of our best.

Many of our best managers. Females.

Yeah.

On the tech and. And just, you know, the right speed focused hustle. And you were talking about hanging out the parts counter, the water cooler, the, you know, talking about the football game. You, you know.

Yeah.

In your arena.

What?

Sorry.

That I hit with parts first.

Parts water cooler. Yeah.

I mean, I don't know what you mean.

Mike's in the way. Nobody can see.

Oh, there you go.

It says parts.

Hold on.

Most people are listening to this, by the way.

They're not reading sign language.

Focus hustle. Number two. Focused hustle.

But I think it's a great because those guys are like, hey, just bring it to me. You know, they're handing off the R really quick and explaining in detail and not, you know, hanging out and getting involved.

I always think about that with those.

Texts and I love the point of they've got a car in their bay when they leave at night.

That's right.

Yeah. Right. So.

Focused hustle. One of the. One of the.

You know, best things I think you can teach a technician surrounding that is everything you are. Are doing. You're kind of running through the filter of does this produce a flash flat rate hour. So what I'm doing right now, does it produce a flat rate hour or is it investing in a future flat rate hours. Great day. So.

It'S a hard thing especially if you are a performance. The high performing technician. I just wanted to be left alone. Like, just leave me alone. Just let me. You want me to fix cars? I want to fix cars. And I think it was Grant mentioned It a little bit earlier. They even sometimes look at that guy as a jerk.

Yeah.

Right, Yep. And, and I was super, super guilty of that.

No way.

And yeah.

Believe it or not, shocking.

Yeah. But it was a hard lesson for me to learn. And so, and what I, and what I doing right now produce, does it produce a flat rate hour? And the only alternative to that that's acceptable is. And what I doing right now, investing in a future flat rate hour. And that was a hard lesson for me to learn that helping the advisor, going and test driving with a customer, all of those. Once I got better at all of that helping parts, whatever it was, the universe sends that stuff back to you. Right. When you're helping out customers, helping out advisors, it comes, you know, it comes full circle. Right.

I think that thing that you said about does it lead to a future hour I think is really, really, really important because you, I know text a lot of times, at least from an advisor standpoint it seems like it's all about they're very like they think in the micro.

Right.

Like not in the macro. So it's very much like what is this doing for me?

Yeah.

Right this moment. Nothing else is, is going on in their brain.

And so I get paid for that.

Correct.

That's really important.

That's really important.

That's a good one.

Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

I mean especially from an advisor standpoint because you're thinking of what this could be down the road. You have two competing thoughts here.

Right.

Like you're having an advisor that's thinking about this is a customer I'm trying to get back to come back in and be my customer for life and they're going to do things down the road whereas the technicians like what is this thing going to pay me right now? Like that's really what I get.

But I do think about the guys that, that I've worked with that are high performing technicians and they were willing to ride with the customer. They were willing to put in and do something extra.

Well because they knew that it saved them time.

That that's the thing.

Yeah. But they were investing in because they.

Knew that RO was coming back.

Yeah.

So why not just get right to the source?

Yeah.

So I think a little bit self serving but it's the right self serving in that, in that sense too.

Yeah. I think to the sometimes alignment, sometimes on those drives the customer would come back and go, no, it's you know, normal.

Or you know.

Yeah.

And the customer's happy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're like there was a lot of that with BMWs. Like. Yeah, the shift's weird. Bought an SMG.

Right. You're going to need your kidneys replaced. Two years. Yeah.

Yeah.

You thought it was just a fancy. You thought it was a fancy car, but you bought a race car.

Yeah. Yeah.

And you don't even know where there's a track.

So funny. It's so true.

Yeah. So number three, work the cars, not the system. Work the cars, not the system. Yeah. Okay. You know, you. You kind of goes back into flat rate, and you're, you're, you know, you want to make a paycheck. You're. You're. You're trying to do all of that stuff, and it's really easy to look around you and. And see the guy that's making good hours and. And how is he doing that? And I'm not. And, you know, I got a better toolbox than he does. I got, you know, whatever. And I'm smart. Smarter than that guy or whatever. And. And so you start. Then you. If somebody's doing good, then you start getting skeptical of that person. Right. We see that all the time in the comp. If somebody starts performing really well in the. In the comp. And for those of you listening that. That don't know our comp, we talked about on another episode just recently, but we have a nationwide comp that stores that are on our program, the advisors participate in and every month. Month. And it's funny because if an advisor. And I always tell my stores too. I love it when somebody wants to question their results.

Yes.

I feel like you've arrived when someone else is questioning. Yeah. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

You're on the radar.

The radar. Yeah.

Did they make a typo?

Yeah. Your results are so good that somebody else is believing that something's wrong with them.

You know, so that, that, that reminds me. Little bit of comp names.

Oh, yeah.

And I wanted to ask you a question, Hoagie. What do you get when you cross a cow and a great white shark?

A cow and a great white shark?

I really want to get one of these. Right. I never, I never get.

They're not meant to be.

Yeah.

Then there wouldn't be a joke.

What I feel like.

Tell us.

I don't know, but I wouldn't want to milk it.

4.7.

It's not a slice of pizza.

Oh.

Grant for years has been grading my jokes, and he's.

Is that on a scale of 1 to 10 or 1 to 10?

Like, 5 is.

Wow.

Yeah, he's tough.

I don't See if you watch the.

Chat on some of the things that often gets sent in there.

Yeah.

No, no, I'm saying like on a zoom call or whatever, if he delivers them, there'll be one place in there.

Like the quarterly meetings.

Yeah, the quarterly meeting is so great. I feel like I've gotten on a scale of 1 to 10. I think I've gotten like an above an 8 once with Graham.

What's the out of body give out?

3.

Does it start?

No, I would say the average give out would probably be around between a five and a six. No, I would say. No, I would say probably a six and a half to a seven.

Okay.

Yeah.

So anything beyond that is like that.

Laughed as hard at some.

So yeah, in, in working the car is not the system. It's easy to look around, you know, and, and, and, and start trying to think, you know, this guy gets all the gravy tickets. And the other thing was there's legitimate cases sometimes where that is happening. Sure. It is happening.

I would say that that's like 10 though. Like.

Yeah.

Every time I'm at technicians complain about it being unfair. And we did an audit.

Yep, it's exactly right.

It's, it's. And then the, the worst part of the whole thing is when you show them.

Yeah.

They, that's just their default setting is to be skeptical.

Yeah, yeah. It's way more feelings in fact. Right. Chris always say so. Yeah. So I think one of the important things is these high performing techs and kind of a hard lesson to learn is there's no point in working the system. There's no point in. And those, none of those guys are working the system. Give me a car, I'll give you hours. Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it's a warranty, if it's internal. Right. If it's customer pay, if it's got 20,000 miles or 120,000 miles. Right. Like they're just one step closer to the next thing. It's just, and they're just machines. Like they're just doing it consistently and it's a focused hustle. And I think one of the biggest parts of that.

Is the multi point inspection and getting good with your multi point inspection and having a system with it. The great techs with their MPIs, man on the way into the shop, as soon as they get into a car, they have started their multi point inspection. Lights, I'm checking lights, I'm checking stuff on the way in. I'm able to check through the reflection in the glass, my til, Anybody check my tail lights? I check my tail lights at a certain point because I knew in the reflection I could see everything. And I stopped for a second and see it all. I don't have to yell at the guy in the center, install behind me and hey, left, left, right, brake light, you know, they're doing it on the way in. I'm checking wipers, I'm checking washer fluid, everything. And I haven't even racked a car yet. But I had to drive the car in anyway. And so.

You know, work the car, not the system. There's no reason to worry about that guy. And maybe he is working the system like Chris said, 90% of the time they're not. But once you learn whether it's warranty, having good paper, you know, having good paperwork.

It'S amazing how when you document your paperwork the right way, whether it's customer pay or warranty, how well it serves you.

A good documented warranty story and kind of a good practice for this that I think we don't spend enough time teaching techs is literally in your, in your tech story, in your CCCS in the Correction field. Step 1 should be labeled with a 1. 1, here's what I did first 2, here's what I did second 3, here's what I did. And it's amazing what a warranty clerk can get. You paid when you give them the information. Yeah. So we get upset that warranty jobs. Don't get me wrong, like I hear everybody I know, warranty doesn't pay what it should. And in most situations. That's not what I'm saying here. But it's amazing what a warranty clerk can get for you when they're given the information. So you know, work, work the car, not the system. Really, really important. And the crux of that perhaps is a high quality multi point inspection. And the high performing techs like they're, they're going through it and they got a system for it. So it doesn't matter if the car has a laundry list or it needs to. Two things. One doesn't take a whole lot more time than the other.

Yeah.

And they're doing it the same every time. And they're not worried about the guy next to him at all. It's not, not on their radar.

Yeah, it's funny you say that. I, when I go back in my mind not only as an advisor working with tax, but in running a department, the guys that were the high performing advisors, I never heard them talk about another tech.

Yeah.

Or a high performing tech. I never heard them say, mention another tech in any, any. Like, I'd never heard from them about Jeff or, you know, like they never, they just came in, did their work, left. They never talked about anybody else.

Which is the opposite of advisors. Right. The advisors are almost like the better advisor knows the numbers and then the, the better techs just keep their eyes on their own paper.

Yeah, they, they're just, they're not concerned with what everyone else is doing because they kind of know their value and they know what they're providing. And so they're just like, yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't care.

I think it goes number two, Focused hustle. Yeah, it's the right speed.

I kind of want to get that tattooed. Like focus hustle equals right speed.

How do we make that happen?

Like a neck.

Like you want to get that tonight?

I mean.

It'S top dog week.

Can you imagine walking into that tattoo shop?

They're like, what, like a necklace be so great.

That would be awesome.

Did it misspell a letter or something like that?

There's a law that my girl will tolerate. But an tattoo that says focus hustle.

They move the S and a T and it's focus Hutzel.

Like the movie.

Yes. You sure? Not even one letter.

All right, so my last one is to stay, stay positive and manage to the middle, so.

Oh, it's great.

A, you know, one, one time I heard it and a tech was saying it in, in, in passing, but he said you're always only one broken bolt away from a bad day. Right. Like everything's going right, you know, and, and you break that bull and you know, we already told the customer the car was going today. You know, just all, all of those things and you know, there's, there's plenty of opportunity for things to not go the right way. It's never, you know, it's never as good as it seems, and it's never as bad as it seems. Right. And, and the more you're able to keep that mindset and keep a positive mindset, it keeps you from kind of buying into the fear and, or buying into the negativity. That's another thing I would say about high performing texts is not only are they, you know, kind of emotionally in a, in a good place, right. Because you'll see the ebbs and flows, attacks. Right. Like when, when they break that bolt or whatever, you know, the guy that's taken his.

You know, three pound dead blow hammer to the workbench because he just broke a bull.

Right.

He's not managing to the middle. Right. But those. Those guys with that focused hustle, they. They are. Yeah, they're kind of calm, cool, and collected and, you know, and I think that's really important. And I think something that's not talked about enough is those guys, you know, whether it's the water cooler, the back parts counter, or whatever, the other thing they don't participate in is the negativity. The shop today has become a breeding ground for negative conversation. And every day we kind of come to work with this tank of.

Mental and emotional energy. And some days it's low and some days it's high. But the more you can kind of keep it in the middle, the. The better. And if you're participating in those negative conversations a lot, you don't know it, but you're draining that tank. Right? Like, and, And. And why that. The psychology of that is true is just think about it like, if I'm. If I'm participating in all that negative talk, whether it's politics or the latest thing corporate's making us do, or BMW is making us get pre authorization on this, and it's stupid. And warranty doesn't mean whatever it is.

If I'm participating in those negative conversations and letting all that stuff that I can't control fill my head, and then I go back to the car to diagnose a difficult problem, where's my head at? Where's my emotional state? All that stuff. So manage. Manage to the middle. They. They. They focus on positive things. They're not buying into that negative talk. And a lot of times, I think for me, once I figured that out and how much better I was when I didn't participate in that, it wasn't so much that I.

Was too busy making hours. I was too busy to participate in that because I just learned to. Didn't serve me. And stay. Stay positive and. And manage to the middle. You're only one broken bolt away.

That's great.

That's great. So recap the list.

So we have our. Our first. Our first one was.

Keep it simple. Right. Our second one was a Focused hustle, Christian's new tattoo.

Our third one was Work the cars, not the system. And our last one was Manage to the middle.

Great stuff.

Awesome list.

That was fun, you guys. It was a fun little series.

I liked it.

Yeah. Good.

It's good.

A lot of fun. Thanks for having us.

I like that we did this. This round table instead of individual.

Well, it's a square table, technically, what? It's a square table.

No, that's a term for every anybody sitting around the table like we're the round table.

Not, not this thing.

It's what we're doing that makes it.

Next time.

It's awesome. Well, thanks, everybody. We'll see you next time on Service Drive 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 SDR. For special deals on our books and training, head over to offers.chris collinsinc.com. now that's offers.chris collins inc.com. i'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video sa.