Why Your Techs Quit & How To Motivate The Ones You Have (Part 2)

Welcome to the big show. I'm Chris Collins. Adam is here. Hoagie is here. And today we're going to finish out the list of ways to motivate your technicians, part 2. It's a strong finish, some things that I think will inspire you and to think about. And then we talk about Adam's truck, the gift that keeps on giving, and much, much more coming up right now on Service Drive Revolution. I'm getting really excited. It's almost time to put the boat in the water. Although I want a new boat, I'm still going to put the old boat in the water until I figure out what I'm going to do with the new boat. But it's that time. It's time to plan summer.

Did you ever hear back from the dealership?

No. It's so funny. It's an automated AI thing. I think I said that, right? Yeah, the, the real human that talked to me stopped responding, and it's, it's just an AI bot that pretends like they're a human in email, and I refuse to have a conversation. So engaged. I'm just going to go to a couple dealerships when I'm up there. It's impossible. Like, if you think it's hard to buy a car online, boats are way worse. Like, it's— and I think too, like, most of those boat dealerships are not full staffed.

Yeah, I—

yeah, if car sales are down, boat sales have to be down, I would imagine.

Yeah.

So I'm gonna have to fight to get somebody to sell me a boat for sure.

Hmm.

I was just talking about that with somebody just the other day, and, um, it's crazy. It's just in a customer service realm or a sales realm today, like how many occasions I have where I want to give a company money for some type of service and how hard that can be sometimes. Oh, yeah. It's like, will you please take my money?

Nothing works.

It's odd. It is odd.

It's a new type of demand.

Yeah, it's funny. But aren't you guys getting excited for summer?

Yeah, dude, for sure. I feel like this finally hit 68 degrees.

Winter lasted forever.

Yeah, we, we, uh, we went to dinner in Chicago, Adam and I, um, uh, was that two nights ago, Adam? It was a—

yeah, it's 45 and sunny, man.

I got off the plane there and like I just thought it was warm everywhere already, but it was cold. It was, it was, uh, 30-something degrees when I got off the plane in Chicago.

Chicago's usually a little late to the party when it comes to summer weather.

It was starting to turn green though, so you got to give him credit for that.

The best part is all the pasty white people when, when they have their first like real sunny weekend. So funny.

Shorts, shorts and flip-flops and tube tops, sunny 45.

Yeah, yeah, it's fun to listen to them talk about going to the beach. Not that we have beaches in Oklahoma, that— but like in Oklahoma we also don't talk about going to the beach.

Did you, uh, did you get to ride in Adam's truck? His— so for anybody who didn't hear the episode, I don't know, like a month ago, where, uh, Adam wouldn't literally let us ride in his truck, he rented a car. So we went to Indiana to talk to somebody and we all flew in. Adam drove and he literally rented a car because he didn't want us in his, in his pickup truck. Because he didn't want it to get dirty or rock chips or something. I don't know. This is not a pickup truck anymore, for sure. Metrosexual, whatever that is.

Fake news.

Um, but you promised that you were gonna pick Hoagie up actually in your truck. So did you get any rock chips on your drive to Chicago?

I didn't. I, I didn't. I, I left definitely very early so that would not happen, so there's less cars on the road. But it did have a nice clean—

was it the nicest truck you've ever been in, Hoagie? Did it feel like you were getting into a Rolls-Royce?

Uh, it, it is a nice truck, there's no doubt about it. Like, it is— they're, they're super nice. Like, I, I do like those trucks.

Is it a 250? No, it's a 150. Yeah, Lariat, or what, what's the trim package?

Yep, it's a Lariat.

Lariat, okay.

Lariat. Um, I'm pretty sure that's how we say it in Oklahoma.

So, uh, French it up a little bit. Lariat. Lariat.

I don't know, fancy. Um, yeah, I, I gotta say, I, I, you know, it wasn't dirty or anything, and I don't know about a bunch of rock chips, but I wouldn't call it clean either. Like, I was kind of on the road with that part. Like, and, and then, uh, we were going to be picking somebody else up also, and I was like, well, I guess I'll ride in the back. So I get in the back with the car seats and like—

but yeah, so is there like graham cracker slime back there?

I mean, not graham cracker slime. It wasn't, uh, I don't know, he's had it long enough for that. But, uh, I, I don't know, like, I was—

there's crumbs. There was crumbs.

There's no way that you have toddlers and not give up on that part of it for at least a couple years.

It's pretty simple. You're just not allowed to have anything that would give slime.

Crackers and Everything.

Dude, don't even wish that on me because I literally watched Mary wish it on you.

It's just how kids are. And wipe it.

She wiped her nose and wiped it on the seat this morning when I dropped her off.

That's what I'm going to do next time if I ever get to ride in your truck. I'm wiping a booger on your seat like a 3-year-old.

That's why they have the truck bed.

Yeah. So it's not as nice as would be imagined for somebody who rented a car instead of us riding in your car. But I think that's to be expected. Honestly, anybody who's trying that hard to keep their car clean probably can't do it.

The effort's there. I don't know. But, I mean, we can always next time We drive all together and get a minivan. I think that would be fun.

I'm not riding in a minivan.

Or you want slime? I'll show you slime.

I want an— I want a big SUV, like Suburban or bigger, preferably an Escalade. I'm a big boy. I'm not getting in a little car. That's the funny thing, right? When people meet me, they're always like, oh, you're much taller than I thought.

They do say that a lot.

Yeah, I'll hit my head. I want something big. It's good.

Yeah, we got an— we had an expedition. We can do that again. That was a fun ride.

Well, good feedback on the ways to motivate technicians that we did, part 1. So we're going to do part 2 today. It's a long list, but some, some good ideas. So let's, uh, let's kind of jump into the list. So the first one that we have in part 2, and this one was one that Hoagie pointed out that I thought was very insightful and kind of a little bit counter to what we preach because two things can be true at the same time. But, you know, we always teach about growing your own technicians and having a system for them to get mentored and grow, you know, for, for a few reasons. One is They are more loyal and they're just, you know, they're a part of your culture. But one of the things that has been noticed is that there's this apprehension to recruit high performers from the outside. And I think one of the first things that we would try to do going into a shop is acquire a couple high performers to kind of increase the production. That's the goal, right, Hoagie?

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's just one of those things that there's no doubt that part of your formula, to your point, is you got to be able to grow your own in today's world. It's certainly a critical piece of it, but it is, I think just because techs have become so hard to find, I think we're up to 8 techs leaving the field for every 1 tech coming in. And, uh, you know, and then, and then the numbers of techs leaving the field with the— I don't know if you guys have looked at some of the stats on boomers that are leaving the workforce over the next couple years, but it is, uh, nuts.

Like, uh, well, what's nuts is the young kids. They talk about how the younger kids have the highest percentage of unemployment, but they're trained to do the wrong stuff. And so we don't have career-to-need match in this country where we— so many kids have gone into tech and other stuff and there's no jobs there for them. Meanwhile, I was talking to somebody about this the other day. Meanwhile, the plumbers and the carpenters and these guys are just— they're killing it. They're making $200,000, $300,000 a year.

Yeah, they can name their price. That's the thing. Nobody wants to go into the trades anymore.

Nobody wants to get their hands dirty. If you want to get your hands dirty and you like doing that sort of thing, you are in high demand.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. And the training isn't even as long as your, your standard whatever 4-year degree. Like, some of them can just do, what, 18 months if that? Like, or just, uh, on-the-job training. I know we was— I was talking to a window installer, uh, that owns his own business, and he had a son come with him. And I'm like, oh, that's great, you know, you're trying to have your son kind of come along with you and show the business. He goes, no, I can't even get him out of bed on time and coming into work. But he goes, he wants to go in IT. And I'm like, well, there's a field for that. You know, you can kind of leverage that. But it's, he's just like, yeah, he's like, it's really hard to find people interested in working with their hands. And we've always had that problem as in technicians, whether it's car or truck. I know when I first went into the field, they were just saying the same stats that Hogi just said, right? I don't think it's ever going to change on that front of for whatever numbers coming in, there's always more getting out of the field. So that's where, yeah, you really need to always be hiring.

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, and there's a thing where all, like Chris said, there's a couple of things that are true at the same time there because all of that data is daunting and it's all true. But they've, a lot of managers have done a thing in their mind where they say, okay, and they've gone all in on growing their own. They go all in on their relationship with the tech schools and bringing people in that way and stuff like that. And I'm like, hey, like, you know, we're really in a position here where if we get just one or two guys that are a little bit further along, like, you know, it'll make a big, a big dent. And they're like, you know, well, yeah, that sounds great. Where am I going to find those guys? You know? And, and it's funny because I'm like, you know, I'm like, okay, well, let's just give it a shot, right? And see, see what happens. Because we've completely dismissed trying to find those guys, trying to recruit those guys and gals.

And anyway, so, but I think you can recruit them if you know how to do it.

Are there? Yeah.

And they're looking for a home, like.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's good. The next one I had on the list was the hierarchy. And a lot of times managers are really apprehensive to put a board out in the shop and have a hierarchy of performance, have a winner every month. but having some sort of top dog award every month, having a, you know, a little shop meeting and giving away first, second, and third place, have a little trophy that the top technician gets really does a lot, but it creates a hierarchy. And when there's a hierarchy, there's a clear understanding of who's winning and who's losing. And for you as the manager, but also for the, for the technicians. And I never understand why anybody's against that, like why you would let the people that are, that are anti-performance run the shop. It doesn't make any sense to me. But having a clear hierarchy of a board or a screen in the shop, having awards, having some sort of top dog club, winner's circle, whatever, you know, whatever you want to call it.

Yeah. Do you think that's because of today's society is all about participation trophies?

I would say that, um, I've— from— for over 20 years I've ran into that where you'll start putting it on a board somewhere and fill it out every day, and then the manager will be like, oh, they don't really like it. I'm always just like, that's just like, who cares?

Like, let's rate it.

We're a production facility.

Yeah. I think one of the things that, uh, that they run into with that is, uh, we talked about this last time, so we don't need to belabor the point there, but if you have those one-on-one meetings and setting a goal and an expectation as to what they're supposed to produce every day. If you have that meeting, especially with those bottom performers in that meeting, I like to say, now one of the things we're going to do to track this is every day we're going to post the numbers of what you did yesterday on, on the board and, and have a daily board. And so, uh, you know, I think that helps. Um, it's another one of those things where like it's not uncommon when we go to a store, uh, we say, hey, we're going to do, you know, A, B, and C, and they're like, oh, we tried that before, it didn't work. I'm like, okay, well, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna do it again and it's going to work. But it's usually in the setup for stuff like that, right? They may have put a board up one time, but if you're not having those one-on-ones, if you're not doing those couple other key things we talked about last time, um, and you just throw it up on the wall, then you are— you're kind of start fighting with the terrorists within.

I agree with you, they're, they're not framing it and setting it up for success. And then easily when it fails, just one little glimpse of a challenge, they throw the baby out with the bathwater, right?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's funny. They're not, they're not super intentional about increasing their production. They're just super intentional about just being liked. And, um, at the end of the day, what you do is you isolate the top performers and they end up feeling unimportant, and you, you know, you lower the performance by doing that. Then the next one is the environment, and One thing that's very clear to us is we can walk into any shop, lunchroom, just the area where the techs work, the special tools, any, any, um, anywhere where the technicians are living and functioning frequently and tell how much you care about technicians, you know. And Hoagie's got a great story about this one. In the lunchroom. But most of the time when you go into a lunchroom, it hasn't been updated for 30 years. If you open the refrigerator, it makes you want to throw up because there's stuff in there that's so old. The counters are falling apart. The sink barely works. It's not a, it's not a place that's appetizing, let alone somewhere where you, you would go to recuperate or, you know, or just even eat lunch. Like, it's just—

yeah, it's not that.

And, you know, oftentimes the technicians feel like they're the afterthought because that's the environment we're putting them in. We're putting them in an environment that isn't intentional. It's not curated. Nobody's even paying attention to it. It's like we have a lunchroom as a necessary evil versus we have a lunchroom and we have special tools and all these things. To make the environment better, to change the mood. And environment has a big effect on how people feel about the company and about themselves in that way. Tell everybody the refrigerator story, Hoagie.

Oh yeah. So it's a mutual friend of Adam's and mine and used to be somebody Adam used to work with, but Eric is his name and he you know, was a dealer performance coach and went around to different truck dealerships and things like that. And, and, uh, you know, kind of to your point, uh, Chris, when, when you do that and you have that perspective, uh, you start to connect dots. And, and you can, you can kind of tell their, their, uh, intentionality of, of, uh, uh, you know, how they feel about their techs, um, by looking at the break room. And, and he went to one that was just awful. And, uh, you know, like literally he didn't want to, um, you know, put his hand inside the refrigerator that he opened. Like, it literally looked like a, you know, like the health department would shut down the shop, um, for them being in there. And so he just took it himself without permission, just took it and, uh, chunked it, you know, just took it and threw it in the dumpster and, and, uh, you know, got another one. And, um, but it is, it is amazing, like what a fresh coat of paint does and a new microwave that's a couple hundred bucks at the store, a new refrigerator, how far those things go. And it's not a huge investment, things like that. But yeah, it's probably a good place to start is to go to the tech break room, the tech locker room, What are some basic things we can do back there? Because a lot of times it just, you know, yeah, it literally kind of feels like you step into a third world country.

Can I add just a little bit? Because this one really drives me nuts, literally nuts. Like I spent a lot of time on just facilities of dealerships in my prior thing. But when we talk with technicians, I can't, explain and state enough when you talk about painting the shop white. And maybe it's just in truck or whatever. I'm sure there's some car dealerships though too as well, but how much that would do by updating the lighting, LED, whatever it is to brighten the shop. White will actually help brighten the shop so they can see what they're doing. And the one thing to that story that you were saying is like, wasn't there like technicians that were like cheering? For one that was all done, right? Like, it's amazing how we allow, um, those things as oversights and we take, uh, take it for granted of, of a technician's environment. Just a coat of paint, maybe a new fridge, redoing the, the break room or whatever that is, um, just giving a little bit more lighting so they can do their jobs. Or one of the biggest things is, uh, at least when, when I'm rolling on the floor, is all the craters that go in there. Why can't— why not have a smooth floor without any sort of cracks? Right. Can you imagine on the creeper and getting stuck every time? Like, that drove me nuts. And just fixing some of that stuff, it doesn't take that much of an investment. There is an investment in some cases, but trust me, there's an ROI on all of that. Oh man.

Yeah. I don't know. I don't know how many times I just meet with the cleaners And they're just not going back there. It's already included in the estimate of what we're paying. It doesn't cost any more to do a lot of the stuff we're talking about. A coat of paint, actually having the cleaners go through the refrigerator, you know, a marble countertop, new sink, and refrigerator appliances is not that much money for what it is. And then I would just say also like, putting a pool table, foosball, some sort of arcade game, like really making it a place that's fun where, where the environment is up and people are laughing and goofing and like having a good time carries over to everywhere else. And most of the time, the, you know, if you were to describe the color of the shop or the color of the lunchroom, and I know soot isn't a color, but that's really what it looks like. I mean, it's just soot. And yeah, once a year you got to go through and paint. And, you know, it's just being intentional and thinking, does this environment breed the emotions and the feelings that I want the technicians to have? Like, do you know? And yeah.

And to your point, Chris, last time, like, there's a big percentage of the workforce today that we're teaching them what they haven't been taught. And a lot of people don't like to talk about that, but it's the truth. And so by setting that example with the areas that we control, it gives you a lot of foundation to set an example for what their work area should look like. And then like when you're, like you said, that goes into those emotions and things like that, which goes into their quality of work. And their pride in their work and like all that stuff too, right?

Yeah. And, you know, we're very intentional about this sort of stuff. And most, most dealers are, you know, they just are never going to pay attention or care because it's just not how they think. But we're intentional here about the kind of snacks that we have for employees and trying also as much as we can to promote some sort of healthy lifestyle eating. You know, everything isn't a carb and they have protein having It doesn't cost much more to have good coffee versus, you know, cheap coffee. Just, you know, it's all about spirit and soul and, you know, paying attention to the human, the person, and not just treating them like a number. And in so many places, the technicians produce so much gross. They're so important. They're so hard to recruit. They're so hard to keep. And then the things in the environments that they're in every day, we completely overlook. And it doesn't take much. Like, if you— like, you guys experience it here, the snacks. And if you saw how much we spend on snacks and coffee, for what it is, it's not— it's not out of hand, but it makes a big difference. Like, it— it changes the mood, you know? And you got to constantly be asking for feedback too. That's another thing. We're always like, What do you guys think? What do you like? But then also like kind of like being the, the adult in the room and saying like everything can't be a carb and we want them to eat healthy. And so we got to have protein. We got to have other things too for employees, which, you know, like I said, it's way beyond what most dealers think. But it's how I think like that people matter, what they eat, the environments that they're in affect how they feel and it affects their work. It all adds up. And if we're looking for little edges, this is a very low-cost, easy win of paying attention to the environment and matching how you want their performance to be. Match the environment, right? Like, if you went to an F1 shop and you saw what some of the, the places that we go into look like, you would be like, this— there's no way this team ever wins. Like, There's just no way. There's no system, there's no organization, and there's no care for the human.

Yeah.

So environment matters a lot. The next one is hourly pay. And this is something that I think I learned over time, because in a lot of scenarios, to try to promote performance, we would have all these crazy bonus plans. but over and over again, we would have technicians leave because even though their effective pay was really high in their head, they were still making a lower hourly rate. And so over the years, we've learned to pack the hourly rate with, you know, because we'd, we'd literally lost technicians that were going to go take a job making less because they didn't understand their effective hourly rate. So like, let's say they're making $27, but their effective is $35 with all the bonuses. They would take a job for $30 thinking they were making more money, which is odd. It doesn't, it doesn't make any logical sense, but it's reality. And so when, you know, when a technician is putting their head down on the pillow at night, oftentimes that hourly rate that they actually are making per hour less bonuses is the number they think they're getting paid. And so you want to really pay attention to that and have less bonuses, which then kind of brings me into the next one, is having bonuses and perks that aren't always about money in a sense, right? Like sometimes you can bonus technicians by just having a parking spot and getting free car washes. Sometimes it's like, you know, a lot of times a dealer has a house up at a ski resort or a house in a condo in Vegas and giving your top performers access to that for a week or, you know, being able to take their family for a 4-day weekend. The condo sitting there either way, like maybe it costs the cleaner or whatever, but it's a low-cost thing for a huge perk. So concert tickets. It's funny how much in a dealership the executives and the salespeople on the front end get invited to baseball games and football games and concerts, and the technicians don't. And I would just, you know, encourage everybody to really think about, you know, your top 5 techs or 10 techs in the shop should— they should get invited to some stuff like that. You should be giving them tickets. To different stuff and making them feel like they're important and they get, you know, they, they get to share in the rewards as well. So 3-day weekends at the, you know, at the ski house, concert tickets, getting access to the box if you have a box somewhere. But it's, it's so funny to me how much technicians get overlooked for that sort of stuff.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, baseball games are awesome for that because there's a lot of cheap seats for that, especially if you're a White Sox fan.

So far— well, don't they pay you to go to a White Sox game?

Uh, I think they've gotten it down to like $12 a seat, like on the first level.

They're just hoping you buy that.

Technically it is $30 beer, pretty much. Well, actually, I think they're giving away 2 Miller lattes for that.

And then the, the last one that I have on the list is the Christmas bonus matching program, which is a— it's a great retention tool. But let's say for every hour a technician flags, you contribute 25 cents, 50 cents to a Christmas bonus, and then they can match it. You know, come the, the end of November, they got a pretty good pretty good chunk in there saved over 12 months. And, um, it's a great retention tool because if they have a lot of money in there, they're not going to quit and leave and go somewhere else during that time. But it, you know, it just gives them something to look forward to. And it, you know, the customer's paying for that bonus. So it's just included in whatever your cost of sale is. I would cost it out as you were going and accrue for it. But it's, you know, it's a big, it's a big one. It's— I've done the same thing successfully with salespeople too, where for every sale they, you know, you put $50 in a pot or something and then they match it. But having some sort of Christmas bonus like that really adds up and ends up being a really good retention tool.

Yeah.

And it also gets them thinking about hours, you know, how many hours they flag.

And if you kind of put all that together, I guess I get that question a lot, Chris, on like the structure of a technician's pay. So you mentioned a couple different things there, and I think just putting them together in a bullet point might be worthwhile because I feel like I'm having this conversation a lot right now where, so a tech's pay, the hourly pay part he talked about, like aim for the hourly pay because if so much of it's bonuses, they don't realize it. That's one. 2 is their bonuses. I can't tell you how often I've taken a big screen TV, a grill, something like that, and put it under the leaderboard. And whoever wins it for the month wins it. Those little things go a long way. And then the last part is the Christmas bonus. Those 3 things as a foundation of your technician pay package, Each provide a little bit, you know, an intentional outcome, but those 3 things together, like, it's a core part of kind of moving a lot of the things in the right direction you want with your techs.

I like the grill.

I'll tell you the best technician bonus I ever heard was at Park Place Mercedes in Dallas. I don't know, there's like 75 techs in that shop or something. It's pretty big shop. And they were, they were on lateral support, like groups. The group that flagged the most hours every week got to pick the music that played in the shop. So they got the Sirius Satellite Radio remote. And some of these guys had like a sick sense of humor. So they would play like Christmas music in June. And, you know, if you don't like country music and Adam's team wins, you're listening to country for, for a week, you know, and it, it worked. Like people were trying to get that remote and yeah.

Oh man. Yeah. And let's be real, it would definitely be like some metal or what do you call it?

Mad at your parents.

Your parents. Yeah.

There you go. Adam's always sending me these vinyls that are just like, I put it on. I'm like, what happened in Adam's childhood that he's still listening to heavy metal like this?

Makes me feel good.

It's not compatible with, uh, the car you drive. And I say car—

oh, that is so hateful. I do think about that though, uh, some of the shops that I've been in, if they had that type of setup, lateral support, and then the, the gamifying of that. There's one shop in particular that, man, this guy had all He had one of the largest toolboxes, the most, uh, efficient technician, but he had this huge stereo that was set up on one of those really nice Snap-on, um, toolboxes, right? He was always playing Five Finger Death Punch. So I could only imagine that if he was winning every time, that that shop would never change the music.

I bet he— yeah, you cannot not spend hours listening to Five Finger Death Punch. You're always moving.

Oh, that's so funny.

That makes me want to lift weights when I hear that.

It was great though, because I— it was so overpowering and loud, and there was a couple other technicians that were slightly grumpy about that. And then, uh, but they, they just knew that he had it and it was fine, and nobody said anything. But I just think about, like, if they had a setup like that to change it, what would that do to the mood in the shop? And I just— that's awesome.

If I remember right, that's how it started, is they had too many people with their own and it was competing and they're like, we're just going to go to one for the whole shop. And then you get the remote if you flag the most hours with your group.

That's awesome.

Yeah, it costs nothing, you know. And so the free parking, free car washes, all that stuff. But I would say, you know, more importantly than that is you're showing who's important and where your priorities are by where you put your attention. And a lot of times the things that we're talking about are just an afterthought. It isn't about the investment or the money. It's just that we're not paying attention to it. So that's part 2 of our ways to motivate technicians. You know, I think it goes without needing clarification that techs drive everything. It's the most important part of our business. Yeah, sir. So it's good. So thanks, everybody, for joining us. You guys have anything in closing?

I don't think so.

You're going to have a truck.

You're going to be here next week. It's going to be fun. We're going to do some episodes with some coaches.

Yeah, it'll be a lot of fun. Looking forward to it.

Party. We'll give them some tequila and start filming them.

Turn them loose.

How do you increase hours per row?

Well, so funny.

Okay, thanks everybody. We'll see you next time on Service Drive Revolution. Thanks so much for watching this episode of Service Drive Revolution. We're uploading new stuff every day, so make sure you subscribe and click the bell icon so you don't miss out. If you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show, call 833-ASK-SDR and we'll answer your question on the show. That's 833-ASK-SDR. For special deals on our books and training, head over to offers.chriscollinsinc.com. Now that's offers.chriscollinsinc.com. I'm Chris Collins and I'll see you in the next video.