Remarkable Results Radio Podcast Jan 27, 2026

Beyond Babysitters: Developing Strong Managers and Financial Transparency [RR 1076]

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Car

Ford Edge

The Ford Edge is a type of vehicle called an SUV, which stands for Sport Utility Vehicle. It has a lot of space inside for passengers and cargo, and it's designed to be comfortable and easy to drive. People like it because it combines a nice look with good features for safety and entertainment.

Term

extended warranty

An extended warranty is like extra insurance for your car that covers repairs after the regular warranty ends. It can save you money if something goes wrong later on.

Company

NAPA

NAPA is a company that sells car parts and accessories. They are known for having reliable parts that work well with many vehicles.

Term

OEM standards

OEM standards mean that the parts are made to the same quality as the original ones that came with your car. This ensures they fit and work properly.

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Hey, before we get started,

I got to get something kind of outlined here

for our episode today here with Chris Lawson.

So here's the deal.

There's a question I want you to sit down

and think about before today's episode.

Are you hiring a babysitter?

Are you hiring a manager?

Because those two roles are not the same

and confusing them,

maybe one of the biggest reasons shop owners struggle

to scale, even grow great one store business.

I hear it all the time.

I want a great GM.

I need to hire a manager.

I want someone who owns the results.

I want to step back four days, three days, two days

and have the business run without me.

But the conversation turns to compensation,

bonuses, profit, and suddenly the breaks get slammed on.

I don't want to share my numbers.

What if they learn too much?

What if they leave and open their own shop?

Here's the uncomfortable truth

that you cannot expect someone to manage outcomes

that they can't see.

You can't hold someone accountable

to a scoreboard that you've hidden.

And you definitely can't pay someone on gross profit

while keeping gross profit a secret.

In this episode with Chris Lawson,

we're going to challenge a belief

that quietly limits a lot of good shop owners.

The idea that financial transparency is risky.

Chris Lawson, welcome.

Hey, Carm, it's great to see you again.

Thank you, Chris Lawson, technicianfine.com.

Go there, have fun.

Let him hire your next guy or girl.

Yes, thank you, Carm.

And I just wanted to put in a quick plug

for your podcast.

It's fantastic.

You guys did a great job.

I love it.

I used to bounce around all over YouTube

trying to get my favorite shows.

And now it's all in one place.

I love it.

Oh, what can I send you?

Can I send you a porterhouse?

What can I send you?

Thank you.

Just keep doing what you're doing, brother.

I love it.

I didn't expect it.

So thank you.

We've been on previously three episodes.

So if you love what Chris has to say today

as we talk about babysitters versus managers,

please just go to our website,

remarkableresults.biz,

typing Chris Lawson in the search bar.

Listen to him all.

He's been on Singly with me

and also on panels on a town hall.

So look, at what point does an owner

unknowingly hire a babysitter

while expecting a manager?

Oh, I got this superstar.

And the superstar doesn't know how to hold a pen.

I think there's miscommunication

and a misunderstanding.

And the misunderstanding is

I'm going to find this superstar manager.

I don't think it works that way.

I think you attract a superstar manager.

It's a subtle difference,

but it means all the difference in the world

because what happens is,

and I don't mean you're sitting cross-legged

and burning incense and manifesting the perfect manager

that's going to walk into your office.

What I mean is when you're attracting,

it's everything you do.

It starts with the ad.

The way the ad is written,

it's going to specifically communicate to,

hey, are you looking for a skilled manager to come in

and take over and be responsible?

Or are you looking for somebody to babysit the kids?

That's really what you're looking at.

It's the ads, it's your culture,

it's all the conversations that you're having

leading up to an offer.

It is, are the questions that you ask in an interview?

There's lots of things that go into this

and it has to all come together.

Chris, I wonder if the exercise is this.

An owner sits down and writes down

what they want that manager to do,

what they want that manager to be.

And if that outline, that ultimate manager,

even if it's a evolution of growth,

well, I want him to start out first

and then the first six months,

that could help the interview process.

That could help you find the right individual,

but I'm not sure.

Here's where I'm taking a leap

and you can help ground me

that when you start getting into,

I want them to really be like me

and sweat the financials and worry about some of the details

like I do, they don't know how to make that happen.

Yeah, that's a big issue.

One of the big things that I see is

they aren't sure what they need to be hiring for.

And I think it starts with a really detailed

position description and you just did a wonderful job

of explaining how you sit down and you do that.

What is the position description?

Yeah, you can grab one from your coach,

you can grab one offline,

you can even ask chat you BT,

but at the end of the day,

you really need to sit through it

and you need to pencil it out on your own.

What does this look like?

What are they gonna be doing on a day-to-day basis?

What's the oversight that happens?

The reality is that A players wanna work for A players

and your preparation and going into this

is what shows them that you're an A player.

And that's really somebody that's gonna take responsibility,

is gonna be looking for it in an interview.

Preparation, I'm sorry, that's the, it's a huge word.

You and I prepped to do this interview, we really did.

You can't do something that has meaning,

it's fruitful, that will pay off at the end

if you don't prepare.

I wanna hire this figment of my imagination.

A unicorn, there we go.

We always go back to the day

I wanna find a unicorn manager.

Unicorn managers, they just don't show up,

they just don't get born inside your shop.

What is a unicorn manager?

If I asked 20 shop owners what a unicorn manager would be,

I'd get 20 different answers.

There's no problem with that, it's not an issue

because it's gonna be something that fits into your culture,

it's gonna be somebody that has the right skills.

But if you're not clear on that, what's gonna happen?

And I'll just give you a quick example.

One of the things that, you know,

we've helped lots and lots of shops

hire all different types of positions.

And one of the things that I can always tell

is on an onboarding call,

I can tell when the shop is gonna hire quickly

because they're really focused on what they want.

And it's not that, hey,

we're just gonna keep getting applications

until we find a unicorn.

It's, hey, you know what?

We have a specific role that we need to fill.

These are the things that this particular individual

is gonna be accountable for and needs to produce.

You know, the work that they need to be accountable for.

And they know when they see that, when somebody comes in,

they know who that person is.

And that makes it really easy to hire quickly.

If you're thinking, oh yeah, we want a rockstar,

well, what does that mean?

You know, it doesn't really mean anything.

And then you just wait and wait and wait.

And it just doesn't work out well.

So replace me, Chris.

Oh, thank you for calling.

I want you to find me that my next superstar.

And Chris says, well, what do you want that person to do?

And that person says, I want them to replace me.

I can't imagine where your line of questioning goes

after that.

I can't imagine, Chris, actually you and I

should kind of role play this a little bit.

So what is it that you want them to do to replace you?

And you're waiting to hear, I am sure,

you know, scheduling profitability, KPI.

You're probably looking for that individual

that you wanted to start tomorrow.

Is this an evolutionary thing?

And if not, in the back of your mind,

because you're here because you wrote this great article,

babysitter versus manager,

because you heard this in a discussion.

They're worried that if I tell them everything,

they may leave and start their own shop.

And you know what?

It happens.

But I don't think it happens as much as people

have that fear or worry about, Chris.

No, it really doesn't.

You know, if somebody has that ambition and that drive,

they're going to go that direction anyway.

And the best thing you can possibly do is help them out.

I've seen lots of shops where they do that.

And you know what?

It ends up being a mess because what you end up doing

is you end up going into hire for the wrong reasons.

There's really three reasons why

somebody doesn't want to share numbers.

And you really have to share the numbers.

Maybe because my books aren't right.

Maybe because I have funny stuff in the books.

Maybe it's greed.

Maybe I don't get monthly's.

I don't have any financial goals.

I really just have a job.

I'm not an entrepreneur, a business or CEO.

I think the aspiration to get themselves a manager

so they can work less can't come with the fact

that you didn't work hard enough

to get yourself to work less.

Right.

I think you hit the nail on the head.

And it really goes into being able to define

what these roles are.

I mean, what are the main functions of an owner?

What are the main functions of the manager?

You don't want these to cross over.

So for the functions of the owner,

really you're looking at,

they own the vision and priorities.

It's getting up every morning and saying,

there's the horizon.

We're walking towards that horizon.

That's really what the owner is doing.

And then financial risk and management.

Those are big issues that have to be addressed by the owner.

And then making financial decisions on bigger issues,

not the small day-to-day issues.

And then they should not need to make decisions

on the small day-to-day situations.

Those are the big things

that the owner is gonna be responsible for.

And if you want a good manager,

the manager's gonna be responsible

for owning the day-to-day execution,

the workflow, the SOPs, those types of things.

They're gonna be responsible for compensation plans,

although they should be approved by the owner.

They will be responsible for that.

And then policies can be proposed by the manager,

but approved by the owner, strategic versus tactical.

That's the real difference,

is the strategic work and then the tactical work.

And then they manage the people, the team,

hold them accountable.

And they detect and solve issues,

follow through on execution,

and provide statistics and data to measure performance.

And every owner, if they really want a manager

and not a baby center,

they really should be willing to put in some time

in training their manager on the P&L.

Don't just assume they know how to read it,

train them so that they have the information

that they need to make the good decisions

about the business.

That's a great point, Chris.

Clean books is a sign of great leadership.

And I think it's a leadership requirement

to have clean books so that you're confident

that the more your manager finds out,

you have to know and understand

if they'll never be able to lead or manage

through the financial side of the business,

which almost every decision that they make

flows into the profit and loss statement,

unless you have good clean books.

And accuracy in that is great.

But what I've just heard you say,

and let me ask you this question,

the word manager versus the word general manager, Chris.

A lot of times, a lot of what I'm hearing,

I'm hearing at a higher level,

setting compensation rates and all that stuff.

But a manager of this three or four bay operation,

maybe four or five people in it, I have a manager.

Maybe that individual doesn't necessarily get that deep in

unless they start showing you

that they can manage the current level

of responsibility that you gave them.

Hey, I'm all for, I've got a great friend

who's taken one or two days off a week

and his current manager has stepped up

to the point where he actually is demonstrating

like a general manager.

And in my mind, a general manager

has an awful lot of fiscal responsibilities.

Absolutely, they do.

And I think that's the best way,

if you're promoting from within

and you already see somebody's capabilities

and they're taking action, then that's the best way.

It's best of all worlds.

What you wanna make sure that you're doing though

is on a consistent basis, having one-on-ones with them.

It surprises me still how many shops

aren't having regular one-on-ones,

but that's where people know how they're doing.

That's where the accountability comes in.

Then things don't get too far out

because another problem that I see is

somebody has an expectation

that they're gonna be moving along a specific growth track

and then the owner isn't communicating with them,

but they don't see them coming along

the way that they thought they would come along.

And then it comes to a head,

six months a year down the road,

the employee says, hey, I thought I was on this track.

And then the owner says, no,

you're just not doing what you need to be doing.

And then they have this big fallout

because the employee didn't realize

that they weren't progressing at the rate

that the owner expected them to progress at.

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Chris, I've got some friends

that they take their manager growing to be, you know,

a superstar, maybe potential owner someday,

offsite every couple of weeks.

And if you can't do it during the day

because your business is a little too tight,

then you gotta have these early breakfast meetings

or, you know, a little after work,

you know, half hour to coffee shop

so that you stay on the same page

because what I think is bad is for the owner

to have built up tension

about things that aren't getting done right.

And I think it's gotta come out.

And I also think that the manager

who maybe isn't getting the right guidance

or made some decisions that they weren't sure about

because the owner wasn't here

because that's what you wanted me to do, get out.

I made some decisions, were you okay with my decision?

And I think that on the same page,

far away, intimate, close, on a continuous basis,

removes the babysitter moniker.

It's kind of like a relationship, right, Carm?

Oh my God, related to how you met mama

or your significant other in some way.

Yeah, do you have date night without the kids?

Do you, you know, get away from the regular day to day

and bond and do other things like that?

You know what, it's not any different.

You know, I had a shop owner,

he was actually hiring a technician.

He said, you know what, Chris,

I take my time hiring technicians

because I'm gonna spend more time with this person

than I am with my wife.

So he says, this is a relationship

and I really wanna make sure that I make the right decision.

And this is exactly the same.

I love that idea of taking them off site,

developing that relationship and getting to know them.

So as far as transparency on the numbers,

what it takes to, you know,

I've gotta have sales that makes gross profit,

I have costs and then we have a profit in the company

and we need this profit to do so many really critical things,

including new wages and tools, et cetera.

What kind of advice do you give someone

who's looking to grow their talent

that they would put up the P&L and share it

and have a line on it that says owner compensation

so that everyone knows?

I've also heard that some people say,

listen, there's much I'm taking from the business

and after we pay all our bills,

I'm giving up the rest to you guys

for all that you did to get us here.

I mean, that's major buy-in.

You agree with the transparency piece?

I do, but I'll tell you, it's tough.

I get a lot of pushback on it.

But I'll tell you what, the shops that I know of

that have the most loyalty and really hard workers

are shops that are transparent.

They put the numbers up in the break room

and everybody knows what's going on.

Everybody knows how the P&Ls work.

Some shops, they're actually training their employees

on how to read a P&L and they put the numbers up

and everybody knows.

It's like, hey, great, our gross profit was this.

And what makes it real is when people not only understand

the numbers, but they understand

how their job contributes to the numbers.

That's when it really becomes real.

And then when they share in the benefits of that,

now everybody really understands.

Okay, I know that if we can move one more car

through the bay every day, it equals this.

I know that my job is this.

If I can do inspections and I can do 100%

of the inspections every single time, it equals this.

That's when you really start moving together as a team.

Look, I've got a really interesting download

on my downloads page on the remarkableresults.biz website.

Go to the downloads page

and it's called profitability for dummies.

And we have done episodes in the past on this

where you gotta put up a profit and loss statement

for your people to see.

And it's a generic $100, $100.

But you can compound it to a thousand,

to a hundred thousand, to a million

and the numbers still work, right?

Anything against $1 is still the same percent.

And we show where the revenue comes in,

where the gross profit is,

and then how we have to pay our bills.

And it's kind of a fun little exercise to do

in front of your people

before you give them this real thing.

Oh my God, what is all that?

It's very simple.

If $34 happens to be the payroll for the month

and it's 34% of the $100,

it's not hard to be able to show.

And if anyone ever needs any help

on how to actually get this done inside your business,

I think there may be a couple of PowerPoints,

there may be some kind of chart,

I can't remember, it's been up there for a while,

karmic remarkable results up.

It'd be more than happy to help you with this

and to help you get going on it

because I think we're getting

to this sophisticated level of business Chris.

You know it probably just as much as I do

in the people that you have, your clients, your community,

that we need to step over this line

and have this thing called transparency.

And it's a good thing today.

You can have your people fight your fight

if they don't know what the fight is.

Absolutely.

And it's amazing how many people think

that the owner gets to keep 100% of the labor rate.

It's just funny.

It's like, wow, we're charging $170 an hour.

Well, that's what you get to make, Mr. Owner, huh?

And say, yeah, not really.

That's not how businesses work.

And one other thing, karm, is it's funny

because I have had lots of owners that I've talked to say,

you know what, I was a little bit worried about it,

but as soon as I brought this individual in

and showed them everything that happens,

what I do and what my job is,

they say, oh, I don't wanna go start my own shop.

That's too much stuff.

I just, I wanna clock out at 5.30.

So, you know, there's a lot of different reasons for that,

but I think transparency always, you know, in the long run,

if you can figure out how to have transparency,

it's gonna benefit everything.

And so, okay, I wanna do this.

Now, it's your job to be able to teach them

how to read the profit and loss statement,

how to understand where the numbers are coming from,

how they get here, and how we, of course, make profit.

And profit is not a dirty five-letter word.

It is just not.

It's a sustainable part of the business.

And look at, the owner's got all this risk in there.

And I think people have to stop to realize

that they did this, they've got all the risk.

And the more they know what it really takes

to run a great business,

not everyone who you happen to earmark

as your future parent, as your future manager

up to General Motors is gonna get it.

You may have to go through a few, right, Chris?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, it's the old kids, some frogs.

I heard it explained this way.

And this was actually a CEO,

was a CEO outside the industry.

And he said, you know, the way that I look at this is,

it's not a bad thing to really necessarily hire

a bunch of people and have them not work out.

But every time you hire somebody for a specific position,

you should be looking at how somebody

that really is a top performer in that position works

because there are archetypes to them.

There's a service advisor archetype,

there's a technician archetype, there's a GM archetype.

And once you figure that out,

then you can spot it in someone else.

So you spot them quicker and then you also, you know,

if they don't work out or they're not working out,

you don't string them out for so long

because you can spot that and you realize,

oh, okay, you just don't have the basic archetypes.

Hopefully you've covered that in the beginning

when you're hiring.

But if you see it 30, 60 or 90 days down the road,

then you can say, you know what,

we're gonna let you succeed somewhere else

because this isn't the place for you.

Great points.

I'm with Chris Lawson, technicianfying.com.

Please go to his website, check it out.

He's got a great community.

He's been on the podcast eight times.

This is ninth, maybe even more.

I don't count good when you get old.

I love thinking about transparency

and what it ultimately could mean in the business, Chris.

And I think that transparency can lead

to a higher degree of accountability.

Absolutely.

And again, I think it goes back to people understanding

how their job fits into the bigger picture.

It really is.

And, you know, I think we've spoken, you know,

one of our earlier episodes about the younger generation,

how do you motivate the younger generation?

And being part of something that's bigger than yourself

is a big part of that.

And when they understand how what they do contributes

to safe and reliable vehicles on the road,

how it contributes to the business growing,

serving more people, getting more money

because they get to share in that,

all of these things are very attractive

and build a really powerful culture.

Hey, I so appreciate Baby Citter

versus Manager this discussion.

And I think we just nailed some perfect places.

Now, before I want to go and ask you

another question or three,

are there anything that we didn't cover

in your talking points that you'd love

to share with our listener?

One of the things that I just wanted to give

is a quick checklist.

If someone says, you know what?

I've been hiring babysitters.

I'm ready to hire a manager.

I've got just some things that they should think about.

One of the things is just, first of all,

getting really clear on what you want.

We talked about that a little bit,

but start by drafting a detailed position description.

Get really detailed about what their day-to-day tasks

are going to be and how they're going to be held accountable.

And then really dive into issues you have

with not being 100% transparent with your numbers.

I don't, you know, is it that you don't understand

them yourself?

And there's no shame in that.

I mean, I have met shop owners

who on the outside look phenomenally successful

and they don't really understand their P&Ls.

So it's not about that.

It's just about getting the help that you need

and understanding your numbers

so that you can be transparent with those.

And then being prepared to train your managers

on reading the financial statements like the P&Ls

so they understand the business metrics

and can make informed decisions based on those.

That's really important.

And then get really clear on what your offer is.

Is it worthy of a strong manager?

Ask yourself that question that I covered a little bit earlier,

is if you had a strong manager sitting in front of you

and they said, I'm talking to two other shops,

why should I go with you?

What are you gonna tell them?

Make sure you've rehearsed that.

Make sure you've thought through that process.

What is the benefit?

What do you offer that's substantial?

And then spend time on the ads.

This is the first interaction that you're gonna have

with a potential candidate.

Make sure that your ads are communicating

that you are a strong place to work.

They're communicating that they're gonna have responsibility,

that you're not a micro manager.

Make sure you're drawing them into a story about your shop

where they're the hero and you're the guide

and they can experience a transformation

if they take the risk of coming on board with you.

I love it.

Thank you for doing hero and guide for me.

We just did an episode about that.

And boy, that hit home so well.

Talk about a great story.

When I was a young man,

my dad called me in the office with the accountant.

I'm in my 20s.

It was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

And they gave me the profit and loss statement.

And dad was sitting across the desk.

The accountant was sitting to his kind of left or right.

And I'm across the desk in his chair.

And I got this P and L

and they're talking about a bunch of stuff

and I'm flipping through it

and I get to the profit and loss page.

And I'm looking at it and they looked at me

and they say, any questions, Carl?

It was one of these detectives trying to find out

if I really had a good answer or not.

Did you say, is this in English?

I recall this, I know exactly what I was wearing.

And I said, no, I'm fine.

I got it.

And about two hours later, I said, you ask.

You had every opportunity to ask great questions,

to understand, to become a student of the accountant,

to teach me this stuff.

But your ego was like, oh, you went to college.

You must know what this is, right?

And so I always think about,

it really helped me ask questions

that I had to know.

Okay, it's like, or it's like a trainer

in front of a class, Chris.

And someone asks a question.

He says, that's a great question.

And so he said, they got to ask them

because I didn't have the stones to ask that question

because I didn't know either.

And so we've got to get our,

never think you know everything.

Okay, you're a great couple of million dollar business.

There's still things you don't know.

So be humble, ask the right questions.

You get to a point where

you should be asking more questions

than the answers that you get.

And every answer opens up new questions.

Well, thank you for letting me tell my young man

a captain's story.

Let's go to technician find.

What couple of big takeaways that you're seeing

and you're feeling in this recruitment side of the industry?

Well, it's January and that's when things pick up.

Gosh, I tell you, everybody was thinking about it

in November and December,

not only from the hiring side, but from the looking side.

So it's a good time to have ads out there, that's for sure.

We see that information is big.

We're really making an investment

into providing more information.

So we're doing very comprehensive salary surveys

for all the positions.

And we're finding that the technicians love to see those.

We get a lot of requests on that end.

The shop owners love seeing them

because it shows all the competition out there.

Now with AI, there's a lot of things that you can do

where you can really get a nice snapshot

and my team has developed really robust reports

that we put together that give you an idea

because overall you want to make sure

that your offers are strong.

And now that information is so available,

you have to be on top of that

because everybody knows information,

you can't hide information anymore.

You have to know the information

and you have to have access to it

in order to structure strong offers.

So we're seeing a lot of that overall,

just being out there and making sure

that from a recruiting standpoint,

it's like the old,

you don't build, fix the roof when it's raining.

You always want to be out there consistently

and building the bench.

And that's shops who are having the best results

are thinking about building the bench

before they really need help.

So it's continuity in the recruitment process.

It's like never let your foot off the gas.

It's continuity.

There's different ways that you promote.

When you really need help,

you have to really turn up the heat on your campaigns,

but there should be passive recruiting campaigns

going on all the time.

That sounds fancy,

but it could just be,

what are you posting on your socials?

I know a lot of shops post things about their customers

and they post a lot of things about the shop,

but are you posting things about your culture?

Because I can tell you,

actually one of my clients,

he was talking about it to shop and he said,

you know what, I had somebody that came,

watched us for two years

and watched our Facebook page for two years

before they decided to put in an application.

So just know they're out there watching you

and what you're putting on there.

Are you celebrating birthdays?

Are you doing team events?

Are you doing escape rooms and barbecues

and things like that?

Post all those things on there.

Are you celebrating your employees or your techs

when they get ASC certifications?

Or what are you doing?

Are you putting out a post when you hire a new GM

and just praising them and welcoming them to the team?

All of these things show what kind of culture you're running.

Those are great points, Chris.

Let me ask you a question about the influence

of a significant other.

And so if an individual knows that husband, wife

is not happy with where they are,

they bring work home,

they're sad more than they're glad

and they start seeing this kind of social stuff,

could they have influence?

Oh yes, they do.

Oh yeah.

How often do you see that?

Help me with that.

How often do you hear about that?

Very often.

One of the things we do is we run ads,

lots and lots of ads.

We run them.

And what ends up happening is it's almost surprising

how many times a spouse will tag their significant other

and they'll say,

hey honey, you need to see this

or they'll email it to them

and they'll say, hey honey, you need to see this

because our friends, somebody will tag their buddy

and go, hey, have you seen this?

Because they're the ones that hear the stories.

Buddy at the ball game, here's the story

and he's talking about the shop that he hates

or the spouse that gets to hear about the shop at night

over dinner.

And so they see these ads too.

And absolutely, they share them,

they get them to apply

and they sometimes are on socials

even more than the actual employees.

Chris Lawson, your wisdom is beyond

what I always expect every time you come on.

So thank you for this.

Technicianfine.com.

We talked a whole bunch of great stuff today

including babysitters versus managers

and all of his great advice here at the end.

Please share this episode with friends.

And if not, I hope you took some notes

and if not go to the website, find the show notes.

We'll probably have a great outline

of all the great things Chris said.

And so from then, automotiverepairpodcastnetwork.com

find our app, download it, QR codes everywhere

and see you next time.

Thanks, Chris.

Thanks, Carm.

About this episode

Exploring the crucial distinction between hiring a babysitter and a manager, Chris Lawson emphasizes the importance of financial transparency in automotive shops. Shop owners often struggle with sharing financial information, fearing it may empower employees to leave and start their own businesses. However, Chris argues that transparency fosters accountability and loyalty. The episode provides actionable insights on creating detailed job descriptions, effective hiring practices, and the benefits of training managers on financial metrics to ensure they can drive business success.

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Original notes

Thanks to our Partners, NAPA Auto Care and NAPA TRACS Watch Full Video Episode

Chris Lawson of TechnicianFind tackles a critical disconnect in the automotive repair industry: shop owners say they want a General Manager to run their business, but are only willing to hire a “babysitter.” The conversation explores what it truly takes to build real management—centered on financial transparency, clearly defined roles, and intentional recruitment.

The Transparency Trap

At the heart of the issue is a tension between a shop owner’s desire to step away from daily operations and their fear of sharing financial information. Many owners want a manager who will “own the results,” yet refuse to share the “scoreboard” — gross profit, payroll, and compensation data — out of fear the employee will leave to open a competing shop.

Lawson challenges this assumption. In reality, when employees see the true costs, risks, and pressures of ownership, many realize they prefer the stability of employment rather than pursuing ownership themselves.

Defining the Roles

The Owner:Responsible for vision, long-term direction, financial risk, and high-level strategic decisions.
The Manager:Owns daily execution, workflow, SOPs, and tactical accountability.
The Requirement:To move from “babysitter” to true manager, the individual must be trained to read and understand P&L statements so their daily decisions align with the company’s financial reality.

Attracting Talent vs. Hunting Unicorns

Rather than passively hoping to “find” a superstar manager, Lawson argues shops must actively attract them through preparation and culture.

Preparation:It starts with a detailed job description outlining specific responsibilities, outcomes, and authority.
Always Be Recruiting:Don’t wait until it’s “raining” to fix the roof. Build a bench and maintain passive recruiting year-round.
Social Media as a Window:Prospective hires—and often their spouses—observe a shop’s culture long before applying. Posts that highlight team wins, birthdays, training, and certifications signal a healthy, supportive environment.

Actionable Advice

Lawson closes with a practical checklist for owners ready to upgrade from a babysitter to a true manager:

Create a detailed job description
Address personal insecurities around...

Remarkable Results Radio Podcast

Carm Capriotto, AAP

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