Hiring Under 18: Lessons From a Shop That Does It Right

Our company had a policy that we didn't hire anyone under 18.

There's a lot of reasons for that.

There's a lot of issues that you have to consider, safety.

They can't sign the stuff that they have to sign in order

to drug in background, so you've got to involve mom and dad.

And I had tried to push it a little bit here, there.

This is not something that just happened in the last year or so.

This was four or five years in the making of me

trying to figure out how do we crack this now.

Beyond the Wrench with Jay Ginenin from Wrenchway.

Welcome to Beyond the Wrench.

My name is Jay Ginenin and I am your host.

Today, I'm joined by John Perez,

Senior Director of Talent Acquisition at Sonic Automotive.

John's been doing some really interesting work

around getting younger students,

even those that are under 18 years old,

involved in our industry.

What I love about this conversation is that

it didn't start with a, can we do this?

It started with a, how will we do this?

We'll talk about the hurdles they've had to overcome,

how they got leadership buy-in,

and the structure they put in place

to make a junior apprenticeship program possible.

It's a great example of how organizations

can think differently about building a pipeline

of future technicians.

Let's get into it.

John, how are you?

Good, how are you doing, Jay?

Good.

I started our conversation before I hit record

talking about the fact that

I rarely have Bears fans on, right?

Like, I don't know if I can handle them.

And here we go today.

For those that are listening and not watching on video,

John's got Bear's stuff all over the place in his background.

So I don't know if I can handle this, John.

Well, you know, you're just going to have to,

because, you know, the Bears are two in two

and things are looking up.

As we record this, I was just telling John

that I attended a Packers game,

which I, so if you don't know,

or if you haven't listened to the show in the past,

I'm a Packers fan from Wisconsin.

John's a Bears fan from Illinois.

Originally.

And we go back and forth on this all the time,

just like friendly rivalries do.

And it's always good to have the banter

and always good to have something to talk about, right?

Yep. Cheeseheads and furbies.

We won't talk about what furby means on this podcast.

It's a common Midwest reference

that I think most that have lived in this area

probably understand.

Yeah.

So how, how's everything?

How's everything at Sonic Automotive?

Things are good.

Coming off three really, really good quarters.

You know, it's been awesome

when our fixed operations team has been able to do

this year and last year.

Little side note, last year,

we hired over 800 technicians

for our company.

So it was a very busy year for my team.

It took a lot of work and a lot of effort

from a lot of people to do that.

So we're working on that work.

And we're seeing the fruits of that labor

through last year and this year.

Our fixed operations team is breaking company records.

So that's great.

And I think as we go through this,

you'll hear that it's not just

because you've been reactive and trying to find technicians.

We are doing some really, really proactive things, right?

You're doing some things that maybe a lot

of other dealer groups or shops in general aren't doing

and we'll dive into all that.

But I do want to start with

how you got your start and not a motive, right?

What was it that got you into this industry?

Yeah, it's a kind of a half.

It's not a straight line.

I started my career right out of college

at Enterprise Radicar.

So first five years,

I was in the management training program.

You know, I was a branch manager

at one of the rental offices in the Chicago area.

Several different branches, including the airport location.

That's a whole other story through another time.

And then about five years in,

I decided to take a chance at an opportunity

to be on the remarketing team.

And what the remarketing team does

is we plan the fleet by

for the region that you're in,

like when we're going to purchase cars,

when we're going to pull them out of fleet.

And then we have to sell them to dealers.

So my job was basically a wholesaler.

I hand sold about 2,000 cars a year

to different dealers,

went to auctions, things like that.

That's where I got the bug.

At one point in time,

through some family situation,

my wife and I decided to move our family to Florida,

and Enterprise did not have

an opportunity for me there at the same level,

and I just couldn't take the pay cut.

So my father-in-law

was the product knowledge trainer for Chrysler.

So he got me interviews at

six or seven different Chrysler Jeep Dodge stores,

and of course they all offered me a job at sales.

And I decided, you know what?

I want to stick around this business.

So I started at

one of our competitor stores,

weirdly enough,

to Sonic. I won't mention the brand.

Anyway,

in Brandon, Florida,

and I sold cars for about six months,

and then I got my opportunity

by talking to some of my bosses

and stuff there, what I used to do at Enterprise.

And they had what's called a buy team.

So a corporate buy team,

people go out and we go to the auctions and we buy cars.

So because of my

wholesale knowledge before, I was a perfect fit.

Also part of that team

purpose is to train you

to understand the use-car side of our business.

So they exposed us

to a lot of fleet planning

or not learned fleet, but inventory planning

at the dealership,

pricing cars right, things like that.

And then after about a year and a half

of doing that, I had an opportunity to come back

into the same store. I started that

with the assistant use-car manager.

And then about a year later,

the GM made a change and made me the use-car director.

So it was a crazy

five, six years that I was

with that organization.

Some decisions were made at the dealership level.

I don't want to get into it that

made me decide this isn't where I wanted to be anymore.

So I started my own wholesale business

with a business partner of mine

out of Fort Lauderdale.

It was a perfect setup.

He had dealers and a business

that was about four hours away from me.

I was in Tampa.

So we could stay out of each other's way

but take advantage of

maybe I will find a car

somewhere that one of his people would like better

and we could ship cars back and forth.

That went well for about

six and a half, almost seven years.

As the car business always does,

there were some disagreements.

I don't want to get into that either.

Anyway, I ended up deciding that

the way the wholesale business was heading

with a lot of the online

purchasing abilities for dealers

that wholesalers were kind of becoming

a thing of the past.

It was just getting harder and harder

to make the same money I had been used to.

I had to sell more cars

because the margins were getting less.

Anyway, long story short,

I had a daughter that was approaching 14 years of age.

I knew she was going to be going to college soon.

I needed

better health benefits.

We went through some health situations

with both my daughter and my wife

through the time.

And I was like, okay, I need to find a big company.

And then there was

an opportunity at Sonic Automotive

to be a trainer

for the company.

I'm like, I've never done training before in my life

but that same father-in-law

also knew some people

at the organization and he was like, I'll get you an interview.

And

well, behold, they hired me.

So I spent the first year

probably

two or three months traveling around the country

going into all of our dealerships

doing either

best practices training

sales training

our playbook

which we can get into that a little bit later

but we have our best practices manual

it's called our playbook.

We like sports metaphors around here.

We refer to each other as teammates

and things like that.

So I did that

for about another year in change

and then there was an opportunity that came along

because I'd done some

training development for our company

to be

the director of organizational development

which is a lot of

like change management

putting things in place for

how do we get from current state to future state

training content

development

a lot of things with that.

We were in the middle of

kind of trying to change our customer service model

and our customer experience

on how we've delivered that

try to shake up the industry a little bit

and be a little more customer centric

so there was a lot of things we needed to change

about how we did things

what we realized during that time is

we also needed to change

how we hire and who we hire

to fit that new model

so I had another opportunity

presented to me to be the director

of talent acquisition

for the company

and really start that from the bottom up

I will tell you

when I first got in there I was a little

surprised that

there was a lot of meat on the bone so to speak

there was a lot of things that we could do

to try to improve a lot of things

including hiring tax

and how we did that and the processes

we put in place for both candidate experience

and for the hiring manager experience

so I've been in

this position now for

I think going on almost 11

and a half years

you know started

with just myself I've got a team of

seven recruiters now that work for me

we put a lot of really cool things

in place one of those

is our high school

junior apprentice programs

that we're going to talk about

we're going to talk about it in a lot of detail

when you're coming up

I do want to ask about your transition

over your career from

going from the variable side to the fixed

side and maybe

how

different was it going from

one side to the other were there things

that translated over

was it not that unfamiliar

give me an idea of how that transition

was

well I think really helped me a lot

with understanding the fixed side of our business

and not only when I was a wholesaler

for the

other organization

buying cars

you got to understand

what it took to get a car through the shop

what the costs were

what things to see in a car that maybe is more expensive

to get ready and set up for sale

versus others

I had a teammate on that buy team

with me that was a former technician

I thought it was really wise of this group

to find somebody that was a former technician

to also go out with us to help us buy cars

he brought

a lot of knowledge with them to like

I hear something let's look under this hood

real quick or whatever

it really helped me to understand

what things may cost

and what problems might arise

from buying a certain car over another one

and then the second part of that was

is

being the used car director in the store

I had my own

recon department for just the used car team

we would probably

buy

or trade for and put through the shop

about 100 to 120 cars a month

so

I had two service riders

and eight technicians

that I didn't really manage because they had

their own boss which was the fixed operations director

but it was my job to

feed them work

make sure they could feed their families

make sure that we had good inventory on the lot

by working with those guys

daily it really opened my eyes

to what it takes to run

a service department what the technicians do

the hard work that they put through things

I jokingly used to go back to the shop

and talk to the guys

about a car they were working on and I would approach them

say okay doctor how's the patient

and they would just look at me I'm like you guys are doctors

I mean it's just because they're not bodies

but these are cars and

you have the knowledge

and experience

and all the skill

to take this car that maybe had some issues

and bring it to life and make it be a great

new buy for somebody

so that really helped

kind of and I didn't realize it then

what it was setting me up for but I do now

so I'm grateful for that

I think that

background

makes you uniquely qualified for

what you do right because you've seen

all elements

of a dealership and

you know how each department

affects or impacts the other departments

and how critical

it is you talked about teammates

and

if you have a really solid team

and you know very few weak links

you're going to have a more successful team

and I think it might

it might have affected

your approach in how you go

find that talent right because you're looking

for that specific person or you're looking

for that type of person that's going to fit

within the organization

and because you've got familiarity

with all of it

that has to help you out when you're

trying to truly identify

what it is that you're looking for.

100%

I had a really wise GM at the time

who kind of developed

a holistic pay plan

where he made you think about the whole store

not just your department

so for example

I had the main

part of my pay plan was designed around

the profitability of my used car department

right but

he also had an element in there where

if the service side of our business

hit their goals I also got a bonus

so how can I

help them get their goals so that

I can get more money right

we're very coin operated in our industry right

pay plan equals job description

he also put elements in there

that helped me try to make sure the new

car department got trades and made deals

so it really

taught all of us how to think of the whole store

and how does each

department impact each other

I thought that was a really good foundation for me

I agree

and I think a big part of that

strategy that you've really caught on to

is that it's not just

finding maybe those

experienced people but trying to come up

with a way to bring more of these

entry level people in

and really create a system where we can grow them

and I think that's a nice segue

into our topic of conversation

today and one thing I had said

in the intro that I want to

lead this off with is that

you didn't start with a can we

do this attitude but really

how do we do this attitude

and I give you so much credit for that

because I have told

you that

when I was working in

a dealership I didn't have that mentality

I was told that we couldn't hire

anybody under 18

and I kind of

took the leadership at their word

in terms of really

hey this is not an avenue that we can go down

but I think you saw

an opportunity that maybe not a lot

of people do

in finding these young people

and finding a system

to really bring them into and put some structure

around it

how did you kind of come to that mentality

or what drove that to

make you want to figure out ways

to figure this out?

Yeah well

I realized

early in my life that

if you just

ask and hope for something

you have less chance of getting what you want

than saying okay

we're going to make this happen so what does that look like

right like

how are we going to do this as you mentioned

and

I had been trying for a long time

trying to crack the technician hiring

so to speak

technicians are the lifeblood of our dealership

the service department

in my eyes

the most important part of the store

and if it's functioning well

the whole store is healthy

and

I had been trying to figure out how do we

hire techs out of tech schools

and all that kind of stuff and then

I got the thought in my head

there's this whole untapped

talent pool

of people

that nobody else is fishing in

and that is these younger people

that are in high school

that are already showing

a

like or a interest

in becoming a technician

and working with their hands and

not everyone has to go to a four year college

in order to be successful

both of my parents are very successful

neither one of them went to

or finished college

thinking back that was

seed that was planted into my head

and I'm like okay

so how do we go about doing this

because most of them are under 18

and there's a lot of

you know our company had

a policy that we didn't hire anyone under 18

there's a lot of reasons for that

you know there's a lot of

issues that you have to consider safety

they can't sign

the stuff that they have to sign

in order to do drug and background

kind of stuff so you got to involve mom and dad

and all those kinds of things

and I had tried to

push it a little bit here there

this is not something that just happened

in the last year

so this was you know four or five years

in the making of me trying to figure out how to

we crack this nut

and then

I got a little bit of a green light

and some

backing from our senior leadership that were saying

yeah I think we do need to think about

where else can we go get technicians

because the number of people that

are leaving our industry versus the number of people that

were entering it

that gap is widening and widening

so like we don't solve this problem

it's just going to roll up on us

so once I got the

yeah

figure this out

from somebody with a much bigger business card

than mine in the organization

I was like okay now it's not

can we it's how do we do this

and I knew there were

several departments

I needed to engage I knew I needed to engage

our HR team because we had to figure out

that part I just mentioned about

them being under 18 and signing the consent forms

I knew I needed to reach out

to our risk management team and get them

on board and involved

because we have to worry about what the safety

of these younger people looks like

right I knew I needed to get legal

involved because there was going to be some sort of thing

where the parents had to sign off on

and then obviously HR I said that before

and then

find some dealers that were

wanting to participate

so

first step I did was I went

to risk management

and I was like okay

we're going to be developing a high school

apprentice program where we hire kids that are under 16

what would that look like

for you not

can we do this are you okay with it

but we're going to be doing this

so what are things that you need to think

about in order for you to be okay

with this right to do this

and that kind of changed their mindset

from just

no because it's scary and they

don't want to do it to

well and they started listing all the things

that we need to think about well we need to pick stores

that are performing

well in what we call

our risk management playbook I mentioned

earlier we have our best practices manual

we do audits of all of our stores

every year

and all the key parts of our playbook

so we send people out to make sure they're following

our playbook

so I'm like okay great yeah so we'll pick stores

that are doing a really good job

at the safety part

safety compliance

part of our risk management playbook

and say we'll start with them

because then there's a little bit less

risk there

or Harper and overdoing that

and once I got that yes I said okay

how about we start

in Charlotte because I live here

in Charlotte and it would be easy for me to go to the

stores and be real hands on

and with the first few stores

we started this with

and they're like yeah all the stores in Charlotte

are top notch in the playbook

I'm like great so we'll start with those four stores

they're like okay I said

then what do you need next like well we're just going to go

in and do a final like

check of all the stores real quick

and get them all to sign up

on this thing that they understand that they're going to be

having high school kids in the store

before you do that let me talk to the store

right so I got that box

checked

then I went to HR and said

okay we're going to be doing this

what needs to happen in order for

these kids to sign off

and be able to go through our hiring process

not can they do this but

what do we have to do

and they started thinking okay

we need to make sure

that there's some sort of consent form that mom

and dad can sign off on their behalf

we want the parents to be involved in

the interview and selection process

I'm like okay we can do all of that

so now I had that box checked

and then that turned into conversations

with legal on how to draft those things

right

and then it turned into okay before you guys run off

we talked to any of the stores I need to start putting

some dots and bolts behind what does this program

look like now that I have all those box checked

right so then

we started developing okay

what's the point of this program

and really

if we go back a little bit the why

behind this really the why

besides you know planning

technicians for our stores

our company is really big on community

involvement so

any way that we can like partner with

local high schools

I know this it's expensive for these schools

to have these automotive programs

right so

what can we do to partner with these schools

and try to

help them with their programs

so

I've

heard about a technician

competition high school

technician competition that was being held at the racetrack

here which is really awesome

for the kids if you think about it they get to work

in the same garage as all the NASCAR technicians

work on the car so they're excited

and there was a way

to sponsor be a sponsor

for it and be involved

so part of the competition

was is that they had a mock interview

section where the kids were graded

on how well they did

by employers like us

so I said yeah I'm in I want to do

that and then

these kids had two hours

teams of three

they all had

there were like 20 different problems

the car could have that they should all know

how to repair based on where they are

in their high school program

they weren't told what they would have

and it was randomly selected

and

but there were going to be three problems

that the car had they had to diagnose it

use the systems that they had learned

on how to like order the parts from the

parts department through the computer and all that

get the parts delivered

put them on and then have the car

run properly and then it was checked by a judge

so they got points

and scored on how they did that

and at the end of the day they had

a big awards ceremony

where they

ranked the one, two and three

place teams

and I took that opportunity to watch

and see which schools did the best

because I wanted the best programs

and I happened to talk

to a couple of the instructors

and

for these schools while we were there

I was thinking about doing

and I got really lucky because

one of the guys who won his team

was not only in charge of the program

for his school but he was the director

over the automotive program for all of

Charlotte and Mecklenburg school system

and I was like yes, Peter

anyway we started several conversations

and visited them at the school

and it didn't start

with just how do we get your kids

to come work at our place

but what do you need

to do that?

Yeah

I want to stop you there for a second

because I think

what you just mentioned is so

important for our

industry to understand which is that

you didn't go in

asking for things right off the bat

you went in with the approach

of how do I help you

and I think

that changes the conversation

so much on its own

that mentality and you're going into it

wanting to help their program

they're going to look at you in a different light

it's not just another

shop that's coming and begging for text

you're going in and saying

how do I make this program stronger

so that we're stronger as an industry

and man I can't

tell you the impact that probably had

Well

when I talk to

the instructor

he's like yeah everybody comes in here and says

I have students all the time

I'm sure they do

I want that too

I also want to know

as I'm getting this off the ground

I have thoughts in my head

about how this program could work

and I was like can you give me your curriculum

for your sophomore, junior, senior

students

because what I'd like to do as much as possible

is whatever we have

whatever you're teaching in school

so they go classroom

they have limited hands-on

because there's not enough hours in the day

they go to that class one hour a day

and there's probably 12-15 kids in the class

that are doing it

how can we say okay you're working on

exhaust

let's make sure that they're doing that

in the shop with the mentor tech

if we can make that happen

so that we can make it

classroom hands-on

classroom hands-on real life

like actually working on

master tech work on

a customer's car

and he was like okay

there's something here

and I saw his eyes perk up

and be like okay

so we started these conversations

and then he's like well

you know

we need people to come in and talk to these kids

about what a career would look like

and I'm like done

I have time as something I definitely can give you

so we started coming in and talking to them

and I brought in

one of the service managers

because he knows he can speak their language a lot more than I can

you know by a long shot

and he kind of give them an idea

of what a career would be like

an automotive what to expect

how when you graduate from high school

and you're looking for a job

not only what is the dealership

looking for in you but how do you interview

the store to make sure it's a good fit

for you right

what is the long-term plan

do they offer all those kinds of things

we got them a tire machine

because the one they have is just leaking air

like crazy

for some reason he needed

some new drill bits

so we got a box of those

we hooked him up with

some safety equipment

so like the I've washed stuff that the schools need

anyway we just

started talking about what do you need

what can we give you

and then from that we said okay

this program is going to look like

so we can start hiring some of your kids

so I wanted to make sure

that this wasn't just something

where a lot of times kids

coming out of regular tech school even

will get hired on as a lube tech

and they just get forgotten

you know it's a shame

but it happens and it's not

anything anybody means to do it just happens

so I was like okay

how can we put some bite

into this program

I'm like okay well

we can pay them

$15 an hour straight away

so that's one thing

we'll do that

we're going to make sure that while they're

in high school

and still under 18

we can't send them off to any

brand specific manufacturer

training but they can take all the online courses

that are possible

so they can start getting some of those certifications

we can have them

take their ASC certifications

and pay for that for them

so they don't have to pay for the testing

and all that I mean why not

we're getting some out of it too

because their skills are growing

then okay these kids

probably don't have a tool

so how are we going to help that

so we bought

decided to buy each one of them

a 3 drawer toolbox cart

and a 182 piece

they called it like the quick lube

starter kit

total is probably about

$3,800

total when you consider the value

and they get to keep that

if they finish the full program

and work for us

full time after they graduate

for at least a year

so that's all there is

yeah

and then talking to my risk management team

I found out even if they are part-time

we can offer them to participate

in our shoe program

so we offer all of our employees

in the entire company

mostly it's for our technicians

twice a year they get

so much money towards

safety shoes

so we could have them

participate in that as well

and I'm like this is great

mom and dad are going to love to hear

that we're thinking about their kid

when we do this

we have that together

okay what does it look like after they finish high school

and we're like okay

they're automatically going to get bumped

during this time

when they're taking their ASCs

and the online courses

when they graduate high school

they should be earning at least $20 an hour

straight away

then once they've completed high school

and they've completed

those parts of the program

they come work for us full time

to get their other certifications

now every brand is a little different

so some brands offer a little bit more

of the online versus others

but the idea would be

that after they're done with high school

and after they've done at least

three years with us

full time

for example the Toyota stores

one of the first stores we did

they should be able to achieve the status

of master diagnostic technician

and then

based on that

the plan was to increase their pay

as they earn each of those certifications

by the time they're two to three years out of high school

five years total in our program

they should be making about

20, I think it was 28

to $30 an hour

flat rate hour

and just to give you the idea

we have our first kid

that went through the program

he came in as a senior

so he only got one year in high school

third year so it's second year out

and he's on pace to make about

$80 to $85,000 this year

that is awesome

I absolutely love to hear that

yeah

and

that's just a great win

I get goosebumps and I get excited

when I hear those kinds of things

his partner that started with him

is right behind him in the upper 70s

so

and those were the first two kids to get in

and to go through

being this is about our third year

and to be as far as they are

since then we've had

seven or eight other

dealerships

participate in the program

and we've had

I think as close to 20 participants

that is

so cool

I mean as you're talking through the program

there's so many benefits

to everybody involved

I don't think there's

an element here

that is suffering

and when you think about it

you look at that

executive buy-in to start with

that is so so important

I give your executive team a lot of credit

for maybe thinking differently

than a lot of people do

there is the

compliance side

there is the HR side

and being able to piece all of this together

is so amazing

but then when you take that even deeper

and you look at the relationship

with the schools that's growing

and the fact that you are

more appealing to those younger people

there's data all over the place

talking about the earlier you get

somebody started in this career

or any career

the more likely they are to stick

because they've really grown into the fabric

that you are as a company

so you look at this all the way

the steps it takes to get that person in

there's a lot going on there

and we'll talk

a little bit more about the how

but I just wanted to point out

really

one, give your executive leadership team

a huge pat on the back

because for them to

think differently about this

is so important

and it truly is starting to attack

the core of the problem rather than

just trying to duct tape this forever

and I think that's the approach that a lot

of shops have is really

trying to

always look for that A level

master tech

when there's limitations on how many

people are even out there to start with

so what are we doing at the core

to do this in a healthy way

where it does

have a positive impact on the industry

as a whole and man I just can't tell you

as you're talking through all of this

how much of a fan I am

that type of approach because that

that is what we need to kind of

move the industry in the right direction

yeah 100%

and one of the cool things

that came from this is you know we highlighted

the first couple of kids that went through it and we posted

some things on LinkedIn to kind of talk about

what we're doing in our community

and stuff like that and

they interviewed the

one of the key parts I want to take a step back for a second

is making sure you select the right

master tech as the mentor

amen

so and you know it's no knock

there's plenty of master techs out there that are

fantastic master techs wonderful people

it's just they don't want to teach

I'm part of what makes them so good

as they're so laser focused on what they're doing

so picking the right

mentor tech is important

but during this process of interviewing

the student, his parents

and the mentor tech

for the article we were going to put out

one of the people

in our group just said you have no idea

how much you're changing these kids' lives

to the mentor tech and he's like

no he's changing mine

and it's

that was just a cool thing to hear him say

and so that store

now has four kids in the program at all times

and they have two of the master techs

for the mentors and

those four kids

those two master techs and the two that

already went through the start of the program so that group

of what eight people

they lunch together they hang out

those guys are part of the crew in the shop

I mean it they're the part of the fabric

of the dealership

and it's just an awesome thing to see

like I didn't think about that when I started

this but like that's a great

like accidental byproduct you know

yeah I mean it adds

to your why when you're able to see

the

community that you're creating right it

it goes beyond just somebody having a

job but really true relationships

that will probably last a lifetime

or a lot of them will and

you know I think

I think that's so neat

how much do technicians really make

at wrenchway we work

with some of the best shops and dealerships

across the country and we've discovered

that technicians often earn more

than what some online sources

suggest for example

the bureau of labor statistics reports

that technicians make an average of

forty seven thousand dollars per year

but we know that's not reflective

of the true earning potential of technicians

we've teamed up with

ASC to create an online

technician pay tool a free

easy to use resource for both

aspiring technicians and

those already in the automotive and diesel

industries this tool lets you

explore real pay data

with customizable searches by industry

shop type location and experience

level check it out

at wrenchway.com

pay or follow the link in the show

notes we also encourage

current technicians to anonymously

submit their own pay data to help

make the tool even better for everyone

lastly

thank you for your continued support as

we work to promote and improve careers

in automotive and diesel

we couldn't do it without you

now one thing I do want to ask is

what kind of difficulties

or maybe you didn't have as many

but I talked to a lot of

a lot of people in the industry

that have a desire to

put a program in place like this but

when you have as many

locations as you do

trying to get the buy

in at the GM level

or at that service manager

level and I've heard it myself where

I've had service managers straight up

tell me well I'm not a babysitter

I'm not bringing in a young person and

I'm like oh you're missing the

point

yeah yeah

I have one of those things where my

thought always is just because it's hard

if it's worth doing doesn't mean you don't do it

like just because it's hard

um

so one of the difficulties I had

for myself

was understanding we needed to slow

it down like so many times

organizations will come up

with a great idea and they're just

so quick to launch it and get it out there

that they don't really think

about all of the unintended consequences

all of the little things

that you need to make sure you get right

and it gets out

there and it's launched and then it falls apart

so being

disciplined about I'm going to select

four local stores I started with one

and I knew I was going to go to the other three

eventually

talking to that service manager who was

already kind of bought in

and was one of you know really good service

manager of ours and say okay this is

a good partner to start with

and then when they started having success

everybody else FOMO right everybody wants

in once they see that

but then still keeping it slow because

there was a lot of moving parts

and I knew I needed to manage

remember we talked before about

these kids get forgotten sometimes

I wanted to make sure that I created

a spreadsheet so I knew what the students name was

who the master tech was what certifications

had they taken online already

where were they at in their progress

check in with the service manager

because what part of the program too is

once a week at least

the mentor tech

the student and the service manager

sit down for five ten minutes and just talk about

what they did this week

just a checking like how's it going

what do you need to work on hey

you know you're showing to work out by time good job

just that the other thing

what are you learning in school so we can try to find

that kind of work and give it to your master

tech mentor to make sure you

work on it

so keep the track of all that I knew if it was

just shotgun blasted out to all hundred and eighteen

of our stores at once it was going to be like

impossible to keep control of

that animal

but then once we started having success

at these stores here

people started hearing about it

and I started getting phone calls from service manager

saying hey I want to do this

weird how that happens

well I'm kind of letting it come

to me rather than try to go out

and that once that grows and grows

and grows like any fire it just

starts roaring

and like I said we're on our third year and the first

year was very small the two students

at the one shop

and then they expanded into the rest of Charlotte

and like I said now it's to all these other stores

that organic growth though I think

I don't want to overlook that part

either because

having the approach where

it's almost the same vein as marketing

some people will try a marketing

plan and it doesn't work after

two weeks and they're frustrated

and they don't continue

having marketing budget then

or that's a very

specific example but I see it a lot

with businesses

I think the same thing happens

with technicians where

if you're not looking at it through

that long-term lens

it can be very damaging to you

as an organization because

you oftentimes will get frustrated

or maybe you even bring in that one student

and it doesn't work out with that student

you think all students are in that same boat

and nothing could be further from the truth

right they're all individuals they all

have different learning capabilities

but if you're looking at it holistically

and you're looking at it from

the lens that hey

if we get this right we have an impact

on our organization for

decades to come because it's not

just a

this is a

a program that we're going to run for a few months

and then see how it's going

and if it's not working or there's

some struggle with it that we're just

going to give up it's a commitment to

we're putting a program

in place that is foundational

to our entire business

and by doing that

I think your approach was

very

very complimentary of that

that thinking right of

that this isn't an overnight thing

and by starting small you can

kind of maybe work out some of the kinks

and some of the things that

that aren't going to work or maybe

this is a barrier that we can't get by

but as you're doing that

I have to imagine you're learning

the entire time you're taking

kind of the feedback that the managers

are giving you you're taking the feedback that

that young technician is giving

you and and really being able

to refine the program

a little bit to make it work for all parties

oh absolutely

you know slow and steady

wins the race right

and there's going to be hiccups

along the way you just got to

you know call what we call it game

film afterwards you know

look it over okay what can we do

different next time and move on

every brand is different

so we're also learning

like what does that look like for Mercedes Benz

versus Toyota versus Ford

versus Chevy so

you got to be open to

being flexible

with the framework

of the tiny specifics

within the program to

fit the market area

and or the brands you know

we started with Toyota

and it was great well the next

store we did was a Ford store so that

was a little different right

some schools have programs

were if you register with the local

school district these kids can leave at 1130

if they're seniors

now they get more time in your store

right because the other kids

may get out at 2 33 o'clock

and the shop may only be open till 6 or so

you know you only get them

for a couple hours a day and a lot of them

were working on Saturdays

and then in summer and on breaks they can work a little

more so how does that work out

right because we also have to remember

these kids are high school students first

right

that have an interest in becoming a tech

so how do we blend their high school life

and some of them want to play sports and stuff too

you know you have to be flexible

with that right

that's tough I mean

all the different variables how

as you're coming up with a program

how do you provide the flexibility

to adapt to whatever that

needs are

well and one of the things

the only parameter I put

on the students in the store

is we can't have them work full time

just some things we couldn't

overcome as far as

benefits and things like that

for them being under a certain age

so really the only cap

is you know they can't work more than 30

or 35 hours a week

but it's okay if they can only work

8 hours

every day

right because they got homework and stuff to do too

or like I said they have sports

and things don't count them

out if they can only work for you on Saturday

because they have football practice every day

in a game on Friday night

to let them come in on Saturday

you know so flexibility

and being open minded to those

kinds of things is definitely key

for doing something like this

how do you get

them in the doors

and keep them safe

right like I think

that's a big concern even from the parent's perspective

to if I'm sending my child

into a shop I want to make sure that

you're not doing anything that they shouldn't

be doing that would result in

something bad happening and

you know it's

the job itself I feel like it's gotten

so much safer over the years

in some elements and I think

that's helpful

but there's some element

sure that you have to think through that

right and making sure that there's structure

around each individual as they come in

to make sure they're as safe as humanly

possible. Yeah 100%

and as I mentioned before one of the first things

I did was go to our risk management team right

so

we knew we wanted to involve mom

and dad in the selection

process

so

we started obviously with the teacher and the students

who's interested somebody raises

their hand we say okay we would love to

have a visit with you

and a parent or guardian

to come to the shop meet the service manager

walk around the shop

so that the parents can see where their child

is going to be working right meet

the service manager that's going to be responsible

for keeping their child safe

right that's important then part

of that meeting is we go over

with them a commitment to safety

letter that we have

where the service manager and the risk management

person has signed off on it already

it outlines all of the safety

training we're going to provide their child that we provide

all of our employees that work in

our shop and that one of the first

things they do when they start working is

they don't go right into the shop and start

hanging out with tech they take those

safety training courses that we provide all of

our demons

so

mom and dad get to see that we're putting

that first

and not just trying to get

out of them work

right it's a long it's a long game

that we're playing like we want

that to be the foundation

then they start just watching

the master tech not actually putting hands on

we make sure that they have their safety glasses

and the proper clothing and shoes and

they get uniforms and everything

and then the master tech spends a lot of time

intentionally

talking to them about we're going to work on

this but we're going to do

this first we're going to check the lift

we're going to make sure it's

safe before we work on this is why

we do that

right and be intentional with how we

do that and

I every time

we've brought mom and dad in and

we talked about those kinds of things you

can almost see their shoulders drop back like

okay I feel good about this

right not one

we have not had an incident with any

nice little kids right

but

part of the reason why we picked the stores

that are already safety

and risk focused

to participate and if you are

under a certain level in our audit you

cannot participate in the program until

you change your ways

so

only thing risk management said they wanted

and they looked at it too as an opportunity

for them to push their playbook

adherence to it

out to the stores

I was grateful for

their leader to see it as a carrot not a

stick

if you want to participate you have to

make sure you're following our playbook

and it was a way for them to get people

to do a better job at just being safer

in general in the shop

I think that is fantastic

and

what I do really really like about that

is that you are training

these students

on the right way to do things

to have when you're in the shop

so you don't put yourself in a precarious

position where you are

proactively looking at safety

and I think the earlier you

can train somebody on that the more

that becomes ingrained in them

throughout their careers right

it's something that they are taught

at an early level

that there is a right way to do this

and not following the directions and not following

the right way to do it

is not good for you

I just

I hadn't thought about that element

of it until you just said that

of the earlier you train

those safety habits the better off they are

going to be over the course of their career

and they just become exactly that habits

they don't even think about it anymore

you know it's not a rush

to turn in more hours

by cutting a corner

that may end up putting you out of work

for a week

this is fantastic

can't get over how much I love this program

now one last question

then I have to go to a rapid fire

questions

how have those parent conversations

gone have there been

some that have come in almost

cautious over

wanting their child to enter this industry

or maybe somebody that's

not loving the fact that

their family or that their child

wants to be a technician

yeah so

for the most part no

so

being that it's early on and we've only had

like I said about 20 participants total

and I haven't been at the store

for every one of those conversations

because some of them are in other states

but

we've only had a couple incidents where

maybe mom and dad really wanted

son or daughter to go to a four year college

instead of becoming a technician

and didn't understand their child's passion

but very quickly

after we explain

to them what we're going to pour into their child

the training that they're going to get

and have them talk to the master tech

like the meeting is not just with the service manager

it's also with this is the person that's going to be

training and teaching your child

and

talking to them about

yes how much money they make

where they live

the boats they have the house and the mountains

and be like

wow so

you can really make that kind of a living

in this industry well yeah maybe I do want

my child to do this right

and I don't have to spend 200 grand

on a four year degree

and for some people that they need to do that first

and then come back

I'm open

to even a student coming working

for us part time

knowing that they may go out to college

I get two years to convince them

otherwise

two years to decide this isn't for me

and that's good for both of us too

it's not just

about jamming them into our system

but they get a chance to find out

is this really what I want to do

finding the right fit

I think even

at that early age especially at that early age

because you are going to put a lot of training

and effort and

just

you care about these people and you want to see them

do well and I think

taking that initial

step very seriously especially

at the student level and making sure that when you're

bringing somebody in that they fit your culture

they fit who you are as a company

and that they actually like

what they're going to do you know

how many times have we heard about

that person that goes

to trade school and then comes into the industry

buys $10,000

or $20,000 with the tools right off the bat

and then a year into it

says I don't like this I don't want to do this anymore

and it's heartbreaking because you don't want anybody

to come in

and go through that pain of putting

themselves in unnecessary debt

if this isn't truly what they want to do

and same

same thing on the shop side

you don't want to put all that time and effort into somebody

that doesn't realistically have a future

in this industry and

I think there's so much

that I really enjoyed

about this conversation

and hearing how

you're going about this

why you wanted to do it in the first place

and you know I think

there are so many others in our industry

that could learn from everything that you're doing

because even though it is

only those 20 to start

you've got a better base than most

and you've got now a program

to build off of

for the future that

doesn't happen overnight

it takes intentionality it takes time to plan

it takes a lot of time just to

have those conversations to

convince people that this is the right path

to go down

I give you so so much credit

for that and

it is

to me

at the core of what brings me joy in the industry

is being able to

hear stories of people that are

doing things differently and moving the industry

in a better direction and this is

all of that and more

I just

met you and the organization

any more than I am

it is huge for our industry

well

I can't take all the credit because it's been a lot of help

from a lot of different people a lot of different departments

especially those service managers

that have embraced the program

especially Mr. Eddie's

I want to call out for who is the first

service manager at our Toyota store

here in Charlotte

to say yes

you know pick me I'll do it

Eddie you're the man

we need more Eddie's in this world

yes he's been an awesome partner in all of this

and you know we can have you back

we can talk about how this program

has blended into our regular apprentice program

for those kids that go to tech schools

so that's a

this could be a series John I think we'll just

keep going with the conversation

I really really really love this

and so I do

as we end shows

have three rapid fire questions

for you

really have nothing to do with anything we've talked

about so far in the show but we're

we're going to see what your answers are

all right question is

if you weren't doing this job what would you

be doing

you know

I've had so many different jobs over the years

I joke around and tell people I can't keep a job

I have a feeling that if I hadn't gone down this

track I'd be doing some sort of job

in sales

it's just where I started

and

I've always had the gift of gap

in no way am I surprised by that by the way

yes you're

you're a very good conversationalist

I always

I think every time we get together it's always a

fun talk

what was your very first job

oh boy well

there were okay if we go all the way back

I won't count paper boys that's not a real job

I started two jobs

at about the same time one was

a job that fit my high school

schedule because I played

football, baseball and basketball

it was a

busboy and dishwasher

at a country club banquet hall

because they allowed us to work

just Saturday nights and Sunday

during the day so it fit

my schedule and at the same time

my dad had a janitorial business

and I used to clean office buildings for him

at night after I got home from practice

so

those are good jobs I mean if you think

about even the paper boy one

you'd be shocked at how many guests we

have that

did a paper route and

I think

it instilled some good habits in terms

of

routine and what time you have to get up

you're not getting up very late in the morning right

you're getting up and getting over

papers on your bicycle in a

Chicago winner is not fun

not recommended

it was a rural route I only had 27 papers

and it was about a 10 mile bike

ride

that is

those Chicago winters

are tough that would

if nothing else make you tough right

yeah right builds character

last question

what time do you get up in the morning

depends on how

much I'm

involved in my

workout routine

typically

there was a time when I would get up at about 5

30

and drive to the office because we have a gym at the office

and we have a trainer on staff there

that's free of charge for employees

and work out with him from 6 to 7

and then be at

my desk by 7 30

since COVID and we're all home I haven't been

going into the office as much

and on a good day I'll get up at 7

go run

work out a little bit and be at my desk

by about 8 30

so that's not bad though

I think I'm not a morning person at

all though I have to

drive myself out of the bed

to do it

I do really enjoy hearing the answers to

that question and

I talk a lot about routine on this

podcast and

I think routine is important

but it's also just fun to hear

what people do

and how their mornings

vary and

I myself could do

much better on that exercise routine

and I think that's

been something I've been telling myself for quite a few years now

so I need to actually just do it

at some point

I did my first Spartan race this year

I didn't know that

I don't

halfway through I started questioning

my decision making process

but I finished it

that's super

impressive

I've seen

the photos

online and the videos of people

doing that that does not look easy

it's not fun

there's obstacles I couldn't finish

but there's penalties

and one of the penalties is doing 30

burpees I hate burpees

ooh

the other penalty is you might have to run

an extra loop

aside from the regular rest of the run

around

that obstacle

uneven terrain back

so I was supposed to be like a 5k run

I ended up on my

watch because of the penalties that I had to do

my running watch ended up running almost

4.2 miles

instead of 3.1

so

yeah I didn't say I completed all of them

but I did finish the race

you finished the race which

I think is

a big testament to you

and your

desire to always improve

and get better right and I think

just in general

I talked about it when we talked about

you know

your personality and how easy

you are to talk to

every conversation I have with you is

incredibly enjoyable this has been

just phenomenal

the information that you've come on

and been willing to share I think

is transformative for the industry

I think there are a lot of people

that should listen to this podcast

and listen to what you had to say

because you went through a lot of the things

that a lot of the others need to go through

and we need to get better at this as an industry

we need to pull the whole industry needs

to pull more people into it right

and we've got to work together to do that

so I just

give you

respect for you in going down

this road

and really pushing the limits on

things like this that need

to happen so

although you're a Bears fan

I am always

looking forward to talking to you and then

this was just such a fun recording

I appreciate

being here and the ability to talk about this

and honestly back at you

like providing this platform for these kinds

of conversations

we're very much needed in our industry

and I'm very appreciative of you doing that

so thank you

alright hopefully we'll do it again

yeah we'll make sure it happens

alright well thanks

thanks so much for joining us John

hope you enjoyed this episode

and hopefully we get John back on again

to do it again soon

take care

that wraps up another episode of Beyond

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