If You Feel Handcuffed To Your Job, Murray Voth Is Here To Help

I don't tell people you're doing it wrong. Which is what I find so frustrating at some of those forums that we're part of because people will come out right out and say you're doing it wrong. I usually ask people, what are your stresses? Where do you want to be in 10 years, 15 years, you know, how are you feeling about your job? And a lot of those technician owners or advisor owners are like, if they're really honest with me, they're feeling handcuffed to that job.

I'm sitting here with a relatively newer friend of mine, somebody have a lot of respect for somebody I gotta finally got to meet at Seaman Apex. Mr. Murray, both from RPM Training.

Hey Jeff, nice to see you. And it sure was good to meet you there at Apex.

That was, that's not your first trip there, but that was the first time for me and like you and I sat down and we got talking for a few minutes. I've been wanting to go to SEMA since I was a kid. Right.

So it was. I'm glad you got to go. And, and you're right, it is very overwhelming. That's was probably my seventh or eighth time down, so.

Yeah. Yeah.

And it get, it gets easier every time. I. They planned it all out this time, who I was going to meet, what I was going to see. And it was a little more organized for me this time. Not as overwhelming.

It'd be amazing. So I should share with everybody. Murray's in Penticton, British Columbia, so he's a fellow Canadian like me and Murray. You and I have kind of talked about it. Would it not be awesome to get like a trade show that would rival that, you know, because we sometimes forget that like the industry is so big yet trying to get so many of us in up here in Canada to an event is a substantial cost, you know.

Yes.

And I believe that like it's such a, a good thing. Those kind of expedition training events.

Yeah.

For our networking and so good for our morale of the business because.

Exactly.

Yeah. So tell me a little bit about RPM training.

So RPM Training, the acronym STARTS stands for results, Performance and Mastery. One shop owner, one technician, one service advisor at a time.

Right.

And it is a business coaching consulting company. We do training and we do mastermind groups which other people in the industry know as 20 groups or performance groups. Been running this now for close to six years and we are involved with about 80 shops. I have two part time coaches and it continues to grow and been very excited about all of that. Prior to that, I was with a different coaching company for about 12 years as a contractor, primarily Canadian. Again, a bit of work in the States, got to know sort of the American side of things. So I have a couple of American clients and I seem to be able to understand some of the differences across the border. And then prior to that I had a 25 year career operating and owning service stations.

So I'm, I'm really an old garage man. Jeff.

Yeah, I think it's got to be because that's where I first saw you is there used to be a magazine years ago called Canadian Technician. And I want to. Even before that it was AP&T. And I remember seeing your name pop up because like when we talked about in Vegas, I was kind of like that magazine would get delivered and it would hit the, the lunchroom table and nobody else would read it. And I was just sitting there always eating it. And your name? Bob Greenwood. You know, Kelly Bennett. Like all these people that are, you know, Bob's not with us anymore.

But I would see these names and I was this, like, I wasn't even a licensed tech. I was this green, green apprentice. And I was reading these, you know, points and articles sometimes written by people on the business side of things. And I was like, sometimes I'd be like, wow, that's way different than what I've ever seen.

Yeah, yeah. SSGM would have been another magazine I wrote for probably as far back as 0809.

So yeah, it's kind of an intuition, like, or not. It always seems like one company buys that and expands it, changes the name. But there's always seems to be a core group of familiar names like even Scott Waddell. I can remember seeing Scott's name forever.

Yes.

In the Canadian presence. So I mean it was, it was pretty cool to meet you and, and see how that's kind of, you know, come about, you know. Yeah. Incredible. So, yeah, what, what's the day to day of rpm?

So we're kind of wrapping down, slowing down things a little bit for the holiday season here. But Basically we have six groups of 10 shops and we meet once a month for about four hours on Zoom. Prior to 2021. Most of it was travel, airplanes and hotel rooms and meeting rooms. We did it live in person. I had one Zoom group back then and took it all online. We've expanded to where not only do we have that four hour meeting, each owner gets an individual hour of coaching with one of us. We have an all group meetup, which is my favorite meeting because I don't have to prepare and it's bring your own topic.

And I tell you, it's just like fireworks. All the shop owners and not, not everybody shows up. But last I think on Wednesday we had 20, 22 people and asking some really, you know, good questions. And it's as simple as, you know, how do you guys insure your loaner cars to, you know, how do we do RSPS for our employees, you know, and that kind of thing. And then on the other side of things, I have several courses. One is my smart course, which is a sort of boot camp of shop management service advising. We either do it three days in person or we do it in eight three hour sessions online on Zoom. So usually those classes are pretty full.

And I have another business class which I haven't run for a couple years, but it's, we're recording it and we're going to put it on as a self directed learning course. Nice. You know, in small, small chunks because a lot of the younger generation of people like learning kind of podcast learning that type of a thing. So we're going to, I'm being educated how to, to get into sort of that, that as well.

Can I ask you, do you find it different because we talked about. Now you used to be a lot of travel, a lot of airplane seat time, shop more, you know, face to face, person to person type coaching. And now do you think that one is more effective than the other? Murray, like, do you.

So that's a really good question. And it's one of these things where it's not either or. It would be beautiful. It could if it could be both. But I've decided that I'm loving staying in my house and the hassle of air travel and as you know from your trip to Vegas, home and back was just a pain in the butt. Right. So I just don't really want to go back to that. But let me explain the value of both ways.

So in the group setting, there is something about human beings being together. The brains, the eyeballs in the same room. And it's like the sum is greater than the parts. It's almost like there's a bigger brain in the room when you bring people together physically. Right. Talking now we gave up that the networking at lunch, the networking at dinner, stuff like that. Because usually it was a full day, was also a piece that would happen going online because I had done some of it. I was, you know, I probably leapt ahead of a few people.

But you know, I have a studio here, dual screens podcast mic, green screen High speed connection. And my clients are encouraged to make sure they're on a high speed connection, that they're either in an office or a home office, really quiet and. And we've almost got it as close to live as we can without being in the same room. So we've really tweaked the technology and stuff. But the benefit of the online is that I think overarches the cost, travel and the rest of it for everybody is sharing screens. Jeff. It is amazing as a coach, teacher, trainer to realize that even though we were in person and we were talking about these topics, people would take notes and then go back to their shops. And of course when they got back to their shop, yeah, you know, something had happened or maybe it was busy and they had to step in and help or whatever and they would forget the note they took and they wouldn't implement their action plan.

Well, now it's like, show me your screen. Let's make that change now in your software or let's make that change now in your. In your. You know, we're very proud of helping shops be profitable, but we're also very proud of helping shops be the highest paying places. So we just help somebody give their people raises on Tuesday. I'm very happy about that. And I'm sure his people are super happy for Christmas. Right, so.

So on the whole thing of sharing screens, Jeff is so powerful for getting past all the different learning styles. Right. A lot of technician, a lot of shop owners are former technicians or current technicians. And you know, I'm just getting to know you, but most technicians, I find are very visual people. Right. Very tactile. You guys can visualize in 3D, you know, a differential and dismantle it, put it back together and shim it up and get it out the door. Yet hearing a lot of words or seeing a lot of words on a screen just do not resonate.

Yeah, but when we can look at pictures on a screen or when we have to look at words or numbers or software, actually walking through it with each other is just leaps and bounds. Like I would say the online version has just got my clients way further ahead than the live, even though we do miss that interaction, so.

Right, yeah, like, because I've heard some coaches, leaders, groups, that kind of thing say that they don't really get the full vibe of the business till they're actually in the facility. So seeing how the nucleus of the being happening right there in real time, do you miss that? Was there value in it?

I want to say there was value in it, we used to do shop evaluations as part of what we did. Depending on whatever, we did it occasionally and I miss it. But I have to tell you that we use an app that I had developed where the owners all put their, all their numbers in.

Right.

And this isn't just about accounting and margins and rates. This is about other key performance ratios. You know, things like average work order size or build hours per technician per day or number of invoices per advisor. Like we have all these things. And I guess part of it is just the experience of having been in business and coaching people for so long. I will look at somebody's numbers for the first time and give them a synopsis of what I see just based on that. And they'll look at me like I was in their shop, like, how did you know that?

Yeah.

And I'm like, well, most of us are going by the seat of our pants, but we're all smart enough to do it a certain way. That does make us some money. You know, most shop owners that are in business for five or more years, you know, have got some things figured out. Don't get me wrong, they've, you know, they've done well relative to a lot of small businesses. Right. And so to me, with numbers and then with asking questions, both of my coaches, Don Claussen and Bruce Williams, and I think you'll see a lot more, Bruce has been doing some writing and stuff as well. What I like about them is they're so good at asking questions.

Yeah.

And because they're both. One's a former shop owner for 35 years, he sold his place successfully and another one's currently in business and they ask diagnostic questions of the owners or the staff and we can get, we, we can get a pretty good depth. Now having said that, I have allowed two people to hire me for a fee, happened to be in the neighborhood to come and evaluate, spend the day at their shop. And I really enjoyed it because it became a laboratory of observation of the modern shop and the modern challenges that are facing both of them are very high end inventory implemented, top notch people. They just wanted another set of eyes to sort of take it and tune it another, another level. Right. So there is value in it. But it's kind of like we all have to choose our business models, right.

Like there's shops that work on, on Euro and an Asian or just Euro. There's shops that work on diesel. Right. So I've kind of landed at this stage of the mix that I'm using and, and Honestly, the fees are. Are lower because I don't have to travel. Right. When. As soon as you get that travel back in the game, then.

And those on site things, it's. It can add up for a lot for that shop. Right.

So you and I kind of talked about how the dynamic of some shops and I kind of fielded some questions to you about, like, are they all. I mean, I don't want to say that they're all the same, but we kind of talked on. So many of them are a family business. And I kind of shared my previous employer some of the, I don't want to say obstacles, but some of the factors that played into what that dynamic was like. Right. Because it was so much family working within the one business. Have you seen that be common? Is it becoming less common? Is it a detriment?

So I, I see it less commonly that family working together than ever. But a lot of couples, I would say, still husband and wife or other partners together in business. And I would suggest that the ones that sort of have worked through how to work together, either as a couple or as a family are the ones that seem to do okay. The ones that don't really think about it and just bring the kids on board without really outlining rules and expectations and stuff like that. Generally they can stumble along a little bit till they kind of sort that out. Right. But the common pattern with most aftermarket shops is they're in an effort to be friendly and kind and nice to customers, which I want people to be. Don't get me wrong.

They err on the side of being pushed around by the customers and by the clients.

Yeah.

And so when they become more professional, then all of a sudden they can still be kind and take care of people really well and things like that. But there's also going to be some boundaries that will protect the shop, protect the staff in particular. Right. In my early days, Jeff, like, I still shudder to think, we did not have a service advisor. The technicians were all just working in the bays. And as people walked up to the bay doors or into the. Into the waiting area, first mechanic available would go talk to somebody and customers would walk in the bays and interrupt technicians. I mean, I cannot believe that I'm admitting it, but I didn't know any better at the time.

Right. And now, and it's not that I prevent clients from speaking to technicians, but you can't just walk into a dentist office and say, hey, can I talk to a dentist? You have to make an appointment. Right.

I want to say, Murray, so Much of that comes from back in the day when we still had a full service gas station.

Yes.

So much of what the repair of the car might have been sold from the, the. I want to use the term attendant or jockey at the pump.

Exactly.

Put up and said, hey, this hand belts in really rough shape. Or, you know, this, this rat hose is in really rough shape. And then he might also be a technician that had left the bay to come out and pump the gas.

Exactly where we're still.

We're still. Customers are still very comfortable with walking up to an open bay door, talk to a technician who's working on a car saying, hey, my car's doing this great. We're on this car right now. You know, like, and I struggle that sometimes because, like, I'm. I'm very driven about the time frame that I'm doing and what I'm focused on. And somebody's like, hey, my car's doing this great. Mrs. Smith's car is already here in the bay and obviously, you know, priority, because she's already here, struggle with how to be polite and, you know, be that jaded mechanic type, which is easy to become.

And I learned early on to protect my guys, we put a sign. We had four bays. It was more like a tunnel, right. So two doors at the front, two doors at the back. You know, if all four were open, it was like a wind tunnel, Right. So people could come up the back lane and enter that way or at the, at the front near the pumps. And so we put up a sign in the back that really didn't stop anybody. But we all agreed.

The technician said that they would politely guide the client, the potential client, to the front counter to talk to the advisor and say, like you said, I'm currently working on Mrs. Smith's car and I'm committed to getting it done for her soon. Let me just tell you safely here where Kim is, and she'll walk you through how to get an appointment. And when your car is booked in, you know, we'd be happy to chat a little bit about your concerns. Right. That type of a thing. And we, we, we nailed it. Like, we had very few exceptions because there is a small segment of the driving public that will come to the back door and try to do technicians to do moonlight and do cash work on the side in the evenings.

Right?

Yeah.

And my guys worked hard throughout the day, throughout the week. You know, we did the occasional overtime during busy season. They didn't want to work after hours and on weekends on cars they wanted to have their lives, right. Do their, do their thing and their hobbies and stuff like that. So we kind of built a culture around that piece. But Jeff, if I could just sort of speak to why some clientele feel they need to do that. You know, they will come in and say, I need to talk to a mechanic. Or they will phone, say, can you put a mechanic on the phone? And.

And they're trying to bypass the front, they're trying to bypass the salesperson and things like that. They've been taught that you have to get the information from the horse's mouth. Right. And I believe based on lots of experience and years of working with this, that reason why clients do that is because the front has been so disorganized, there's been such poor communication that they're having these bad experiences. They feel out of control with money, they feel out of control with time. And so they're trying to take control of the thing by talking to the mechanic. Really well run shops with really well trained advisors are that person that that client talks to. They really realize they don't need to talk to the surgeon, they just need to talk to somebody who's going to listen to them.

And generally advisors are a little less jaded. Some are quite, could be a little bit less jaded than the mechanic and the technician and give them that kind sort of care and look after them. And as soon as everything lines up with the promises the shop made, either price wise or time wise, they stop having to ask to talk to mechanics.

Yeah, right.

Now don't get me wrong, Jeff, if my technicians were walking through the behind the backhand, we had a rack workflow system, right. So they'd be putting paperwork in or taking paperwork out or grabbing a new set of keys. And there was a client at the counter, I would introduce them, I'd say, hey, this is Jeff, this is Ryan. They're going to be the one working on your car today. And you know, they would take off their gloves and shake their hand and say, hey, pleased to meet you. It's going to be an honor to work on your car. Right. And then they would put their gloves back on and go back to the back and that would be the end of that, Right.

Making that personal piece. Right? Yeah. Now in the digital age, there's technicians now that are, as they start the digital inspection, are opening with a little video of themselves going, hi, my name's Jeff and I'm working on your car today. Yeah, right. And so anyways, I don't know if.

I can call that progress, you know what I mean? Because I. I'm still old school in the sense that it's like, I don't want to be, as crazy as it sounds, to be somebody with this platform. I'm not. I'm not in love with the idea of always being on camera and talk. Countless people. Right. When I'm in the bay doing my thing, I want to work. It's me in the car.

It's not exactly or in the car.

Right.

I want to be avoided from that. What I found, Murray, when you're talking about the customers that seem very insistent on talking to the technician, is they might have been to one place or two places already with this particular problem where they didn't feel like the communication was effective between their complaint of the car to what actually being conveyed to the technician. I can remember being the dealer speaking to lots of customers who were like, they did not want to talk to the advisor. Right.

I.

Either they made a phone call and I had to be standing there at the advisor's desk, or, you know, and that's a different scenario than even going on a road test with a customer.

Right.

We lost that. But it was. I was always very uncomfortable with it, Murray. Like, very uncomfortable.

I'm going to suggest that's probably 80% of you guys are. Would be more like you. Right. And so that's why we only did. When we were at my place, we only did the introductions as appropriate. Like, the technicians didn't meet every person every day. It just happened to be. If they happened to be in the room while there was clients there, we would do the introductions.

Right. Just because that was civil and polite. Right. But no, and I get that. I would respect most technicians if they didn't want to do the video digitally. I just suggested that there are people that are. Right. But no, that would not be a.

That would be a must do. You know, you rarely actually meet the surgeon that does your hip. You know, it's almost like you just meet. You meet the anesthesiologist who puts you to sleep, and then you wake up and you've got the surgical care nurse there. Right? It's like, you know, I don't want to go quite that far, but you know what I'm saying, Like, we have to protect your guys's time, your knowledge, and that whole interruption factor. Jeff, I gotta tell you guys, I have my respect for what you do. I've always respected it. But my respect for what you do has just grows exponentially every year because of what you guys are Working on.

Yeah, the covers you have to remove, the wire looming, the tight fits, the accessing heater cores today. I mean, oh my goodness, how you guys. And the thing is, you just sort of go along and figure it out as you go along. Right. And I'm thinking to myself, interrupting a technician today is 10 times as bad as interrupting 70, 20 years ago.

And I can tell you right now. So the new job that I'm at, right, where it's myself, the shop owner, and another technician. And it was unplanned that it would be only three of us. We were thumbing on when it was like he hired me, that we thought we were gonna have four. And the young man ended up leaving with me coming in, which was not. It hasn't been to our detriment, except that the boss is now out there in the bay working on cars, answer phones and go to the counter and like, you know, the old school, the door opens and the buzzer goes off in the shop. So he starts heading amazed that he can get anything done out in the shop. Incredible.

And Murray, here's the thing. He does it with no, like, it's not like we have a car come back with something unplugged in or, you know, like he, he is phenomenal at not missing it. But it's. So your efficiency is just shot. I mean, he did a job the other day that he can do in about an hour and 15 minutes. And he started at 8 in the morning between all the interruptions. It was noon before he got it done.

Yeah, right.

It's, you know, it's tough that way when we're constantly getting pulled away and, and shops like that where the, the manager comes up and says, hey, about this, as you're in the middle of something else. And I just want to like, start chucking tools because.

Exactly.

Focused on getting this torqued. You know, you're asking me about Mrs. Smith's car from yesterday or Mrs. Smith's car that's coming in tomorrow. And I'm focused on Mr. Brown's truck right now. Yeah, you know, it's.

And you know, he's in the same boat as a lot of small shop owners. That's not uncommon. You know, a lot of them start off alone and then get a second person and a third person and, you know, it's really, it is really a common scenario. And I was, I was actually going to throw a little, little joke out. I knew how irritated my technicians were by the size of wrench that I was. Was being thrown at me. Yeah. You know, a 10 mil.

A 10 mil combo combination wrench was just a little bit of a tease. Right. But when, when the three quarter inch came flying, I knew, I knew I was outstepped my bounds. Right. So I mean, that's just in humor. We, we did frustrate each other and I, you know, I have to say I will take accountability for that things. I will say though that I have. One of my.

Was that technician I worked for the longest and I are still good friends. He's been retired for 10 years. We still go to each other's birthdays and stuff. And another one of my clients is a shop owner, a performer technician is a shop owner now and one of my current clients. So I've known him for a really long time. But I want to get back to that, that piece. And, and you know, I say this respectfully and I say this as kindly as I can. Those owners that are in that situation.

And you know what, let's be transparent. I'm an owner of a training company with, you know, three people facing forward, but behind me, I have a bookkeeper, I have a virtual assistant, I have a marketing person, I have a lawyer, I have an accountant. Like, I have this, I have a developer, I have this team of people behind me, you know, and I'm just the face of this whole thing in reverse. These owners, I encourage them to think about what is their best skill set. Are they best at speaking to clients and presenting information that they need? The results of inspections and testing, Are they best right now to be the technician in the bays? You know, is it time for them to step back and work on their business, sort of get control of some of the HR and the marketing, a few pieces like that and, and then hire, hire someone to, to fill the shoes and, and generally the most common result and advice I give once I see numbers, like, I can't just say to a shop, you have to make this change until I sort of see a few things. But generally getting in a service advisor is usually the solution initially for the scenario that you're talking about. Right. Somebody who can be.

Is trained or can be trained to do all that front stuff, handle the phones, do the estimating. The owner can grow their client's confidence in that advisor. And over time, next thing, people are asking for the advisor instead of the owner. I referenced the name Kim. She was the best advisor that we ever worked with. Being a woman not from the industry back in the 90s, very challenging. She even wondered why I hired her, but she ran a restaurant And I knew that she knew how to handle people, right. Both employees and customers.

And people would say, is Murray here? And I'd walk out and I'd say, hey, by the way, Kim's really good at this computer. And Kim's our new front face here and the buck still stops with me. And I kept backing her up and backing her up. And one day, eight months later, the phone rang. She was busy with a client. The phone rang and it was ringing, so I took the call. And the person on the other line said, hey, is Kim there? And I write, I bing. I nailed it.

Right. Like at that point they saw her as important or more important than having to talk to me because she was in control of the flow of the work and the appointments and the rest of it, right. So to me, that's a key role. And then the owner can sort of, maybe if you still need that technician in the back, maybe they can work the, to eight, six hours a day on vehicles and maybe they can spend two hours a day working more on the business type thing and then decide how, how they want to grow it. Right. Do they bring on another apprentice or do they bring on, you know, again, it depends on family and who's doing the bookkeeping and stuff like that. But having that person on the front counter buys that owner time to then decide how they want to use their time more effectively, Right?

Yeah. Because I've seen the statement say all the time and I think sometimes it pops up in some chat groups I'm with and everybody's immediately, they say, it doesn't matter how good you are as a technician, you need to be working on your business, in your business. But yet I'll show you successful shops that are successful because the owner is such a phenomenal technician from a diagnostic standpoint.

Correct.

That he's bringing a lot of really good work into the bay. And when he is stepping away from that or she, they're not being able to give the same level of expertise because he's just not in the bay. And I, the one has come to me and said, I understand what the coaching groups are saying, but without me in the bay, I can't be, you know, the shop that we need to be. And it's crazy.

Well, I, I get that. Especially in this day and age of technology, that is a very profitable position. Right. Person to be doing that. So the question would be, you know, who's watching the horizon? I use an analogy. I'm not a boat person, I'm not a sail person, but, you know, I use the analogy of Christopher Columbus back in 1492. He was going to go exploring, and I don't know how much history, you know, but back in the day, they felt that the earth was flat and if you sailed too far, you would fall off the edge. So knowing that Christopher Columbus was going to.

Was going to sail west to see how far you could get, it was not very easy to get a crew. A lot of the crew, they got where they got from jail or from. From drug dens and stuff. So you woke up hungover, doped up, and you woke up on a book going, oh, Lord, I'm going to the edge of the earth with Christopher Columbus. Right? So now the analogy continues, right? Those sailors on that boat, once they've started sailing west, are they more interested in Christopher Columbus being in the bottom of the boat, you know, helping them with the winches and with the rest of it, or are they more interested in Christopher Columbus at the tip of the boat, watching where they're going?

Yeah.

Right. And so to me, if that's that technician's strength, that's the current business model, then somebody in that company should at least be spending some of the time watching the horizon, you know, making sure that, you know, the bookkeeping is done, all the taxes are being remitted. You know, we're. We're watching our car count. Are we growing, are we shrinking? You know, there's got to be somebody doing that, and it doesn't necessarily have to be them. One of the suggestions I would make to technicians in that situation, and I have owners that are really good on the front counter, right? And they think nobody will talk to anybody else because everybody loves them and they're the best on the counter and they know how to sell stuff and their customers know them, and their customer won't trust another advisor and all that kind of stuff, right? That's a natural place to land as a. As a human being. And I'm going to suggest, as men and males, we're more challenged with our ego when it comes to this stuff, right? And so I'm going to suggest to the technician one that you've been referencing that they begin to think of, well, what happens if they want to or need to take a vacation or need to take time off for a personal matter, right? They maybe are feeling handcuffed to that business because nobody else can do what they do.

So why not look at the current team that you've got and. Or bring on a younger person and begin to create a mentor, mentee relationship with one of your technicians who's got that natural sort of gift of testing and diagnostics and begin to develop somebody so that at a certain point you have more flexibility in your life. You can maybe then take a bit more interest in the horizon and the running of the business and then keep it going. Because so again, I hope everybody listening doesn't say that they're doing wrong. I don't tell people you're doing it wrong, which is what I find so frustrating. And some of those forums that we're part of, because people will come out right out and say you're doing it wrong. I usually ask people, what are your stresses? Where do you want to be in 10 years, 15 years? You know, how are you feeling about your job? And a lot of those technician owners or advisor owners are like, if they're really honest with me, they're feeling handcuffed to that job. Right? They're feeling handcuffed to that business.

Right. And they're not taking time with their kids, you know, their summer holidays or they're, you know, doing a little cruise with a family or whatever. But here's where it ends up. And this is what I'd like these people to think about, right? It's not that you're doing it wrong, but I'd like you to consider thinking about this. Currently in a city in Canada in bc, some of my clients in the city told me that there's two shops that have been listed for sale for about two years. Okay. Based on what they've described, the shops are about the size you're working at. The owner is 65 or older.

Right. So the owners have hit that sort of stage of life. I don't know much more detail than that. But both of these owners have not been able to sell. And again, I don't know the details in terms of these specific shops, and they're closing them down end of this month and auctioning off the equipment, and that's the end of that. And those technicians and those clients, the other people are going to go have to find other shops, right? And that is because that person ended up always working in the business and not on the business. At a certain point, you are going to have to work on it if you do want to sell it, right. Otherwise, who's going to buy it if they have to be that person? Again, most people buying shops want to be able to be the manager and not have to actually fill any of the roles, right? That's where they're willing to invest money into and take them over so, like.

To talk about my new place, like we kind of touched on that was the situation of somebody was in such dire needs, if they wanted out, they had a ton of debt, they had to hire a technician to kind of come in and not only teach them how to do. To fix the cars on a more modern level, really had to bring them in and say, I don't know, after 25 years of doing this since 1991, why financially it's not working, Come and help me because I need to clear this debt so that I can walk away from this business. That's how my new employer was able to get that job. That's not an uncommon. A scenario that's going on in this industry.

Oh, my goodness. Dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of stories like that.

Yeah, but see, I find is that then when some of us now in my age group, which I'm not 65, but I'm not 25 either, right. I can look at it and go. I can see some of the key points of where it's not working financially, a lot of emotional investment and all that kind of stuff. But as soon as you start to say this is an obstacle or this is something you might think about, they immediately tell you, there's no possible way you could be right. And I'm wrong because you don't have any skin in the game.

Oh, my goodness, Jeff, that is so painful to hear. Right?

Yeah.

Oh, now if I could elaborate on that a little bit. That's the outside words that they're using to you. That's what they're saying to you, right? Because they're. They're in a very, very defensive place. Right. Protecting their ego, protect being defensive. What their brain is saying is, you can't tell me after doing this for 25 years that I couldn't figure out how to do it. Nobody else can do it.

Nobody else can do this because I. I'm a smart person. I worked hard, and I couldn't figure out. It's a. It's a psychological term called cognitive dissonance. Our brain cannot hold two opposing thoughts at the same time. Right. And so I think that these owners are just in.

In a place, and then what happens is the longer they're in that space, psychologically, the more negative they become, the more they push away their current employees and. Or business, you know, family members and stuff like that. And. And you have, you know, a lot of sad stories there. So it's getting past that objection of, I've done this for 25 years. They can't be a better way to. There may be a better way. Maybe.

Let me hear other people talk about the fact that there may be a better way, right? Which, Jeff, at the end of the day, if you watch human behavior and human beings, I mean, there's a bunch of people that have a fixed mindset. It's only going to be what it's going to be. And then there's another segment of people that have a growth mindset. I can do better, I will learn better. I've never done this before, but if somebody teaches me, I can do this right. And so sometimes some folks just get stuck in that fixed mindset, right. And usually it's desperation that gets them to break through and ask for help, right? Whether it's financial, they go through a divorce, they go through some other traumatic life event that crops up because they weren't paying attention to life. Right.

Too poured into the business, something suffers which then forces the hand of, you know, the business has all of a sudden got to be evaluated. It got to be, you know, change around. You touched on a really key point like divorce. How many times have you seen shops cause divorces?

You know, this is.

Cause it's not just we see it in the restaurant industry, but I see it so much in the shop owner. Like when I think about the, when I worked in so many family run shops and I watched the, the husband and wife working together and I go, my God, how do they go home at night?

Yeah.

And stay, you know, civil, stay successfully married. Are they really successfully married? Like, it's, it's a lot, Amory.

It is a lot. And I have to say, you know, even though I love what I do and most days are great days, I do hit roadblocks in my life. And I do have days of discouragement or whatever, a little bit down or whatever. And over the years I've kept all a segment of emails in a special box in my, on my computer. My wife suggested this to me many, many years ago. And in there are at least six emails over the last years of couples that have said to me, never mind the fact that you helped us with our shop, you saved our marriages. Now I don't do marriage counseling. I don't get involved in their relationship.

I just help them with getting the business on track. And then now they can be the people the couple that they were, you know, originally were in love with each other type thing, right? So, so I gotta tell you, those are the emails that I treasure the most. Right. I've got one guy, the Couple was doing fine overall, doing fine. But the email was I took my kids to Disney World for two weeks and I paid cash. I've never been able to do that before. Right. Like that's the kind of thing I love.

What I do, like it's some of my competitors, coaches come out, you know, really hard hitting, really challenging and really, you know, some people say I'm just a bit too gentle with people or with my clients. And I'm like, well, you can't change, I can't change who I am. That's my personality. But at the end of the day, this isn't about whether you got one number exactly right or two numbers exactly right. This is about where's your life? Like where are you at? Right. Money is something that gives you a choice what to do with your time and with your life. Right. That's all how I look at it.

So, you know, I have group members that have built their to a place where they've maxed out their building, they're maxed out the space for staff. They don't want a second or a third location. They're at a stage of life where they're, you know, the business needs to grow a little bit every year to offset inflation and they're in a mode of doing that and they're looking at a five year plan to sell it. And there's nothing wrong with that. And I got other people who've now bought their second or third location. It's what people's interest is that I coach along those lines. Because if you start asking people to do things that they're not interested in, there's no progress in the coaching.

Let me ask you, what is the biggest obstacle for a lot of shops that are failing right now? Is it emotional discounting of the transactions that are happening or is it the lack of being able to stay up on the current tech and fill that void there?

I'm going to suggest many shops are keeping up with the tech first at the expense of profitability. So they're buying the, they're buying equipment, they're trying to take training, they're trying to keep up. There is a segment that are just stuck old school, you know, working on older cars or whatever. But I'm noticing that there is a segment of shops that understand the need to keep up. Maybe not with the high end tech, but at least keep up with, you know, the next segment of cars that they're working on. Right. Usually the Aftermarket's working on 7 to 12 year old cars type of A thing, right? I mean, it's nice to move up into, into the 4 to 7 range, if possible, but 7 to 12 year range. Well, every year, you know, more, more cars get to be seven years old, right.

The, the big thing, and we all use that term emotional discounting, emotional bank account. But we have to talk about a societal issue that we have without getting off the rails here is the way our society has evolved financially, socially, and the way we're structured with cars and highways and stuff like that. Here, 30% of North Americans can't afford their car. If you take a look at the research of a household budget, right? So that means that 30% of people are financially challenged with car payments and, or if they paid the car off. You know, any bill is a big bill. You know, they're the ones that are going online to get a better price on parts. They're the ones buying their own parts, bringing it to a shop. They're the ones using some of the backyarders and that kind of a thing to get them surviving.

Right. On the flip side, 70% of people, and of course, financially, there's a range, right? There's those that are buying a new car if you're leasing a car and don't never go to a shop because they've got that kind of money. But there's this really nice middle segment that buy a car every sort of 10 years, they put money into it, they understand the value of keeping it. And these are the people that shops need to attract to be profitable. And you get a lot less emotional bank account around what you have to charge. Right. So I'm going to. I'm listening to myself speak and I'm realizing that there's about four or five directions I could take on this.

So basically a lot of the emotional bank account or discounting that we talk about is because the owners know the cost but don't understand the value.

Mm.

Right. So if you go to, let's say, for example, the keg, right. We're talking middle to high pricing and service, right? The keg steak. Right. Well, by the time we're done our own meal, the steak, the baked potato, and maybe we've chosen to have a glass of wine with it, there's a good chance with the tip, we're at a hundred bucks, right? But I can buy that steak for 15. I don't know, it depends on where you buy your meat. I can buy a baked potato pretty cheap and I can spend the time to cook it if I know how. I can buy a whole Bottle of wine and have a glass and I can do that whole meal for 20 bucks or whatever, right? That's the do it yourself way.

It's easy for human beings to understand do it yourself cooking, because generally, maybe we're not good cooks necessarily, but we all try to feed ourselves, right? But when it comes to cars, they've changed so much that you can't do as much on them as you used to. Back in the 50s, 60s and 70s, there was a lot more car aficionados back in the day. Everybody had grade 10 auto mechanics. Everybody could do their own oil changes and their own this or that or the other. And it's now gotten to a point where you can't, right? So you have to decide if you are in a business to be profitable, to pay your people really good salaries and that have really good benefits for them. And that means that you're going to need to attract the driving public from the top 70% of society, right? And also understand that they see value in looking after the car. They don't necessarily know the cost. So I don't know current numbers today.

I googled it recently to find out. I know back in the day I had this fancy Motorola Starcraft cell phone flip phone that cost me 400 bucks. And I ran across an article that said Those phones cost $25 to make, right? So I was looking up what an iPhone cost because everybody lines up for the latest iPhone, which is Now, I believe, $1,600 for the latest or something like that. Apparently the average iPhone costs between 2 and $400 to make, right? But people still buy them. And what's happening is the shop owners are the 2 to $400 cost, the part and the service, the labor. And not understanding that the client's very happy to pay for the full pot because they. That's how it works. That's how our financial world works, right? That's where the profitability comes in.

I hope that helps. I kind of went a couple of directions with that answer because it's.

And I start to use that phrase more and more about value, right? Like I used to say it was my price or my cost. And now I'm like, people are not going to undervalue me as a person, as a technician, what I bring, this is my value. This is what I will not work for. Less than, right? Yes, that's my value. But it's, it's. So when I start to use that word more and more, how much it bleeds over into the other scenarios that I talk about in my life, about where people are saying, I want a repair for a certain amount, dollar wise, I want a repair done, I want my brakes done for $400. Well, you can get a $400 break job, but is it going to have much value to you? Well, it all depends on where you place your value. If you place Your value and SA you, it has high value, if you don't place your value on brakes that last, brakes that perform well, brakes that don't squeak dust, you're not going to get value.

It's all depends. And that's where we suck so much in this industry. And trying to have the conversation of what is actually your goal with your transaction today with your car, what is it about?

Right?

Like, and we look at these new, the drive on thing that's come out with the safety systems that is going and you're having a very big serious conversation with some of these customers when you're like, I want to safety this car before I sell it. Right. And it's, well, what is the value there? You've already missed it. Unfortunately, the car is not in the condition that you thought it was in. Value of the car is way different than the reality. And here's why. Now I struggle with that. I really do.

Because it's like my value of it is way different than the consumer sitting on the other side of the counter from me.

Yeah, exactly.

I have to try and I'm always trying to teach what I think is value to this vehicle versus what you're. What you're.

And I appreciate that, Jeff, because really, at the end of the day, the driving public needs this type of education. Right. And it's an uphill battle. You know, we're only going to reach a certain percentage over the years. And I get that we're not going to have a blanket educating people, but this idea that they can buy it, put a key in and start it and run it until, you know, until it breaks or until whatever and that it's still going to be worth a certain amount of money. I mean that's just a delusion that so many of them have, right. That whole idea of depreciation as opposed to looking after something like, you know, if you think of farming back in the, in the day, right. The early 19, well, you know, they used horses.

Well, even the youngest child in the household knew how to keep a horse healthy because that meant they were going to eat. Yes, right. And we've lost that in our society. So, you know, when I talk about RPM results, performance mastery One technician, one service wiser, one owner at a time. I'm suggesting to my clients that they're working with one client at a time to educate them on how to look after a car. And that's all a shop has to do is worry about the people that call them up and walk them through how to look after a car. Doing a good job of doing that, educating them on, you know, again, don't over technical, that kind of thing like that, but just where it's appropriate. Educate people on the best way to look after a car and, and get the most value out of that car, make it last a long time.

The challenge on that one, Jeff, is a lot of shops are so busy with the small stuff that they've used to get people in the door that they're actually not taking the time with the vehicle and with the client to actually educate them about weight that vehicle could need. And we, you know, we used to live in the big city of Vancouver. We were clients of a shop for five years that because we had been in Surrey before that anyways, for five years that I had coached and trained, our experience was textbook in terms of being clients of a place. You know, we didn't call up the shop and say, hey, I'd like to book in an oil change. The first few years we would call up the shop and say, hey, what's the car due for? Because they were keeping records of it, right. And they would tell us what it was due for and then we would book it for what it was due for, not an oil change. So it would, of course it would get an oil change, but it would be like the cabin air filter and the air filter, one visit. Another visit would be the, the front rear wiper blades and maybe a GDI service.

It's a, it's a Volkswagen, right. And then another visit, maybe it was due for the serpentine belt or something, right. Eventually they got to a point in the last two years before we moved away where they would email us or text us a reminder of a tentative appointment that had been set based on the driving habits that we had for what it was due for. And it was so slick to be looked after that way because we always knew the condition of the car. We. Inspections, deferred work. We were always being explained what to plan for. We could ask hard questions about is this important or why should we do this right.

Stuff like that. And it was, it was a pleasure to do that. I moved to a small town here. I've tried several shops. I have to tell you they're hard working, they're honest. But because I've now moved to the interior of B.C. where there's a lot more winter and a lot more winter tires, they're so busy changing over winter tires that they don't even ask if I have other concerns. Yeah, they don't even do an inspection.

And so what ends up happening is after I was there for a tire changeover and luckily I squeezed an oil change in at the same time so I didn't have to come back. It was in fall, last fall, two weeks after the defrost on my truck wasn't clearing the inside of the windshield very good. And I know, you know, I, I know a little about vehicles still. I don't do any work my own, but I'm like, you know what that is? I bet you that's my cabin air filter.

Yeah.

So you know what I did? Went to the parts because on my truck it's really easy to change. I googled it and there was it. And I went to the part store and bought my own cabin airfield and changed it. That shop caused me to do it. To be a do it yourselfer.

Yes.

Whereas if they would have said, hey, based on your mileage in our inspection, you need a cabin air filter, I would have been happy to get the cabin air filter done. And they get a little this. Three weeks later, the wipers were streaky because now the rain, the rains and the ice started up a little bit more and. And on and on.

Yeah. But see, nothing drives me crazier than a technician that works for so long as incentivized. When I see an appointment made at the counter for tire swap. Right. As an example, or brake complaint, and I pull the car in and the decal is telling me it's 1000km overdue for an oil change, the cluster is lit up saying services due. And it frustrates me to no end because the person at the counter didn't ask detect the customer. I came up a long time ago, Murray, thinking that the customer was going to come to the counter fully prepared and say also do, because there's too many things on their mind. But it would be crazy when I would look at a service writer and go, do you not ask these questions? Yeah.

No. Well, then I'm sorry, Sally, you're probably paid too much if you don't think that these are important questions to be asked. Bonus, right, is to be able to. Why do you want to have them come back next week for an oil change when you have them here? Today for tires.

Exactly. And you know what Jeff? You've nailed it. The. This is, this is one of the key challenges of the aftermarket. In fact, this is the key challenge. No matter where you take your car in North America, dealer included is the advisor staff ownership and. And technicians to a degree. But advisor staff and ownership assume that customers know what they want and need.

Right. And as soon as we respectfully assume that this person is clueless and we start from that point and build up everybody's life gets better. The technicians get better information from the advisor. The advisors get better information from the client. The advisor, the client has a better experience throughout and gets a better result on their vehicle because they've talked about how many times is a comeback, not a technician comeback but a miscommunicated thing that wasn't asked about by you know, the customer will say well ever since my car was in it's doing this.

Yeah. 95 time. 95 of the time. My opinion the, the comeback is because the job was not completed. Like there was more than one issue or.

Exactly.

And, and it falls down to is because it's like I have this problem with my car. Actually you have two problems with your car or you have a problem of a much bigger scope than what you the layman versus me, the expert. Understand. I find nothing stress this is nothing is a bigger waste of time for me than to have to go back. You and I talked when we were at sema. We talked about cheap parts.

Yeah.

Happens is sometimes Murray, as we look at these different levels of parts now and we look at the car and we go that's a 12 year old Toyota. They're probably not going to keep it much longer. I'm going to put the cheap part in. And I on the other side of the, of the equation as a technician go that's a 12 year old Toyota. That may be they're planning to drive it for another four years. I want to put part in it that I possibly can and this is where I struggle. You and I discussed this at length when I was there. It starts with little things like that.

Making the assumption based on the customer's address in the local community.

Right.

The condition of the car. They must not have any money. They must not want to spend any money on this car. It's such a stupid.

And. And you're actually placing a level of liability on the shop and on the technician by being that way.

Yeah.

Because you can't assume anything. Doctors, doctors have to treat you in Canada the same way whether you have lots of money or not. And if they don't, they're up for a malpractice. Right. And so we can't be that way. We have to treat everybody the same. And then after we've discussed what their vehicle needs with them and presented them with their choices, then they make an educated decision. And that's what we work with them together.

At that point, they're going to be keeping the car for a long time and they're going to go for a top end part. They are going to be keeping it for a bit, but they don't know for sure. So maybe we'll go with a middle grade. Well, that's not ever going to the cheapest grade because you just never know how that thing's going to hold up. Right. I had the real cool privilege of getting a new chiropractor in the last year and you know, it's very easy to walk into a chiropractor and say, you know, this part of my back hurts or this part of my leg hurts, you know, and then they just do their adjustment and you walk out the door. And this young fella spent a half an hour watching me walk, lifting one leg, the other leg, asking me questions, what do I do for a living? What kind of a chair do I use? Do I have a standing desk? Like all these other kind of questions before he even touched me. Yeah, right.

And to me, that's what we should be doing with people is asking them. And the thing is, the driving public is nervous to bring their car to a shop because we ask them questions they don't know the answer to. We have to ask them questions that they can answer. How does your vehicle feel to you? You can answer a feeling question.

Yes.

Right. So that's the area where really good advisors are just gems to helping us get that information for the technician. And this is another reason why people, you know, keep asking to talk to the technician because nobody at that shop is asking the questions that they should be asking to prevent the need for that person to talk to the tech. Right.

So if you have a shop, Murray, and you see that the service advisor calling the technician up to the talk to the customer a lot of the time, you know what I mean? Or straight to the horse. That's, that's something you should probably get right in front of as a problem right away. Right?

Exactly 100.

Yeah.

The only time we should be calling a technician up is if it's appointment based for drivability or symptoms. And we, the client says, I'm going to be there at 8. The technician's first job is to be at the counter at 8. They go for a test drive with the client. It's part of the paid diagnostic fee. It's not free. And that's where that interaction would happen. But other than that, now the advisor needs to get them, the ownership needs to get the advisors educated so that they can ask these questions.

And here's, here's the beautiful thing. People over the years have asked me, oh, I need advisors that have automotive knowledge. You know, I, I need a, you can't find people that are good with customers and have automotive knowledge. And I da, da, da, da, da. They would put off and put off. I'm going to suggest the last five years for sure. The best advisors that I'm seeing, and we're talking in terms of client experience, Google reviews and profitability all combined, are people that have come from outside of the industry.

Yes.

Because they know how to listen. Because they don't know how, don't have as much automotive knowledge. They're actually on an even playing field with their customers.

Yeah.

But they know how to say, hey, listen, I'm going to go talk to my head tech and I'll be right back. Or they know how to go educate themselves. Like, this is a little old school, but one day came up to me and said, Marie, what's this, this thing about CV axles and these boots that tear and the, and grease gets out and sand gets in and, and you know, I want to, I want to be educated when I tell people that the fact that they need these axles, like she needed to get her head around it. And she said, and we were rebuilding axles back in the day, right. We were still, you know, obviously we were buying rebuilts when we could. A lot of times we were rebuilding them, buying the boots and the whole bed and house. Right. And she said, can I go watch Earl go rebuild this axle one time just so I get a feel for what, what he's talking about.

She had no interest in learning how to fix cars and she did that over time with each system of the car. Well, now we have YouTube. Like, I'm not talking about the flaky YouTube, I'm talking about really good YouTube and other resources where advisors can go and understand a differential. Right. They can understand hydraulics, they can understand the basics of atmosphere, but because they're not former technicians, they're on an even playing field and the clients feel so comfortable with them and it's so authentic that they just tend to open their Wallets, that's a really negative term. They're more comfortable spending money with the shop. Right. Because of that conversation, I gotta tell.

You, at the previous employer I was at, we did a little couple days where I shadowed the advisor for a day. I sat out in the front office and watched the interaction go down between the customer and the advisor all day long. So I could better appreciate that facet.

Yeah.

And trying to get that advisor to come out into the shop and shadow me for a day to see what the exact reality of what it is that I might face with trying to get to the root of a diagnostic problem with no information to go on, with nothing written down. Watch me spend 20 minutes trying to find a wheel lock key in a car because we did not ask the customer. You know what I mean? These, these challenges that we as a technician face every day in a. In the bay was trying to get them to come out, was automatically like, I don't want to know how to fix cars. This is not about fixing a car. This is understanding each other's role within.

Exactly.

You know, I think that's what we need to all be pushing more of. Not necessarily like they have to shadow for a week, but they, they can better understand my obstacles and my frustrations when they actually see how many times I might go through the same. I don't want to use the term mistake, but when the process could be tweaked and we're following the old process because. And we're doing it multiple times a day, how much time adds up that could have been better suited doing something?

Exactly. Yeah. You know, I mean, I have a client that has a whole locking wheel key procedure. First time a client visits for the first time with that shop, they, they do an introduction, they do a walk around on the car. They then ask the client, you know, they look at the wheels and they, you know, they check to see if it's got locking wheel keys. They talk to the client about, you know, the fact that this vehicle has it and were they aware of it. They identify where the locking wheel key is. They agree, the advisor and the owner agree that it's going to be stored where it's going to be stored together.

And then every appointment after that, the advisor gets the locking wheel key. They have a protective bag so it doesn't make the seat dirty and they put it on the passenger seat seat. Technician does their thing, they park the car, it's left on the seat. Advisor does one final walk around for fingerprints and stuff. And this is not a, I'M doing this behind your back. This is part of their culture. Right. Like the technicians appreciate that somebody's given the car one more look over and then the locking wheel key is put away.

So technicians in that shop never look for a wheel key.

Yeah.

Ever. Right.

And it sounds like such a foreign concept, but I'll tell you, 15 years ago when I was at the dealership, they made the process where it had to be in the cup holder when it was. By the time it left the so big dealership, drive up service. Right. Drive through bays. By the time it was at the back door, the technicians never had to look for it because it was the advisor's job to have that conversation with customer, say, where is the key? Okay. You don't have a key because you got to remember at the dealership they might be at Canadian Tire for their tires and then they. The dealership for a repair.

Yeah.

Based on a warranty, I don't have their key. Not every dealership has a master set. Regardless of what they. That's a whole other conversation. So. Yeah.

Oh, I didn't know that. I assumed they all did. Okay. That's good to know.

One in the parts if it's been all stocked up and kept up and you know what I mean. Other dealerships, they give a master set to every technician. So there's a master. Every tech has a master set. But that's not always the case. Either way, we didn't end up at the back ever having to look for a key because if the customer didn't have the key, we didn't have the master, the repair didn't get done and then they. It was on them to go and find where they left the key at home or wherever. Or extra time was immediately added to the work order to get the locking keys off before the repair can proceed.

It's little conversations like that that sped up the process of getting car count through every day because we didn't drop the ball at the service advisor counter.

And my approach in coaching and measuring and all the stuff I do the first.

If You Feel Handcuffed To Your Job, Murray Voth Is Here To Help

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