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Joshua Taylor Says The Repair Industry Has a Leadership and Accountability Problem
Joshua Taylor Says The Repair Industry Has a Leadership and Accountability Problem
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About this episode
Joshua Taylor discusses the leadership and accountability issues plaguing the automotive repair industry. He emphasizes the need for technicians and leaders to hold each other accountable for performance and communication. The conversation highlights the importance of care and appreciation in the workplace, as well as the impact of mental health on technicians. Taylor shares insights from his experiences at the National Automotive Dealers Association (NADA) event, advocating for a stronger technician presence and better leadership practices to improve the industry's culture and retention rates.
Topics:
leadership accountability
mental health
technician retention
NADA insights
workplace culture
communication
appreciation
career development
industry challenges
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In this episode, Jeff is joined by Joshua Taylor. Joshua says accountability is important for both technicians and management to have a successful business. He and Jeff also discuss the disconnect between pay and job satisfaction, uncovering that care, empathy, and validation are often more significant than financial compensation. They also uncover the alarming mental health statistics within the automotive industry.
00:00 NADA Conference Insights
07:50 "Lack of Technician-Focused Tech Solutions"
12:24 "Technician Shortage and Dealership Challenges"
20:48 Comeback Strategy in Auto Shops
23:14 Work Order Communication Challenges
27:16 Raising Accountability Standards
36:13 Unicorn Productivity: Unrealistic Shop Standards
38:21 "Maximizing Team Potential Gradually"
44:31 "Ownership in Decision-Making"
52:49 Technicians' Pay Vs. Job Satisfaction
54:52 Parts Counter Frustration
01:01:30 Persistent Communication on Equipment Damage
01:06:39 High Demand for Skilled Workers
01:11:17 Seeking Validation: A Men's Issue
01:20:41 "Beyond Pay: Valuing Technicians"
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Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Hyundai Sonata
"... you today was today, this morning is you be into Sonata national, correct me on the National Automotive D..."
Car
Ford Mustang
"...nd, and he had a, he was a young kid, really fast Mustang. He was a car guy, wanted to be a technician and ..."
NADA Conference Insights
"Lack of Technician-Focused Tech Solutions"
"Technician Shortage and Dealership Challenges"
Comeback Strategy in Auto Shops
Work Order Communication Challenges
Raising Accountability Standards
Unicorn Productivity: Unrealistic Shop Standards
"Maximizing Team Potential Gradually"
"Ownership in Decision-Making"
Technicians' Pay Vs. Job Satisfaction
Parts Counter Frustration
Persistent Communication on Equipment Damage
High Demand for Skilled Workers
Seeking Validation: A Men's Issue
"Beyond Pay: Valuing Technicians"
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has led to our tolerance of poor leadership. We don't raise to our highest level of training or ambition. We fall to the level of our tolerance. If we tolerate poor leadership, it flourishes. If we tolerate poor workmanship, it flourishes. Yeah, it becomes a standard rate either guess what happens. You get a top 20% store with a top 20% crew making top 20% money. Foreign.
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another exciting episode of the Jaden Mechanic podcast. I'm sitting here with a good friend reoccurring guest who is. Is. Yeah, we have a lot in common. He's a fellow Canadian like me and a man with an absolutely excellent beard who we are now brothers within the Bearded Brotherhood. Shout out to Mr. Josh Parnell for putting us on the team and sending us some great products. Love them.
Joshua Taylor, how are you this morning, my brother?
I am spectacular. I am absolutely spectacular. One of the things that this is not a sponsored show, but this is definitely an affiliate show because you too can get a box like this full of goodies. And whilst I have opened it, I have not done an unboxing of mine yet either. I gotta, I gotta show that so that I can show you guys and I can show everybody else because this stuff is really awesome.
I tried it the last week and the stuff is fantastic. For people that don't know or maybe aren't familiar with the brand, Bearded Brotherhood is. Is all organic, all natural beard oils, beard balms, that kind of stuff. Product from a fantastic friend of ours, Josh Pernell, who's with the limited leadership Limitless leadership podcast, business coach for our industry. And Josh, he's you. You meet a lot of technicians, you meet a lot of people in the industry and I meet a lot of technicians in a lot in the industry. There's a lot of really amazing beards in our industry, isn't there?
100%, I think personal opinion. I have beard. There's only one beard that I have the most envy of. And whilst self grooming aside, I think the best beard on camera so that I know that it exists, is Charles Sandville, the humble mechanic himself. I think he has the best beard. I think of all of us. There are a few that knock on the door. Yours is very close to there.
Yeah, I'm trying to think of who else I know. Weston. Weston Champlin. His is. He's got a big old beard, but he's a big old boy too. Yeah, I'm just trying to think who else has. Has an epic beard.
So his name escapes me right now. And I Have not met him in person. But the gentleman from Gas Monkey that left Gas Monkey to Go, he was Richard's number one mechanic first couple of seasons and then left.
Oh, yeah.
Aaron Kaufman.
Aaron Kaufman. Yep.
Great beer. I can tell you that when I sat down with Charles at Seaman Apex because, you know, of course he has a fantastic. I, I don't experience too much Bearden because, I mean, it's whatever people want to rock is their business. But I mean, I'm sitting there across from the table from Charles and I'm like, there's a gold beard right there. Like, that's where I'm. They get mine too. So. Yeah, you know, you've interviewed him.
He's a great guy. What I wanted to talk to you today was today, this morning is you be into Sonata national, correct me on the National Automotive Dealers Association. Is that what that is? Okay. You attended a trip there. I don't want to say too recently, but you've been fill us in on that because for, for some of my listeners that are are going to be dealer guys, maybe they haven't even heard of this organization. People that are, that are in the, you know, aftermarket side of things that don't know, maybe don't even care. What, what was it for you to attend? You've been there a couple times now and what did you do there? What did you say? What did you think? What's it make you feel like when you're there? Josh?
So nada is a. Is an interesting. So there's nada is the organization itself, right? National Automotive Dealers Association. It's a, it's an organization itself. I think any dealer can be part of the association. I don't think there's a restriction to Canadian or Mexican or American. I don't think it's just American. So there's lots of members of the organization itself.
They host a show every year. And the way it goes is it's in a city. I think there's about five or six cities that can go to. It's in a city and then it's in Vegas. It's in a city and then it's in Vegas. So my first show three years ago. So I've been to three, three years in a row. The first show three years ago was in Dallas.
Nice.
My first introduction to the Na Nada show, as I think natashow.com I think is the actual website, if you want to go take a look at see what, what that looks like. It was overwhelming to say the least. My first time around it's always sometime near the end of January, beginning of February, something like that. So I was expecting to go to Dallas and it'd be warm because it. And it wasn't. As a Canadian, I was expecting a journey down to Texas to be warm. And it wasn't. It was super cold.
But I digress. But it was super overwhelming because there's somewhere between 400 and 600 vendors there every year. And if you've ever been to a trade show of any kind, they're usually quite overwhelming. There's usually lots and lots of people. But when you fill the entirety of a conference center in a major metroplex like Dallas, you can imagine that 500 is actually a small number because when you walk in and the first thing you see is Cox Automotive. And they have what they call a village every year via Cox Automotive. If you don't know who Cox Automobile, Cox Automotive owns cdk. Like the largest dms.
Yeah, basically. Period. And they, they have what's called Cox Village for all of their products.
I gotta go punch my dog. One sec.
So, Cox Village. Yeah, Cox Village. So every year they do effectively the same kind of thing. But we're talking like when booths are sold typically to vendors to showcase their, their wares, their service, their products, whatever. At NADA, we're talking. They usually sell by like 10 by 10, 10 by 20, 20 by 20 sizes. We're talking like 300 by 300. So you can imagine the expense that's incurred plus all of the people, plus all the build out, blah, blah, blah.
So 500 really isn't necessarily that many because you could have a whole lot more because there's a whole bunch of these kinds of villages for large service providers. So that becomes a bit overwhelming. So there's thousands of people. Year over year. It, it gets a little bit different, a little bit more innovative in certain circumstances. Over year over year, there's been. Definitely from three years ago to this year, there's way more media attention. So I really tried to capitalize on that as much as I possibly could as somebody who likes to walk around with a camera and trying to film and record an interview like you and I both do.
Both do. So I really tried to capitalize on that this year. So I went to. The first year was Dallas. The second year I went to was Vegas. Vegas is bigger in that it's functionally home base. There's a lot going on in Vegas. There was a lot going along in Vegas.
There was a lot happening, a lot to do. It's really. And to get into the deep end of this. In the tech, there's really not a lot of tech focus. Yeah, I don't mean technology, I mean technicians. There really isn't a lot of technician focus. The brands and companies and vendors that do tech things, for example recruitment like Hyrology, like software like My Karma, or even DMS providers like CDK or service focused things like Time AI by Chameleon limited or Dynatron that really do service focused software things like companies such as Snap on or Matco or Sonic Tools, they are really there to pitch to GMs and corporate fixed ops directors. They're not putting on content for technicians.
I think subsequently it's because we as technicians don't go, we aren't taken and we generally don't go. It's an expensive ticket. I believe this year's ticket was like $1800American. I think, to get into the event for the four days, I believe. And then you're talking about four days of hotel, four days of food, four days and then obviously flights for most people. So it doesn't matter whether New Orleans, which it was this year, Vegas last year, or Dallas the year before. It's quite an expense in some regard. I'm blessed that I had the opportunity to have some of those expenses taken care of by other other brands and businesses.
So I got to go. And this year was even more difficult because going to New Orleans again, as a Canadian, I expected to go from winter in January to yes, it's winter in New Orleans, but it's New Orleans. It's literally on the Gulf of what is now Gulf of America. But they got like 18 inches of snow.
Yeah.
The day everybody's supposed to leave to start traveling to this event. And they have, they don't have snow plows, they don't have those kinds of things in New Orleans. So it was, it was unorganized chaos that ensued. And I, if I understand the numbers that are being rumored to be published in some capacity, I think it's rumor only, but somewhere in the neighborhood of 70. Less attendance this year than, than ever before really, than it was supposed to. It was shown on, on the event floor because last year the, the year before in Vegas, it's just people. Like it's just people. And this year you could walk around, there was gaps and opening.
You can see some of the content that I published. There was, there's lots of room for people to be everywhere. There wasn't large queues for everything there. There wasn't a lack of water at one of the, the small little convenience stores in the middle of the event floor, they didn't run out of water like they did in Vegas. At one of the places that I went to, we just, we got no water. We got no water. It happens. It's a large event.
You don't necessarily package properly. But that wasn't the case this year in Snola. So being very specific about technician stuff at nada, there is vendors there for technician stuff, for service stuff, for part stuff. There is. However, many of those vendors are quite small or don't send a lot of things or people to nada because there isn't as many service minded GMs attending the event. And that is very poignant in the content that's published there as well. From what I hear from you, Jeff, and from Lucas and from those that have attended events like APEX and asta, it's a, those are very technician, very service focused events. NADA is very variable focused.
Do I think that needs to change a hundred percent? Because NADA is a very dealer focused event along with other, other events like Niada, events like sema, events like Apex could be dealer minded in some capacity, though it's typically more aftermarket and independent focused. I think NADA needs to have more tech presence and I think the only way to, for that to happen is if we make it happen.
I think what you're and what is really telling us, you talk, it's, it's a, I can see it as a parallel because a lot of dealers, I want to feel at least from my outside looking in anymore, because that's not my life anymore, is that they're not technician focused in the sense that yes, we have technicians in the bays and yes we have cars coming in every day and we fix them. But like I was kind of asking you before we got on here, are they grasping the severity of the shortage? And now we, you know, I have talked in the past. Is the shortage really as big as it is? I don't think it's quite as big as it is. I think what it is is we have some people that could move but aren't. And I'll share a story with you later on about a gentleman who finally he messaged me and he says, hey, I'm leaving my dealership after how many years I'm going to an independent. He was at the end of independent one month. The culture was not what he was expecting, not what he thought it should be. And the dealer finally got off their wallet and threw the money at the problem to bring him back.
So when I kind of look at these things and you say this to me is like, what I feel is that a lot of people are not grasping, especially in the dealer side of things, they're not grasping the severity of what it actually means when you can't put a technician in every bay. Am I wrong on that, Josh?
Or I. No, this really comes down to the thing that I've been preaching for the last three years. And it comes down to two things. Technician accountability. Holding ourselves accountable for our own actions and our own capabilities and our own actual experience and training and knowledge. Holding ourselves accountable to what we can and can't do and what we can and cannot ask for. And the opposite side of that coin is do we actually have a high value leader leading the team who actually cares about the team?
Yeah.
Simon Sinek said it best is leaders are people who are no longer doing the job. They are in charge of the people doing the job. They are literally supposed to care for the team. That is their job. Especially as a middle manager, not as a GM or a fixed ops director who's over a large team. They're about the business, not about the people. Even though it's about the people they're looking at ahead. They're looking at 6, 12, 18 months down the road.
How can we optimize this business? What piece of software is going to help us get better? Or what piece of software do we need to cut because it's not doing anything? Where is the 1 or 2% gross that we can find by optimizing a process? That's what those high level leaders should be doing. The mid level leaders should be. What is our team doing? How can we take care of our team to optimize processes? What do I have to provide to my team in order for them to win more? Because when they win more, the business wins more.
Yeah.
When you have a technician and a service, as we're speaking specifically about fixed right now, when you have a technician, a service advisor and a parts advisor that are cared for by a service manager or a parts manager or a fixed manager, everybody wins.
Yep.
Because when you care for somebody, you're hold, you hold them for accountable for the good stuff and you also hold them accountable for the bad stuff. It's just, it's one of the other. You have to hold them accountable for everything, not just the bad stuff. And I think that's where we've gotten super focused on in the last 30 to 40 years because it's much easier to track the bad stuff than it is the good stuff. Oh, it's significantly more easy to track the bad stuff than the good stuff. Right. Because you can literally put in. We were talking about this this morning on Service Drive Live.
We're building a comeback process in on Service Drive Live right now. It's like 18 pages long. It's like complete. We're trying to get really complete with this. From BDC to service advisor to technician to shop foreman to exit process, we're trying to build it so that it doesn't matter where it happens in the process. Any leader, any technician can read it and start to understand what has to happen, what needs to be said, what way it needs to be said. So our communication improves the things that we need to say and do to make sure the guest feels they're being taken care of so they actually get their challenge or situation resolved. That's the same thing that a technician, service advisor, and a parts advisor needs to feel from their leadership.
How am I being taken care of? You could put a comeback opcode on a work order, and it's very easy to track. But guess what? If you go back to the original work order, was there seven lines on it? Yes. Was there seven lines on it? Okay, that's fine. You got an oil change, tire rotation, injection flush, customer concern. And let's say there was an alignment or entire balance, whatever. So they won six times. They won six times out of seven. And now it's come back because something else occurred.
Yeah.
They're gonna get accountability on the thing that didn't work, but no accountability on the six things that they won on that work order. The original time, doing your job.
If you got the six right. That was just your job. That's what I paid for.
It was. It was just your job you're doing. But the appreciation is part of the accountability. So when we're talking about high level, I think the basis of the conversation is about nada. And how are dealers looking at the technicians? How are they looking at potentially the shortage and things of that nature? It comes down to accountability, and it's a circle. Technicians holding ourselves accountable and leaderships holding themselves accountable. Because then it becomes the circle. When we hold each other accountable and ourselves accountable, the whole system works.
Because then we care.
Yeah. Yeah. And I can tell you back in the day, if you start something as a comeback, to me, it was immediate, trigger, warning, like, you were probably going to have me at your elbow at the. At the service desk in five minutes, and I was probably going to be cussing you because, like, I Worked really hard to not have a comeback. Right? Or. And it might be. Here's what it is. Mrs.
Smith might have had an intermittent thing and it wasn't happening. Last Wednesday, when it came in, when Mrs. Smith had her appointment and I, we had a clear conversation and communication of maybe we did the software update that seemed like it might fix the similar issue that Mrs. Smith was complaining about. But now today it's here and it's actually doing it. Well, if you play that, you know where you start as a comeback, you're gonna watch me, like, get really angst. So that's what it was like for me. It was always a negative word.
Now, I had other guys that played it the other way. Like, they just saw it as another opportunity to make money. They just was like, if they were heavy on the selling repairs to fix the problem, you know, and I'm talking like, oh, no, this time it needs struts, Josh. Like, we put links in it, but it's still got an intermittent noise. I guess I'm selling our struts. That was kind of how they approached it. I don't. I never approached the job that way.
So when it come back came in, it was a comeback of always. It was like, couldn't duplicate the fault, ran out of time, needed the car back. Right? That kind of thing. The kind of stuff we have. So when I would immediately see it start as that, right? There's something that is going into that check column of. We can track Mr. Compton's look. He had seven comebacks.
There's always the second side of the story that I always as accountability took and said, you guys don't know the other side of the story. Here's the. Because it was just not documented, right? We didn't. Some of that falls on me. We didn't always write the best notes to say customer needed by five, you know, hadn't been able to duplicate perform software update which may fix shutter complaint, but may not. Yada, yada, yada, it comes back. That's where, you know, for us technicians when we see that, where it's just like, okay, so we need to really buckle down and track these kind of metrics where some of us just immediately go, you know, and check out. Because we're.
We're. You know, you're. You're. I don't want to say Josh is like playing a game, but it is playing a game. We all have to play the game. It is a circle. You're right. That's always was like, what angered me.
You know, because Again, let's, let's be very specific here. One of the challenges with comebacks is that many shops, in my opinion, are doing it wrong. Because if, if you work on a car and for whatever reason, whether it's a day, a week, a month, several months, it could be as many, many months as a year. And certain brands and, and certain franchises have certain policies based on comebacks, meaning, you know, if it's outside of 5,000 miles or six months, it can't be a comeback. Well, I, I don't believe that to be true because it can be a comeback at any time for anything. Because one cause and effect, right? So anytime the vehicle comes back, the original technician should never get it first. Ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. And there are some shops that cannot do that, I understand that, but those are few and far between.
But the, the offending. We'll, we'll use that word. The offending technician should never get the vehicle back first. And the reason being is perhaps it's a perspective problem. That's it. Perhaps it's a perspective problem. So a senior tech, somebody with lots of experience or a foreman or a QC or a service manager needs to spend time with the customer and the car to really, really, really isolate the challenge between the customer, the car, and what was actually set on the work order and what was actually repaired. Yeah, because it might simply be something as simple as the technician didn't actually understand what was being said.
And I recall. Well, let's go back a little bit. Many, many moons ago, I heard this sentence and I, I'm not, I'm gonna get it wrong because I'm going to tell you the sentence and then you're going to understand what I mean by, by this, by this material. And we're going to get back to the, the point of the conversation, which is, are dealers really thinking about technicians or are shop owners really thinking about technicians? The phrase is, I didn't say we had to kill him. Depending on where you emphasize in the sentence, changes the sentence. I didn't say we had to kill him. I didn't say we have to kill him. Yeah, I didn't say we have to kill him.
That's right.
So that, functionally speaking, on a work order can be the difference between repairing the vehicle successfully, repairing the wrong thing on the vehicle successfully, or not repairing the vehicle at all. That is a challenge that we as technicians face every single day. And unfortunately, it doesn't matter how skilled, how experienced, or how knowledgeable we are, we can still get it wrong. Because that communication challenge can still exist because we're still talking about a purple telephone incident where you have the car making a problem of some description and then a customer trying to describe a problem with a car which we all know that customers are really technically savvy and capable of describing every noise or complaint accurately. We know that. Right. And then they're trying to describe it adequately to a service advisor who, as we know, are 100% technically capable of describing every noise or complaint accurately. And then they're trying to take that verbal into a written form of communication in a digital manner.
And we all know that they are really, really well endowed in that technically savvy writing capability on a work order. And then we're trying to give it through to a technician who typically, and I'm speaking for many of us here, we are really well read and very great readers of things turning that back into something verbal and back into the car that we then have to duplicate. So we're already six layers deep of probably not getting it right.
Yeah.
So it doesn't matter how educated, trained or experienced we are, we can still get it wrong. So that's where I get back to accountability and high value leadership of people who care. And at Nada, bringing back for Full Circle, there are brands and vendors and companies and dealerships that care. Do I get to use my 8020 rule? Absolutely. Because there is an obvious portion of companies and brands and vendors and dealerships that care and there's obviously a group that don't. I give you a couple of examples. I got. I was blessed with the opportunity to spend almost three solid hours at the My Karma booth at Nada.
I got to speak with the group of product developers and product managers of the product at My Karma. The reason why I got that opportunity is because I had Josh Arnold on my show with which was then the only reason I got Josh Arnold on my show and I'll give you a reason why here in a second is because somebody reached out. Hey, I know how much you want to support and talk to technicians and this person came across the mic. We're supporting Mike Karma in this way from a PR standpoint. They ran a video MPI challenge and this individual won. Would you like to have him on your show? Absolutely. I want to have this individual on my show. That's Josh Arnold.
He's now in my sweaty leader group chat. He's now been on the show, he's now published and that turns circle into My Karma and spending some time with them. My Karma is really focused on trying to make things better for technicians. They understand that we don't want to do video MPIs. They know that, but they also know that it's like a 33% lift in work order monies when video MPIs are done properly. They know that customer retention goes up when video MPIs are done properly. They know and see the data that the delta between doing a video MPI on every vehicle, even if you're not paid, the delta difference, meaning the amount of time that you spend doing the video versus the amount of upsell that you make per work order, the delta is still positive, which means it makes sense for us to do them even if we don't make any money on that particular work order. Yeah, they're there to help us.
And all of the video MPI platforms, while some of them are a little bit different and operate a little bit different and, and so on and so forth, they're there to help us. So I put it back to us as technicians. We can be better. We can hold ourselves to a higher. Hold ourselves accountable to a higher standard. Because the second thing that that does is when we start holding ourselves to a higher standard, holding our communication capability to a higher standard, holder our ability to remove emotion from a moment and not be triggered by a comeback. When we hold ourselves to a higher level standard, it means we also hold our leaders to a higher accountability. One of the things that has come up through coaching in the last three years, which I'm not doing a whole lot of it anymore because it's really, really, really hard to do with my schedule, is the lack of accountability has led to our tolerance of poor leadership.
Mm.
We don't raise to our highest level of training or ambition. We fall to the level of our tolerance. If we tolerate poor leadership, it flourishes. If we tolerate poor workmanship, it flourishes.
Yeah, it becomes a standard tolerate either.
Guess what happens. You get a top 20% store with a top 20% crew making top 20% money. It's. It's just math. It's just math. And that's the cool thing about, you know, doing a survey and doing the coaching and doing the content. You start to get feedback from lots of things and you start to see the things that fall into place. People who attend meetings, people who attend shows, people who attend events, people who seek out additional training.
People from both sides, both leadership and technician. You start to see the technicians who are making stupid amounts of money. It's like, wait a minute, this technician is clipping 200k US a year. Interesting. What are they doing differently than the technician that's doing 40k a year? Yeah, the technician who does 200k a year or clipping 200k a year doesn't complain, doesn't bitch, doesn't whine, doesn't moan. Genuinely speaking, at least from my outside looking in, has every single training known to God and man from that brand, has outside training from every place that they can possibly consume it from, is on the wait list for every. Like, they know the trainer that can get into the latest gen product training. They also know trainers and people and vendors outside of their store that can get them either into training or certifications or to events that can make them more knowledgeable.
The technician that makes 40 to 50 grand is the one that typically, not always, but typically is the one that isn't going to training, is refusing to do video MPIs, is refusing to get better at making notes, is refusing to talk to customers, is refusing to learn how to improve their communication with their leadership with their service advisors, is refusing to go to events outside of where they are, is demanding pay when they don't necessarily deserve it because their comeback rate is way too high.
Right.
You look at those things, it's like, I love y'all, but it's the effort that take you from 40 to like 200k and it's the accountability that gets us there.
There's a lot to unwrap right there. Because I, I see it like there's, there's cultures where it's like, okay, you, you take that someone as an example, the 200k number and they're obviously probably within that facility. They are a high value leader. Right. They're going to be in a foreman role or some kind of. You don't think so? No way.
I know, I give you very specific example. I know six technicians, they are senior, but they are not team leads, they are not foreman.
Wow.
They are just technicians. Absolutely pumping the living bejesus. I do know a couple that are making, I don't know any team leads or shop foreman making that kind of money. They're all making less. I know shop foreman that are making between 100 and 150 depending. And it doesn't matter what country you're in the U.S. they make, unfortunately, this is the disparity between our U.S. as Canadians and the U.S.
team leads. Senior technicians, team leads or senior technicians who are kind of team leads without the formal title or shop foreman make between 100 and 150,000 irrespective of country. So if they're in the US it's US dollars. If it's in Canada, it's Canadian dollars, which sucks because our dollar's at like 30 cents on the dollar or something like that right now or something stupid.
Yeah. So then if they're not a high value leader, if they're not an hvl, they're. I don't. What's the. They're just the, the guy that knuckles down every day and pumps it out does well, you know, no comebacks. All that kind of stuff can. Is it fair that sometimes we. Is it, how do I say this? Is it realistic to think that we can duplicate that, that particular model across every technician within the service bay?
No.
And they all be that they can't. I don't think so.
The reason, the reason, the answer to that is is still math. I use the 8020 rule, but I use it a little bit differently in this category. So you've got the top 10%, you got the 80% in the middle and you got the 10% in the bottom. Top 10% are always going to be looking for every ounce, right? You and I both know that the top 10% is always going to be looking for that edge. They're the ones that are out there with the scalpel looking. How do I make that extra 2, 2 10/200 on, on a job? How can I be a little bit more efficient on everything? Because they've already nearly mastered the bloody thing. The ones at the bottom. You and I both have experienced technicians and service advisors who are literally scraping the bottom of the barrel, who are simply there for a paycheck, who love to complain.
They literally just love to complain. And then there's the 80% in the middle and that's the ones I like to speak to the most because I talk about the 200k technicians because the 80% in the middle need the inspiration of the 200k tech. But most of them don't know how to get there.
Right?
Some of them could get into that top 10% over a period of time. They need to understand that it is possible and they need a high value leader to get them there. And that's where the, the problem exists in that 80% in the middle. They don't know how to find a high value leader to lead them to that kind of success.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and I'm gonna think that the guy that hits 200k probably doesn't necessarily wouldn't be the best choice for becoming a high value leader. Or, you know, or form and role within the shop. Yet a lot of the time I see them try to take that person when they age out or whatever, an injury happens or something like that, and they try to put them in that role. As an example. You could be, you know, if you. If you would just knuckle down and work harder. I don't know.
I wholeheartedly agree. And whilst I don't have a data set to tell you, I can go with my gut based on coaching and survey in the last three years of my own podcast. And you can. You can fill in yours on this one as well. I look for around the 100% mark and that's. That seems to be where those who are at least seem to be empathetic, the ones that seem to care, the ones that seem to be actually doing the thing as a leader versus just pump the numbers. They are the ones that seem to get as many technician training certifications and so on and so forth as they can. But they.
They're not pushing. Pushing.
Right.
But they're the same person that every person in the shop goes to for help. Yeah, they're the one. And I don't mean help in the shop, I mean help, period.
Yeah.
So I use. I've used the phrase the shop dad.
Yeah.
I use the phrase, it's not shop foreman, it's the shop dad. I will go to that person for. You know, my wife's not treating me well, or I'm not having luck with my family, or my best friend just killed himself, or I don't know how to make my car payment next month. I don't know how to fix this car. This rattle is going. They're going to them for everything.
Right.
That is the person you should probably promote to leadership because they have the trust of the team. Mm.
Yeah. Doesn't it seem funny then, Josh, that sometimes when people, as a collective, that. That 80% go to the management and say, we're lacking this, this and this, or we. We feel like we want this, this, these three things.
And.
And they go, well, you would all make more money if you were all like, that one unicorn, the one, you know, one guy that was, you know, pumping out 200k, but yet we. So that's what I'm kind of coming around to. This is we link that as like, that's the standard that you could all hit. But we know in reality that everybody can't be that, because I don't think the shop could run, because the guys that I know, that could really, really Pump hours. They were a struggle for the advisors to deal with because they would get so many work orders deep that they may have a comeback, they may have a legit thing that they have to look at. And it would get passed off because like, how do you determine, you know, if, if he looks at it now, there's five customers that are gonna back up because he has to stop what he's doing to go look at that. You know what I mean? So that, that, that scenario, that, that step on the neck, pump it out, get it done type thing, they don't want 10 of them in every shop, I don't feel.
So it's interesting to me how each shop dynamic operates and as we both say on a regular basis, leadership typically is the primary focus most of the time. If you have any shop leader. So let's look at any shop leader. If you're not caring for the team, it doesn't matter how much any one person or many people on the team produce, because if you care for the team, you're optimizing each team player. You can't fill a shop with A plus players. Statistically, the math doesn't work. It's never going to work. There isn't enough time to find enough unicorns to fill a shop with unicorns.
That's unrealistic. So the best thing to do is to care about the team, right? If you care about the team, you get the best that each individual, you get the best out of each individual person. That might mean that you're getting 80% out of a person, but if that person is coming into work every single day, they show up on time every single day, they take their lunch every single day, they go home at the same time every single day. They don't get comebacks, they don't make make waves in any capacity. They talk well with advice advisors, they talk well with customers, they follow your processes, but they're, they're a seven out of eight hours a day kind of person that sucks in some capacity. So it's your job as a leader to try and make sure that you keep getting the seven and say, how do we get the, how do we get 7.1? And then how do we get 7.2 over time and give them realistic expectations because you can eventually get 8, 9, probably 10 out of that person over a long enough period of time. But if they're happy, low stress, they follow all your processes, that should not be a detriment. And if you had an entire shop, let's say you had 50% of your shop was like that.
Would your efficiency suck a little bit? Yes. But it still means you're getting a solid seven to eight hours every day out of 50% of your shop, and you're having low comebacks and you have no drama. Yeah, that is. That's something to really start to strive for, because now you're gonna have a shop that's not gonna want to leave. And you and I both know how much it costs to try and replace one technician. Imagine replacing half the shop. You blow out. You blow it at an 80 percenter, and you.
Believe me, I've seen it happen. You blow out an 80 percenter.
Yeah.
The other three will leave. If he left, if he's getting fired for that and he doesn't complain and he didn't do that, and he wasn't a problem, and you're blowing him out the door, I'm out of here. Yeah, I got. I don't have time for that.
How many times. How many times have we seen it, Josh? Where one guy leaves, goes work somewhere else. Say there's a management change. They go to a different dealer, go to a different shop, they poach the first tech that they can. He comes over, that may have been his baymate, might have been. Whatever, right? And they get. They click and they get along. They come, and then you're stealing two more.
One more. You're stealing a parts guy. You're stealing, like, an advisor. It happens so much, and people don't understand. So it's like when I keep saying I'm talking to these people. Oh, my God, like, I just need to find a tech. You are gonna spend so much money trying to find the tech that you're. You think you need because your texts aren't doing what you think they should do, and you don't know how to get them to what you think they should do.
But you're just like, I don't know how to get them. There's. You're going to spend so much money trying to get that person that may not even exist in your community that when that person leaves you, you just decide, I'm capped with this person when I'm pouring into their cup. I'm not. I'm not getting anything out of it. And they leave, and then you see another one follow them out the door. You probably went in the wrong direction at that point. And you're gonna, like.
If you thought it was an expensive, you know, endeavor to get a recruitment company or something like that, you just tripled up on what it's going to cost you in lost revenue to get that person.
So that's, that's the thing that doesn't exist in the P L, right? An absence of income.
You cannot, like, you can't scale it. I'm trying to say, like, you can't scale it. One thing to say, a comeback cost me X amount of dollars. But if we play the game on what's really a comeback and you go, okay, well, we're not gonna split hairs. You want to call it comeback? I'm gonna call it like, I didn't have enough time with the car, didn't understand the whole complaint, blah, blah, blah, blah. If you keep hammering on that over and over again until somebody goes, you know what? I'm tired of this and I'm going somewhere else. You lost an 80% producer. Maybe you lost a 200%, you know, a 200K, the unicorn within the building that is astronomically damaging to the culture, to, to the revenue, to everything.
And I think that at this point and what I'm not seeing happen in the industry sometimes, and I think what it has to happen or is going to happen before we see a big change is the manager that's respond responsible for that coming back to accountability. And it's different in a dealership, but in a small shop, sometimes, like I say, a lot of time we got to do mirror time. You got to look at yourself and you go, if you're really responsible for why that person left you and it wasn't what you wanted them to do was to leave you, but they left you, guess what? Hold yourself accountable. You're the reason you're now in the place where you don't have revenue coming in because you're not fixing cars, dude.
Well, that's a pill that isn't. It's a very bitter pill. One of the things that you have to remember and very few people do this is everything's your fault.
Yeah, right.
Everything's your fault. If you own a shop, everything's your fault. If you work in that same shop, everything's your fault. Good and bad, everything is your fault. So in the circuit, let's, let's, let's do a bit of role play for a second. Tech leaves was a toxic tech in the first place, but the tech leaves now. You're short all the hours that they produce. So it's going to be very difficult for you to pay your bills, especially in a small shop.
Yep.
It's your fault that the team is now left. Like, how, how are we going to take we can't handle all this work. We, there's, there's no way we can handle this work. Why do you leave? Why do you get hired in the first place? It's your fault as a shop leader, the same guy that's leaving. It's your fault you took the job. If you didn't like the guy in the first place or you had inclinations that he wasn't the right fit in the first place. It's your fault you took the job. It's your fault you moved.
It's your fault that. Well, I, I, well, you can hear the, in both of their voices right away, can't you, Jeff? Right, yeah. They're both trying to place blame. Well, just put it square between the eyes. It's your fault.
Yeah.
If you start tackling all of these challenges, all of these issues, all these situations with it's my fault. Well, how could it possibly be my fault? It was like a hurricane or something. Well, it was your fault that you didn't look at the weather five days ago to see, okay, you know, the weatherman said there might be hurricanes five days from now in this certain place. Maybe I shouldn't go there. Right. There is almost always something that you can attribute to your fault in the decisions that you make. Were you prepared, did you prepare yourself for that interview? Did you prepare yourself for that job? Did you prepare yourself for this? Did you, did you go do your due diligence on this, this, this and this? It's your fault if you didn't do that. Well, I didn't know I could do that.
Well, it's your fault for not knowing that. It's nobody else's fault. Right. Nobody else is in your head. Nobody else is, you know, you're over the age of 18. It's no longer your parents fault.
Yeah.
Right. And whilst that comes in a whole different issue, we're trying to talk about accountability and what the, the dealerships and small shops think about technicians and the shortage. Right now we're, we're talking about parenting. But yeah, like, it's my fault that my son is the way he is. A, it was part of my DNA. And two, it's the last 11 years of me raising him. Right. So the results that we're getting as a, as an output from him right now is my fault.
It's my wife's fault. Right. We are subjecting him to things good, bad or otherwise. We are correcting certain behaviors, good, bad or otherwise, and we are praising certain behaviors, good, bad or otherwise. It's our Fault. So once you get out into that world and you're no longer under your parents roof, it's your fault.
Yeah. What. So going back because I had an interesting. Well, not a conversation, but the thing popped up today and somebody talked about they were at a shop and they're in a very. They're in rural South Dakota, very small community right now. There's some other shops around them and some dealers and whatnot. And they're, they're. It sounded like it's a very friendly dynamic within the community.
They all can kind of talk to one another and everybody's trying to get a tech and everybody's throwing big money at the wall throwing. And it's not, they're not getting what they. They need. They can't get somebody to come in. So they just had a person leave. I think they aged out. Doesn't really matter. Now there she's talking about my husband who has been a working tech but you know, it's gotten down to where he was only in the shop a couple hours a day is now pretty much going to have to be in the shop constant.
And they're like, what do I do? I challenge with. I don't believe that in most communities there isn't a technician that you can find that would fill the role of what most people need. I think where we're hitting the mark is we're not realistic with what it actually might take financially and creatively. And I use this word and people don't like it, to poach the person that you need from another business. What, what's some of the things that you think because you know people are like, well, you can grow your own. I agree. You can. Every.
Everybody in business right now, dealership shop should be thinking about how am I getting young people in here and growing them into my next superstar. But Josh, what is it, what's it taking? Are you seeing to get people to leave where they are, to come to where they need them to be?
Care.
Care. Okay.
Honestly, I know I've said it a bunch of times in this very short period of time. I don't think there is a better marketing tactic than that. You know, and I know that there is no greater billboard for a company to go work for than the people that work for them. If you've got a. It doesn't matter how big or small the business is and it doesn't matter what business or what business it is, what industry it's in. If you've got a business full of employees who are a billboard for Your company. That is your best hiring tactic you could ever have, right? It is absolutely the best hiring tactic because especially in a small, small community. If you're in a small community, everybody knows the business exists already.
Your reputation in that community matters more than anything. And if your community doesn't have a high regard for your business, they're going to not going to let their sons and daughters work for you.
Yeah.
Very specifically, you're not going to be able to get a teenager in to grow them if their parents don't think you're a good business to work for. Functionally speaking. Look at your Google reviews, look at your Yelp reviews, look at your Glassdoor reviews. Even in small communities they have those things. If the reviews say that you're not a great business, nobody's going to let their sons and daughters work for you. Nobody. No grandmother or grandfather is going to walk their grandson into your business and say, hey, my grandson or granddaughter is really interested in working on cars. I saw your Google reviews and they're awful.
I want you to work, I want them to work here. Yeah, right. So if you care for your staff, more than likely your staff are going to care for your customers. And if your staff care for your customers, your customers are going to see that your staff are cared for. And if your customers see that your staff are cared for, they're going to be like, hey, my 19 year old son loves cars, would love to work on cars for a living and maybe would like to try it out. I see that you guys treat me really well. I see that you guys treat the community really well. I see you guys treat the staff really well.
Is there an opportunity that if I bring my, my son down here next Friday at 4:00 when you guys are kind of, kind of closing up for the day, can he walk around the shop, see what it's like back there behind the, behind the fishbowl glass to see what it's really like back there? You guys can figure out whether it's a fit yourselves. But if I did that, would, would that be something that you'd be okay with doing? Nobody's going to do that if you have a one out of five stars on Google.
Yeah, right.
Nobody's going to do that. Nobody's going to do that if you treat them like absolute crap in the service drive or at the service desk. Nobody. That's what my grandfather did with me.
Yeah. How much of care Josh is comes back to pay.
I don't think it's nearly as big as we as technicians make it to be, to be completely honest, because the survey, so going back to reference the rentioner as well in the survey. So the last survey was completed about two years ago and I've got about 500 submissions on it. I reference on the survey I analyzed 20 questions, plus questions about production, pay and life satisfaction. So when you look at the data, and now it's only 500. So take this with a grain of salt, go do your own due diligence. This is just a data I have specifically for myself. There are technicians making a lot of money, well over $120,000 US a year, that are miserable. Yeah, miserable.
And they're making in excess of $40 an hour US as their base salary. They get way more. Obviously their base pay per hour goes up with production and so on forth. Because you're never going to make $200,000 a year, $150,000 on 40 bucks an hour. It's just the math. Doesn't math statistically. But I also had technicians who basically maxed out life satisfaction scores making 40 grand a year.
Yeah.
So does pay matter? Yes. When it comes down to brass, tax, fit, appreciation, acknowledgement and accountability matter substantially more than pay. Because let me tell you from personal experience and from the data and from the coaching, the technicians who are happy just make money. They just make money.
Yeah.
Most of them in excess of $80,000 US a year or more. So yes, pay matters, but it's based as much, if not more on appreciation, accountability, validation, care than it does anything else.
I see a lot of guys, I've talked to a lot of technicians, and the thing that always comes back to is they say they have to pay me enough or they have to pay me a lot to put up with some of this stuff. Right. That goes on. And then I've seen the other techs that work on the same brand and they're like, I love it here. And I'm like, you're working on the same stuff and you're making $4 less flat rate an hour than that shop the other side of the city. How is that? Well, because like when I, when, when I sell a job, the parts are carried out to me and put on my bench. I don't have to now walk back to the parts counter and carry out four rotors and two boxes of pads and four calipers. Like somebody trucks them out there on a cart and puts them up my bay for me.
Nice. And, you know, and when I, when I put my cores on the, on the bench, somebody comes and Gets my cores and takes them. Right. I don't have to always do all the other little things because I go back to all the time because it's just. For me, it's just simple, simple math. The job pays what it pays. It's all the other things that are added on to the labor job that are expected to be done for us that don't fall into the 1.1 it takes to re. And read this particular part.
So if I, if I was talking to somebody and when the tech goes out, the. The truck is already in the bay. It's already been pulled in, right? Some guys even have it already racked for them, which I'm not. Listen, I want to rack it myself, so I know it's safe, but whatever. But it's all the other little things that they do. Zeb Beard is a. Is like his techs don't have to go for parts. His texts don't have to be.
They literally are dispatched to the next job massive shop. You can play football in there. And they take their, their, their workstation and it rolls down to the next bay. They pull up to the next truck. The work order is already printed off there on what needs to be done. The parts are already there, and they go to work. Their number one thing is production efficiency on the job is routinely guys hitting 200% efficiency on heavy diesel. How's that happen? They're not standing there going, I need X, Y and Z.
That were forgotten, right? I'm not. They're not standing there waiting for the guy in parts who's looking at an estimate while they just need the parts, right? They used to drive me nuts. I would go to the parts counter and there's the guy doing an estimate for the service advisor up in the drive. And I'm there waiting to get my part so I can go do the car that used to just like, if the person treat it like it's a Burger King window. If the guy in front of you is there, you serve that person right in front of you right there. Give him his parts, point to me where they are on the shelf, and I'll go get them. I don't have to wait for you to carry them to the counter. You see what I mean, Josh? Like, it's stuff like that.
When we don't do that, every little thing that we can't be bothered to do, don't have a person to do that is more money. Sometimes that people, your technicians need to get paid in order to work for you. That's something that I want people that are listening to. To hear and just think about that for a minute. So what it would take, if it would take one more person where you might have to pay them a salary or whatever to do little things like that, what would it save you? If you're not paying technicians now, all of them, four bucks more an hour to stay and put up with your shit. Something about guys and girls.
Well, it's interesting because many forget in the heat of the moment. Almost always in the heat of the moment, but in the heat of the moment, it's easily forgot that if we aren't touching a car, we're not making money. And I'll use a cliche quote, but it matters in this circumstance is if you fix the little things, the big things don't matter.
Yeah.
So the interesting things with us as technicians is there's thousands of little things. There is thousands of little things. I have seen a technician quit because the special service tool was broken. Mm. We had another one. Yeah, we had a replacement of the same tool in the room, but because one of the two tools was broken, he quit on the spot and left that day. And the reason was, it was the 10th time he had gone to the same tool and it was broken and nobody told him there was a replacement. And until we realized at the end of the day, when all the technicians realized at the end of the day why he quit and nobody had told him that we had a replacement for the tool.
What a stupid reason to lose someone.
So it's that. Yeah, it's that ridiculousness. But a high value leader never lets those things go. Because more than likely that was the technician that told the service manager that this tool is broken. And it was the service manager who had to authorize the thousand dollar tool to get replaced. And it had to. And because he was the one that has to authorize it, it was probably addressed to him, not to the parts manager when it came in. So he was probably the guy that unboxed the damn thing and was probably the guy that put it in the tool room.
And because that guy did not tell the guy who broke it or the guy who found it broken that it had been replaced. Like, this is where we as technicians need to hold ourselves and leaders accountable. Because it's a broken tool, it's a leaking airline, it's a poor ceiling shop door, it's a poorly functioning telephone away from somebody quitting. Yeah, it is that ridiculous because it is the 18 times the telephone doesn't work or. And it's not the 18 times. It's the 19th time that it doesn't work.
Yeah.
When you care, things like that get fixed. And this then goes to. Well, I'm a service manager at a dealership listening to Jeff Compton's podcast, the Jada Mechanic Podcast. I can't get telephones fixed. I can't get special service tools replaced. I can't get these things resolved in that timeline. Okay, but are you. If the answer is yes, what are you not communicating to the team? Well, okay, guys, I understand.
Okay, I understand. I understand the air compressor puts water in the airlines. Yeah, I understand that. I understand that you guys are having to drain the drain cocks like, three times a day to try and make sure your tools don't die. I understand. We've got someone coming. They're 90 days out. Yeah, I'm sorry, that's going to take 90 days, but they're 90 days out.
The schedule is for June the second. That is when they are scheduled for. Please hold me and the business accountable, because they are booked for June 2nd. Then they're going to come in, they're going to look at the air compressor, they're going to add a dryer to the system, they're going to fix the compressor, they're going to drain the lines, they're going to dry everything out. And that's going to happen 90 days from now.
Yeah.
Okay, you've sh. You've acknowledged that they've set a problem. You've acknowledged that, you know, okay, this is a major concern, needs to be resolved as quickly as possible. It's not going to be resolved quickly. It's 90 days out, but it's going to be resolved. And in 90 days, if they don't show, guess whose backside is going to get chewed up. Yours as a leader. Yeah, but, hey, the guy said he's not coming on the second.
He's gonna come on the third. He got a little delayed. He's coming the next day. So if he's not doesn't show up on the second, he's gonna show up in the third. That's also something you should be communicating. But if they do show up in the second and they do resolve the things, guess what? You listened. You had empathy for the situation. You told them what was going to be resolved, you told them how it was going to be resolved, and you told them when it was going to be resolved.
That is a leader who cares. If you are experiencing anything else than that in your shop, you don't have a leader who cares. And more importantly, you probably don't have a business that cares.
Yeah.
Because even if the leader can't get things done, because think about this the opposite, opposite for a second, Jeff. If that service manager or service director has gone out of their way, say I understand and I acknowledge that you guys have recognized that the air compressor is putting water in the lights. Gotcha. I've told the gm. I haven't got a response for you yet, but I've told the GM next week. Hey guys, I talked to the GM again in our weekly manager meeting. I told them that we have air, we've got water in the lines and we need to get it resolved soon because all of your tools are going to get damaged by having water in the lines. You guys are doing the best you can draining the lines, but it's taking you extra time to make sure there's no water lines because your thousand dollar impact hammer and your impact wrench and your impact gun are getting damaged every time you use it with water lines.
We understand that. I appreciate that. I've told the GM again, if this goes on and on for like four, five, six weeks and the service leader is going, hey, I'm not getting any traction. Yeah, I need some help from you guys. Next week, the manager meetings at lunchtime. Can I get one or two of you to come upstairs with me to the manager meeting and express your concerns about your tools? Manager's meeting, Please, if you can be professional, please be professional. Come with me to the manager meeting next week, Wednesday at lunchtime so we can talk about it. Because it's really important to me and I want to impress upon them how important it is to get this fixed.
Okay, we had that manager meeting. Two of you guys were there. You guys were awesome. You were supportive, you expressed your concerns, you're professional. We still don't have an answer. More than likely if you do that and you still don't have an answer, you're going to have a mass exodus in that shot. The service leader's gone, you're going to have advisor that's gone. You're going to have a whole fleet of technicians that are gone.
And it's because you have high level leadership, not high value, high level leadership that isn't listening and being empathetic and caring. So, but that's the progression of things. So Josh, as a technician, what about.
The guys that we, we, we go to them and we say, because I'll count them with this idea, go to them. You say, I need you to come up with me and do that, have that conversation. Does it put them in the crosshairs then? Does it put a mark on their back of, of troublemaker?
Absolutely.
There can be sometimes. Yeah.
This is not a problem. This is not a problem because anybody that there that immediately thinks that, well, I'm going to get a label on my back, guess what? If you get a target on your back because you express concerns professionally, and this is the caveat here, professionally express your concerns and you get a target on your back, you shouldn't work there anyway.
Yeah, I'm the, I'm the poster child for that. I didn't always do it as professional as I could, but I believe at the end of the day the mark on your back just shows people who you are, just informs people of who you are, what you've done. I had a really give you a little story yesterday. Went to a sportsman show yesterday and I ran into somebody that I haven't seen in 10 years. Now we talk online. He is a young man that when I worked at a particularly not a good shop, he started as a nighttime parts person slash service writer. And, and he had a, he was a young kid, really fast Mustang. He was a car guy, wanted to be a technician and they didn't have a spot for him there.
So he goes to work at a shop that I used to work for and I warned him, there's a guy over there that works there that is going to make your life. This is an independent shop, Josh. It's gonna make your life hell. He's an a hole and he is a jerk. And the culture of that shop isn't great. Not terrible, just not the best. Well, he went there, did a short tenure there, got his CFQ through there. So three years, became pretty good technician.
He went to the Honda dealer. He, in a very short period of time at the Honda dealer became the guy. The foreman has every cert that he can. He was rhyming me off yesterday. He's nrx, Certs, whatever. There's a recall that he's the only one that does this engine recall. Now Josh, when he started. Now at this point still, he's still the guy.
If they walk past the towel dispenser and the towel is empty, he's the one that has to put the towel in because nobody else can bother. The lockers for the uniforms got in such a state of disrepair that they stopped putting uniforms in the lockers, they stopped delivering them. Nobody, everybody was, I don't have any clean uniforms. I don't have uniforms. He, he was the one that phoned the uniform company and said, hey, why are my guys not in uniforms? We've told your, your leader that they need to be fixed. So there he is in there fixing lockers so that the uniforms can be delivered for his pee. If I told you what they pay this young man, you would be disgusted. You would absolutely be disgusted.
We were talking sub $30 an hour flat rate when he training centers in Markham at Honda and he sits there and he talks with them. He says, I know I do not come home from Honda training with ever less than seven contact numbers of people that are trying to poach me to leave Kingston and come to work at Markham. So he is what I and it, I mean this is, this is making me, I'm getting goosebumps because he has been somebody that I, I didn't know I had the effect on so long ago. And then through doing this now what I'm doing, I don't have to work with him and I still have an effect on him because he listens to what these conversations you and I have and so many other the podcast when I, when I'm challenging so many people in this industry, I want you to understand people are listening. I'm challenging not because necessarily you listen to me. It's the people that maybe haven't heard me yet. The first time they do somebody at his store, they do not realize the how high value he is to their business. And to lose him would, would, would upset the apple cart to a level that you will never get back.
Unfortunately.
I think there's a lot of folks out there like that.
This is the toxicity I see in this industry or the disconnect is probably a better word. Josh is what I guess what I'm trying to say of Sometimes I think people do not see that there's always one high value leader in every business that they're not even recognizing for how valuable they are. And I'm not talking again. It goes back to care. It's not about the pay, it's about the fact that like he always has to be the guy to do it. If there's a new thing that has to be learned on the car, he is the guy. If there's a new recall that comes out, he is the guy. If there is a problem car that comes back, he is the guy.
If the blockers need to be fixed when they talk about pouring concrete pads for doing the new EV charging and all this kind of stuff, he's the guy they talk to. Oh, can you just do this for me? Can you just do that can you call them? Well, you know what you want, you call them. None of that is being compensated for. So it goes back to what I'm saying. When we keep talking about production of a technician and metrics that we measure. This is why I struggle with that whole dynamic. Because his production doesn't show his value, I guess is what I'm trying to say.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna say something that, that may be left field. I'm concerned about him, not from a pay point. I'm actually concerned about his mental health. Yeah, I'm, I'm actually really concerned about that gentleman's mental health. And the reason I say that is I had a young gentleman through coaching that I immediately had to send to professional therapy. It's like I am not the person you need to talk to. You need to go talk to professional therapy because I'm concerned about you. And it was such a left field statement for them that they didn't realize.
And the reason being is, to me that story sounds like they are so desperately seeking validation and appreciation that they are putting them through burnout level activities for that ounce that they might get and they're sacrificing their financial well being, which is their future for that potential validation or appreciation. And I've found again, I'm not a therapist or any one of registered any one of those little things. So go do your due diligence and so on and so forth, ladies and gentlemen. But that's genuinely concerning because you have the opposite end. You have the two ends of the spectrum. You have ladies and gentlemen, mostly men, but ladies, ladies and gentlemen who are willing to burden themselves with extremely low pay because they're in a position where they get to do all the things that make them feel like they're being appreciated. So when they are the person that fixes the toe, the toilet roll or the towel roll, or they are the person that fixes the uniform lockers, or they are the person that fixes a tool room or whatever. They get all of that validation and appreciation from the people somewhat that matter because the team matters.
But they're looking for the appreciation truly from leadership. That's insecurity, that's lack of self confidence, that's possible depression, anxiety, stress and bad we most importantly as men, because it's completely different from women and I can't speak from that, that standpoint. But as men, if we are still seeking attention, validation, appreciation to that kind of level, that's dangerous because it means we're not taking care of ourselves. You should never be in any relationship, whether it's personal or professional, where you feel the need to go 200% on something you're not being paid for. It's one thing to go, okay, I just took a massive dump in this toilet. I should probably put the little thing around to just to be calm and courtesy. That's a little bit disgusting, but that is, that is just common courtesy kinds of things. It's another to fix the locker room.
Yeah.
As a flat rate productive person in a shop, that is not your job. It's your job and your responsibility and your duty to say, hey, ladies and gentlemen, we need to do better. Like, our locker room is disaster. When you go home tonight, when you change out of your. Your Grubbies and into your civvies to go home, can you make sure your stuff is put away so that the cleaners can come in tonight and clean? Because it's disgusting. Do your pit. I don't, I don't want you to fix the whole thing. Just do your part.
Right. We can be better. We're adults. We can be better. That stand up. Right. Have the confidence to stand up and do that. But at the same time, if you're going above and beyond and you're not being paid for it, that's a concern.
Like I said, that's a, that's an insecurity. Lack of self confidence. We're necessitating validation. That's a challenge that from a mental health standpoint you need to overcome professionally. That's professional help. Needs to help that. Because if you're also taking that on all kinds of things, you're not getting paid for and you're not getting paid adequately for the stuff that you do do on a regular day, you're being taken advantage of more than likely, you're being taken advantage of by people who aren't caring for you. And that really, again, I'm tying it all back into that.
That same word, care.
Yeah.
You care so much that somebody else is not caring at all for you.
Josh. I wish I could say that I. He is not that he is the first person that I've ever seen in this industry going to the same kind of links and do the same kind of things. But I think you can probably say that you've probably met similar. Maybe not to that level, but I've.
Met several to that level, unfortunately. And the worst, the worst thing is, is I was one of them.
I was too. 100%. I would take it on such a personal level that if somebody told me, just do this one thing, and it will fix this problem. All of you. Would you be dressing. All of you? I would make it my duty. That's how I was raised. If you see something that needs to be done and you can do it, you go do it.
That's how I was raised.
I want you to say. I want you to think about something for a second, and I want everybody who's listening and watching to taking this into account. I'm trying to remove a phrase from my. My vernacular and my son's vernacular. I just.
I just.
I'll just do this. I any. I just. In any kind of iteration, I'll just do this one thing. I'll just do it this one time. Can you just do this thing for me?
It's a diminishing phrase, isn't it? It's a diminishing phrase. We diminish the act that we're doing. When we say just we, we reduce it to a very little insignificant thing, even though it could be a very important thing to somebody else. I get what you're saying, man. I love that.
Try to remove it from your. Try to remove it from your vernacular. And when you find yourself saying it, understand how you feel about what you're about to do. Are you saying it to justify the action that you're about to do? Truly? Because maybe it's. It's something just that simple. Yeah, maybe it is simple and you can do it, but I had to say it just again. Just again. Just that simple.
How are you quantifying the words that you're using? Are you justifying the thing that you are doing and putting yourself down or putting. Putting yourself at a value lower than it should be? It's why it's so important for me for mental health. Like, it's why I started my. My business. Just work hard. Consulting. It's a family mantra. Just work hard.
In that circumstance, I'm using it as a simple diminishing. It might even be the right word. But the reason it's that way is everything can be fixed by hard work. Everything can be fixed by hard work. Every circumstance that I have ever come across, ever, has always been solved by hard work. So just work hard. Just do it. Nike's slogan.
Yeah, it can be solved by just doing it. However, there's a point at which it becomes negative. So when I realized about three years ago that I was being ignorant and arrogant and I needed to get back to my community, which is what spawned Wrenchers Podcast in the first place, I realized that just mental health wasn't just mental health, I realized that it wasn't just pay, it was all kinds of other stuff.
The, the mental health thing really is something because like I said before we got on, you know, I was talking about, it's, it's. Life is trying me right now. Life is, life is challenging me. I think I said to you, and I, I'm, I'm not in a bad place. I gotta be, I gotta be real about that. I'm not in a bad place. I've been in worse places. And you know, I just have some pain that's given me challenges and, and, but the mental health thing is like, when I think about that, because there's somebody that I touched, somebody that I had the opportunity to see again, that has found another outlet for his energy and is pouring himself into that.
And that is helping. But Josh, I worry now at night about the people that I'm not reaching, that we are not reaching, that are our baymates and our, our people that, you know, we knew. Because it is, it is a scary stat, the statistics on mental health in this industry. It really is. It's like next to second responders, we are some of the most unhealthy people from a mental standpoint. And that really. I know what I've been through and I know what I have to do every day to put my feet on the ground and go forward and continue to push against the fray. Not everybody can do it.
And, and, and it keeps me awake some nights now thinking how awake on a regular basis.
Man, here, let's, let's, let's take a, let's take a little number here. I want everybody listening and watching to think about this. I talked about this back in November when I did my talk large talk on mental health and technicians. Think about how many technicians. You know, add that up in your head. Okay?
Yeah.
Think about how many shops that is. Okay. And then multiply that out by the number of technicians that are in those shops. And every time I've done this math with a group of people, everybody comes out to about the same number. It's about 500 technicians, give or take, that you have in your indirect circle.
Yeah.
Okay. So every technician has at least 500 technicians in their circle in some capacity. In 2023, the statistic is 1 in 1250 technicians committed suicide. Just, just that number alone is almost a weight that you can't bear just knowing the statistic. And if you're still here listening, the numbers get worse because it's 1 in 250 that have attempted yeah. And it's 1 in 12 that are thinking about it. Like, that's stupid.
Yeah.
So when we talk about pay, it's hard for me to put it as the most important thing because the, the things that I list on a regular basis, validation, appreciation, care, empathy, communication, those don't just change whether a technician stays with you. It changes whether a technician exists. Because we are very, I think we are all very needy creatures as technicians for many different reasons. But the most important thing is that we need to feel cared about and some focus super hard on pay, and they tend to be also the loudest. But the ones that focus the most on feeling cared for are usually the quietest and go silently. So I, I think a great. Because I, I gotta, I go take care of my family this morning. So I think that might be a great way to end.
When we're talking about dealerships or shop owners or service leaders or technicians yourselves, I think you need to go out tomorrow morning and you need to call somebody you haven't talked to in a while. You need to smile. You need to ask somebody how they're doing that you haven't talked to. You need to talk to your leader, you talk to your advisors, you need to talk to your baymates, and you need to talk to them like they're people. And you think you need to start caring, and if they aren't reciprocating that same kind of care, you need to go find a place that will care for you.
Yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm right there with you. I'm thinking about, yeah, my ego doesn't allow me to do too much unrelated to this industry. It doesn't allow it. And it's, you know, like you said, we all, I think, are looking for a lot of verification. We get addicted to fixing things. But this, this, this issue that's staring Josh and I right in the face is not something you fix on your own. It takes, it takes a team. It takes people, it takes caring.
And I appreciate everybody that's listening this morning. Josh, I love you, man. I, I, I adore you. You don't know how much of an inspiration you've been to me in, in moving forward through this and keeping me on the path that I, I feel like I need to be on. And, you know, I, I just, I can't thank you enough. And, you know, going forward, wherever this world takes us, wherever the podcasting thing goes, you and I will sit down someday and we will have a. We'll fish off the end of a boat or, or, you know, going in a jump in something and go on a long drive and just talk and appreciate you. Yeah.
Because I think that that's what this world needs, is more of that. So everybody that's been listening, I wanted you to, I want to thank you and, and Josh, man, Like I said, I love you, dude. I, I, I want you on as much as I can get you on here. So thank you. Thank you.
Let's, we can, let's see if we can make this some somewhat of a regular thing, because I like these.
Yeah, I do too, because this is powerful stuff. This is not just about, like, you know, how do you make your self make, you know, 50 bucks more a week? This is not what this is about. That's not what this is about. That's not what I'm about. I mean, it sounds like that because it's like I, I equate pay to treatment. Pay is not treatment. Pay is just part of the compensation for you giving your time to something. How you really treated goes way beyond pay.
So, everybody, thank you. I got some exciting stuff coming forward, and like I said, we're gonna have Josh on a lot more moving forward, I think. And then Josh, you know, I'll be sure to try and share more of your stuff with people because it's important voice that people have to hear. So, everybody, thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you all again real soon.
Thank you all for listening.
Hey, if you could do me a favor real quick and, like, comment on and share this episode, I'd really appreciate it. And please, most importantly, set the podcast to automatically download every Tuesday morning. As always, I'd like to thank our amazing guests for their perspectives and expertise, and I hope that you'll please join us again next week on this journey of change. Thank you to my partners in the ASA group and to the Changing the Industry podcast. Remember what I always say, in this industry, you get what you pay for. Here's hoping everyone finds their missing 10 millimeter, and we'll see you all again next time.
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