Mark Elliot from TikTok on Good Diagnostic Techniques

We've all sat around a bar somewhere and drank beer and bitched about this industry. That's all I do.

Yeah, right. But they act like we're Brad Pitt or something. You know what I mean? I'm like, our lives haven't changed.

You and I look like the Robertson family, like Duck Dynasty. We don't look like Brad Pitt.

Right.

I'd like to look like Brad Pitt. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another exciting episode of the JD Mechanic Podcast. And I'm here with a recurring guest, a fellow Canadian, which you. This is the first time you've heard me say a fellow Canadian since I've been here in Raleigh. I'm here with my Buddy Mark Elliott, Mr. Tobatek from TikTok. Mark, how are you now?

I'm. I'm. I don't know. My. My head's blown up right now. That's all I know. Pretty.

Pretty amazing experience, eh?

This thing, it is just like I was just saying to Jeff, It's. I knew this was gonna be awesome. I didn't know how it was gonna be awesome. And that's.

Yeah, it's. It's. It's awesome in ways that when you get here, you think, okay, I'm gonna learn a bunch of stuff. But it's not about. Just about the learning at all.

No, it was the networking. It's not. The thing is, now it's gotten me to think about my career in the direction of our business and maybe what I want to bring back to Winnipeg. Honestly.

Yeah, yeah. Deep stuff. When you really start to think about it, right? Like, you. You come here and you're like, well, I'm a technician first, and, you know, with maybe a hope that one day I don't have to be pulling on wrenches till I'm 65 years old. Maybe. How do I transition to that? And now you come to this kind of show and you're like, I really feel like I could, you know, get into the business side of this and not have to fix the cars. That's what I found the first year I came, and then after coming here, the first year. Well, now we're on a podcast and doing all that kind of stuff.

Last night was pretty cool, eh?

Oh, yeah. Every evening has been in a blast. Yeah, I've definitely. I'm running on steam right now.

So last night's recording. We sat down. I sat down with Mr. Subaru and Brandon Sloan and check engine Chuck. The reason Mark wasn't able in is we just don't have enough mics going at one point, but it was pretty neat. I was telling Mark this morning that, like, we all, when we're on TikTok, you know, you think immediately, I think your brain goes into thing. It's like, okay, this is my TikTok personality. This is my TikTok voice.

This is my thing. After we talked for about like, I don't know, over an hour and a half last night, you could feel it. Like we were just people shooting around and that was really cool.

Well, for sure. And that's, you know, you. You almost. When you. When you do social media and you run into people and. And again, you know, going back to even Mr. Subaru early on when I was first started, I blocked him.

Yeah.

You know, there was. There was a situation where he commented on one of my ratchets and I took it the wrong way or whatever it was. And, you know, coming here, it's like we're all personalities in a sense, Right.

Yep.

It's as much as, you know, we are real in a sense. It's really hard to be real on a camera.

Yeah.

And, you know, even the way I explained it is that I always feel like I'm a big goofball, especially in the shop, but it's really hard for me to come off on camera.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, we've talked about it. We talked about it last night, but you and I have talked about it a lot. Like, we want to appear professional.

Yeah.

Right. We're trying to bring us the image of you and I up.

Yeah.

Not. Not make us look like a bunch of, you know, knuckle dragon, greasy over here goofballs.

Right.

It's fun to be goofy. Like, I. I like to be able to cut up and, you know, joke around and everything like that, but we're. We're trying to actually change the image. And I, after talking with these guys last night, I really feel like I have to rethink sometimes what I'm actually seeing as to how much of it is actually truth. You know what I mean?

Oh, exactly. And how much of it is just. It's all for sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We. We had a good talk last night about, you know, Dave's shop and what that may do. And then you and I, when we walked around the expo today. Right, yeah, we talked about that. And I don't know, we'll see how that goes.

Yeah.

You know what, what did you take for class today?

So today, this morning. It's funny because, like, my. So my first class was ringing in success Advanced phone skills. With Jimmy Lee.

Yeah.

And this was my second kind of, like, service advisor kind of course. I didn't have any high expectation. I was actually looking at the schedule. I'm like, oh, what can I switch it with? But for. For some reason today, there was no real advanced diagnostic course, anything like, you know what? I'm gonna go check it out.

Yeah.

So I walked in with this. This low expectation, and I. And like, within 50 minutes, I was, like, kind of blown away. And this. Honestly, this. So my last service advisor course was more of a reaffirmation of what I've learned on the job. And I'm like, okay, that'll make sense. But this.

This just changed my thought, because realistically, like, I'm starting to move into more of a manager role. So I know I'm not a service advisor. I know that it's not even something that gets me excited, and that's okay. But what I've learned, and especially from there, was that I need to know what my service advisor needs to do.

Right.

He needs to say how he needs to present himself on the phone, because you know what? It's like. I almost forget. I always think, you know, as long as I do the best job I can in the back, we're going to get customers. But you got to think your service advisor is the first link to getting that. Once that person's in my shop, I'll keep them.

Yeah.

But we need to get them through that door. So like I said to you, the thing that changed in my head was that I feel that Canada's lacking in service advisor training.

Yeah. Yeah.

So after the class, I had run into Jimmy, and we actually. I did a testimonial for him and all this kind of stuff, and we just started talking, and I started, you know, talking about this. He said, well, you know what? If you can get a bunch of shop owners together, I'll come down and do some training.

Yeah.

And that just like, all of a sudden, a light bulb went off in my head. I'm like, you know what? I talked to a lot of the guys that put on the trainings in the city.

Yeah.

I think I can go back with this.

Yeah.

And then this is maybe an avenue that I can start tapping into to start training up. Obviously, selfishly, my own surface advisor, because I Now I know where his shortcomings are.

Right. Yeah.

Right. And, you know, me and. Me and Champ were talking about that, and it's one of these things that, you know what? Instead of looking at people's faults, just realize that where the strengths are and where we need to train them to bring. Bring them back up.

Yeah.

Because if you have a guy that's. That, you know, will dedicate his. You know what I mean? Like, just the type of person he. Like the service side, we just hired the type of person he is. If we treat him right and everything goes well, he's. He's not going anywhere.

Right.

Right. He has some shortcomings, which when I get back, we're gonna. We're gonna work on it, but instead of just, let's say, let's get rid of him, let's move on to the next one. I think his strengths are so strong that his weaknesses aren't a big deal and that we could. That we can. That we can work on that.

Yeah.

Right. And so I think that's. Like I said, it's coming here changed my perspective so much on where my role, the company's gonna be. Because again, Chance plan is to step away and for me to run the place.

Right.

But the technical side, the training side in the back, I got that covered. I don't need to work on that.

Yeah.

I know how to train an apprentice.

Right.

I know how to run the back.

Yeah.

What I need to focus on is how to run the service advisor and make sure that he's doing his job.

So when you feel. Mark, when you go back on Monday, Right. Or maybe are you going to start. Will you be back? Monday's your first day back or you take a day to recover. Okay, Monday. So do you think that you're going to be able to go and he's going to be open and receptive to what you're trying to talk to him about?

I think so. I'm curious. Right.

Yeah.

But me and Champ again, Champ also has a bunch of ideas now, Right.

Yeah. I think we attended this class this morning with you, too.

He was there for a bit, but even his classes that he went, went in. Right. The neat thing, too was because this last two years, not only have I been running the back, but I've been kind of training Champ.

Right.

Because he's new to the industry.

Yeah.

And it was really neat because he's gone to some of these courses and he's all like, mark, I've been in these courses and like, everything they're saying is. What you've been saying to me is like, how do you know this stuff? Like, I don't know, it's just stuff I picked up. And it's common sense to me.

A lot of it is. And this Is a dynamic that, like, again, you hear me say, sometimes unpopular opinion, sometimes the technicians, by watching it go wrong, just instinctively know what right looks like.

Right.

It's not by accident that a lot of the new ways that are being taught or the coaching comes from people that were really successful, Successful techs that became successful shop owners. Why were they both? Because they bucked the norm. They didn't stay with the norm. They worked on no waiters. They worked on parts matrixes. They worked on tiered labor systems. They worked on, you know, a matrix for your labor hours. Right.

When the car gets to be a certain age that immediately rolls up on all that stuff they worked on. Somebody has come up with the idea, but they. The idea that they've been open to it is why they were successful. And now they're teaching other people. If you look at Jimmy's like Cecil, which is the institute which Jimmy works for. He's a very successful former shop owner. So what made him successful? He didn't run his advisors the way everybody else did. He didn't run the business the way everybody else does.

So I love the idea that Champ is new to the business because he doesn't have 20 years of doing it wrong, that he's got to feel like is always the way it has to be done.

Yeah, he's a clean slate. And it's not just that, but he's. He's so smart. He learns so quick. He picks everything up. So. And it's like. So.

So I was talking to. I forget what her last name is. It was Doris. So she was the one that went to the first advisory. Amazing, amazing instructor as well. I had great conversations with her afterwards. She even said some really nice things about me because, you know what I mean? I. No matter what class I'm in, I'm always one of the loudest and most vocal in the class.

It's just. It's how I stay engaged. If I don't engage, I fall asleep. We're just.

We're Canadian.

Exactly. And then she's like, you know, I can just see how happy you guys are. And it's like, you know, and Champ was right there beside me, and I said the thing that Champ has. You know what I mean? And people like, say, why would Champ buy business? He doesn't know. I'm like, champ has something unique. He's a really good people person. Right. So it's not that you need to know the industry, but if you're a good people person, you know how to put the people in place to make you successful in whatever business you.

And the fact that he can learn so. So darn quick. Quick. It gives him that ability that he's not scared to step into this because he's going to pick it up quick. Yeah, right. I mean, the fact that realistically it's been just over a year and a half, he's running the front and everything perfectly, almost. There's going to be some things here and there, right?

Yeah.

But for the most part, like just, just think about it like you can have a service advisor that has seven, eight years experience that isn't running those goods, right?

Yeah. Oh, it's, it's true. And a lot of that could be that service advisor that's been doing this seven or eight years never started out learning how to do it. Right. And then maybe they learned that way where, say they're at a Canadian Tire store and they learn how to do it at Canadian Tire and then they go to a different. An independent shop and all of a sudden, like, production doesn't even mean as much at the independent shop. Just get the car fixed. Right.

And so they don't even really ever know. Numbers and service advisors don't have to know the whole numbers of the business, but they have to be told this is what is expected. This is what has to get done. This is how if the car can't be fixed for this method, we don't fix the car. Simple. We don't immediately start. Oh yeah, like, well, you know, we'll put a really crappy part on because it'll keep it under 500 bucks. I go, don't.

If you got 500 bucks and you need a tie rod and a strut and 500 won't get a tie rod and a strut. Do you want the strut or do you want the tie rod? Right. We're not gonna put two cheap parts in to keep it at 500 bucks. That's not winning. That's like the customer thinks they're winning. But that from your business standpoint is not winning because you're compromising the quality of the repair for their emotional decision or their unfortunate hard luck case. And hard luck cases. We all have them.

It doesn't mean that they're not worthy of empathy and understanding. But you have to advocate for the car. That's the whole thing. And people go advocate for the car. When I sat with Cecil here yesterday and we talked about, he says if you learn how to advocate for the car and the car is owned by the customer, you instinctively then advocate for the customer. Because you're advocating to do the best repair possible for the car that the customer is driving, which keeps them safe, reliable, so on and so forth. That's what it's about. It's not about, like, they only have a limited budget and I need to keep it at that and do as much work as possible within that budget.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

Yeah.

Listen to me. People that are listening to run wrong, like, oh, well, they're going to take it somewhere else. No, that's not really the reality. They could, but they're at your shop for some reason because they want some level of quality. Give them quality, which is what they came for. Don't start to bolt in junk and do crappy repairs because of what they think is what it should cost.

Yeah. And I know, like, that was probably one or two times, especially early on when Champ took the business over that again. Yeah. It came down to, hey, they only have X amount. So I would, I would see my partner start working and I go and I look at what was sold and I'm looking like, this is not what we should be prioritizing. So I'd run up and he's like, yeah, but this is all they have. I'm like, okay, I realize that we're probably going to make more money doing this, but safety wise, these things need to be done. Let's get these done.

It'll be less than what they're spending today, but then they can take that money, put it, put it aside and add to it, and then we can do it all.

Yeah.

Right. So. And like, in going back to what you're saying is on Monday, are you gonna built him? So I know that me and Champ have already talked about it before we even talk to the guys about our experiences. Me and him are gonna have a sit down.

Mm.

We want to make a game obvious. You're never gonna implement everything that you learn here.

Little steps.

But we are gonna make a game plan on how we want to move forward and what we need to do to make us even more successful.

I think that's awesome, Mark. That it's already like that A, brought you here and B, that it's like he wants to involve you in that he sees your value, dude. Like, that's. That's key.

Yeah.

100%. And I mean, you. You work hard. You work hard. You do a lot for the business, both at the business and then when the way you advocate for. For the industry and you don't hide behind who you, you know, you don't Cover up the shop name. You let everybody know. You talked about.

You've gotten customers to come to the shop because of your online involvement. Yeah, that's, that's, that's a very valuable thing to him.

Yeah.

Especially when you're not saying, oh, I come here and we're the cheapest. You're advocating for the way they're supposed to be advocated for, and people are coming for that.

And then I'll show our mistakes.

Yeah.

You probably saw my, that timing belt situation.

Yeah.

Right.

I understand it.

And it's one of those things. It's like, I'm not scared to show our mistakes because we handle it correctly.

Yeah. The customer, the end of the day, you did what was right by the customer. Lots of shops, you know what would have happened? They would have made the change and called them up and said, hey, it needed both doing this fix this. That then happened. That one was finally what it did. You would know that. It's bs, you know, but. And you did the right thing.

That's important to be able to put that. Paul Danner will show you his mistakes. All of these top trainers here, the. They've shown their mistakes in the past. Keith Perkins, that I recorded this morning, Keith has, you know, shelves of modules that he messed up programming or they thought it was that and they put it in that didn't fix the car. Like, there's nothing wrong with that. There's. There isn't one person walking this hallways that's perfect.

There isn't one technician sitting anywhere that's ever made the wrong diag. I came down, walked down the hall with Jim Morton. Jim Morton's one of the most accredited trainers in the industry. He's. He's messed up. If you think you haven't, you're.

Well, even that, that. My first class was with Sean Tipping.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? Even one of the things he said, he's all like, you know, I rushed through this diag and stuff like that and I said, hey, put a cluster in because, like, everything points to this. But I had messed up my own process. And because I was trying to rush, I'm going to take ownership. As it was Friday, I want to go home. And it didn't fix the issue. So now I'm like, all right, I. That's my cost. I'm going to get to the bottom of it.

Right. But that's how you have to handle if you're going to make a mistake, just own up to it.

Yeah.

Chalk it as, as learning, you know, that's that's, that's what it is.

Yeah.

But see, the interesting part too is like now, like coming to this has opened our eyes to this, like, quality of training. Right?

Yeah.

And we've even been talking about. Because, you know, we go to a lot of these, like, you know, Napa training, all this, and those are 100 to 200.

Yeah.

Per person.

Yeah.

So we're thinking. And we don't get much out of them because a lot of those things, like, it's funny, I was even telling these guys, like Chuck and all them. It's like, it's funny. I'll go to one of those with 60 of us there. And the first thing they ask goes, hey, how many of us. How many of you guys use a scope? Two of us will put our hands up.

Yeah.

And I'm all like, really? I'm not getting nowadays that that's the amount of people that actually use a scope for diag. So a lot of the courses are just catered to the very basic. You don't really do a deep dive. And that's what we're saying was like, hey, maybe let's not do those ones. Let's just save the money and come out and do these things.

Yeah, yeah. And. And that's the, that's the rub. Right. The scope thing is, is. Is a weird dynamic because like, I mean, if you, you've heard my friend Brian Powell talk about.

Right.

If you go over to a vent valve to check it with a scope, you're wasting your time.

Yeah.

Not because it doesn't show you something, but it's not the most effective, inefficient or efficient effective test. A test light works fine for testing that. Right. There's nothing wrong with that. Do I have a signal to have power and ground all that kind of stuff? When you're looking for a scope, you're getting into that 25% that you're checking that you need it for. And I'm not trying to say that the scopes not fast, but the more you use it, the faster you become that learning curve that we all will go on with that tool just to become proficient on it. There's a lot of wasted time in that learning curve.

Oh, for sure, right.

How do I set the trigger? What kind of time base? Like all that stuff. Right. Now, if you're using the snap on tool, this is not a punch for snap on. You can use that tool to show you how to set it up. It's great. Signature test. Follow what the signature test. Compare.

Done right but if you have a different type of scope and you're not proficient with a scope, there's a lot of moving the buttons around, trying this, trying. Not getting your signal. Like, if you're. My point being, if you're standing there, spending 20 minutes trying to get a signal on a scope just to put a test light would prove that it had a power and a ground. You wasted 20 minutes, and I'll argue that point to my final date. Now you're trying to look at a cam and crank correlation.

Exactly. That's.

For me, that.

That's one of my biggest right now is especially forts.

Yeah.

Right. And I was even showing my apprentice. So one of our new apprentices that started. And it was funny. It was the first week. Yeah. I had a 5, 4 come in with a cam. Cam crank correlation code.

Yeah.

And we had just done timing chains in it.

So in my head, I remember that.

I'm all like, there's no way that it's timing chains. It has to be a solenoid or something like that. But I was like, hey, this was a chance to even teach him. I was like, hey, let's go grab a wiring diagram and I'm going to show you. I'm like, yes. We can go right to the song on this one. The cam sensors are on the back, I think so. I said, they're a little tricky to back pro.

But look at this. The PCM sitting right here. So go get a pin out. Watch this. Put it. Put it in there. And I'm like, I'm not even going to the crank.

Yeah.

We. We have a V engine. If your cam signals are not lined up, that's as far as you need to go.

Yeah.

So anyways, we scope it, and then the signals are just off. And I said to him, I'm like, look at that. That took us 15 minutes. Now, I know there's an issue with.

The timing, and that was one of your aftermarket tensions or something, didn't that?

Well, yeah. So it was a. The Cloy's kit.

Yeah.

And. And it was the guide. The guide absolutely exploded. Right.

Good quality.

Yeah. So. And it's funny because now, like, we do use OEM chains and all this kind of stuff. We were already starting that reinforced it for me because unfortunately, we actually got that from worldpack. And with worldpac, it's one of our only distributors that you have to purchase through $3,000 worth of stuff before they'll reimburse you. Labor. So now I'm redoing a timing chain and It's.

Yeah.

You know. Yeah. They warranted the timing chain.

Yeah.

Right. So. But I. And then he was like, blown away. He's like, man, that's the first time I've seen a red seal use a scope. I'm like, I would have just ripped the valve covers off, but I told him like, yeah, but how long does it take you to pull a valve cover off for 1, 2. Every time you open something up, you risk damaging something.

Yeah.

Put a gasket in brakes, break a bolt, break a connector, break of this, break of that, and then you'll pull that off. Oh, it doesn't need a time change.

Yeah.

You know, now I've just wasted three hours pulling this one cover off. I broke all this stuff that cost us money.

Yeah.

When we have a scope right there. It took us 15 minutes to know that. Yes. I. So at this point, I'm not even gonna open the valve cover. I'm gonna call the customer. I mean, this one was a warranty, so I did. But let's say it wasn't a warranty.

I'd call the customer at that point and go, hey, my preliminary diag, which we charge an hour for. I'd be like, we have cam timing at this point. I would just price out the timing change up.

Yeah.

I'd be like, I'll pull the valve cover to confirm. But the reality is this is what you're probably going to have to spend. If I get in there and notice, okay, it wasn't a timing chain. Maybe it's an actuator. Whatever it is, at least they know and at least I know that they're prepared to spend that money. And if they're not, then I didn't open anything up. I got my hour. I didn't break anything.

I didn't spend three hours. The customer isn't spending $500 for a vehicle that's going to go to the scrap yard.

Yeah. Or you look at it and it's like, I don't know the history of this. It's 200,000 kilometers in our climate. I might not even sell a chain job. I might sell, call a customer and say, we're going to recommend an engine and maybe we need more time for teardown. To not just determine what failed to put it at a time, but the condition of the engine to decide do we replace the engine or repair the engine.

Yeah.

And then all that is labor. That's. There's nothing wrong with selling tear down. But you have to justify why you're tearing it down to Tear it down to check timing and then find timing is okay. Guess what? You really shouldn't as a customer pay that exactly. When there's other methods to prove. Right now there's the unicorns of the thing where the. You know what an intermittent.

It goes at a time like you might have to then get it some hands on into that unless you want to sit there with the scope running forever. Try and catch the glitch.

Yeah.

But yeah, when, when the instructors come out and they want to teach the. Brian Pollock, my friend said the same thing. There's a lot of people out here that are like when they say that people's fundamentals still need a little bit of work, they grab that lab scope and they try to teach them the fundamentals using lab scope. I'm not against that. It's not. This isn't an argument on that. This is just the reality of you should be really, really, really proficient with a, with a volt meter with your fluke in a test lake before you think that you need a scope. Because I, I'm.

I'm in 30 years fixing cars and I have not grabbed a scope to fix cars for 29 of those years. Did I always. Could it have saved me time? Sure. Yeah. I didn't misdiagnose cars because I didn't have a scope though.

Yeah.

Right. And I didn't waste nearly as much time as I watch other people trying to get that tool to work.

Well, for sure. And like I'm not expecting my, my apprentices to pick up the scope. Right. I want them to just see what the possibility is once they get to that point. Right now I just need them to understand the basics. Right. Because you had to laugh. Because I mean, you'll laugh at this.

So the new, the newer guy that started, I gave him I. Because I always want to see what, what they know when it comes to wiring and stuff like that. Because when we did the interview, it was hilarious because champs like oh yeah, I. I interviewed this guy. He seems like he'd be really good. He told me that his, his R r is a 10 out of 10 and his Diag is a 9 out of 10 or something.

Wow.

I was like, good. Okay, bring him back in. I need to talk to this guy. Right. So talking to him, I'm like, you know, I was like, you know what? I know he knows stuff, but I think he thinks he's better than he is.

Yeah.

Right. But he was in an environment where he was a really good tech compared to everybody else. Right. But in the beauty about this guy is he has such good bones. He's not scared to learn. He's not scared for criticism. And he even said to me, mark, I just want to be a good tech. So he's really rough around the edges, but that's easy to fix.

He's a dealership tech.

No, he's. He's another. Another Indian.

Okay.

And he's just. I think he just started when he was in Canada, so he's been kind of bumping. Bumping around and. And working for about eight years. And, you know, it's funny, because working for Indians and working around Indians, you. You get to learn the dynamic of those people.

In our country, it's different, isn't it?

It is. And their people are the worst enemies to themselves.

Yeah.

So even his shop owners, like, it's so sad when I hear, like. Because even Manny getting taken advantage of. Dav. His name is dav, Was getting taken advantage of getting paid very low wages. Right. But they didn't know better.

Yeah.

And what they would tell him, don't go work for white people. They'll never hire you. They're gonna pay you less. You know what I mean?

They're some of the lowest paying.

Yeah.

Period. And a lot of that, too, comes from their culture is about barter.

Yeah.

Their culture is cheapest price possible. I barter. My buddy. My buddy. Right. And I don't mean that to be any disrespectful, but that's just the culture in. In the truck shop that I worked in, that's how they used to come in and talk to us. My buddy, my buddy, like, can you help me out? I want cheap, cheap, cheap.

Yeah. And that's not. That's not. I don't mean any offense to anybody listening.

That.

That's what I have witnessed firsthand. It is my truth.

Okay?

So just for them to turn around and say, don't work for a white guy. They won't pay you enough shit. If you got any talent at all. I don't. Look at your color. We'll pay as much as we possibly can.

So I'm not gonna get too much into the politics of it.

Yeah.

But what I am gonna say, because again, I get to see behind the screen that maybe a lot of Canadians aren't seeing what's happening, but even a place like Winnipeg, you're seeing that, you know, all the Tim Hortons have Indian people, all the 7 11s have Indian people. You know, the reason for this, a lot of it, is that these owners of these Businesses are bringing these people in, charging them a lot of money for their. For their lmia.

Yeah.

And paying them below minimum wage.

Yeah.

So they're making a lot of money off their people. So if anybody wonders why you're seeing this and why you're not seeing other Canadians working these businesses is because they don't want to pay minimum wage.

Yeah.

And they're making money off these people. And it's sad because I just keep hearing these stories and they're just taking advantage. But again, I'm not getting into. But anyway, did you see the stats.

As well of the international. If you come over as an international student and apply, they will. How much of their subsidy will be of their wages we paid. So the double dipping thing has happened where it's like, I may work for one of them who is already not paying me anything and disclosing that, and then I'm also getting their wages subsidized. Crazy, right?

Oh, for sure.

Yeah. And this is not. I'm not trying to sound prejudice, but you see it in Winnipeg, I live in Ontario. It's the same. And we're not trying to say that we need to put them all on a boat and put them back.

It's just that things need to change.

It has to be equal opportunity.

And in.

Those people are hard working as hell.

And then the problem is, again, they don't know better.

Yeah.

Right. They obviously you're gonna gravitate to the people that you know and you're gonna trust that your people are taking care of you.

Yeah.

And then when I see this, it's so sad. And you know, and I see like, and the hardest thing. So, you know, one thing I always said, because you see, like in the north end of the city, you'll have some shops that have $70 labor rates, $90 labor rates. Right. And I mean, they're not our competition. I'm not worried about that. But you know damn well they're not paying their guys. There's no training happening.

There's no good quality tools and all this kind of stuff. And, you know, I just feel bad because I know that these people come for an opportunity, but they're getting held back in a country where they're. They have all this opportunity. And unfortunately, these shop owners are also not taking the opportunities that are given to them in our country.

Yep.

But besides that point, he DAV came to our shop and so right away I gave him a wiring issue. Right. So I'm watching him. Right. And he has his little LED test light. So he's look, he's looking at this two wire circuit, right? And he comes to me, he's like, yeah, it needs this. I forget what a solenoid or something like that. It needs a solenoid.

I'm like, oh, yeah. And how did you come up, come over that? He's like, why chat? It has good power, has good ground. What do you mean by good?

Yeah, right.

Well, he's like, I'm like, you want to see something? So I go, and I go, pull out my big, my big square headlight. I'm like, let's see if it has. And then there was no power.

Yeah.

I didn't light up the light. He's like, oh, I'm all like this LED light. I mean, you need barely any kind of voltage. I'm like, this, Just throw it away.

So that's what I was gonna say, Mark, what you do with that is you take it from and you cut the cord off of it and you go, here, now you got yourself a punch, young man. And that's what it's meant for.

Yeah. So that day I told him about load testing, right? And, and it was so funny because right before I came up here, my other apprentice, Manny, he was working on, on a fog light. And he comes up to me and it again, a fog light is a load. And you see him, he wires it in and the fog light doesn't come on.

Yeah.

And he's like, oh, I had good 12 volts and stuff. I'm like, what do you mean good 12 volts? Did you load it up? And Dad's like, yeah, you gotta grab the headlight and stuff like that. And I know Manny knows this. It's just sometimes you forget about it, right? So it's all about instilling the same thing. Like, Manny's a great guy and it's just like. But I just had to laugh, right? But, but for this, the bulb was working. It's just he didn't have it in the right switch mode. But because I had said that, he like looks at me, I'm like, you have a load right now and it's not lighting up.

So you can't have a good.

It can't be another bad bulb, Right? Right. Yeah. It doesn't matter. The bulb that you put in there doesn't. It's not a bad bulb. You can look through it and see the filament, you know?

Yeah. So that's, that's the biggest thing for me is to instill that good basis. Because you know what, for Me, I didn't even like. It's funny. Me and Chuck were talking about that. You know, Chuck's all like. You know, all these people think I've been loading up these circuits for 20 years because I build these load cages and all this kind of stuff. He's like, I've been doing it for maybe a year and a half, two years.

I'm like, me too. And that's the wild part, right? And even a scope. I've only been really using a scope for diet for maybe two years.

Yeah, yeah, right.

It's really one chap took over that. I've been really, like, getting on that side of it because he's allowing me to do it.

I was just gonna say, if he empowers you to spend the time to get better with the tool, that's what an owner should be doing.

Yeah, right.

I laugh with it, with the. With the load testing, because it's like. We were just talking. Was talking to Brendan Dills from Jarhead Diagnostics today and. Right. Brendan's class, he started yesterday morning and he was talking about. And we'll talk about this. He says, the first thing I do is I pull the car in and then I punch it into Identifix.

And everybody looked at him like he was crazy because he. Brandon, is a sharp dude and has done technical training before. Right. Has been mobile diag. Has gone in. Is he. Has he ever made a mistake? Yeah, he'll tell you, no problem. But he's like, when used properly, that's an awesome tool.

Awesome tool. And he says, it's the same thing. He says, like, once I go over and load test the circuit, why would I grab a meter or scope? He says, at that point, he says, I'm just looking for a number. I already know it's going to work. And I said, I've been saying it for years, and nobody likes to hear it. If I load it and it shows that it will load, after that, it's just math. I hate math. I don't want to do math.

I want to do, like, currents. Flowing. Done.

Yeah.

Period. Flat rate. Kick me out, right? Like, get me the part I need onto the next one. Such a powerful tool, man. It is such a powerful tool. Is it always the right tool? No. No. But the scope isn't always the right tool either.

And that's what's the beauty of this, is that you come to here and everybody is open to input. Someday I'll get you to network with my friend Brian Pollock, and he'll talk about the Class that he taught and he'll talk about, he called it today, two meters having sex. Which is you take two different voltmeters, you put one on volts and you put one on amps and you clamp them together. You actually read then what the true resistance ratio or resistant measurements is of the different meter. And then he says when you start, why do you put two different meters on the same thing and you get a different resistance reading? That's why how that scope is built is sending a different signal through it's stuff that. Where is that printed? It's right in your fluke 88 meter.

Who reads that little.

But who reads that little damn book? I go over to and I flip it around till I get a reading.

Even then if we looked at the resistance value, we just glazed over it and not even think what about. Right?

But yeah. And then again, you know, and he talks about if you're going to use the min max function, you got to have it on the battery before you actually energize the circuit. Because if you hit min max and there's an open circuit and then you touch the battery, you're not getting nothing but a bunch of lines like little things that I don't even know until Brian teaches it to me. Because why. I just don't think about using that tool that way. We all have to think about using the tools we have available to us in other ways.

Yeah.

You know.

Well, you know, and the neat thing about coming to a place where you're. You're doing technical courses for three days, you'll have a different opinion from, from, from every instructor. Not saying it's bad, but it's their way.

Yeah, right.

You'll have one guy that, that says Voltage Drop everything. You'll have another guy that says scope everything. Yeah, right. What you got to do is you gotta. You gotta find out what's gonna work for you. Yeah, it's great having all these tools and, and like I was even saying like it's funny that, you know, like Voltage Drop was one. Has always been one of my weaknesses. I don't use Voltage Drop.

I just didn't understand it. For whatever reason, I just couldn't wrap my brain around. I've watched countless YouTube video. I just don't think whatever I found wasn't presented to me properly. Coming here. Oh, I forget what his name is. But he, he's a Napa trainer.

For Napa.

Yeah.

From Canada or from the U.S. no, here. Here. Okay.

So his course was electrical Diag A to can okay. All right. And I would say it was a basic electrical course and it got a little bit more. But it didn't really get too much into Canada. I thought it was gonna get more into Canada. But you know what, it's one of these things that he's such a good presenter and it actually, like the way he described voltage drops and how he presented it and stuff, it's like, it just makes sense to me now.

Yeah.

Right. So if anything, if what I got from his course was voltage drops, that's amazing. Right. And again, it's. You know, sometimes we look at these courses and we think, oh, we're too advanced for these things. Right. But then you don't realize that maybe he's presenting something to you that you just never thought about or you didn't. You know what I mean?

It's, it's, it's two things happen. They either present it to you in a better way.

Yeah.

That it finally clicks for you. And you know what the difference is of that? Is that somebody that's actually utilized the principles and figured out that the way he was taught or she doesn't work. But this is the way that I. My light bulb moment, I took it, taught, wrote my light bulb moment down and teach it to people like that. Or it's an age thing. It's sometimes it's just an understanding thing. The way I finally figured out volt drop was just like. I realized that it's like what the meter is actually showing me is when I present an alternate path, how much is actually going across that alternate path.

That's how it remembers me. That's not insane.

If you explain that to me, it makes no sense to me.

Yeah, but see, that's not really what's happening. But it's enough for me to understand the 8 v. Is the 8 v going across an alternate path.

Yeah, sure.

People are okay. I'm not gonna argue with you. You're right, I'm wrong. But it works for me. I'm not actually in the physics side of it. I'm not saying it right. Doesn't matter. Here's what I already.

As long as you understand it, that's all that matters.

If I'd already. Here's what I already know. If I'd already unplugged the voltmeter or, excuse me, the blower motor and put my test light across it and it hadn't lit up, who do I friggin care? I don't.

That's the thing. I'm not gonna go back And Voltage Drop, everything but the fact that I have this in my quiver for that 1% or 5% of the times when I look back at some of the diags where Voltage drop would have found that issue quicker. Right. So like I said, that's, that's the amazing part is just filling in some of the blanks and just making my process better again. I don't. And it's even what I instill in my apprentices. I'm all like, I'm going to show you my process. Right.

I'm going to show you what works for me. But what I want you to know is you're not me.

Yeah.

Build your own process. Build what you. I don't care how you get to the solution as long as it works for you and it's done, I guess in a timely manner once you understand the concept. Because it's like I've always said, you could put 10 technicians in one room. We're all going to do it a different way. We're all going to get to the same result.

Yeah. Yeah. Do you think you and Champ will be back next year?

Oh, yeah, we've already said we're for sure going to be back. We're even possibly talking about maybe closing the shop for three days and bringing more people.

Yeah. But pretty, pretty groundbreaking stuff, right, when you think about it. Right. Because I'm sure everybody in your, in your shop right now will benefit from this.

Yeah.

You know, like going back to the idea of the after hours, the CTI training, the Carquest training. Excuse me, the Napa training that we've all take available all across Canada. It's not bad training, it's good training, it really is. But think about when you sit here for a four hour or an eight hour class, like a four hour and then you do a break and then you come in. How much more you learn in four hours and how much more you learn in eight hours. And here's the beauty of it. You learn it starting at 8 in the morning. You didn't already work a full day.

That's the biggest thing for me.

Yeah.

Right.

Huge.

Even if I'm hungover, I still retain more than after a work all day.

Yeah.

And the classes are I guess a little bit smaller. Some of them are a little bit smaller Netherlands. So it's easier for me to be more active in the class and get more out of it. And the thing too is for the most part, I mean, my last class was kind of a waste of time, but I'm not going to get into that right now. But basically the quality of trainers is a big difference now. I mean, I've been to some of these courses where it's like, they're so monotone and it's like you're not retaining anything. The last one I went to, the trainer was. Was fantastic.

We actually, I went to a turbo course, just like, modern turbos, how to diagnose modern turbos, and that guy was fantastic. So. And they, you know, they always ask our opinion, what we thought, what we think about these guys and all this kind of stuff. So our piston ring rep came in because he saw my comments and stuff and he always comes to talk to me because I'm always honest with the training and. And I'm always, like, so keen with the training that he values my opinion. Right? So he said, like, what? I'm like, I thought he was fantastic. He's like, yeah, you know what, we're going to try to get him back for more. He was, he's a trainer for Standard.

Okay.

And he said, this guy, he, he will be in his room before an event. He will not leave his room because he's working on his presentation. Even all the guys are like, oh, we're going to go for drinks. He's like, oh, man, I still got two hours of work I need to do. But he just, like, he puts so much heart and soul and he was, he used to be a technician and it's just like, he understands you need to present this stuff properly, especially in the time frame that we have, so you can get the information you need and it's presented to you properly.

I've talked to so many guys that do the Napa and the Carquest training and they'll, they'll come right out and tell you that they are, they're available to teach these courses during the day. Right. It isn't by choice that they go out at 6 at night and teach till 9 or 8:30, whatever, but it's getting the shops on board with the idea that, like, we're gonna close at lunch that day and that's when they're gonna do it and then they go home. Think about how much better that quality you would get if you just said, I'm gonna lose, like, we're gonna close at two and every shop, so you, you just book three less cars in the morning, you shut down at two and you do your training.

Yeah.

And whatever you didn't get done by two parts, didn't show up. Doesn't matter. Call up Mrs. Smith. Sorry. Our guys have to go to training, your car will be finished in the morning.

Yeah. And that, that'll work. But also the, when they put these courses, they also gonna have to understand when to throw these. Right. Because I mean, like right now, September, us coming out here just makes sense. It's, it's our slow time.

Yes.

But if this was held in at the end of October, November, we wouldn't be here today. No, that this is when we make the most money.

Snow tire season.

Right. So you know, that's, that's the other thing is sometimes they throw these training seminars like in our busy season. Right. So it's like sometimes I don't even get to make it because the nice thing with Champ is he's. We're not forced to work overtime, but when we're busy, we have the option to work overtime if we want to.

Yeah.

Which it's fantastic because you know, sometimes you just want to make a little bit of extra money and it just makes sense as a business standpoint to hey, let's spend an extra hour. Let's get these vehicles so they're not sitting here in the morning. Because we know tomorrow, 8 o'clock or parking lots gonna be full.

Yeah.

Right. So let's get this done. Tomorrow's gonna be a fresh day. And it's funny because like I remember my, my, my previous owners, they, they never did the overtime thing. Right. But it, and I know because one of them didn't, didn't want to pay overtime. He, he thought it would just cost him more and all this kind of stuff when realistically he was losing money.

Mm. And here's the other. So a couple things. The other thing from the training standpoint, we can look at it like this and go, okay, if I'm gonna hold it during the busy season, I'm not talking a destination. I'm talking like, you know, a regular after hours class that we take. Well, maybe. Unfortunately, you don't send every guy.

Yeah, right.

Like if it's gonna be on can diagnostics and it's at. Starting at 7:00 at night, don't send your GS, your lube tech over.

Sure.

You know, it doesn't make any sense. I'm not trying to say that, to say that we hold them back.

No.

But maybe keep them in the shop doing the cars that have to get done there for the oil changes and the tire rotations and the winter tires and send off because you can come back to the shop and then in a month's time, two months time, and it's Dead, you can say, okay, everybody, this is what. Mark went on the course last month. He's going to now teach it to everybody.

Exactly. I mean, we already do that. Because I don't see value in sending a guy to a training course that's going to go over their head. I did some of that stuff. I remember I went to like, a Chrysler can networking course when I was a first year.

Yeah.

You think I got anything out of the course? Nothing. The only thing I got was a free meal.

Yeah. Some pizza. Yeah.

So realistically, like, with these guys, I need them to have their fundamentals first. Right. Because this is not going to help them. Right. We don't mind paying for training, but it needs to be. It needs to make sense. Right. It's not about blind training, even for me.

I'm not gonna go to a course that's like Introduction to, you know, Water pump installation. Yeah. You know.

Yeah. How to put a muffler on. You know, like, I mean, like, that stuff. Like. I can still remember taking a course one time years ago. It was for Dynamax. I thought it was gonna be absolutely terrible. Still one of the best courses I took because, like, this, how catalytic converters built.

This is what it actually does. Right. This is what the oxygen sensor should do. This is what upstream can. Cause what you think is a failed cat. And it's really just a skewed whatever causes a 420 DTC. One of the best courses I still ever took. And it was like over 10 years ago.

Not because of the material. I can't recite back every little thing, but it was the way of the understanding that it's like how they laid it out was pretty. Pretty cool, you know?

Yeah. I went to a Walker course like that, too.

Yeah.

I mean, my. Like I said out in B.C. and stuff, I worked at a. Like. Well, I started at Midas and then I went to Budget Break and Muffler. So we were like a break and exhaust shop. So I've gone to quite a bit of brake courses, an exhaust course. But I remember this one Walker one.

I was like, oh, another. Another exhaust course.

Right.

But yeah, it was just like, I know how cats work. But, yeah, it was just like understanding the diagnostic part of it and being like, well, if your rear. Your rear O2 is mimicking your front, you know, your cat's not doing anything like. And it's such an easy. Because, you know, we're all. We all know, like, 99% of the time. A P0420, it's a cat.

Yeah.

Right. We should just throw Cat.

Yeah.

You know, because you're gonna knock it out of the park 99% of the time. And. But now I can actually look at a. Now I look at my oxygen sensors and can confirm it. And if I don't see it mimicking, I got. Well, maybe I'll dive a little bit deeper into it. Right?

Yeah. I'll recheck for an exhaust leak. I'll recheck for an oxygen sensor. That's just a little bit lazy. Right. Stuff like that. That's just key. Yeah, you're 100% right.

Or I look for the software update. That's 99% of the time when you got a 420. But the O2 looks like it shouldn't be a 420. Go back and check your TSP. You know, Brian Pollock was just talking about one this morning. There's one Ford. Ford literally breaks it down and tells you what Mode 6 pads to look at.

Yeah.

If the codes. Like if you're. If your monitors aren't complete. Somebody just hadn't cleared the codes and monitors incomplete. You can still get the information you need at a Mode 6. You go back and you look a Mode 6 data. Does it take a lot longer to find? Sure it does. Because Mode 6 is not Mode 6 in last year.

Doesn't mean a Mode 6 in this year. The same PID means the same thing. That's what's stupid about Mode 6. But whatever. It's still. The TSB lays it out for you. Go and look at this pit. Tell us what that pit is.

All it's that. Yeah, go do this. Go recondition the cat. What's reconditioned? Well, maybe you dump a little bit of fuel in it, right. From how you set up something. Drive the bag off the thing. Right. Stuff like that.

What's.

Well, I mean, Scotty Kilmer showed us how we can recondition a cat, Right.

Did I ever tell you I had an idea? And when we get off the thing, I'll tell you what the idea for the shirt is. I don't want to say it online because people steal the idea. It's so good. But input for you right now, for trainers that are gonna listen to this episode, what can you give them as an input for trainer? Like to make their courses better? Like here, anywhere. Any, if any, technical trainer right out there is listening. What do you feel like? Not from the standpoint of who goes, but giving them a suggestion on making the better. Do you want them to be a Little more. Like you mentioned.

Some are monotone. A little more, man. Animated.

Or it's not so much animated. Is be passionate about the stuff you're teaching. Honestly, that's. I think that's the biggest thing.

Yeah.

Is be passionate about the stuff you're teaching. You know, don't act like a substitute teacher.

Yeah.

And read from a book.

Yeah.

We can all read the PowerPoint. We don't read the PowerPoint. We don't want you to read us the PowerPoint.

Do you find. Because I find I do better with the case study type courses versus the theory courses. Theory bores me.

Yeah.

But case study, when you say when you start off and I go customer states car doing this, I'm already intrigued.

Yeah.

Because I'm like, oh, gee, what is the car, Joe. If you get up there and go, this is an oxygen sensor and this is how it works. And like, I. The theory is still important.

Yes. I like to have both. Right.

I like how they mix the theory in when they give me a case study. How did the theory apply to the car? That's what I want.

Yeah.

You know, because I get my stupid brains already. I had one of them once. I know where you're going with this.

Yeah.

But I mean, that. That's. That's a hard thing to. To get out of people. Right. That's. That's more of a personality thing.

Yeah. The animated things. That's the difference. That's why we talk about my buddy Paul Danner. Why is he so effective? Because the dude is an actual teacher, like an educator. Like, I've taught it at a college level for, you know, 20 years. That's why he's so good at it. Like, I don't expect somebody that used to be a tech that has only been now an instructor for two years to just be slamming it.

Yeah.

That's. I'm just happy that they can get the material out and they're. And it's accurate and factual. That's important.

Yeah.

But somebody that is, like, knows how to engage classrooms. How do we have, like, active conversations, active listening. This is stuff that I've learned through this.

Yeah, right.

That was what makes a really good class. And you see it. Some of these guys are. Some guys, like, are just naturals on it. Keith Perkins is just a natural. Now, Keith will tell you he's not a natural because he's also got, like, he's only a few credits away from a psych degree. He said law enforcement, training on how to talk to people, all kinds of stuff. So it's not just a natural thing, but they've had training that allows them to be better trainers.

You know what I mean?

Oh, exactly.

It's cool as hell, man.

Oh, for sure.

Yeah.

Like I said. And you just see the quality of trainers out here.

Yeah.

Right. And then. But at the same time, it's funny because there might be a couple people out here that maybe aren't the top notch trainers that you would expect here. And after going to a bunch of these and then you get one of those, you're all like, well, this is like the Napa course all over.

We had. We had a. We had a course in Toronto last week. It's called lindertech. And but I'll say this from Canada. Toronto, the armpit of our country. Right. For the most part, is still where everybody thinks if they're gonna bring it to the country, that's the best place to bring it.

And they're not wrong. Right. It's gonna get the most turnout.

Yeah.

For the one trip in. But like, it's cost a lot more money to come to Winnipeg for the amount of turnout to make the course feasible.

Yeah.

Than bringing them into Toronto. And so it sucks. I'm only two hours from Toronto. I could go you. That's a. That's a jaunt. Right.

That's like a trip out here.

My buddy Braxton. I'll ask you this while I was here. So you're in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Braxton's asking me about Churchill, Manitoba, because he wants to go on a tour to see the polar bears.

Yeah.

And he's asking me when's the best time to go see the polar bears. Like, dude, I don't know.

It's funny, I think people almost forget.

How big Canada is and how big Manitoba is.

Yeah. Like, you know, and like how sparse we are and like how most of our. I forget what the stat was, but I think like 80% of our population is within the Toronto area.

Yeah. It's not quite 80, but it's like. Yeah, it 50. It might be 50 of the whole population of all countries in one city.

Yeah.

Now it's a massive city. There's a reason I hate it. There's just too many people.

Yeah.

I can't People like that. But, like. So I asked, how far is Churchill? Where the.

Where?

Like, I'm like, you realize this is ice floes and penguins and seals. Not penguins, but seals and polar bears. How far is that from Winnipeg?

So I don't exactly know, like, how long it would take you, but all I know is for sure is that you have to go to Thompson first.

Right.

Thompson's eight hours from Winnipeg. And then from Thompson, there's two ways to Churchill. One is by plane, which doesn't happen most of the year.

Yeah.

And the other one's train.

Yeah.

The only way to get to. And I forget how long the train ride up to Churchill is, but I think it's around 13 hours. Maybe some. Like, it's up there. I mean, it's right on the Hudson Bay.

Well, that's what I told, I told Braxton. I said, you're. You realize now you're closer to the Arctic Circle than you are the equator. You're closer to it. And he kind of like, really? Yeah. So he's like, well, she really wants to see polar bears. I'm like, maybe come to Toronto and go to the zoo and look at the polar bears, because it's not going to be the same. You're not going to be in this giant bus with monster tires and are trying to push the bus over.

Hey, if you're a thrill seeker, do you think that'd be a great tourist destination? I'm not judging. Yeah, I'm not that interested in seeing a polar bear that up close, I'm.

Not interested in seeing polar bear, but there's a lot about the north that I want to go see. I mean, the neat thing with, with the whole Tick Tock thing, especially on my, on my outdoor content, is somehow I ended up on the Inuit side of Tick tock for a while.

Wow.

So then I started making a lot of Inuit friends up from none of it and all this kind of stuff. And then all of a sudden I'm like, I'm watching them, they're eating, you know, like raw caribou. They're slicing this frozen stuff and putting, oh, what's that spice that they always. But those you use soy sauce and stuff like that. And I'm like, I got some frozen deer meat in my fridge. I gotta try this. So then, like, I made a video. And it's funny because this one creator at the time, his name was Peter, and his whole thing was.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of times they're cutting this stuff on the floor and I asked him, like, why are you doing this on cardboard on the floor? And they explained it to me that basically a lot of times it's hard for them to even get tables.

Yeah.

So they don't want to ruin their table. They don't want to get it all greased up and all this kind of stuff. That's why they. And it's just been how they've always done it. So anyway, so I made a video. And I didn't do it out of disrespect because I absolutely respect that culture so much. Everybody that knows me and. And, like.

Because even Peter, like, did a video, like, just, like. So there was maybe a couple people that got a little bit offended. So anyways, I did the whole. Like, I put. I put my deer meat on the. On the cardboard. I'm like, I'm gonna do this Peter style, right? And I'm like, they're chopping my deer meat. And I had the Soyuz.

And I'm like, this is freaking awesome. I'm like, I can see why you guys do this, right? But a lot of them were like, oh, look at this white boy. He's trying to eat like us. And it's just, like, it's. It's just so neat. The. In the Inuit pop is so neat because, yes, it's a little bit more modernized, but a lot of the stuff, there's still substance hunters and stuff like that. And, like, I'm so curious on what blubber and all this kind of stuff tastes like.

And it's just. I. And the neat thing was, I don't know if you saw the video, but I actually had a customer from none of it.

Okay.

It was a guy. He sees. He's watching my. My Tick tock content. He bought a Toyota Tundra out of Alberta. He had to bring it through Winnipeg to ship it up north. He wanted me to look over it to make sure it was good to go up north. Right.

We ended up doing some. He had a leaky fox shock on us. We put a shock. And we did a couple other things on. And it was the first time I actually seen a None of it license plate because he had put it on there. I'm like, finally. This was my last bingo card license plate of Canada. I'd never.

I've seen every other territory except for none of it.

Very cool.

And I'm all like, then that's the cool thing about TikTok. It's like there's a guy from none of it watching my stuff and asking me to work on his vehicle. Yeah, like, that is just so cool.

Social media is the next like. And that's the thing. There's the marketing. Marketing. Marketing. Marketing is important right now. It's free.

I know.

Like, your marketing of yourself of your brand is free. My marketing of my brand, for the most part, is free. That's Frickin awesome, dude. Yeah, really cool. Well, I'm. You were one of the people that I wanted to get here to this event.

Yeah, right.

And you, like last year you saw me starting to hype it up about this event and you guys weren't able to make it, and then to just like, you know, to have you guys here, you and. And Chuck and Brandon and, you know, Mr. Subaru, just incredible.

Well, it's been amazing too, because again, these are all people that, you know, we've all become kind of friends over the Internet. Yeah, right. And to finally get to be in the same room, go have some drinks and be real people with each other, not just these Internet people, it's just been amazing. And at the same time, you. It's funny because you. Again, it comes down to the perception, right? You have these perceptions about these people and you meet them and it's like. Oh. And even like.

So last night was really, really interesting. There was one guy, he was like starstruck, right? When he saw Chuck and Brandon and all this kind of stuff. And he's all like, man, I can't believe you guys are talking to me and stuff like that. And Chuck's like, we're just real. We're just dudes with a phone number just talking like psychos to this. To this phone.

We're just text just like anyone else. Yeah, people come up to me all the time and it's like, oh, man, I can't believe what you're doing. And it's like, what do you do? What do you mean? Yeah, we've all sat around a bar somewhere and drank beer and bitched about this industry. That's all I do.

Yeah, right. But they act like we're Brad Pitt or something. You know what I mean? I'm like, our lives haven't changed.

You and I look like the Robertson family, Duck Dynasty. We don't look like Brad Pitt.

Right.

I'd like to look like Brad Pitt.

Yeah. Because even Chuck said, you know, like, he's like, all these people think I make like, like hand over cash money off of this app. That's not how it is. I make a bit of money, don't get me wrong. But that's. And even though he's getting rich, no one's getting rich off of it. We just. We just know that.

That we have something unique to present to the world. And we want as much people to be empowered. And you know, one of the greatest things for me is when I get apprentices or I get people like, reaching out to me and go, you know what? Your tips are helping me out. I don't have a good journeyman or I don't have this or. You know what I mean? Like, I've learning a lot from you. It's like to me, that's. That, that's worth everything. Yeah, right?

Yeah. Mr. Subaru made a good point last night. He's like, and this is something, you know where I stand on the DIY thing and everything like that. Right. And it's not that my theory about it, my beliefs about it have changed because I think that a lot of them are still ignorant to how they talk to us professionals.

Oh, for sure.

But the guy literally says to Mr. Subar, because of the videos that you've had out on YouTube showing people how to fix Subarus, I'm now started as a basic tech at a Subaru dealer in town.

You know, and that's the thing with the di. And this is again, this is where it's this, this struggle that I have in me. But I know if you can empower people to get their minds thinking like that, that maybe we can get new techs in the industry from that.

But I want the Diyers to listen, to be like, listen, we'll empower you.

Yeah.

But be respectful for sure. Right. Don't disrespect because what you tried to do didn't work for you. Or you bought a part that was the cheapest part and you put it on it didn't fix. Don't then just lash out at the person that gave you the tip and say, you don't know anything. It didn't work. The real answer for yourself is because at the end of day, it's still their car and you're. They're still their problem.

You put your big boy pants on and you learn why it's broken then, right? I tried to help you. I empowered you. Because most of the time we know what the utilization why it fails is the execution of it, the part that they put on, or their own attempt at performing the repair. The repair was not wrong. And what it needed, it was. They screwed it up.

Oh, for sure. You know, and you're going to have that. But like I said, this is where I, where, where I struggle. It's like, should I let those guys dictate how I present myself and the knowledge to hopefully find that even, let's say it's 5% of the DIY guys to maybe get their foot in the.

Door, one is too many. One to disrespect your needs too many. I know, that's how I look at it, right? Can I control it? No, it's completely out of my control. It's human nature, it's the way it is. But that's just. It is such at my core belief that it's like if I said it again last night, Chuck, if we all stop giving them answers, they'd all stop unfollowing us. They would all stop following us inside of a week. Because they don't.

There's nothing there for them then. Now I'm not. And then the people that stay are the people that have the genuine interest and want to do what we do. If we shift it from how do I fix the car to to this is what this industry is about. Most of them will be like, this is boring. I ain't watching this. And the true ones that are trying to fix their own stuff and want to do they want to be the next Mark or they want to be the next Chuck, they'll stay. And then those people, I'll empower them all day long.

Here's what I got to say about these events and then we'll call it a night and we'll go get some dinner. I can't just jump in my truck, drive over to Mark's on a Sunday afternoon and have a beer and talk about this stuff. Right. So other than being able to log in and talk about it, this is the first time that you and I be able to sit this close to one another and talk about it. And it's pretty friggin cool. So people that are listening think about these events as like we said, you're gonna learn some technical stuff while you're here. But the beauty of these events is a networking. And that's what it's really, at the end of the day is all about.

I know when I go back, that's gonna be one thing I'm going to work on. I want to get more Canadians out here. It's, you know, because I think I've met what, three other Canadians here maybe.

Yeah, there's. I'm just trying to think of my head. Yeah, there's more than.

There's that one guy from, From. From Ontario. There's another guy from Ottawa. There was a Sens fan.

Yeah, well, you can't hold that. I'm gonna be a Leafs fan.

I think there was one more that ran into which.

So here's the wacky part. The last year though, the first year that I came here, there was only two of us. Last year There was only one. So now there's what, five here then? Or six? Frigging pretty close to double digits. And then once there's a double digit band, there's a hockey team and there's going to be a fight and it's going to be some better, for sure. And there's going to be some better beer. So.

And that's. You know what I think that the biggest thing is especially for us, because again, we don't hear about these events in Canada. I think, Jeff, realistically, our. Our job is to bring this to the Canadians and sell the value of this.

Yeah, right.

Make shop owners realize the value of this because they're going to look at, oh, the $700 or whatever it is, plus the flight, plus the this. But you know, at the end of the day, like, even Champ said he's like, this stuff is a tax write off.

Yeah.

Exact training is a tax write off. Guys, just come out here.

Exactly. You know me, brother. Like, if I can get more Canadians here, I'll be. I'll more than. I'm never gonna not talk about this.

Yeah.

So it'll happen before then. There'll be a hundred of us here.

Yeah.

And then imagine that. We can carpool down.

Yeah.

Anyway, thanks for being on, buddy.

Yeah, no, it's a blast. Excited to do this again with you.

For sure. We will, everybody. Thank you for listening. Have an awesome day. We'll talk to you soon. 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 AESAW 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.

Mark Elliot from TikTok on Good Diagnostic Techniques

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