Navigating Career And Shop Growth with Chris Lawson

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Hey, what's going on?

Automotive World.

Welcome to another episode of the Automotive Diagnostic Podcast.

My name is Sean Tipping.

I'll be your host once again for this week's episode.

Thank you for joining me On the show today.

We've got Chris Lawson.

Chris was actually on the show about seven months ago, right around Christmas time of 2022.

He is coming back on the show today.

He works for TechnicianFindcom and the last time he was on we talked a lot about fitting technicians with the right shop, and he had some listeners of the podcast reach out to him after that episode and seek some help as far as finding a place of employment.

And then just some general questions as far as finding the right shop, some things you can look for, some questions that you can ask your potential employer that might help you determine whether you actually are going to enjoy working there or not.

Well, anyways, he's going to share some of that information with us today, and we're going to talk a lot about shop culture, employee retention, being happy in your job, the mindset that you have while you're at your job or deciding where you're going to work, and some of the purpose that we can find within our career and what goes into the making of that.

So it's great talk.

This is awesome.

I know everybody will enjoy this.

With that out of the way, let's jump in.

Yeah, so you had some text reach out to you.

Huh, that's cool, yeah.

Yeah, I had six texts reach out to me and there were just a variety of different.

It was pretty much the same two questions, but there was phrased in different ways, and the first one was how do I find a good shop?

So that was a question that I answered quite a few times.

And then the other question that I answered was how do I decide between two opportunities?

So they're either at a shop and then another shop has approached them, or they have a choice between two different shops, and then how do you evaluate those opportunities?

So I just wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about that and get into it.

I can share what I said and then maybe you can riff on that and we can come up with some value here.

Yeah, that sounds fantastic.

I'm happy that some people took it to heart and was like okay, I can utilize this to better my position and my career, so that's really cool.

Yeah, yeah, let's do that.

What was it about like six months ago or so, that we think so.

Yeah, that was about it.

Yeah, about six months and they just they trickled in over the over the months and you know, every time I see anybody that came in from the podcast I always like to make sure I get right back to them and see if I can help them out.

So yeah, cool, how's business been for you on your end.

Before we get into it, here it's good, we're really busy.

We are really busy.

So, you know it, things don't really slow down on this side of things and we're actually placing a lot of technicians to, so there's a lot of movement, lot of people, lot of things going on, people moving around.

I don't know if it's just because it's the summer and you know people want to get it done before school starts again.

You know, that's kind of the way I think about it, but we're really seeing a lot more people reaching out to us and then, you know, I've been busy with a lot of things to, so I have done a couple of podcasts and Rolling out some new things on our end.

To end, one of the things that I really want to roll out is, since I do have more and more technicians reaching out to me, I want to Really connect them with some of the some of the better shops that are in my network as well.

So I'm trying to think about how I can do that on a platform, because we don't really have a platform for that yet.

But that's what I'm, something we're working on to that we want to roll out probably towards the end of the summer.

Sure, yeah, I mean, I've had people reach out to me, you know, asking about hate.

You know anybody in this area and I I'm limited outside of my local area.

I know some, some people, but to have a resource like that, a platform somewhere you know, you could send somebody go check out this website or link or app or whatever and that'll help you.

Yeah, you know, it's like what Tinder for Tax and shops, right, right.

Right, exactly, that's a whole new business model there.

That's what you got to set up, okay, yeah.

But yeah, that's the thing is.

You know, I'm sure you know, sometimes you have the right shop and the wrong guy and the vice versa too.

You got the right guy, wrong shop, and so much of the time what number one is for both parties to realize that, hey, this is not the right fit for one reason or another, absolutely, and then to be able to go out and actually find something or have a confidence that you can go out and find something?

I know when I was very young technician I was in a shop that looking back on it now, was not a great situation for many reasons.

You know that now I would have walked out of there within a couple weeks of starting, but I stayed there for six years because I didn't really know what was out there.

Like I kind of knew I'd heard, you know, people talking.

Social media was not was an existent when I started there.

But I didn't really feel the confidence that I could go out, get another full time position with adequate pay and some benefits and I mean young too.

So it can be kind of intimidating because you're not confident in your own skill set and what you bring to the table just yet.

Yeah, so you want to kind of stay with what's safe, even though it may not be the best thing for you.

But that's where all this stuff podcasts and social media and stuff like that is so cool, because again shops and texts can know oh, there is something out there maybe not even better, but something that fits me better.

Yep, that's, that's pretty cool stuff, so I'm glad you're doing something like that, yeah.

Absolutely.

I think it's necessary.

And the industry I mean you know even better than I do what where the industry is going with, where you know good skilled work and you know good skilled workers and how that's all fitting into what's going on.

And you know a lot of the technicians are aging out.

You know they're getting, you know my agent above and you don't really.

You know turning wrenches isn't something that they necessarily want to do up into your, you know, 70s.

So that's not, you know, it's just a natural progression and we're in a situation where we don't have a lot of people coming in underneath and we don't have a lot of shops that are willing to offer apprenticeship programs and hire somebody because of aptitude and not skills and bring them along.

So there's a lot of things that we have to, you know, address here and I, like you know I love Mike Rose work, you know Mike row and and you know everything he's talking about.

I just think he's spot on, he really a spot on with what's going on and I think a big part of this is really bringing shops along as well as the technicians, because there are just some things you just can't do if you want to attract good employees.

And you know, quite frankly I mean, I see this every day there are a lot of shops that aren't doing what they need to be doing in order to attract a good employee.

And you know, it's that situation where you're saying, hey look, I don't want to offer this and I don't want to offer this and I don't want to offer this, but I want this master, certified master, technician, and you know, and then I only want to pay him this and it's like well, you know what are you thinking here?

It just, it just doesn't, it doesn't work, it doesn't compute.

So I'm glad more shops are figuring that out.

Yeah, I had real listen to our previous conversation prior to talking to you and we had chatted about that.

The same thing is that Shops need to kind of look around in their area to see what else are people offering.

You know the person that you want, what are other shops offering that person and you should at least be matching it.

If not, you know, doing one up, and if you're not, some, what do you expect?

Right, right, that's a key piece to like, be realistic in that manner of like that's market demand.

Okay, well, we better pay up for the position that we need, or what else are you going to be stuck with?

Either nobody or somebody who's, you know, less confident that what you're looking for, for whatever reason.

so, oh, yeah, I get on calls.

Jenny, on my team we do our onboarding calls together and we always laugh.

I always ask the question the very beginning so how long have you been looking for this technician?

And I'll get answers like 23 years, 30 years.

You know.

I had one guy the other day.

He says as long as I've been in this industry I've been looking for the right technician.

And you know that's we laugh about it, but it's, it's almost, it's almost kind of sad because it's well, what steps have you taken in order to develop your shop into a place where a good quality technician would want to come and want to be part of this culture?

And we talk a lot about culture.

I mean, every time I get on a call with the shop owner, it always the conversation always revolves around culture, because there are a lot of things that are very Objective.

I mean, if you get on, indeed, I mean you know right away and you can see what the salary ranges are in your area, and everybody's got, indeed, and everybody's got a phone so you can see what the salary ranges are.

So it's not like there's any surprise, but one of the things that is a little difficult, more difficult to figure out.

You can go to a page is Eric shops Facebook page and you can look at the pictures they post and you can see how they treat their employees generally.

But you can always tell things like I always know.

One of your listeners who reached out to me said you know what I'm looking for a good shop and he described the situation.

He said you know, I'm young, I'm investing a lot in my education and my tools and I'm doing all these things.

And I said, hey, you're doing all the right things.

And he said do you know of any shops in the area?

So I made some outreach and Didn't find anybody that was in his area, that was looking.

But I said, hey, you're doing all the right things and I gave him some ideas.

But one of the things that I mentioned was there are three things that you really really need to believe in in order for it to be a good fit, and you know salaries, one of those things.

But you just you don't want to be jumping all over the place just because of salary, because A good fit is going to be more important long term.

If they can match it, at least get close on the salary a good fit, and one of the things is you want to believe in the owner of the manager management.

If you don't resonate with the owner for an independent shop, you don't resonate with the management or the philosophy, then I mean it's just a.

It's a non starter from the very beginning.

So If you just ask him the story about hey, how'd you get started, that's a great way to find out how they got started.

I've heard some great, great stories.

I mean, I had one of my clients said you know what?

I had this?

I was working for a shop and then they this car pulled in and I saw the owner come out and the owner ended up charging for all this stuff and then they left and they came back and they didn't change any of the parts, they didn't do any of the stuff and he ended up charging him three thousand dollars and he was just laughing about it and and he says I just couldn't believe that he was doing that and he wanted me to do that too and that's why I went out and started my own shop.

I mean, I've heard so many stories like that and when you hear the, the origin story, then it kind of puts you on the same page of them is because you get the real values.

It's not so much the mission, vision and values which are all important, and you know most shops by now.

They have a mission, vision and value but they can be pretty dry and if you just read the mission, vision and values it's like you know it's corporate speak and it doesn't really had to exactly exactly.

Yeah, you know, you paid some consultant and you felt like you weren't getting your money's worth if you didn't go through the motions.

But I always tell him hey, look, what's your story, why do you do what you do?

Why is it important?

And if you can resonate with that, if you can get in there and you can say, hey, you know what?

Yeah, this is this really.

You know, this floats my boat, this is this is really.

This makes sense to me.

You know, when somebody's car breaks down, their life stops.

You know, I was working with the shop and I said why do you do what you do?

And they said and that's exactly they told me said you know what, when somebody's car breaks down, their life stops, we get their life moving again.

Wow, that's great.

You know, now you've got an emotional reason.

You can, you can resonate with that and it really makes you know, it makes coming to work and knowing your place in providing the service.

It makes it clear and that you know that makes all the difference.

Yeah, the culture piece of it.

It's a very difficult thing and, like you mentioned there, it's something that you can't fake and I think no, for my experience you're working in shops, and four shops is that, I don't know.

I I'd almost, I'd almost rather have somebody who is just honest, that all they care about is the money, rather than trying to fake that.

They care, you know, and so I get.

Maybe that's just my recommendation.

Anybody who you know wants to recognize is okay, this is something we want to have good culture at our shop.

You got to be real about it.

You got to really want good things for your employees and I don't know if you don't maybe you need to reconsider exactly what you're doing, but Absolutely, absolutely 100%.

I couldn't agree more and I've got some questions to ask so that you can kind of suss that out, because it's one of the very first interviews I did.

I, you know, I I mentioned on the first time we talked it's you know, I came from a social media background and before that I was a financial planner.

But when I got into working with shops I just I didn't know the mentality, I didn't really even know how the whole industry work.

So I did a lot of interviews and I talked to a lot of technicians and one of the things I heard over and over again was you know what?

All shops say the same things and you never really know what you're getting until you go to work there and then it's too late.

I heard that over and over again.

So what I was thinking about is I was, you know, kind of preparing for this call and thinking back over over the shops I've worked with and and the technicians I've talked with.

I said you know what?

What can you ask?

Is there a question you can ask that really gets to the bottom of it, to find out if they're really taking care of their employees or not?

And I think what it is is it's.

You're looking for a shop that is concerned about your life working inside and outside of the shop, and you can't fake that, because there's certain things that are important that have to be in place.

And I would say one of the things, if you're talking about inside of the shop, one of the biggest ones is what is their onboarding program?

Look like what happens when you start, because that's a telltale sign about how they sat down and thought through what's it going to be like when somebody moves their toolbox in and it's their first day and you know they've got a bay and they've got a lift, or they've got a lift or what, whatever they have and you know.

Do they say, hey, john, there's your lift, have fun, come collect your paycheck in a week.

Or do they bring you in, introduce you to everybody, say you know, this is Ralph, if you have any questions, talk to Ralph.

Did they bring in the office and go through the employee manual with you and show you hey, this is how things work here, this is who you talk to for these questions.

Do they say you know, these are the tools that are community, that you can use.

This is how we do things.

Do they say, hey, look, if you need to take, you know if you need to take off early to go to, you know, your son's baseball game or your daughter's soccer game or whatever.

This is how you do it.

And I mean, do they walk you through this process?

Do they have a process?

Do they look at you like a deer in the headlights when you ask them about an onboarding process?

I mean that's something that you can tell immediately They've thought about the employee process.

Team activities is another one.

Do they do things as a team?

Do they try to bring the front of the house and the back to house together and communicate and be a team and, you know, be a family?

Those are things I mean you can't fake that.

I mean you're either doing regular events or you're not.

Yeah, they might seem sorry to interrupt you.

Yeah, go ahead.

Those events might seem like they might be dorkier, cheesy in the moment, but when I worked at Firestone when I first started in 2011, they had multiple events throughout the year where they'd get the whole store and multiple stores together.

They'd buy everybody tickets to the state fair and they like blocked off an actual section of the state fair where you could go and there was free food.

They had like a Christmas party where they rented out this big, you know hotel conference room and all this stuff and gave away rewards and prizes and yeah, okay, so it was a little cheesy and you know it is what it is.

But, yeah, they, they ended up taking that away.

They got a new CEO 2013, 14 somewhere in that neighborhood and you know, a lot of stuff was on the chopping block profits, whatever, I don't make those decisions, but they took all that stuff away.

I do know that.

And, man, that was a downer and I really, really think, at least in the stores that I worked in for them, it lowered overall morale Absolutely.

You know, just as a whole, like each store has its own personality and runs run a little different way, but just the group as a whole, everybody, nobody was connected, quite the same.

They were, as you know, after going to that Christmas party and maybe throwing back a few drinks and having a good time together, you know so that stuff does make a difference, even though it can seem kind of dorky.

Absolutely, absolutely.

You know I always hated company Christmas parties and all these things, but I always went because you had to.

But think of the message that sends when you cancel it.

I remember when I was in financial services.

I remember we used to have a Christmas party every year and it's funny because every year that we get skimpier and skimpier.

You know they would start out and they'd have it at this restaurant.

They have this big spread and, you know, open bar and all this stuff, and it was just great, we all had a good time.

And then the next year they was like, okay, well, it's not a big spread, it's like a little buffet.

And then you get drink coupons instead of, or drink tickets instead of, the open bar.

And then the next year after that is like, okay, now you only get one drink ticket.

And then it's like you know paper plates, yeah, exactly.

And then the year after that it was at somebody's house and it was like, and it was like, oh, my goodness, it just keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller.

And you can tell who's making these decisions.

It's the top.

They're looking at this and going, oh gosh, we spend a lot of money on that.

Well, why did we do that, and what's the message that sends?

It's that you don't matter, that we don't care about our team, that you know all of you are overhead, and you know it's a direct correlation between the money we spent and profits even though it may be there.

You know, in a roundabout way you can't put that on the paper necessarily, but it's there.

Yeah, yeah, and how short-sighted is that.

It's just so short-sighted, but seems to be the theme as companies get bigger.

That just maybe it's just because you get less disconnected as you scale.

Maybe that's something that's tough to avoid, I don't know.

I don't run a, I have one employee, so I'm on the other side of the scale right now.

Right, right, and you know what?

That's why I love working with independent shops.

You know, quite frankly, I've heard that conversation a lot too is you know, I feel like I'm in a meat grinder here at the dealer and we just had somebody today, somebody from a Porsche dealer just reached out and said, hey, can you help us out?

And I said, no, sorry, I can't help you out.

You know we don't place technicians at dealers, but you know that's what we found a lot, and I think it's because you have.

You know, if you have somebody that's an MBA that's running the company I mean, you know that you have a, you know, a bean counter, so to speak, running the company then they're going to be looking at these line items and they're not going to be necessarily thinking about the overall employee experience.

And it's just so short-sighted.

Because if you look at the numbers, the hard numbers, treating your employees well is always more profitable.

In the long term it reduces turnover.

Happy employees are more productive.

They show up on time, they, you know, they don't call out sick as much, they work harder, they put in overtime, they're, you know, they get along better with the rest of the staff.

I mean, they have hard numbers that show that when you treat your employees well, it's better for everybody over time.

Yeah, I mean nobody.

Obviously nobody wants to be going into a job that they hate, but nobody wants to go to a job where the majority of the people hate that they're there.

Oh yeah, that's terrible, it's miserable for everyone.

And so, absolutely yeah, as an owner of a company or someone who runs a store or shop or whatever it is, I mean that should definitely be something that is on the lookout.

Like does everyone hate coming in here on Monday?

Is everyone pissed off and grouchy and miserable?

Okay, how can I change this?

What do I need to do to turn that around?

And I mean, it's not always an easy.

It's a big ship to turn right.

That's not a it is a simple thing to do.

But, man, if you're in that situation, something's got to be done, because we've all been there, we've all worked at places at one point or another like that and you don't want to stay there.

You don't believe in anything good is going to happen there.

You're just there for a check and something better will come along eventually.

So yeah, yeah, if you, you know, you have to keep that mindset in place.

And the other thing is don't let it poison you, because if you stay there too long it will poison you.

It's just very difficult to get out of that and to keep yourself positive when you're in that type of environment.

I was talking with one shop owner probably a few months back, and he was just complaining complaining, I mean, just for 30 minutes.

He complained and complained about his team, and at the end of the conversation I said, well, you know, because he wanted me to help him find a technician.

I said, you know, I wanted to say this so badly but I didn't.

I wanted to say, you know, the fish stinks from the head down and it's like you know it's.

You know.

He kept telling me oh man, boys, I can't get him to show up and I can't get him to do this, I can't get him to do that and blah, blah, blah.

And I said everybody is like, yeah, everybody, everybody by my team.

And I said you know that's, there's something, there's somebody that needs to be fired.

You shave his face every morning, yeah, but if every girl you've dated has been crazy, you might be something going on with you, yeah.

Exactly, exactly.

That's exactly the mentality and you know I've had those conversations and you know a big part of what we're trying to do is we're trying to educate the shops too, so that they can do a better job, and you know a lot of them are doing a better job.

You know, one of the other areas is transparent communication on having regular one on one meetings.

Okay, that's a big one, you know I've I've heard stories of nobody gets constructive feedback until one day they get called into the office and say, hey, you know what?

You got a week to get your act together and then you're out.

It's like no warnings, no anything.

I've also heard stories about people at the dealer who got dressed down right in the bay in front of all their colleagues, you know, because they had a comeback or something.

They just boom right there in front of everybody.

I mean that's a humiliating situation.

You don't want to have a situation like that.

I mean, where's the communication?

That's something you find out by talking with other people who are already working there.

It's like hey, you know, are they screaming at people when you know when the doors are closed or what's going on?

Sure, yeah, it's a good idea if you're getting hired somewhere or potentially, you know, considering getting on somewhere, if you have the ability to talk to somebody who works there.

Absolutely, I mean, it depends you could get the wrong person.

But you might yeah, you might at least get an idea of how things flow and what what that shop is like.

So that sort of stuff's more on the like, the morale side of things or, like you could say, even extracurricular, right outside of the shop and considering life inside of the actual work that's happening and the day to day shop stuff.

What are some things that you've recognized that shop owners could be doing better?

And I mean, like, with processes and with the actual work happening.

What's being missed with shop owners?

Because I'm, like I say I have an employee as of February, so I'm brand new to this and I'm not in a shop.

Congratulations, thank you.

Thank you, it's been, it's been really good.

It's been awesome to have some help.

I'm what my thought process has been since I started is how can I remove as many obstacles as possible for him to meet the expectations that I set for him?

Right, like I'm gonna pay you this much.

This is what I expect of you now as a business owner.

I want to.

Just what's giving you problems?

I want to get that out of the way, however, within reason, of course, but I think that that's what business owners should be doing.

Are you telling me is that normal?

What are people missing out there?

Yep, I think that's a fantastic mindset and really, if you look at something like if you haven't read Business Made Simple by Donald Miller yet, I would highly recommend that, because he talks a lot about that your job as a manager, as an owner, is to remove the obstacles so that your team can be more efficient, and that's what these meetings should be about.

These one-on-one meetings is hey, what's going on?

Are you having any problems?

Are there any bottlenecks?

Are you having any conflicts with any other team members?

And then it's about removing those bottlenecks.

Another big area that I see is on workflow.

I don't know how much you deal with workflow with your employee, but when you've got a situation where they are playing favorites with workflow, that's a huge, huge issue, and I hear about that all the time.

It's like the service advisor has a pet tech and they get all the gravy work and then everybody else is they're going hey, what's going on here?

They're getting all the crap.

So that's a big, big area where I hear that there are problems.

So I would ask about that.

The other area that I see is that I mentioned a little bit earlier is lack of communication between the front and the back.

A lot of fighting, a lot of fighting, a lot of.

There isn't a delineation, there isn't a line that's drawn between what one person's job is and what somebody else's job is.

As an example, there's a shop where they don't have a real clear.

It's like customers can kind of wander into the shop if they want to, so they end up talking to technicians and then the service advisor kind of gets cut out of the whole deal because the customer wants to talk directly to who's working on their car, that kind of thing.

So in the shop owner doesn't make it clear.

Hey look, you need to stay in your lane and these are the places where you need to be working.

So I see that being a problem as well.

Those are some of the big ones that I've seen.

Yeah, that was one thing I could say good about Firestone is they had a very clear, outlined process for how everything flowed through the day.

That helps and when I went from an independent who was the more loosey-goosey I mean, I actually sold my own work at that place, so I was service writer and tech and just kind of everybody did everything.

It was the mentality.

But when I went from there to now, you're just a tech, you're just working on cars.

That's all you need to focus on.

That's all you have to worry about is making sure that cars fix correctly.

That was huge for, like you say, overall workflow is going to increase because I have a very narrow focus now that I can get really good at, ideally, and I don't have to worry about answering phone calls and selling tickets and finding parts and I have a guy for that and his job outline by Firestone.

Here's exactly what we expect of you.

You do this.

Here's, sean, this is what we expect of you.

You do this.

And that was so.

I kept track of my flat rate hours when I was at the previous shop.

I had never been on flat rate prior to that.

It always been hourly, but I kept track of my hours just because I was like am I hitting 40?

That's pretty close.

And I was nervous about transitioning to a full flat rate pay scale, which is what Firestone was.

I just didn't know am I going to make enough?

What if it's a couple of weeks a month?

Oh my gosh, what do I do?

Well, that first year I doubled my salary because again and so I've said plenty of bad stuff about Firestone.

So, to Firestone's credit, they had a system in place because it's corporate right.

They had a very outlined system and all that stuff flowed and I made you know twice the money that I was making at the other place.

I had no issues getting around that.

So I guess, to take away from that, if you have a smaller business, you can definitely get some clear, outlined processes and expectations.

I think expectations are really big.

I found that.

I bought at the college level for automotive for a while and I found out very quickly.

You may have some things in your head that you expect, but if you don't make it clear and you don't make it clear up front in the beginning, at the start of the school year, good luck.

You can be, you can be as strict as you want, but if you're not upfront about it right away, this is my expectations.

Going back, after you've got already kind of done some stuff and it's it's so much harder.

It's so much harder and of course we can't foresee everything that's going to happen and you're going to have to update some policies and rules and stuff.

But, man, as much as you can.

Here are my expectations.

And then, like I mentioned earlier, well, now I'm going to make sure that I remove as many obstacles I can for you to meet those things.

But here's what we expect you and that that makes a big difference for sure.

Absolutely, absolutely.

One of the things we always ask a shop on the onboarding call is for the position description.

Do you have a written position description?

And some do, some don't, because I mean, that's where all the expectations, they they sprout out of that.

And you know how can you be held accountable for anything if you don't have a written position description that says, hey, this is what we expect you to do on a regular basis.

So I would ask that too.

I would say, hey, do you have a written position description I can take a look at.

It shows you the level of organization and it also shows you the level of thought that they've put into the whole process and to your point.

You know this is another question I always ask them to.

I always say Is this a place where a good tech can make money?

And you know, usually they say oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then you know I press a little bit and I mean there's things that have to be in place.

You know your workflows have to be thought out and they have to be smooth.

You know the dispatching has to be thought out, it has to be smooth.

All these types of things have to be in place so that you know technicians can go as fast as they want, and you know that's when I, you know to your point I've heard all that.

A lot too is there's a lot of people that are that are, you know, they're apprehensive about going flat rate.

And these are the questions that you really want to know.

I mean, you took it upon yourself to figure out.

Yeah, you know, I'm usually flagging this many hours.

So I, you know, I kind of know that I'm in the ballpark, but you don't know.

You know what's the shop.

I mean, you could be a great tech and you could be efficient and productive, but if you've got your system is broken, there's only so much you can do.

You know it's like keystone cops running around and you, you know you just can't get it going on.

So that's a big question I would ask.

And you know, if you are, if you're good, I mean you can make a lot of money.

I mean, I've seen tech technicians make a lot of money doing that, but you really have to make sure that the shop is doing their part too.

Yeah, and we saw that with a changeover in just the front shop, service writer and management how much it can bottleneck.

You know, once the policies and procedures either change or aren't followed, or you know there's, all it takes is one person along the chain with some laziness, or they don't care, and now everybody's affected by that and your productivity now drops off.

You didn't do anything different, you didn't change, but now all of a sudden your hours are down, you know, because of somebody else.

So yeah, business owners got a lot of stuff to keep track of.

Make sure that's flowing right.

Yeah yeah, there's a lot of responsibility of it.

I mean, you know, that's the game.

It really is.

That's the game For sure.

Yeah, it's been a oh, go ahead.

I just wanted to say I wanted to share something that might be helpful if anybody out there has to decide between two opportunities.

It's something that I had a couple of questions about this from your listeners and I thought I'd just share this.

One tech was saying you know, he was approached by a different shop that was down the street and they offered pretty similar packages.

And he said you know what, how do I decide?

And I said well, you know what?

First of all, you know what does your gut say?

And he says I don't really know.

And then I said well, you know, here's the thing.

If everything looks on paper exactly the same, do this exercise, and it takes five minutes in the morning.

Do it for a week and what you do is, first thing in the morning, when you wake up, you grab a pen and a notebook and a piece of paper or whatever you have to write on, and then just write at the top of the page what's really important to me in a shop, or what's really important to me in a shop, is dot, dot, dot, and then number 10, one to 10, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10.

So what you do is.

You answer that question 10 times.

You don't think about it, you just let your hand flow.

This all comes from the subconscious and you just write 10 answers.

What's important to me in a shop is blah, blah, blah.

You do that 10 times.

Then you're done, put it away, don't think about it until the next morning, do that for a week and then go through and just do an analysis of the things that show up over and over again.

There's a lot of psychology behind it and I'm not going to get real geeky, but it's a really powerful exercise and you can do it for anything in your life.

And what it does is it gets your conscious mind out of the way, and your conscious mind is the mind that says, oh well, my dad told me to do this, or my boss told me to do this, or I should work for this shop because it's only five minutes from my house.

It gets all that jazz out of the way and it gets down into the deep subconscious of, hey, what's really going to be a good fit for me, what's really going to make me happy, what's going to really fulfill my life and give me purpose and meaning and make me happy to go to work every day.

And if you do that, exercise boom.

You'll have your answer and your decision will just be easy after that.

I like that.

That's really good advice to get down to what you really want, because, yeah, unfortunately that's not always as clear as you might think.

It's not because we've got so much in our heads.

Think about it, all of our decisions.

Even if you go to the store, how much of the stuff you buy at a store is because you saw a commercial or because your parents bought it, or because that's what's available at the particular store that you went to.

We're constantly being influenced and we don't always even know what we want deep down, so exercises like this are really powerful.

Yeah Well, like I mentioned earlier too, sometimes this fear of something is keeping you like you may want everything about that, but you're scared because of X Right.

Absolutely.

Or you're comfortable, and so that can be a limiting factor as well.

And I know I had some students come to me with a similar question of like, okay, I've got this shop that's offering me this and I've got this shop that's offering me that.

And a lot of the people I talked to were younger.

They're just finishing up tech school and so I would tell them I was like whichever option kind of gives you the butterflies in your stomach, maybe a little scary, obviously to a point, right yeah.

Yeah, I don't want you to like fear in for your life.

If you go there Not that kind of scared but, right, just that like makes you like a little nervous because there's some risk.

I was like that's the one you should probably go for and obviously there's a million different scenarios and, depending on where you're at in life, maybe that's not the right answer.

But for these younger techs, I would kind of steer in that direction, like, yeah, that one's just like there's a little bit more risk, but maybe there's some more reward.

Maybe it's just because it's harder.

Like, what exactly are you afraid of there?

Is that where you're going to grow the most, right?

Right, is that challenging job going to increase your abilities beyond what they ever would have been at this other one, where you're just comfortable doing the thing you already do Exactly, and so I kind of kind of nudge people that way a little bit.

So I don't know, I don't know if that's that advice is right for everybody, but I try to think about that when I'm making decisions like that as well.

I think that's great advice.

I think that's great advice, I mean it.

What's?

What's the worst outcome?

I mean, is it a worse outcome that you spent your life being comfortable, or is a worse outcome that you spent your life being, I mean, not even comfortable?

Because if you get in a situation where you're constantly taking the option that doesn't give you the butterflies and you're not growing, then at some point that motivation kind of dies.

And if you're constantly growing, it can be exciting.

I mean you just need to embrace that.

It's not bad.

You know, fear is not a bad thing.

We just have to be able to manage it.

And I mean, if you're terrified and you just know something's wrong, then absolutely not.

Right, there's a point where it's like, okay, yeah, that hoist looks really unsafe.

I don't want to live here.

You're right.

Exactly, that's not what I'm referring to.

Yeah, I just saw this guy bang his head on that, you know, or a trip on something on the floor.

Yeah, you know, that's not.

You know, you don't just go charging, charging into that, you don't go charging into that.

But you know certain challenges that are not going to improve you.

You know, I don't know if you remember Walter Cronkite or not, but he was way back in the days and he's before my time.

He's way back in the days, but he was America's newscaster.

They called him just the most trusted guy in the world.

And that was back when everybody got their news from the same source.

And somebody asked him, he said you've been on the, you know, on the news, nightly news for millions of Americans.

For you know, I don't know how many decades do you still get nervous?

And he said I get nervous every time I go on camera, but what I've done is I've taught the butterflies how to form it, fly in formation.

And I always love that quote because it's you know.

Henry Fauna said the same thing.

He said I get nervous every time.

He's like 70, in his late 70s.

And he said I get nervous every time I go on stage.

But he says I throw up every time I go on stage.

But he says I love it because it tells me that I'm still on the edge, I'm still pushing myself, I'm still, you know, stretching myself and I'm still growing and I love that.

Yes, I still care.

Perfect, yeah, that's exactly yeah.

If I ever stopped, you know if I ever stopped with the queasiness.

I'd realize I didn't care.

Yeah, right.

Right, yeah, it doesn't.

It doesn't mean the same thing to you at that point If it doesn't make you at least a little bit like we want to regulate it.

We don't want to feel anxious and and worried that we're going to lose our job at any point.

But yeah, pushing yourself, finding that thing that challenges you, that's a little bit beyond your abilities, I think is the right thing to do.

You mentioned earlier it's about purpose too, right, that sort of thing I feel can really help somebody find or experience purpose within their career is if it's challenging them, which, if they meet it, causes them to grow.

That's, that's a big deal for people that they don't even realize until they're, they're part of it, like, okay, wow, you know this, this part of my life, even if, like, for me, my career is kind of my life, like I really center around that.

But even for somebody who isn't like it's just their job, right, but that piece of their life can enrich them in other areas as well.

Yeah, if they're, if they're seeking it out, and that's a big deal.

That.

That, that whole purpose and career thing.

I don't know that it's necessarily talked about much, if any, like in school and stuff like that, but boy, it really should be at least mentioned, or there should be a course on it somewhere, absolutely.

Yeah, there really should be and you know it's.

It's meaning and purpose are.

I mean, they're key, they really are key and you can find your meaning and purpose by by stretching yourself and by growing.

I mean I think that's really important and even if your career isn't your life, you can still, by growing in your career, it's almost it affects everything else.

So it's like that old saying how you do anything is how you do everything.

It's totally true.

I mean, if you're, if you're just you know, if you're phoned it in when you go into the, you know, into the shop, then you're also probably phoned it in at home.

You know you're phoned it in with your kids, you phoned it in with your wife, you phoned it in with you know lots of other different areas of your life too, and getting it getting solid with that is is going to affect everything.

What do you think is the most challenging part for shop owners or shop managers to do?

Like what?

What is scary to them?

That they need to change within their shop to make it a better place for tax.

That's a great question.

Well, not being a shop owner, I can tell you what my observation has been from the outside.

I think a big part of it is.

I think a big part of it is just getting better on communicating what the values of the shop are, what the culture of the shop is.

Because, what you know it's.

I've had this conversation a lot of times.

The conversation is well, I'll tell you.

When we get on a nonboarding call call, the first thing that I say is we're going to go through, I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions so that we can figure out what your culture is.

We're going to figure out what benefits are your salary, all that kind of stuff that we, that you offer.

And I said, what we are not going to do is we are not going to lie, we're not going to embellish, we're not going to do anything that is a bait and switch.

We're not going to do that Because here's the reality.

The reality is and I had one of my shop owner clients tell me this one time he says, Chris, this is like a marriage.

He said I spend more time with my technicians than I do with my wife and my kids, and he said so when I go into an interview, I am treating it like it's a marriage.

I want to know who this person is.

I want to know if they, you know, think the same things that are funny, that I think are funny.

You know it's.

We like to have fun here, we like to joke, we'd like to do these things.

I want to find out if this is somebody who's going to be a fit, because that's going to be a big part of the time that we spend together.

So I would say that's one thing is to approach it like that.

That would be a big thing, and the other thing is to just get really clear on what your, what your story is and what you're doing, how you're serving, and it's beyond the mission, vision and values.

And when you talk with a technician, try to find out what is, what is, what's their life all about?

What are the big problems that they're having?

If they're having a problem with their existing shop and you don't do that, it's your shop and you can solve that problem.

Make that the fit.

If you can solve the big problem for them and you can show them how your shop solves the problem and you can also show how your shop is a better culture fit, then it just becomes natural.

It's not like you're selling something, it's not like you're making something up and that's all.

Sales is right.

It's if you go to a store and you're looking for something.

They say, hey, well, this has this, this and this.

And you say, yeah, well, I want this, this and this.

How much is it?

It's this Okay.

You know there's a transaction, because they have solved your problem.

You know, I have a big blank spot on my wall.

I need a 96 inch TV to cover this big blank spot on my wall.

You know so in order to do that like as the best salesman possible, the first step is understanding what the problem actually is right.

Where's the pain?

Yeah.

Yeah, and then am I a good fit or am I able to resolve that?

And maybe in some cases you aren't, but you got to understand that first.

So that, like you say, communication and asking questions, that's a big deal.

Absolutely.

Even if you're already have tax right.

Maybe they've been working there for five years you could still do this.

Go out there and ask them like hey guys, what are the biggest problems here for you guys?

And you know, is it something that we can work on correcting?

Absolutely, yeah, absolutely.

I mean this is something that you should be doing in the one on ones.

I mean, this is, this is exactly it.

I mean what, what's holding you back from doing a better job?

You know you flag.

You know what 38 hours last week what's holding you back?

You know what would make it so that you could do 42?

You know, whatever it is, whatever the question is and these are, this is how you constantly get better, and I can tell you know, one of the things I think I'm going to start doing we've done this a little bit in the past, but we haven't done it consistently is I just had the shop owner go and ask all of their technicians for a, for a testimonial, and just say you know, just have them write three lines about what, what it's like working here.

Okay.

And that's a really.

I mean, it tells you a lot.

And it's interesting because I've done this two different ways.

I've done this where the shop owner will give me the phone numbers and I'll call them directly on their mobile phone and I'll do it.

And then I'll tell them hey, look, you know so, and so is not going to hear this, this is just between you and me.

What's it like working there?

And I'll get a set of answers.

And then, if they ask, they'll get a set of answers, right.

Yeah, I was gonna say you should probably do it anonymous if you really want to know.

And and it's really getting those anonymous answers is really interesting and it's.

You know.

You know kudos.

I've done this a couple times now.

I've done it three times now, so you know that tells you how, how, you know how brave you know a lot of the shops are in in you know having somebody do that.

But that will really tell you a lot about what's going on, what's the culture, because the shop owner a lot of times will think they have a certain culture and then if you talk to the employees they'll tell you there's a different culture going on.

Yeah, yeah, it's a very difficult thing to sculpt and I think at a point it's out of your control how it's going to end up, because it all depends on the group of people that you have, and there's definitely things you can do to point in the right direction and do the right things, but that is, if you're trying to control every aspect of it and micro manage culture to be this perfect thing that you see, it's not going to happen.

I don't think, and like I say I, I I wanted that for my classroom when I was teaching, too, right, a group of you know, 18 students and we're with each other for six hours a day, for four days a week, for a whole year, right, and?

so of course I want there to be a good culture, Like it's going to be a miserable year if we all hate each other and hate being here.

But here's the thing, and I always thought this was interesting, because I had five years teaching and I get a year with each student group and every year you get a new student group.

So it was very unlike any job that I had ever worked, because I don't know of a job where you're going to get a whole new set of coworkers every single year, I mean, unless your job hop in, because that doesn't happen Like I'm doing the same thing but with different people.

Every student group just had its own identity and things went differently better for some, worse for others, just plain different between two years.

And so what I'm getting at is there's part of it that is definitely out of your control, and so I think it's just let's hit all the markers, we can see what happens, and hopefully it's what we want, or close approximation of what we want, but you're not going to be able to predict it exactly.

I don't think.

Yeah, yeah, I think they call that an emergent phenomenon.

It's an emergent quality of groups, large groups.

You see, the schools of fish, that all.

How do they all know when to turn that kind of thing?

Yeah, it's totally true.

There's some interesting things that happen in a company dynamic and it's like you said earlier in the conversation, you also can have a switch with if you get rid of a bad apple.

It's funny how the whole weight of the entire shop I've heard this a lot too it's like wow, we didn't want to fire this guy because we wanted to be nice, but we held on to him for a long, long time and, boy, as soon as he made the decision to leave, the entire weight of the shop.

Just, it was like a weight was lifted and it was like a fresh air and it was fun to come in on Mondays again and it's amazing how much negativity and how much heaviness one person can carry in that environment.

It is absolutely crazy.

I've seen that a lot, and very dramatically too.

Where, okay, this first person finally moves somewhere else, or does this something different?

And it completely changes.

The heaviness of the air is different.

It is, it is.

Yeah, but it's a good thing to remember for anybody individually.

I like to know, I like to try not to worry about other people too much unless they're directly affecting me, but I like to think about what can I do to change the situation.

But, like, just remember, you can have that negative effect on everybody if you're just pissed off and cravy and negative all the time, or the opposite is true as well too.

I'm a big believer of you know, everybody talks about getting people into the industry and stuff like that, but I'm a believer of being passionate and excited about what I'm excited about, not faking it Like, really, I'm really excited about talking about cars.

That's why I have podcasts.

I know that that is contagious.

That will draw other people into being excited about this stuff.

And so it goes the reverse way too is your positivity, your passions, whatever it is Like.

Everybody brings something a little different to the table.

Maybe you're the comedian in the shop and boy, that can be huge, but you can positively affect everybody in the group just as equally as somebody can bring them down.

So, yeah, be the sale, don't be the anchor, I guess.

Yep, absolutely, 100%, 100%.

And in the best time and the best effort that you ever put in will be time and effort put in on yourself Work it on yourself, perfect yourself, work on your mindset.

That's the highest leverage thing, in my opinion.

The highest leverage thing you can do, even more than any type of physical skills your mindset, I mean.

If you can get your mindset right, then everything else almost falls into place, because you'll be where you need to be, you'll have the attitude and the motivation that you'll need to have in order to get done whatever you need to get done.

It really is about mindset, and if your mindset is, you know, work as a drag and the people I work with are a drag, and it doesn't make any difference where you go.

It's like that old story where the guy's walking leaving a town and there's a new guy walking into the town and the guy asks him.

He says, hey, how are the people in the town?

And the guy says, well, you know, everybody was pretty nice and positive and upbeat and it's a great place, you're going to enjoy it.

And he goes okay, great.

And then he keeps walking and they see somebody else leaving the same town and he says, hey, how are the people in the town?

They go oh, the people are terrible.

I got my car stolen and it was awful and everybody's mean to me and blah, blah blah.

And it's funny because it's like you know.

You moral of the story is you get what you see and that's pretty much the way that it happens.

And it's weird to have to be in around for you know a few decades.

It really seems true.

You know you get what you expect when you go into a situation.

A lot of the time.

Yeah, the problem isn't the problem.

Your attitude about the problem is the problem.

That's true and so many times, even just individually, what I do with diagnosing cars and how they can be extremely challenging, that's it, it's mindset.

It's going into it like okay, this car sucks, this problem sucks.

I hate this.

I got so much to do.

I'm so far behind.

Nothing is working the way I'm hoping it will, but it sure doesn't get better.

If you're negative about it, I'll tell you that and so you might as well take a positive spin on it and you know, okay, I'm going to figure this one out, and once I do, even though I spend all this time, the next time I am so much better prepared for X problem, or I learned that I don't want to deal with these cars I'm just going to say no, right, like that's, that's what I'm.

I can gain something you know from, from this obstacle, and so that's the mindset that I think you're talking about is just like spin this on.

You know, how can I, how can I build this into something positive for me in the long run?

Absolutely.

Yep.

Tony Robbins says everything happens for me and it serves me.

Sure, you know.

And if, as long as you believe that, if that's your belief, then whenever something happens you don't think should have happened, you start looking for reasons why it happened and how you can benefit from it.

And boy, that's, that's a tough one to get, because when something happens you don't want to have happened, it's.

I mean, you know, we all do it, our minds go in the wrong direction.

But if you can think okay, this happened, what can I learn from it?

How can I use this?

It takes practice, because saying it here on a podcast is one thing, but actually having that presence of mind in the moment, when you're and I'm referring to my personal experiences when you're kidding, you're kicked by a car, it's really tough to say, hey, it's all right, it'll be fine, you'll figure it out eventually, or you won't like, it's not going to be the end of the world, yep, but if you do, then you'll be better.

You know like, you just have to practice having those thoughts instead of the.

This is effing stupid.

I hate this job at this stupid.

You know, right, that's.

That's where everybody kind of gravitates towards in the moment, and understandably so.

It's just human nature, so you have to.

It's a skill just like anything else, Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Yeah, well said, well said.

And we're focused towards the negative.

As a society, we're focused towards negative If you look around at all the messages where our brains are kind of wired towards the negative.

So it is, it's, it's.

You have to break out of the inertia.

It takes practice and it takes focus to do that.

Yeah, one thing I was going to ask you away from this stuff.

When you're dealing with shops, what are you seeing as far and maybe you don't know, but if they're filling in on this what are you seeing as far as the type of pay to technicians?

So what I mean by that is hourly slash salary, flat rates, essentially a commission based.

What is the majority you're seeing?

And then I mean, do you have an opinion on it one way or another?

What?

What a shop is going to be more successful operating on?

What I've seen attracting technicians, sorry.

Yeah, attracting technicians.

Well, I'll tell you I mean to be completely candid is I hate to put flat rate in ads.

Because what happens is if you put flat rate in ads, that you get a bunch of you know, forgive me, but I'm going to say it, you get a bunch of crusty technicians that will that will you know put negative comments about it.

So, you can always tell who you know.

I mean, quite frankly, you can always tell who losers are, because the losers always have to say something bad about it and and you know, and to be fair, maybe they had a bad experience, maybe they were in a shop where it was a flat rate shop, but they didn't have it set up the right way for them, and I mean there's a lot of things that can happen.

But I hate putting that into the ad, because when you put that into the ad then you'll get a million comments that say oh, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, they're cheap, and this and that.

What I've seen that works is I've seen it work both ways.

What I see that has worked really well for a lot of shops is production based bonuses, and so if you get, you know you're guaranteed a certain number of hours and then you have a production based bonus and then what it will also do is some type of profit sharing, and then what ends up happening is if the owner is confident enough to be transparent with the numbers, which not every shop wants to be transparent with the numbers, but I have seen some stops

that are.

I mean, they get everybody on the same team, everybody's pulling.

The manager says, hey, we're almost there, everybody's going to make their bonus.

And then it's like everybody gets a you know a slice of the bonus.

I mean it's like almost electric.

I've been in, you know, I've watched these meetings over Zoom and and it's everybody's excited and they're like, okay, what are we going to do?

We know we need a half.

You know we need a half a more car an hour today.

You know how are we going to do that?

And everybody's brainstorming and everybody knows what their part is and everybody is working together.

So those are the exciting ones that I've seen.

That being said, I mean I've seen, I've been seeing shops that are on hybrid.

They've seen to be able to make that work.

But I think the production based bonus is really, I mean Okay.

Yeah, I've never actually personally worked at a place that did it that way, but I could see it be being beneficial over flat rate, because flat rate you generally have, depending on the size of the shop, one or two guys that are winning that are making that doing really well and then everybody else is just kind of okay or they're struggling right.

And so if you had a scenario like that and you're successful with it and everybody does hit their bonus, okay, now everybody wins right.

Okay, people are going to get paid more than the other person because of whatever reason, but everybody gets a win right Rather than the end of the week.

Yep got $100 again, but everybody else is at 30.

Right, I could definitely see that being beneficial overall to the team.

Do you see shops because I know you work with independent shops do you see shops offering retirement plans or matching on retirement stuff?

Because in my experience when I was younger looking at shops, that it was like almost non-existent.

You were lucky to find a place that would offer health care and nothing much beyond that.

Has that changed?

What's out there right now for tax?

Yes, most of the shops that I work with now do offer some sort of plan, whether it be a simple IRA, and most of them do match.

Typically, the average match is about well, actually the most common match is 3%, that I see and almost all of them offer some type of retirement plan.

Now, health is a little different.

Most of the shops I work with do offer some sort of health, but it's usually 50% or more that they pay.

Dental and vision are that's hit or miss.

They don't always offer dental and vision, but they always offer some type of plan more often than not.

So if you're a tech out there looking, that's something that you should be asking about as well.

Yeah, ask about it and don't necessarily just take whatever is in the ad, because sometimes what'll happen and I've had this happen a lot of times is they'll say you know what, if it's important to the tech, then we'll figure something out.

If we need to, if we need to put an extra 300 bucks in your pay envelope and you purchase your own or whatever it's going to be and I don't know where you'd get health insurance for 300 bucks a month but we'll figure something out.

If you have the skill set and the culture fit that they want, they'll work with you on that, and that's a conversation that you can have.

Just say, hey, look, this is important to me.

What can we do?

Okay, that's awesome.

Yeah, great stuff to consider.

Where can people find you or get a hold of you if they're a shop owner and they want to work with you or their tech and they've got some questions?

Yeah, if you're a shop owner and you want to work with us, you can take a look at the website.

It's technicianfindcom and there's a contact form.

You can just fill that out.

You can find out all about the services that we offer and we also have a Technician Find community.

So we've got a bunch of independent shop owners that are in the Technician Find community and I drop lots of training about what's working now and other shop owners network with each other about what's working inside the community.

So you can get all the details on the website.

And if you are a technician and you're looking for a good shop, I am happy to make connections.

If I know of any good shops in your area and you can just hit me up at chris at technicianfindcom.

That's my direct email address.

Awesome, cool.

I'll put some links in the show notes for everybody too, so they can utilize that.

So thank you for spending more time with me.

I enjoyed that talk quite a bit, so.

I appreciate it Always a pleasure.

Thanks for having me on, sean.

All right, that's going to do it for today's episode.

Thank you, chris, for joining me on the show.

I really appreciated it and, like I said at the end of the episode, I enjoyed that talk a lot, so also like to thank everybody out there for listening and all the feedback I get about the show.

I always appreciate that.

Keep coming With that all out of the way.

Let's get out there.

Star Fix in the world one card a time.

Navigating Career And Shop Growth with Chris Lawson

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