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Technicians Quit Over Poor Recognition NOT Pay | Josh Parnell
Technicians Quit Over Poor Recognition NOT Pay | Josh Parnell
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About this episode
Josh Parnell joins Jeff to discuss the critical issue of technician retention, emphasizing that poor recognition, rather than pay, is often the primary reason technicians leave their jobs. They explore the importance of creating a positive shop culture through effective leadership, communication, and recognition. The conversation highlights the need for technicians to feel valued and understood, and how this engagement can lead to improved performance. The episode also touches on the significance of mentorship and the impact of personal connections in the workplace.
Topics:
technician retention
leadership
shop culture
employee engagement
recognition
mentorship
communication
performance improvement
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In this episode, Jeff talks with Josh Parnell from the Limitless Leadership Podcast. Josh shares why recognition, rather than pay, is the number one reason that technicians stay vs leave their jobs. They also talk about the importance of meaningful one-on-ones and consistent follow-through for building trust and accountability in the shop.
Check out the Limitless Leadership Podcast with Josh Parnell HERE
Sign up for the ASTA Expo happening September 25-28 HERE
00:00 Technician Retention Beyond Pay
09:19 "Effective Leadership: Embrace One-on-Ones"
13:11 "Now is the Time"
17:22 "Safety, Trust, and Clarity"
26:11 "Culture and Pride in Work"
29:09 Empowering Lives Through Auto Repair
34:35 "Embracing Life's Lessons"
39:36 Empowering Leaders Through Coaching
43:51 Instincts and Individual Methods Matter
52:10 Teaching Enhances Understanding
54:22 Empowering Change Through Questions
01:01:20 Prioritizing Friendship in Workplaces
01:05:32 Foundation Through Core Values
01:11:19 Service Mindset vs. Problem Solving
01:15:14 ASTA Attracts Social Media Influencers
Follow/Subscribe to the show on social media!
TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@jeffcompton7
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@TheJadedMechanic
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100091347564232
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Technician Retention Beyond Pay
"Effective Leadership: Embrace One-on-Ones"
"Now is the Time"
"Safety, Trust, and Clarity"
"Culture and Pride in Work"
Empowering Lives Through Auto Repair
"Embracing Life's Lessons"
Empowering Leaders Through Coaching
Instincts and Individual Methods Matter
Teaching Enhances Understanding
Empowering Change Through Questions
Prioritizing Friendship in Workplaces
Foundation Through Core Values
Service Mindset vs. Problem Solving
ASTA Attracts Social Media Influencers
Select text to request an explanation
Never run from a job, always run to the job. Hey, it's Jeff.
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hit up the link in the podcast show notes below. And thanks to Promotive for the
sponsorship of the Jada Mechanic podcast.
We might be in a particular seat right now, meaning you might be a technician at a
particular shop that you weren't envisioning being there and maybe you're not enjoying it
right now. Maybe this is not the seat you're going to be staying in. But I want to remind
everyone who's listening that the seat that you're in, you're in this seat for a reason.
This is your current assignment. And it may not be your final assignment,
but it's your current assignment. And you cannot let the size of your current assignment
dictate the significance of your impact. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen to another
exciting episode of the Jada Mechanic podcast. It is a Wednesday night. I'm sitting with a
good friend of mine, Mr. Josh Parnell from the Limitless Leadership Podcast.
It's a tongue twister. Brotherhood, which he gets me because he puts the consonants all,
signing together and it's like my tongue gets all twisted. But Josh, brother, how are you
tonight, buddy? Jeff, man, I'm so good. Man, thanks for having me. Hey, and just so you
know, you're not the only one. I myself get Limitless Leadership tied up quite a bit,
even on the podcast where I'm trying to say Limitless Leadership. I don't know why I
called it that because I stuttered quite a bit when I try to say my own company's name.
Yeah, no, but it's, yeah, I mean, Jada Mechanic is pretty easy. It's not a Jada, it's a Jada.
Bored by a bit harder to say. Yeah, man. Again, thanks for having me, man. I'm excited to talk
with you. And yeah, epic beard as always. Yeah, thank you. My mother, you know,
so I had a friend, my mom has a friend that actually, so my mom got blessers like in her
70s. And you wouldn't know it. Very healthy lady, all that kind of stuff. Well, she had a woman from
her wedding party. So going back like almost 50 years, I haven't seen this lady in 16 years.
And of course, so she says she's seen pictures of the beard, but she's like,
I didn't know it was so long and in person. I'm like, yeah, it's, she goes,
I didn't realize it was so gray. And my mom's like, oh man, very gray. Like,
what are you going to do about that? And I'm like, do about it. Like, I'm not going to do a damn
fever. Yeah. I oil it and I use the beard balm from, you know, beard brotherhood and it is what it is.
But yeah, it was kind of funny from my mom to point out that, you know, your beard is gray.
Thank you, mom. It's one thing for it to be called long. It's another thing for it to be
called gray because all it's doing is calling you out on your age. But hey, thank you for
being an advocate and a supporter and a buyer of the bearded brotherhood,
which we really appreciate your support, man. It's great product. So we kind of,
we kind of touched on some culture things. And I mentioned to you just before we got on how,
you know, you're an expert on that kind of thing, shop culture and, you know,
leading leadership. And somebody had challenged me where I had said a lot of technicians
that quit a job or leave a shop. It's pay isn't even the top reason that they do. And of course,
everybody's like, oh, they're always, they're all, you know, everybody's tired of the, what they
quote unquote call low pay. So you know what low pay is anymore. Because when I think about what
I started 30 years ago, I know what low pay was. Low pay was sub 10 bucks, you know,
like I mean, it was that low. And now it's, you know, there's lots of technicians making
close to 50 an hour, right? So, but you know that for the, for people you talk to,
it's not the number one reason they're quitting, is it? It's not. In fact, pay is, it barely
cracks the top three. And depending on which report you're looking at, it's not even in the top three.
You know, I think we've, a lot of us have heard the phrase that people don't leave bad
jobs. They leave bad leaders. And that's, that's absolutely true. You know, what I've
learned over the years is that connection is what creates engagement. And engagement is
what increases performance. And so as shop owners and technicians and, and, and employees in the
industry, we want to increase our performance. Like we want to be high performing team members
who can drive business through our business. But the reality is in order to increase performance,
we've got to have engaged employees. And 70% of employees are disengaged at work.
Now here's the even potentially more alarming stat to your point, Jeff.
They're not, they're not disengaged because of pay. Now some of them are, you know, of course,
that it's, it's not, it's, it's not everyone, but, but most people are actually disengaged
because they don't feel seen. They don't feel heard. They don't feel understood.
And that's why I believe that recognition is truly the biggest ROI in leadership.
100%. 100%. I know I have felt like that as a technician, where it was like,
I only ever gotten praise or somebody to come speak to me and give me any kind of input,
negative or positive. When, when I, for instance, when I produced a bunch of hours,
everybody thinks to me and my, my hate on the word production and that whole facet
is that all it's always comes back to pay. It doesn't because I think it's like
that whole production mindset where I think there's a lot of technicians,
Josh, that just go, f it. I might as well just do a bunch because that's the only thing that
they recognize. You're right. Well, in 20 minutes early, they don't recognize that my base, the cleanest,
they don't recognize that like, you know, I, I am the first guy to loan a tool, first guy to
help somebody, they don't recognize that. They just look at the numbers. It's unfortunate. And
you know what's interesting is you mentioned how if you got praise, it's because you were
a high performing, maybe you had to pump down a lot of hours that week. The, the sad reality, and you
know this man, there's a lot of technicians who are churning out incredible hours each week,
and they don't even get the praise. They don't get any recognition. But what we, but what we often
all get is reprimanded. It's, so there's a difference between reprimand and recognize. And,
and, and we, we are as shop owners or technicians or managers, whatever role you are in your
shop, you're, you're often either giving or receiving a reprimand style of feedback versus
recognition style of feedback. And that has to change. That's why I, I implement the one to three
ratio for every one piece of corrective action you're going to provide. Give three pieces of
recognition, like find that ratio. Cause I was going to just, can you break down for us?
What's the difference between reprimand and, and the other one that you were speaking of?
So to me, when I think about reprimanding, first rep, reprimanding is definitely a
disciplinary style of leadership where it's, I'm going to find out, I'm going to find all
the things that you're doing wrong. And I'm going to call you out on the things that you're doing
wrong. So I'm going to, I'm going to point out the things that you're not doing right.
And many of us as leaders, regardless of our role as leaders, we're good at identifying
the problems and identifying what someone's not doing. What if we just said, you know what,
today, I'm going to just focus on what people are doing. I'm going to highlight and honor
my team by recognizing versus reprimanding. And so I think being able to, to understand the
importance of when you recognize, which again, is the biggest ROI in leadership that's going to
create that engagement. I'll say it again, 70% of employees are disengaged at work,
but conversely speaking, 80% of people will tell you that they are fully engaged when they
receive meaningful feedback at least once per week. So to me, that is, that's in the form of
going up to you, Jeff, and saying, Hey, man, how are you doing? Like how are you doing up here?
And I'm pointing to my head if you're listening, I'm pointing to my heart now,
how are you doing up here? And how are you doing in here? I'm pointing to my heart now,
because I want to know like, how are you, how are you personally doing? I don't know how
Jeff Compton, the person, not the technician, I want to know how the person is doing.
I have a story today, my boss, I walk past my boss's office. And I walk past his
office probably 10 times a day, right? It's kind of through the little dealership,
you got to walk past. And he goes, come in here and sit down for a minute. I'm like, oh,
and my immediate reaction, Josh, is like, am I in training? Yeah, right. Oh, no, just,
just sit here for a minute. Like, you know, even working hard. And he starts asking me,
so I'm like, I immediately like, well, I fixed a car this morning, it was kind of a
neat diet deal on here about it, right? And then we get, it ended up being just a
20 minute relaxed conversation. But the whole time I'm sitting there going, what's going on?
What's he thinking about? Like, why am I in here? Like, this is so, because
it's been so long, Josh, since somebody actually just wanted to have a conversation with me and
talk with me. That wasn't like the last employer. Like, he didn't ever want to talk to me unless
it was like, your production sucks. Like, you are not what we thought we were going to hire
when we hired you. Like, that was the gist of it every time. I checked out very early
on in that employment, because I knew there was no feedback unless it was negative.
Yeah. Yeah. It's tough, man. You know, it's, it's, it's sad, but it's typical of what you're describing
where we often have one-on-ones when something goes wrong. Right. And this is a good reminder to
everyone that one-on-ones have got to be a part of your business. So again, as a, if you're
a formal leader, whether you're the shop foreman lead technician, whether you're
owner or manager or whatever, if you're formally leading people, one of the first things that I
encourage all of my clients to do as a leadership coach is I talk about the importance of one-on-ones,
the impact of one-on-ones and the impact of daily huddles and how these meetings
don't actually have to be a waste of time because I'm the first to say, Jeff,
meetings are definitely a waste of time if, if the discussion that you have doesn't turn into
action beyond that. Right. And so when we meet with our team members from a one-on-one
perspective, the intent from me as a leader is not to sit there and tell you all the things that
I think you need to hear. My intent is for you to feel heard, is to know that your, your voice is
heard, your opinions matter and your ideas are considered. Yeah. And so ultimately I want you
to feel a certain kind of way. And a favorite quote of mine that I share often in trainings
and coaching that I do, it comes from Maya Angelou. She says, I've learned that people
will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget
how you made them feel. Right. And when we can truly sit down, take a load off, take a breath,
and just say, Jeff, brother, how are you doing, man? Like, how are things going? And you know,
it's coming from a good place, then it's going to make you feel a certain kind of feeling that
you're not going to forget. And it's also going to increase engagement, which will
subsequently increase performance. Most automotive conferences, unfortunately,
only focus on one side of the shop. But Tectonic 2026, presented by Techmetric,
is different. It's built for the whole shop. Owners, advisors, and technicians all have
sessions designed for the work they actually do day to day. It's three days in Houston, packed with
workshops, panels, and over a thousand people from the industry are set to attend. You don't need to
be a Techmetric customer to qualify. Hit up the link in the show notes below and check out
Tectonic 2026. Register now while you still can to get the early bird pricing.
That's the byproduct. You're not doing it for the performance increase,
it's just the byproduct. You're doing it because you generally care about somebody.
And you've seen the jokes and everything, right? It goes everywhere from like,
this meeting could have been an email to, like, yes, you know, when you talk about the morning
meetings and people roll their eyes, especially technicians, and it's like, you know how it
goes, Josh, like, they're expected to be here 15 minutes before eight o'clock, because we have
our board meeting, they're not paid for that. And you know, use the collective groans and the
eyes roll and stuff like that. Because when I, and I worked in a shop that had that. And
what we would do is it would become like, okay, it started out very casual. This is the, the,
the plant cars that are coming to come in today. This is what they're coming in for. This is
probably who I'm going to dispatch them to, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then it became,
you know, an open forum at the end of it, they were 20 minute, you know, meetings.
Any input on this, this is where we want to improve on our DVIs, blah,
blah, blah, a lot of kind of stuff. And then it became a situation where
eventually we just all checked out, you know what I mean? Like we were there in
the meetings present, but we weren't because, like you said, they're not in acting on
what is discussed in the meeting, right? It's like, we say, okay, like so
service advisors need to ask where the wheel out key is. So that with the technician,
because that speeds up the process. And then you go out in the next day, there's a technician
through the car looking through the wheel out key because the advisor just forgot.
And eventually it's like, all these forgets, Josh, just kill the whole vibe of what the
meeting could be, right? And that's what I feel is like leadership is important. Leadership is,
you know, open forms of communication. But man, we have to enact on what we actually talk about
or it holds no value at all. That's why the greatest piece of action that you can take
is to actually, it's called a call to action. So you implement a call to action.
If we talk about something in a meeting, we're gonna talk to talk, we're gonna
walk the walk. In order to walk the walk, I'm gonna give you a CTA, a call to action.
So a rule of thumb for me is you cannot have a meeting without a call to action. So if there's
going to be a daily huddle, and if there's going to be discussions about what we're gonna do,
because we're all good about saying what we're gonna do, but we often don't do it because
it requires time, effort, energy. We may not feel confident. We may not feel motivated. We
may not feel ready. We may not feel like it's the right time to do something. But I'm
here to say the right time is right now. Like now is the time to take action and motivation
and confidence actually tend to follow. But if you have a meeting, you've got to have a call
to action. And here's where I say, this is gonna sound a little controversial, I believe, because
I'm not a fan of micromanagement, Jeff, but I will say this, if you're trying to create a
culture of accountability in your shop by providing calls to action that we're expecting
each other to do, when you have a meeting, you give a call to action, you give a CTA,
let a couple days go by and then go to that person who you provided a call to action to and say,
hey, Jeff, just a reminder a couple days ago, your call to action was to do X, Y, or Z.
What can I do to help you with your call to action? Notice I'm not saying,
hey, Jeff, do you need any help with that? Because what's the answer gonna be? It's
always gonna be like, no, I'm good. I got it. But if I say, what can I do to help you?
I'm forcing you to actually give me some kind of dialogue. If I can help you, I'm gonna help you.
But I'm saying, what can I do to help you? Now, I call this follow up on the follow through,
which means I'm gonna give you a call to action, and I'm gonna let a couple days go by,
and then I will go follow up on the follow through and say, Jeff, you're a reminder,
here's what your CTA was. So I always present this in training and I say,
is this a form of micromanagement? And then I wait for everyone to be like,
yeah, actually it is. And I say, you're right. It is. And I say, I don't condone it. I don't
advocate it. I don't believe in micromanagement. However, if you're creating a culture of
accountability, you're going to have to do something like this for the first few one-on-ones
that you have. Once everyone recognizes if Josh gives a CTA, the expectation is that we're
going to do it. And so beyond those three, the next three one-on-ones or whatever it is,
everyone knows if a CTA happens. And this goes for me too. If I'm providing CTA,
it doesn't mean that I don't have CTAs as well. The way that I encourage us to coach each other,
it's definitely come back to me too. Being able to receive feedback, excuse me,
being able to receive coaching as feedback, not as criticism, condemnation, and judgment.
But follow up on the follow through and I promise you your culture is going to change for the
better. And what I just noticed, and again, my little simple brain is, when we keep calling
it a call to action, it goes over for me much more. And I'm sure this is probably, you've seen
that happen. If you just come to somebody and say, I have more tasks or have more jobs,
those two words immediately like, oh man, here we go again, right? Like, I ain't paid for this.
All this lumping on me, I ain't paid more. A call to action just in my own brain tricks
me into thinking, okay, this is just like a little thing that I have to focus on.
Not necessarily like more weight, more effort, more responsibility, just a focus thing.
Jeff, I love the way you worded that, man. I agree with you. If I hear the word tasks or jobs,
what you're implying to me is that you're giving me pieces from your checklist to check off for you.
Yes. Or I'm already not doing it well, and you're hammering on me that I'm not doing it well.
So immediately my brain goes to a negative connotation that says I'm not doing well,
which is that you haven't been doing good. But I want to go in a different direction
is what you're trying to say. And yet my brain, because it's like, you know, a lot of technicians
when it comes as a job or a task is I'm not I'm not up to expectation. You know what I mean?
Whereas when it's a call to call to action, yeah, focus.
Dude, you just opened up Pandora's box because what you just shared is very common,
not just in this industry, but every industry. Because ultimately, the mantra I live by the
mantra that limits leadership really the heart behind the company is this concept of people
don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care. So that means we get to create
two things so that we can provide two things, we get to create safety and trust so that we
can provide clarity and direction. Now, if you think about any job that you've either left
or lost, it is very likely that you did not have both clarity and direction and you may have not had
either one. Yeah. So if we can provide clarity and direction, that's a massive win that everyone
needs and quite frankly deserves, but you can't provide that without safety and trust. And here's
why I said you open up Pandora's box because you even referenced the fact that your mind
already it naturally gravitates towards the negative. Because you're already
thinking the inaccurate thoughts, which by the way is one of the greatest mistakes any of us can
make it, which is assuming all of our thoughts are actually true. But you know, Jeff, that if you are
being led by or you're leading from a place of safety and trust, then you're going to always
assume positive intent. You don't have to wonder where my boss's head is at wonder like,
well, am I going to get fired? Or like, am I doing a good job? Or if he's giving me this
quote unquote task, that means clearly I'm not doing something right, or it's not being done right.
No, if it's from a place of safety and trust, we're going to be able to communicate. And that's
why like the whole reason I said you open Pandora's box is because that right there is why
one on ones are so beneficial. And I want to share one stat and then I'll shut up. I know I'm
rambling. So thank you for this time. But this is why it's important. Poor communication
is costing shop owners 18% of total salaries being paid out on an annual basis.
So just to put that into perspective, if if if a shop owner is paying a million dollars in salary
across their entire team over the year, poor communication could actually be creating sunk
cost in the amount of $180,000. Okay, I'm done rant almost one fifth it and see going back to
it. Our industry is so much based on going back to this production thing. Right. And I know
it always comes back to just like just hammering on this production thing again. But when we're
only ever acknowledged for it or talked about it or recognized for it, or we're just a number on a
spreadsheet, like the running joke is I'm just a tech number. I'm 7309. Right. And it has an hour
sheet and I get it every day that shows what 7309 produced yesterday. When when it's always
from that and the conversation for years, Josh, that we talk to technicians and we grade them as
production is that they're just that they're always going to come from a negative place
because they're always going to be seen as Josh. I need more, more production from you.
Right. I need more work done for less money to you. Right. This is why we come with this
this this. This is why I come jaded. This is why I come negative all the time. Right.
Because it's it's been 30 years of doing it to me. Thank God. I've I've been able to network and meet
people like yourself and like Lucas and David and everybody else that is it's a metric. But it's
not the the main metric. It's not. You know, our my people are my wealth, right? My my staff is
my wealth, not what my staff generated for me. Dude, I love that. I mean, you just you
just reminded everyone that your people, our people are our greatest assets. And man, it's it's
such a good reminder. You know, you talked about what what your leader wants you to do. I want
you to increase ours. I want you to increase production. I want you to, you know, do this
repair that repair, whatever, right? It's all performance based. It's all an increase. It's
all a discussion around performance and increasing your performance. Yeah, we all want that.
But that actually becomes a byproduct of the connection that you're creating
and subsequently increasing engagement. And here's the analogy I share with clients too.
Because you think about this, you're serving guests all day, right? You're serving guests all
day. And many of us we get in this this this daily routine where we're doing the same thing
feels like doing the same thing over and over again, we're serving people. And we start to lose
focus on the fact that this individual, I have not seen this guest in four or five months. And in
some cases, this might be a first time customer, longtime listener, first time customer, they
walk in, and we get an opportunity we get we don't have to we get to serve them roll out the
red carpet put on our white glove create the the incredible guest experience. And here's what
here's where we where we can really shift our mentality and shift our perspective with
perspective, the way that we view things drives the way that we do things. If we can start viewing
the guest experience from a place rooted in a relationship, the transaction is actually a
natural byproduct of exceptional standard setting service. But many of us when that when
when the phone rings or when a guest walks through the door, we're automatically thinking
to Ching, we're thinking about the transaction. And the relationship is kind of an afterthought
in some cases. And it goes back to the little things like, I'll give you the example, right?
If you talk to a lot of shop owners are like, Oh, it's fingerprints on the door, you know,
technician didn't wipe off the steering wheel technician didn't wipe off the door panel, like
little things that like customers notice and customers complain about or or leave it a survey
that's like, Oh, the car was fixed, you know, the check engine, I didn't come back on,
but there was greasy fingerprints on the steering wheel. Now, we put quality checks,
quality control checks in to try and minimize that. But it's crazy how we seem to always want to
fill another job in another role to do something. Because in our industry, Josh, for so long,
we operate with a lot of staff that is really disconnected from that service side.
Like, my job is to fix the car. But I know for a minute, think that my job is to serve
the customer. You know what I mean from a white glove, waiter, waitress kind of scenario, I am
where as soon as we all are not looked at as like, you've got 72 minutes to do this job,
she's showed up 18 minutes late. So we're now down to 60 minutes, you're rushing, rushing,
rushing, I still need to get it done. When it's not and I don't want to say relaxed,
but when we're like, I've got you, that kind of thing comes through, like I've got you,
we're going to get through this together. Then I instinctively grab that wipe and wipe that steering
one down. When I'm just like, man, you know, they've already been chappin' me about this and burning
me about that. I got to get that out. That's when we take that two seconds that we should be
spending, Josh, and we go put it on the next thing. And at the end of the day, we just became
substandard all day long instead of substandard all day long. Yeah. I mean, you're talking
about settling for mediocrity. You know, if you hang around me long enough and if you come
to any of my trainings, you're going to know that I'm a quote guy. And what you just shared
reminds me of another fun quote that I love to share from Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys.
And he says, beware the lollipop of mediocrity. Lick it once and you'll suck forever.
Because the reality is like, when you start tolerating and settling for the sub par
for the below average for the mediocrity and nothing happens, it's like, you know what? Okay,
I'm just gonna, I mean, this is where I just get comfortable. I get complacent. And when we do that,
that's when balls start getting dropped. That's when the stakes start getting made. That's when
our attitude starts shifting. And this is an opportunity for us to remember that the way we
do anything is the way we do everything. And the analogy I like to give, you know,
I try to paint pictures outside of the industry for the sake of understanding and
relatability. And I've personally never worked in a restaurant. But I mean, I've, you know,
I enjoy a good meal every now and then. So I go to restaurants. And I kind of equate like the
waitstaff to the service advisor or service manager, and then the cooks and the folks who are,
you know, preparing the plates as the technicians or as our friend,
Karm, would call the mechanical specialist. And here's where I know when the cooks are
one second here, my dog. Here we go. So you were talking about the
almost like the white glove level of service that you were talking about. And you've never worked
in a restaurant. Yeah. I, I, and you were saying, I equate the exact same thing. Like I want to
think about like the waitress or the waiter, maître D, whatever you want to call it.
It's just like the service advisor. And then the technician in the back is like the Gordon
Ramsay or the Wolfgang Pock, you know, that's right. But
like, that's always an analogy. I've had a hard time grasping because like
we can replace the waitress or the waiter, maître D, people are there for Wolfgang or
Gordon's food, right? As an example, they're not there for that. But yet you can't,
you can't put them in a hot dog cart and have any kind of value. You need that kind of
waiter and waitress to get the person involved in the experience, you know?
I don't know that I fully disagree, Jeff, or that I fully agree. And here's why. Your people
is what creates the culture. I love the fact that when you thought about the,
the chef in the back, you didn't just think about just some chef, just some cook, just
some guy. Like you were talking about the cream of the crop because you also can't replace a Jeff
Compton. Like if you start viewing yourself as a technician, like the Gordon Ramsay and like the
other famous chefs that I don't know the names of, but when you start, when you start doing that,
it's like, there's a level of pride that you carry in the work that you produce as well.
And so when I say the way that you do anything is the way you do everything.
This is where it doesn't matter if it's quote, unquote, just an oil change. It doesn't matter
if, like, regardless of the job. And look, I know that there's going to be a lot of
folks who listen and if you know me, I'll just go ahead and say I've also never been a technician.
I've worked in the industry for over a decade, but I've never been a technician. So
the moment I say, well, even treat like, treat this level of hospitality the way you would
with an oil change, just like if you're doing a cooling system repair, right?
Yeah.
And some because of my lack of knowledge and content context, some people may say, no,
Josh, you don't get it. And you're right. I don't get it to some to some degree. But here's what I
do get. I do get the fact that with anything you do, if you give it your best, like the two
things that we can control in our life each and every day, no matter who you are, the two
things that we can control is our attitude and our effort. And notice that I'm not saying,
like, I'm not saying give 100%. I'm saying provide maximum effort, which means that
on the days that you may be sick on the days that you may be injured on the days that you
simply can't give your 100%, give what you can. If you can give 80%, then give 80%. That's your
100%. And ultimately, if you can, if you can show up and choose to have a positive attitude
attitude and choose to show up and show out for your team and your guest and choose to
provide maximum effort each and every day, you are contagious. You can either infect or you can
affect. And if you're contagious, and if you are, if that's the way you're operating within
your shop, and I'm not saying it's easy, I know, man, the name of your show is the
jaded mechanic for a reason. I know this. But we, Jeff, we get to, I keep saying get to
versus have to, we get to change the industry, but it starts with us. It starts with
knowing that we can control our attitude and our effort each and every day.
Oh, 100%. And, you know, it's, it's why like, I keep trying to highlight, you know, because
for all the negative that everybody thinks that I'm forever putting out there or whatever,
and it's not all, I want to highlight the people, like before we got on the air, we got talking
about Sherwood and the guys at royalty that raised like $150,000 for essentially a stranger
love that inside of three days, that they're now able to take her. And at first it was just
like, listen, this car that she got sold like six months ago is, it's got a lot of issues
probably never should have been sold to her. They're going to be able to change that woman's
life in terms of like housing and her daughter going to school, all because of a video on YouTube
about a repair that a car needed. Like when we talk about how this industry is just,
you know, blue collar, there's so much more to it than just seeing it's a blue collar
industry. Now, what I have had to do is peel back a lot of layers and go,
yeah, it's a tough industry to be in. It really is, you know, and a lot of negative that comes in.
But man, the ability that we have to change people's lives through keeping them
even, and I'm not talking necessarily the money, but even the skill set that we have
that he has in his shop to be able to then put it out in front of people
and change a person's life like that. Dude, there's nothing more powerful than that.
It's a reminder that we, we do fix cars, we do serve guests, but ultimately we're just using
the vessel of automotive repair as a greater purpose, a greater purpose to make an impact,
to truly change lives. You talked about how this individual, her life is changed forever
because of the service that a group of individuals was able to take the time out of their day,
donate and make some things happen. And ultimately, to me, what I think about when I think about
something like that, I think about how we might be in a particular seat right now,
meaning like you might be a technician at a particular shop that you weren't
envisioning being there and maybe you're not enjoying it right now. Maybe it's not,
you know it's not your end, like your end result. Like you know that this is not the seat you're
going to be staying in, but I want to remind everyone who's listening that the seat that's your,
the seat that you're in, you're in this seat for a reason. This is your current assignment
and it may not be your final assignment, but it's your current assignment. And you cannot
let the size of your current assignment dictate the significance of your impact.
Yeah. When I think back all the times I think about like the different places I've been
and I've worked a lot of jobs, more jobs than a lot of people should. I was there and everyone for a
reason and it wasn't just to collect the paycheck. Like I know what the reason was now. I didn't
know it then. I was going to ask you, did you work at a place where you knew in the moment
or was it always hindsight? So early on when I started to like at the dealership thing where
I started to get to know the product really well and develop my process and stuff, I knew then
that I was there for a reason and it wasn't just to make money. Now priority was always
still to make money, but I knew that I was here because right now it was, it was a high stress
meat grinder type environment, but I knew that I was there because I was polishing my skills.
Yeah. I was defining what I was going to be as a technician. It was setting me up for the
way that I do my job now, no matter where I go. I take how I learned to do things there
everywhere with me. That was the only time I really knew the rest of the time. When I haven't been
there, it's just been a job. And then I get back in and look at it and go, the Lord put me there
because I had to work with that person and understand the challenges of working with
that type of person. And then the Lord put me there because I had to learn. That's why.
So I'm a big believer, especially like when you look back at your career as you get
a few years in like I have, you're always where you're supposed to be for a certain reason.
I believe that there's something and I didn't believe it at first, but I believe that there's
definitely something in our careers. Yes, we dictate our own trajectory for sure,
but there's some kind of we stay where we are for a certain reason, I guess is what I'm going to
say. I believe that. I'll tell you, man, I was in the Air Force. I'm going to date
myself, but this is back and I started, I went in the Air Force and O2. So I did a four-year
enlistment from O2 to O6. And I planned on joining the Air Force to go. I think you've
heard my story before. I plan on going to be a filmmaker in Italy. I was really passionate
about, really interested in filmmaking. And I was like, I'm going to be a filmmaker in Italy.
And instead, the Air Force had way different plans. And I became a cop in North Dakota.
And so one of the last career fields I would have chosen. Now I'm very thankful.
I'm thankful and eternally blessed for the opportunity because of how things went down.
So I'm very grateful for that opportunity. But also, being stationed in My Not North Dakota,
Jeff, I can assure you, man, for four years, because I was in My Not the whole time. Now
I had a brief deployment in Ecuador, which is another story, which was great. But my
enlistment was in North Dakota. And while I was there in very frigid temperatures in
Canada-like temperatures, you're accustomed to this, but I wasn't. I'm from Texas.
And so being in North Dakota, I was cold. I was like, this is not my cup of tea, right?
And so, but here's the thing. I met specific people who I will never forget, who became
like family to me. I met specific people who helped me completely reshape and
reshift my paradigm on life and just things in general. In fact, it was then and there,
20 years ago, where I learned about the two things that we can control every day,
which are attitude and our effort. And there are certain things that I had to learn,
and people that I had to meet, that I'm convinced God put me there for a reason
that has helped shape the trajectory of my life. Now, in the moment, did I realize that?
Absolutely not. I mean, you know, hindsight is always 2020. But back then, in the moment,
it was very challenging for me to identify like, why am I actually here? And we often go through
life. And there's experiences where we want to say like, God, why me? Like, why? Why is this
happening to me? And what I've started to do, Jeff, is I start now I ask questions like,
God, what are you teaching me? Because I find out typically way after the fact,
but I want to try to find out sooner. So now I'm like, God, okay, I see you like I see
some I see things happen. And that's not outside of my control. That's outside of
my plan. And I don't always get clarity and direction like I'd like, but I often get
answers and also timing is perfect. I always knew at the time that I always was looking ahead
further down the road. It was going to get better somewhere, right? Not knowing that like,
when and again, as people we equate it back to too many times wages or pay or salary or
whatever you want to call it production. I was building relationships with people that like,
at that job, sometimes that was the only good part of that whole job was relationships.
For example, the guy, the dealership guy, one of my friends from 20 years ago,
we're all in a group chat. He messages today, and we don't talk every day for the group chats
always early group chats are, and he's just sending pictures of his daughter. It was just
born. Like this is a guy that I have known since he was like 21 years old,
young green started it washing cars and is now like a fantastic, you know,
Mazda tech of this dealer's been the same dealer's whole career. And he's, you know,
he's older to be having his first child, but he's sharing this with us. And it's like,
that is so cool because then somebody goes, Oh, that's the same name as my grandchild.
And I'm like, holy frigoroll. Yeah, like I remember when your daughter was in diapers,
and now you have a grandchild wild, right? Sometimes the only part that I can look back on
and realize that why I stayed was for the people. Man, that's why we say people plus
process is what equals profit. And as people for the process, people before the profit is
the connection before the content. This and Jeff, man, I'm so glad we're talking about this.
I feel like I sound like a broken record because this is something I talk about often with clients
with in trainings I do or just on jumping on podcast and even on my own podcast. But I will
say this on blue in the face, man, connection creates engagement and engagement is what
increases performance. And when we can start really grasping and applying that equation,
I promise you that you're going to see an increase in KPIs, like you're going to see an
increase in numbers, increase in hours, you're going to see an increase in performance if you
focus on the connection first. So I'll tell you what scares a lot of technicians that I
talked to and it comes up when I'm talking to them quite a bit is this idea of the absentee
owner. And then the absentee owner because like we understand now we're starting to see
that more of us want engagement. We want a connection with the people that sign our check.
I don't want it to be just a name on the bottom. I want to actually know that person.
But Josh, it's getting scary when you think about a lot of the people that want to step away.
Now, and I'm not saying like I have to talk to the owner, right? But I want to talk to
the manager then. But a lot of managers I've found have not been engaged in the art industry
the way the owner is engaged. Do you understand what I mean? Like...
I do. And Jeff, that's why I have a job. And what I mean by that is the majority of my clients
are actually service managers or shop form and their lead technicians. They're people who are
formerly leading people, I'll say in the trenches, right? So I do work with some shop
owners, but most of my clients are actually not shop owners. What happens is shop owners
see the need for leadership skills in their team, which is what you're alluding to.
And so they invest in their team members and they hire me to work with that individual.
And you mentioned how, especially in our industry, we see this a lot, man. We see
high performing team members who do really well at their jobs. They've mastered these processes
so they get promoted to a formal leadership role, but they've never had any leadership
coaching or training. And it's like going from a player to a coach. And the problem is,
when these now coaches are in the coach's seat, they see their players doing these processes that
they've quote, unquote mastered. And they see them doing them incorrectly. So they jump out
of the coach's seat to go save the day. And all they're doing is stunting their growth and
development along the way. And so what I do, what my role is to do is to help
people who are formerly leading people to stay in the coach's seat. It's the
order adage of give a man to fish and he'll eat for a day or teach a man to fish and eat for
a lifetime. I know you as a fisherman, Jeff, I know you're going to love that analogy.
So what I get to do is I get to teach my clients how to fish, how to lead,
how to coach, how to train and how to manage. And ultimately, I want to keep people in the
coach's seat. And you touch on something really cool that I think I've seen happen a lot
in shops from a technician standpoint. And I see it a lot in the family shops,
especially the smaller stuff is that we say we have a son or daughter who's working now in the
shop with us. And and we've tasked them with, okay, you're going to be a technician, you're
going to like, like, you know, we can go back to royalty Sherwood and Sherwood is this junior.
Well, sometimes as father, when we see the child struggling or mother, we want to just
here, I'll go do it. Right. I will by by a great mom who just does it. Here, I will do it. Right.
Yeah. She just loves to do things for people. And what that happens is that it cripples I think your
employee especially. Oh, yeah. Your standpoint of a form and standpoint, don't go and do the job
for them. Not necessarily let them suffer, but like, they have to find their own way
on how to complete that task. It may be inefficient. It may suck. But the lesson of
it was inefficient will be learned by them if they do it. If somebody just does it for them.
I tune right out. I'm looking at my phone. I'm like, I'm thinking about the next thing I'm going
to do on the cars and somebody gets me over this hurdle. Right. If I'm not over the hurdle,
trying to climb over it, I'm not engaged. You're right. And the reason for the challenge is because
it requires an investment of the thing that none of us have time. That means so I if I'm trying
to delegate a responsibility or authority to somebody, which by the way, I like to say
that we delegate authority and not tasks. Because ultimately, I want to I want to
delegate authority to Jeff so that Jeff is in charge as a leader, which might sound a little
crazy, but I should not be in charge of anything because I'm delegating responsibility or authority
to everyone. I'm not in charge of anything, but I'm responsible for everything. I'm responsible
for the results. I'm responsible for the outcome. And so if I'm if I'm delegating authority,
it's going to require a time commitment on my end to delegate, but also to meet
from a from a one on one perspective. But I've got to know that this person is not going to do
things the way that I do. And they might make mistakes. But guess what? They might they also
might crush it like they might do way better than me. We assume we see the worst. Yeah.
From a technician standpoint, we do that all the time because it's like, I'm a very like
an intuition kind of a lot of the way I fix cars is just through intuition,
through experience. And you do it so long. Like, I joked with a guy today,
like I did a pretty I was pretty impressed with the dyke, how quickly I got through it.
And it was it wasn't all that complicated, but I didn't kind of follow any kind of process or
any kind of I just use what I fall back on again, which is my ears, my eyes, my nose,
my instincts, right? And the cars don't really talk to you. But if you have an understanding
of how they work, and then you kind of use your experience guided by what your senses
are telling you, you can normally get there. Now, it's not something that somebody else would have
like, somebody else would have found it and fixed it for sure. But I guarantee they wouldn't have
found it in like 36 minutes, because it was just some of its luck. But a lot of it is just
like, I don't over complicate it. Now, when we when we task other people like I want you to do
this task, they either look at us and go, how would you do it? Which I don't want them
to do it the way I do it, right? Just I want them to find their own method. But at the same time,
it's like, my method might not even be the best method to be teaching them. And it might be I might
be short handing them by saying, here's my method, do it the way I want. I do it. That's so wrong,
Josh, because some of the best technicians I know, like they they weren't taught how to do what
they do, they just developed it. You know what I mean? It's like, yeah, back to like sports, like
what makes a guy throw a really good punch or, you know, a really good three free throw.
Some of it's just instinct, it's muscle memory. It's, it's they've done that move a million
times. Right. If you all of a sudden go, okay, I want you to swing the bat like this guy.
Why? You know, yeah, like Tiger Woods had a swing coach for sure. But it wasn't like Tiger had to
be like completely scrap it and start over. That was the wrong. They're just like, I need you to tweak
it just a little bit here. That's it is tweaks. And that's really what coaching is too. Because
I mean, because because what you're what you're identifying, Jeff is the fact that
like, I believe everyone should have a coach. As a coach, I have I myself have a coach. I
work with a coach once a month. I work with a counselor once a month. I'm also married
to a licensed counselor. So I get free counseling, even when I don't want it, which is all the time.
The good news is she great at it. And I need it. So, but here's the thing.
A lot of us just need tweaks. We need a, we don't need a 180 degree shift because we don't
have it all figured out. We need a two degree shift. We need someone to help shift a slight
shift in perspective for us. Because I'll say it again, with perspective, the way that we view
things drives the way that we do things. But I like what you just shared. What you
just referenced is why one of my keys to effective delegation is to prioritize communication.
Because you just mentioned that someone might actually do it better than me. Or maybe my way
isn't actually the best way. But here's what I do believe. If you partner with that person who you
delegated an authority to, and you regularly prioritize communication, which means you
have consistent one-on-ones, which I believe should be, now it's a little different.
For technicians, I think once a month is fair and reasonable. With advisors, with managers,
I think once every two weeks. Now, it also depends on the shop. I mean, it's subjective,
but these are just kind of general numbers that I share. But when you prioritize communication,
what we remember now is that multiple minds are better than one, which means if you are
master of a particular process, or maybe you're the Diag King. All of a sudden,
you're now delegating all the Diags to someone else. That's your bread and butter,
and you're thinking, man, this guy's not going to do this as well as I do. He's not going to
diagnose this in 36 minutes. But you know you're trying to grow and develop your team member
because the whole purpose of delegation is for growth and development. This is the way that
you're leading and training and managing this individual. When you delegate that authority
to him or her in regards to the Diags, then you prioritize communication.
Now you're still a part of it as a secondary slash support role, but multiple minds are better than
one. So this means if you're really delegating effectively, it's very likely that the end result
will be even better than if it were just you because you still play a role in the end result.
I find this industry is full of people that have a really hard time
delegating those kind of responsibilities and tasks. And it's like, and it's not even,
everybody thinks, oh, the old head is talking down to me because they would have done it so much
faster. It's not, but sometimes the old head has never had a chance to even look back
at how their process came to be. It just came their process. And I know now I still could use a lot
more tweaking and a lot more people going, okay, so you do this really well. But think about doing
this. And then if I could just get myself to dial back just a little bit and slow down,
I'd be even so much more powerful. But it's hard as we age to learn new things
and revamp what we've already done because it becomes, it's second nature at this point,
Josh, like it's the way we go. But I see shortcomings of like, it goes back to that dad scenario.
Oh, I'm just going to do it for them. Because I don't know how to teach the process to that
person. If you can have the greatest process in the world, when you walk out of the building,
when you're done, and you didn't leave anything behind you, you left no legacy.
Your legacy was nothing but a bunch of spreadsheets that showed how many hours it produced.
If you can't mentor that next person, so they can go, I learned how to do that from Jeff,
or I learned how to do that from Brian, or learn how to do that from Josh,
then you've left something. Like I have apprentices that I talked to,
that are now excellent technicians, and we joke about like, these light bulb moments that like
Jeff helped me understand to do myself. We laugh and joke about that now. So I know I'm good. It
doesn't matter if I ever get published in a magazine, or like if the podcast goes away tomorrow. I
know I've already set myself up where some kind of legacy I've left for them. But now my challenge
to all the other technicians out there that like work with people is think about it from
that standpoint, not your hours that you're making, but what can you actually pass on to
your coworkers? Then we all collectively become a whole lot better.
I love this. Yeah, I love this conversation. You know, it's funny, literally yesterday,
I was attempting, attempting is the keyword, I was attempting to help my seventh grade son
with his math homework, because he had a test today. And when I say attempting,
you know, math, math these days is done way different than math back in our day.
So there was like, I was looking at some of the problems and I was trying my best to
coach him through it and to, you know, I don't want to give him the answer,
but I want to try to explain and ask questions. I'm trying to ask a lot of questions to help him
start, you know, discovering it from within. And there was a couple of questions, Jeff,
where I'm looking at it and like, I straight up said, I'm like, look, I don't know,
I don't know how to explain that, that this is the answer, but I can, I know what the answer is.
And, but here's what I want you to do. I want you to try to explain it to me,
because I want to see if, if we're thinking of the same answer, but I want to see how you get
there. And, and as we, as we started finding our new kind of model or new way of determining
this, these math equations, the beauty in this, Jeff, is the same thing I experienced
as a coach is I'm not the only one who's teaching here. My seventh grade, my, you know,
my 13 year old, my, no, excuse me, my 12 year old, I have two boys, one 13, one 12,
this is the 12 year old. My 12 year old is teaching me the, and this is where,
this is why I love leadership so much, because you're not just telling people
what to do every day. It's not that that's kind of this boss mentality or this positional
leadership. Servant leadership is where you're showing up and you're serving,
you're investing, you're supporting, you are asking questions like, what can I do, Jeff,
to lead you better today? What can I do to serve you better? I focus on serving my team before
I even serve my guests, because I know that the, that the guest experience, that the, that the,
the customer service experience will bleed into the guest experience if I'm serving people,
right? So when I focus on as a coach asking questions, man, it's so rewarding,
like I get, I get coached on my coaching calls or I get, I get schooled by my seventh grade son
yesterday and we're both learning together. And the cool thing is it makes it fun too, man. I mean,
like when you can delegate and communicate like that, it's not just one person who's teaching.
It's, you're both learning. And when you're committed to being a lifelong learner,
you're going to thank like a rookie and you're going to recognize that you got a
long way to go, but you got a long way to grow. And it's a cool experience to be a part
of. It's tough though, right? Cause like, I know so many people from the sports side of things that
were like, they, they knew they were really good, but they didn't know how much better they got until
they started to actually teach other people how to do it, right? My brother fought professionally
as an MMA, he had nine fights. So he did quite well at one point and he was ranked really
high in Canada. But like what he and all these other countless people that he's taken
lessons from is like, a lot of the guys that are the best coaches weren't the best athlete,
they weren't the best fighter, they didn't have the best record. But for some reason,
they're able to break it down into a level where they're really able to, to teach people
the finite details and they make them better is what I'm trying to say, right? And they said,
I never really understood a lot of the techniques that I did until I had to go
and explain them to somebody else. That's where we as technicians are the same way. Like
it's like we fix complicated stuff all day long. But if you actually like said, okay,
go be like Paul Danner now and teach a classroom of 30, you know, 17 year olds, 18 year olds,
19 year olds, how an engine works, we'd be like, uh, like air goes in and air goes out.
Like, you know, and so it made us all like Paul has said numerous times,
his diagnostic ability as good as always was, became even much better when he started
having to teach classes of kids and how to do it. Like that's the part that I really get off on.
And I always find myself when I have to go back and teach somebody young,
this is how an evap system works. I start to remember details that I completely admit for
my day to day when I'm fixing it, but it's an important critical detail and it comes back
into my mind when I have to share it with somebody else. That's the kind of stuff
that when we're not sharing, that's the one that bites us, Josh, is we forget that one,
you know, rudimentary, basic element that never changes about it. But because we're not thinking
about it all the time, because we're not sharing with somebody else, it's the one that bites us.
Which I think is another reminder as to why it's important that we're asking questions.
You know, as a coach and as a trainer, I ask a lot of questions. Like, I believe at like,
I think, I think there's probably a different perception or different definition for a lot
of folks in regards to coaching. As a coach, I do not jump on a call to tell you all the
things I think you need to hear, Jeff. Trust me, you don't want to take advice from me.
And as a coach, my opinions are irrelevant. I think they are. But what I am going to do,
and I do often, is I jump on a call and I ask a lot of questions. And I attempt to shift
perspective if necessary, if I believe that might be in your best interest. But ultimately,
I'm asking a lot of questions. And the cool thing is that I get to watch people discover
the answers to these important, challenging questions that are just burning a hole in their
brain. I witnessed them have these light bulb epiphany groundbreaking type of moments
on the calls through a Zoom, you know, through a Zoom camera, because I'm asking questions and
they're empowered to thank outside the box. And they're critically thanking. And what I believe,
the reason being is because as employees in this industry, we're often receiving directive
after directive after directive, but we're not often being provided clarity and direction. And
we can get direction through questions. So one of the things I encourage every leader to do,
again, regardless of your role in the shop, regardless of your role, even in your family,
you are a leader because you have perspective that no one else has, which makes you
influential or in other words contagious, like we talked about earlier,
you can influence someone positively or negatively, so you can infect or affect.
But it also makes you a change agent. Because if you're influential, you can
make changes, you can affect change. And so my reminder is you've got to ask questions.
We've got to learn how to ask questions. And if we're going to ask questions,
we've got to learn how to listen. And that doesn't mean listen to respond,
it means listen to understand. It's tough, because sometimes when we ask questions,
we're asking like, it's that old analogy like, you know, the young people, it's like,
you already know the answer. Why are you asking that question? And that's the answer we give them
back. Why are you asking that? You already know the answer. There's obviously a reason that they're
going to put their neck on the line and ask, because they want to know. And I don't think
that they're looking for, everybody says, well, they're looking, they're lacking confidence,
they're looking for affirmation. I don't think so. I think a lot of it is they're
looking for perspective. I know I'm not effective at asking the question,
but I want to know when I say, why do you do that that way?
Instead of just saying, how did you do it? Why do you do it that way? You know, that's the why.
I'm a big why person. I always want to know the why. The how, I'm going to figure it out in my
own way. You tell me why you did it that way, right? And then I'm either going to steal your
idea, or I'm going to completely like, you know, there's no way I would do it that way
at all. That's what a lot of this industry is about is the why. What made you decide to approach that
job that way? I think it's important because the why is one of the most important answers any of us
can have. If we understand the why, then the how is clear. Like when it's easy, when the why is
clear, the how is easy. Here's the problem. As we get older, as adults, when we are
asked why, we often receive that in a defensive, like a negative manner. We get defensive.
You question me, like, why are you questioning me? So someone asks, hey, Josh, why do you do it
like that? Well, hold up. Like, why are you questioning me? I'm not like, and then the
person who's asking why is thinking, whoa, whoa, chill out, man. I'm like, I'm not trying to
challenge you. I'm trying to understand. And so, you know, one of the things that I
encourage is while the why is very important, the way to get the answer to the why is actually
through a what. So you're asking questions, like, for example, instead of asking, like,
why do you feel that way? Try asking, what's contributing to that feeling? Or,
you know, hey, why don't you understand this? Ask, what questions do you have about this?
It's, if we can rephrase the question so that we're getting the answer to the why,
that's going to help improve communication. It's going to reduce those sunk costs that we
talked about earlier. Yeah, language is so, so important. I find too that just the way that,
like, people have talked to me in the past has completely turned me off to being able to be
an open vessel to get anything from them. You know what I mean? And I work with a guy that is very,
he would seem very grouchy. He's got a good sense of humor, like he, you can joke with him,
like he has, he seems like he's up and down. But really, it's just the way he is, right?
So it's like, I have to, I have to learn, like how to approach there's, there's certain key
things like certain jokes or stories that we've shared about, you know, previous coworkers and all
that kind of stuff that always get some laughing. Well, I know that if I want to approach something
with like, Hey, why did you do that that way? Or how would you go about doing this? I know that
I have to kind of segue with something. Do you know what I mean? Like, you know,
how would he do it? And then we would joke about, Oh my God, like that guy was a
train wreck, right? Yeah. And that's been very effective is, is just paying attention to the
little things that make somebody open up for a minute. You know what I mean? Or relax. Like,
I think that's so vital is why they tell employers to get to know like your, your employees,
like get to know their wives, kids names, that kind of stuff. Yes. Yeah. Because it breaks down
that to where we feel like we're more on an evil level, you know what I mean? Like,
and we're involved, I'm invested in your, in your family, not just because I sign your paycheck,
because I actually know that your kid's going to soccer. And like, that's where some of your
paycheck is going is to put them in swimming lessons, skating lessons, the hockey, like
my hockey, all that kind of stuff. When we know that, I think that from a long standpoint
of an employee, I'm less, I'm more willing to give is what I'm trying to say. If you show
investment to me that you actually know where my money's going, right? Preach. Yeah. The sweetest
sound to anyone in any language is the sound of a person's name, including their family member's
name. So, Jeff, I'm not going to, I'm not going to ask you about your dog, but I'll ask you
about Lucy. Because I know, now I know your Lucy's name. Now here's the first time I've
ever done this. Is your number 7309? Yeah, that's my tech number. That's my number, yeah.
7309. Okay. So, here's the thing. And the reason why I'm bringing this up is because
anytime we can make it personal, not just for our guests, but even for our team members,
if you tell me your number is 7309, even if it's like saying, you know, joke, like even
as a joke, I'll be like, all right, 7309, I got your part, or I got this, or I got,
you know, like, I'm going to make it, I'm going to be intentional, because you know,
it's kind of from a good place. Again, I'm pointing to my heart. Like when you genuinely
care about people, you're not just going to treat them like they're quote, unquote,
just a tech or just an advisor or just to this, just to that. I'm talking to Jeff,
I'm talking about my friend Jeff, friend first, and then co-worker second. Now,
you know, some people may disagree with that sentiment, but what I believe is that
we are with our team members more than our own family in most cases. And so,
I want to make sure that I am serving you and caring for you and leading you and training you
and managing you. And I'm receiving it as well. Like my hope is that as much as you're allowing me to
coach you, you're coaching me as well. Like I'm not, I'm never going to be perfect. I'm never
going to master anything. But ultimately, you can make it personal.
It's so, that's why I'm so blessed that I have Lucas in my life, because Lucas is the person
that I know does that better than anybody I've ever seen. You know what I mean? Like he is a,
we talk, Josh, of people are people, people, but like he's people, people at a whole level.
Yeah, like it's, he's so, how do I say it? He's so invested in his people's lives, their
families and all that kind of stuff. The dude feels at a very deep level. You know what
I mean? Like he feels very deep. But at the same time, it's like, he's had to do some tough things.
And I know how much it tears him up when he's had to do it. And him and I have a lot of
conversations behind the scenes where it's like, he'll share with me what's going on in the shop
and he's really struggling. And I'm like, Oh man, I wouldn't want to be in your shoes. Because
like, not because I know what the right thing to do is, but I know how much it's tearing
on him, but he has to do it. So here's what I believe. I believe that when you are
someone who is on a mission, someone who has a, there's a purpose, there's a calling,
there is a greater purpose. And when I see Lucas, I see someone who, he's on a mission. He's a man
on a mission and his mission is to change the industry. And he's going to do what it takes.
He's going to fall below the line sometimes and get discouraged and he's going to get beat
up, but he's going to get right back up. It's a Japanese proverb, fall down seven times,
get back up eight. And at the tools conference, I put him aside and said, Hey man,
I'm coming at you from a place of transparency and vulnerability, but I also want you to know,
like I see you and the way that you show up for each and every person around you,
I see the way that you're serving each and every person around you.
I hope that you don't feel like you're on our island. If there's ever anything I can do
for you, everything, anything I can chat with you about, don't feel like you've got to
just always be shown up because at some point you're going to find yourself pouring from an empty cup
because we all do. If we're not careful, if we're not setting, if we're not setting and more
importantly keeping boundaries, if we're not compartmentalizing, if we're not time blocking,
we're going to find ourselves pouring from an empty cup. And that's my, that's my,
that was my concern for him. I hope he is, I hope he takes that offer and that advice,
not just with me, but with others and allows to, allows to receive, not just give.
I've been very lucky. Sometimes he's, he's unloaded on me and I just kind of like,
in a good way, not like he's unloaded on me, like he's given me the blast. I've gotten
blast too, right? But he's been able to share some things with me that it's like,
I know he's not sharing this with everybody. Yeah. And that means we feel very important
and very valued when he'll unload on me like that because we go back a long time him and
I. But what I wanted to ask you was like, going back to this, how do you become, how much,
how do you get to be where you're invested in your people, but you're not invested to where
when it comes to having to do the hard things, does it get in the way of having to be able to
do the hard things? There's a fine line between love and accountability. And accountability is
actually a form of love. And so I believe that you get to create this groundwork,
you're laying the groundwork, you're creating a firm foundation, you're setting very clear
expectations. Remember, we're trying to provide clarity and direction, but in order to provide
clarity and direction, you've got to create safety and trust. So I believe that it starts
on the hiring process. And even if you haven't done what I'm about to share,
and you have an existing team, it's not too late to have these foundational conversations
to lay the groundwork, to create a firm foundation, to truly not just have your
core values printed on your wall, but to truly live your core values. And the decisions that you
make are rooted from your core values, which means if there is a decision that needs to be made
that doesn't align with one of your core values, guess what, Jeff, the decision is made. We don't
do it because it doesn't align with the core values. But I believe that it starts with creating
that firm foundation. And when you can do that, that allows you to create the safety
and trust that we've talked about, so that there's clarity and direction, which means that
difficult conversations don't actually have to be difficult. So when I have a
when I have a conversation with you, Jeff, about something that maybe I'm seeing you struggle in
or an opportunity area in or whatever, I'm not just going to reprimand you, I'm not just going
to call you out. I'm going to talk about the things you're doing well. I'm going to talk
about the things that you are improving on the strengths, the way that the way you show up
to the shop and show out at the shop. But I'm also going to be sharing these opportunity
areas. And you know, it's coming from a place of good intent, you know, that it's feedback,
it's not criticism, condemnation, and judgment. And too many of us shy away from the quote,
unquote, difficult conversation, because we're, we don't know what to say, we're afraid they're
going to take it the wrong way. We maybe they're going to quit and we can't afford
them to quit. All the while, we haven't built any kind of safety or trust to provide clarity
and direction. So I can understand why this difficult conversation is going to be
difficult, but it doesn't have to be. Right. And it comes back to what we talked about at
the beginning, like if we have the low standard and the low standard comes or the low expectation
becomes the standard or the low performance becomes the standard. And all of a sudden, we
go through a revamp and we decide that wasn't good enough anymore. I want to be up here.
Well, you can't immediately like take those people that yesterday at the low performance
were suitable and suddenly snatched them by the neck and say, you've got to be here right now
today. It doesn't work like that. It doesn't. Right. And you're going to get a lot of
whys and a lot of house questions. Why do we have to be up there? What's in it for me when
I go up there? That's two things that technicians are always thinking like,
wait a minute, you want me to do more? It's like, we'll go to the technician
argument all the time, DVIs. You want me to do DVIs you don't want me to pay for them
or you don't want to pay us one? Okay, what's in it for me? Yeah. Upsells. Is it really upsells?
Like, because if they, you know, it's a dangering carrot again. So when you go to a new process
or a new level of expectations, people are listening that are in a leadership role
as the technician standpoint, we're not going to go there tomorrow with you. We'll follow you
there. But we're not going to be there tomorrow, right? We're going to be there next week,
next month. We're going to gradually get there. But you cannot all of a sudden snatch us from where
we are used to and yank us by our shirt tails up to that level. It's not because we don't want to go
up the mountain with you. But we're a little like, how do we get up the mountain? You know what I
mean? Yeah. And what's at the mountain for me? Like, we know what the mountain is for you.
What's really the mountain for me? It's a requirement of time, effort, and energy.
And, you know, you're talking about raising the standard. And a lot of us try to raise the
standard after all these things have occurred where it's like, no, you can't just do this overnight
to your point. You can't do it overnight. And what happens is we as leaders will say,
I'm not going to accept that anymore. I'm not going to tolerate that anymore.
Man, Jeff keeps on showing up late. He can't get here early. He's not he keeps showing up
late. All right, Jeff, this is the last time like you got one more chance. If you show up
late, you're out of here. And guess what happens? You show up late? Well, I can't mean,
you know, I can't really afford to lose to lose Jeff. And so, so Jeff stays and what happens is
we start accepting that mediocrity. And when we start settling for that, your team
begins to lose respect for leadership because all you're doing is enabling the standard to
actually be lowered. And then when December rolls around and we're setting new goals,
we're like, All right, guys, start standards back up here in 2026, we're going to be
setting the world on fire to an X, Y and Z. And it's like, Whoa, hold on.
You've been lowering the standard unintentionally for the last eight months.
Since January of last year, right? When we all yeah, exactly.
We're going to lose 20 pounds. We're all 25 pounds in 2026. You know, that's how it goes. And it's
it's so hard because it's not like we don't want to go from being the shop that we are
to the shop that you talk about where we're actually serving customers, that service mindset.
It's not that we don't want to get there. But like too many times, we don't necessarily have
the people that are service minded based, like we have fixers, and then we have, you know,
producers, but we don't have the service minded people, right? That's a different type of
technician. Okay. And I think honestly, it's a different type of shop sometimes too,
I think that the, how do I say this without being offensive? I think that sometimes the really
high end shops have got that figured out because they don't like tackle the nightmares.
They stay right in their lane and do what they're really good by offering that service.
You know what I mean? Whereas then the other people are like,
that car wasn't hard to fix. I fixed it. But I left greasy fingerprints on it. Like,
you know, I had her battery out when I put her battery back in the radio presets were gone.
All this kind of stuff that aggravates people as customers, we don't even think about because
we fixed the damn car. We're service-sided people like, I would have never even got involved in that
repair. But that customer loves me because every time I come in her seats right back where she gets
out of it, you know, like her presets on the radio, like all that kind of stuff is not lost.
I'm just giving you examples here. There's a mindset that has to come with both. And I think
a lot of us in this industry have to decide what do we really want to be? Do you want to be that white
glove service or do you want to be that absolute dynamo killer of a problem solver? Because I don't
believe the two of them go together. I believe that the one that makes one person really good
a problem solver, me, I'm good at problem solving. I'm not going to remembering to
wipe the fingerprints off. So if we have a bunch of guys that are really good at problem solving,
maybe delegate that wiping the fingerprints off to somebody else. Don't beat them over the head
when they keep forgetting to do it. Because they're not forgetting. It's not in their DNA to do it.
It's not forgetting. It's they're never going to do it because they're on to the next complicated
problem. That's where their brain's going. You're just reminding all of us, Jeff, that
leadership is a full-time job. Because what you're describing is the fact that we lead
different people with different personality types, which is called situational leadership,
which means that we're adapting to the needs of a situation and we're adapting to the needs and
the abilities of those that we're leading. So this is a whole other topic of conversation.
Like this is a huge can of worms that we're not going to get into tonight. But situational
leadership is a style of leadership that is necessary, even operating under the umbrella
of servant leadership, which is the one that I believe that we could be and should be operating
out of. But everything you're describing, this is why leadership is truly a full-time job.
Well, I think when we go to Asta in just like three weeks from now, pretty much like
less than a month now, we sit down and we talk about that again. Because I think there's,
like I said, there's still a whole lot of elements that I need to go in. Because going
forward where I want to go in my career, I need to have a better understanding of that. Because
I'm not going to be the problem solver forever in terms of in the back. And at some point,
I want to get into a leadership role where I can pass on more of what I know,
get a better understanding. And that's where I need to go. So
when you're at Asta this year, are you teaching? I am. I'm doing a four-hour
training session on Thursday. Sweet. Yeah. Excellent.
It is called, I think it's actually called Limitless Leadership. So yeah, very original.
But yeah, I'll be talking about the three pillars of leadership,
which is heavy on effective onboarding, proper training, consistent coaching,
really learning how to lead people.
The onboarding thing is something I think we need to really work on in this industry.
Working interviews and onboarding, I think is the two things where we drop the ball.
When you're there, what else are you going to sit in on anything else?
I don't know. Honestly, Jeff, this is going to be a busy conference for me,
which I'm excited about. So I'll be doing the four-hour training session on Thursday.
I'm the opening keynote on Friday morning. And then I'll be on podcast row as well.
So my plan is to be doing a number of podcast episodes as well for the Limitless Leadership
podcast. And dude, I'm just pumped to be there. I mean, it's a great event.
Great people are always there. I learned so much. Even not going to the classes themselves,
just being in the lobby and just chatting with the folks there, I learned so much.
There's a wealth of knowledge that we all get to gain when we go to something like this.
I'm going to introduce you to a pile of people that might be new to you, but
are kind of old friends to me at this point on the social media side of things.
And it will amaze you, Josh, when you see some of the people that have decided to come to ASTA this
year from the social media side of the auto repair industry, you're going to be amazed.
Some of the top names are showing up. And it's so cool because, and I'm not bragging,
but it's like, last year we had a couple. And this year we're going to have over a dozen
well-known names of people that are going to be there. And it's such a big deal because
like what has sold this event to them hasn't been the fact that it's like, oh,
it's got the most classes. It doesn't. It's not the biggest in attendance. It's not.
It's the networking ability, the home feel kind of that got ASTA.
So many people excited to come from ASTA. That's what's going to be cool about this.
And that says a lot. I don't know if it's because it's in Lucas's backyard and his just
infectious nature is what makes this, I think that's what a lot of it is. It's going to be cool.
I'm going to, you're going to meet a lot of people that I think are, and I'll have to like,
you know, okay, this person has, you know, got this many followers on TikTok and it's,
you know, you're going to be amazed. It's going to be so cool. And the people that are
listening, like, and you're on the fence about it, if you can make it, make it, if you can't make it,
trust me, in 2026, you have no excuse to not be there. It is going to be
the event of the year by 2026. Like it is going to surpass all the other ones I feel
in terms of engagement and what people really get out of an event, you know?
It's certainly on the way, man. It's certainly on the way for sure.
Yeah. And there's few short times that I've, like, few short years that I've been going.
It gets bigger every year. And it's like, it's crazy now how many people stop me
and talk about, do you know this person's here? Do you know that person's here? And I'm like,
yeah. Like, it's cool.
Awesome. Love that.
So, any closing thoughts?
Yeah. Well, first, I want to thank you again for the opportunity, Jeff. If you're listening
and if you do go to the ASTA expo this year, please say hi. I genuinely love people. I love
meeting people. Jeff knows this about me. I mean, I, like, believe it or not, I'm an introvert,
but when I go to these events, I truly want to not just provide value. That's my goal,
but I also, I love meeting people and getting value and receiving these opportunities to learn.
And what I know is that I'm going to get a lot of knowledge from folks at the ASTA expo,
but knowledge without action is just information. And so my final closing thought is,
when you get knowledge, when you go somewhere and you learn something,
remember that 70% of what you're getting that day was going to be forgotten by tomorrow and then
90% is forgotten in just a week. So knowledge without action, take action, knowledge without
action is just information. Don't leave that conference with just information.
Yeah. Don't just jot down a bunch of notes, build a plan. Yeah.
That's flying home or driving home or whatever. Don't just, don't just look over your notes,
build a plan and it's like, how are we going to implement that on Monday?
And it's going to take baby steps and don't overwhelm your people,
but by God come out of there with a plan, not just like some work manuals and some notes,
come out of there with a plan. That's the whole power of that thing. And you're going to get
it because you're going to network with people that are going to be like, yeah, I tried that
and it didn't work. And it might work for you, but it did work for me.
So when you come home and if you try your plan and it doesn't work, it's okay.
Yeah. But try another plan and another plan and keep building. That's how we all improve.
That's it. That's how you do it as a technician. That's how we do it as people.
You get back up, back on the horse, you go again. Take action.
And again, and again, until you've got it. You know, how do you eat an elephant?
One little bite at a time, man. That's it. That's it.
Josh, buddy, I always love talking to you, man.
Likewise, brother. I appreciate you, man.
I look forward to seeing you very soon. Everyone else is listening. As always, I love you.
Those that I'm going to see at Asta can't wait. Well, hopefully this one will get released before
then. And when you're walking around Asta, you got some free time, drop in, say hello to Josh,
say hello to myself. If you really got a ton to say, sit down and say it.
We'll record. We don't mind.
There you go. Yes.
All right, everybody. Love yous. Talk to you soon. Thank you.
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 Asta group and to the changing the
industry podcast. Remember what I always say. In this industry, you get what you pay for.
Here's hoping everyone finds their missing 10 millimeter and we'll see you all again next time.
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