The Evolving Role of Technicians in Modern Repair Shops with Brian Burris from Promotive, Part 2
The Jaded Mechanic Podcast
The Evolving Role of Technicians in Modern Repair Shops with Brian Burris from Promotive, Part 2
The Jaded Mechanic Podcast · Sep 24, 2024
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Here you've got the guy that is not going to crawl up underneath the dash or do a cab off. What do we do with that guy? Do we put him up front? I mean, sure, he could probably sell a job, right? But what do we do with him? How do we train up the young guys coming in? And if that guy's, you know, we're not going to put him out of the pasture. He's still got a little life left on him. But I put him as a foreman.
Yeah.
Where he gets paid a percentage. And we see that a lot.
That's the voice of Brian Burris from promotive. You can check out last week's episode, part one of a conversation with Brian, Jeff and Kat Ayers, also from promotive. But Jeff and Brian continue their conversation about the industry and all things promotive right now on jaded mechanic. When we talk about what an Atech is, and we see the posts and the groups and whatnot, and they're like, I just hired this Atech, but they can't diagnose, you know, they're not living up to the expectations, I guess is what I'm trying to say. My always challenge back is, well, what is their experience level? Where did they come from prior? And he goes, oh, he had ten years at experience at a dealership. And I go hand up here, like, let's remember now that diag method is very different than when you walk into a lot of the independent shops now. And it's like 1 minute you're working on a mini, and then the next minute you're working on like a Powerstroke Ford diesel truck, and then the next minute you're working on a caravan. Like when he comes out of that dealership, how he diags.
And listen, I'm not saying dealership guys don't know how to die egg, because I was one. I can do it. I'm quite good at it. But like I only had to really work hard on the first one. And then when I saw the pattern, I could make a lot of time going back and checking that known spot, you know what I mean? So when we see these people hire these technicians and it's like, well, I can't diagnose squat. Well, where do they come from? They come from a dealer, okay? You're not hiring that person to like, there's going to be a learning curve, there's going to be an adjustment, there's going to be growing pains, there's going to be, the honeymoon is not going to seem great, right? It doesn't mean that they can't fix the cars. It doesn't mean they can't diagnose the cars. It's just you may have to polish their process on how you want things done.
And then if you're bringing them in on a flat rate thing, and guess what? You might better only feed him that product line that he's familiar with if you want to see him hit the numbers that you want to see it, because otherwise, I challenge anybody. Unless you're upfront about selling a lot of diag time right to beginning, or you've got that unicorn, you're not going to get it. You're not going to get it. You know, it's. It's too hard to work flat rate from a diag heavy standpoint, steady diet of it, and hit the numbers that I think a lot of shop owners expect an a tech to hit. And that's just, that's not a popular opinion, Brian. It really isn't. But I mean, like, I talk to a lot of techs, it's.
It's when I say there's a unicorn, we know who they are in the industry. Like, they're, they're well known, you know, and they exist, but far and few. They're expensive, too.
Oh, yes, they are.
You know what? So not just what is an Atech, but what's the struggles or the biggest frustration? You say when you talk to a shop and they go, I've had three texts in the last year, and they've all, I've had to terminate them or they've all quit. What do you see the trend there on that side? Why?
I mean, a lot of it is when a candidate goes in, a technician goes in an interview, they're promising the shop owner of the world.
Mm hmm.
They're saying they could do all this stuff, and then no pen to paper, they couldn't do it. Yeah, I hear that almost every day.
So now, is that just from an hour standpoint or is that from a. No. They said they could die cars, but they couldn't.
It's both.
Yeah.
It's honestly both is what I hear.
Yeah. Cause the hours thing I can always understand. Like, it's like all I challenge. I say this all the time. I've said it. If. If I, like, I used to get paid a lot of hours for diagnosing the car, and then sometimes I would just diagnose the car and somebody else would do the repair if it was that backed up or whatever. Right.
If all of a sudden you take them and put them in a shop where we do, we do a 15 minutes free diethouse, we do 30 minutes free diagram we do, you know, 1 hour is the most we ever charge a customer. If we can't figure out an hour, it can't be fixed, blah, blah, blah. If you take that tech who's used to a different way of pay or a different kind of billing or whatever, and you put him into that window of where he's only got 30 minutes before it starts to cost him, or we go back up front and we say, okay, now I got to sell the customer some diag time. And you have a whole lot of customers that I'm not paying for that you don't. You've got the same tech, and all of a sudden, perception. It's not that tech promised me the world. And, like, you know, so it goes back to, you got to know what you're getting yourself into when you reply. Like, I tell everybody when they, when.
When I apply, they're like, I don't over promise. I under promise. Like, I go, listen, man, I'm old. I'm slow as hell. You know, I'm really good at fixing x, y, and zenith. You know, I've got some hearing loss, so I don't hear always some things really good. And then I tell them flat out air conditioning and me, like, it's not something I have a lot of experience with. Like, can I evacuate and charge it and change the parts? Yes.
Am I the guy that can look at the pressures and tell you exactly what's wrong? Nope. Well, then I get in and I start to do it, and they're like. They'll say to me, I hear this line all the time. You said you didn't know anything about this. What I feel confident in saying what I know a lot about is a very small thing, right. The rest of it, I can kind of navigate, but I don't ever come in there and I go, can you do that? And I go, yep. Can you do that? Yep. That's, you know, my level of what I think I can do it to probably what is some people's reality is different.
You know what I mean? And I think that's where the diag thing is. It's like, can you diagnose? Yeah. I hook the code reader up or the scan tool, and it says an oxygen sensor code, and I go under there and I change oxygen sensor. And then I come back with. It's like my thing will say, well, I've had these cars that, you know, had no codes, but I could tell that it was doing this or it was doing that or this was a problem by these tests that I did. That's where it's. And so what I find is I sit down now with a lot of shop owners, and I say, I can rhyme off these tests that I do on every car. Some look at me and go, sweet.
And others look at me and go, what are you talking about? That's a very telling thing for me because I know, kind of then how you guys operate, too, right?
Absolutely.
It's, it's, it's funky that way. Like, I don't do transmissions. I can take them out, put them in, but I obviously, like, you know, I don't rebuild them. That's Jimmy Purdy's, you know, neck expertise. Like, he's the trainee guy. What's, what does a shop owner really want, though, from a tech? An atech that's, again, going back to.
The productivity, how many hours can they turn? The diagnosing, that's. That's the biggest one that we see. I mean, every time I speak with the shop, it's, you know, five to ten plus years of diagnosing. If you could really hone in, you know, one key advice for a B tech coming up. We can all change brake pads, we can pop in and out struts, ball joints, all that. You really need to put your time and focus into the diagnostic portion of the, of the business. That's where you're going to make your money. That's where you're going to set yourself apart from every other B or C tech out there.
That's, you want to be that unicorn, and you just really need to hone in and put your blinders on and learn diagnostic portion of it.
I said that from the beginning. The only way I figured out in the dealer that I was going to be able to get away with what I got away with. And that when I say get away with, I mean, like, they would tolerate my attitude some, or my idiosyncrasies was that I had to be indispensable. I had to make myself where it's like, oh, he's a grouchy bugger in the morning, right? Or like, you know, he goes to lunch and he's, you know, he takes an hour and 15 minutes instead of an hour and, you know, whatever. But, like, my God, I can give him that car that has been back three times for this weird electrical thing, and he comes to me in an hour and a half and it's fixed, you know, and, or I was always great. Like, and I still do it now, and they look at me like I'm nuts. Cause it's like, still dragged them in. Like, you could have.
That could have been a phone call. Like, that literally could have been a picture on your phone. But I'll bring them out and I'll be like, see, here's the carpet ripped out. Here's the. The bad wire touching the floor pan. That's what I fixed because that was always important to me to show them. It's like you're seeing a gutted car, right? And that's the level that I had to go to root it out and fix it. Sometimes I think when it's like when we're talking to people that are in, have never been the tech, but are now in the shop owner role, hiring, I don't think they get it.
You know what I mean? Like, you see guys with a cab off a truck and they engine in pieces on the ground, and people walk into the shop and they look like that must have exploded. That's just Monday, dude, for that guy, right? And they're like, what's even more amazing is he started at 08:00 and it's 1130. You know what I mean? Like, they don't know how we do it that fast or that way. That's what sometimes I think is getting lost when we say, I want to hire that kind of tech. Well, I can pull a cab on, say, a dodge because I've done 100 of them. If you go and give me a Ford, that guy over there that maybe has done him, he's going to have it up in 45 minutes. I'll probably be about 2 hours the first time that I do it. Right, right.
Especially if that network of sharing going back to like we were talking about, they're being able to share information and mentor and whatnot, you know. Now if you've got a guy over there that has done a bunch of them and it's not dispatch them, it's dispatched to someone else. That's what I love, the dynamic of where everybody is just like, working as a team. Flat rate isn't such a. I gotta step on his throat in order to make the hours this week. That's the dynamic, right. If I can get it where everybody's just like helping one another, that's the true success. And I think sometimes the heavy incentivized pay plans, they're an obstacle in that.
I really think it is. And it's not. It's not popular. It really isn't. Because you've got coaching people that tell you get them flat rate or get them incentivized. We got to have some skin in the game. And I look at it back and going, if it's any kind of incentivize at all, by my nature, I want all the work, right?
Who's not going to?
Yeah, so do I. Not all the work. I mean, there's some shit jobs you could have, right? Like if you want to work on the euro stuff, fill your boots, man. I'll. I don't want to touch it. Yeah, if it's. If it's like, you know, I knew guys that were great at front end. They just wanted to do front end.
And then I knew like myself and a couple friends at the dealer. We were good at Diag and we liked doing it, so we did a lot of it. Now, back then it was still like you could sell tune ups at 50,000 km is still a copper plugs that would wear out. So like a misfire die egg was normally like gravy. I mean, even if it ended up being a burnt valve, it was gravy. Right? Now Diag has become this thing I see where it's like I barely have enough time to walk over and pull up the bulletin. There's a software fix. And then I've got to go and talk to the boss and go, do we have the equipment to be able to do this update or do we have to call a guy in to do it? You know what I mean? That's the other obstacle that you see a lot of time when it's like, I need a guy to do diagnose.
A really good friend of mine who's now a trainer for CTI, brilliant, brilliant tech. He went to work for a shop owner that the shop owner was like, you're scoping everything. You don't need to. Like he thought he was completely going over the norm with what it should take to solve the problem. And he's countering with like, look at the evidence I'm giving you and I'm fixing all the cars. But he's like, I can't have you spend that much time on each car. So it's expectations, right, Brian, that always go seem to get missed, right. It's.
Communication is so critical. What about when. So mentorship, when the shops are saying they want to hire technicians, young people. I need a loop person. What do you. What advice do you give them?
What we're seeing a lot more of too now is that Foreman role you've got that we talked about it earlier. You've got the guy that is not going to crawl up underneath the dash or do a cab off. Um, what do we do with that guy? Do we put him up front? I mean, sure, he could probably sell a job. Right. But, uh, what do we do with him? How do we train up the, the young guys coming in? And if that guy's, you know, we're not going to put him out the pasture. He's still got a little life left in him. But put him as a foreman.
Yeah.
Where he gets paid a percentage. And we see that a lot. Um, I love hearing shops where, you know, I send a candidate over and he's green. He's been working at his house, doing breaks for his mom and dad's car. Yeah. And they give him a shot. So I love seeing that. But, you know, we've got to retain the talent.
Not a lot of kids out there want to. Want to turn a wrench anymore.
Yeah.
So the apprentice programs are really good to get somebody the, the right quality training, set them in the right direction with some nice tools.
Ascs. Do you guys put a lot of weight in them when you're. Yeah. You're not in your head for sure. Yeah.
So that's a, that's another story, too. So we have some shops that are, you know, they're nap auto care where they have to be ase certified text in their shop. And others are like, you know what? I would rather have the experience versus a piece of paper. So we've got guys out there that are excellent at taking a test, but if you put a wrench in their hand or a socket, they don't know what to do with it.
Mm hmm.
They just understand how it works, but they don't have the hands on taking it apart like you and I.
That's.
Is taking stuff apart to put it back together. Yeah. They don't have that. They're book smart.
Yeah, I'm, I'm, and I'm not, like, I tell everybody, I'm not a genius when it comes to, like, if I take a, you know, the, the old guys used to joke, if I took a carburetor apart Monday morning and I had to put that carburetor back together on Friday afternoon, me, now, I'd be screwed. And it wouldn't listen. It wouldn't matter what component is. It could be an alternator. It could be like, I'm not built that way. My brain doesn't work that way. So I was always envious of those guys that could, like, take that apart, throw it all over the bench, and then come back to it, like, four days later when the parts came in and put it back together and work flawless. That's not me.
Where I was strong was always, it's like, here's a wiring problem. Go fix that. And I was awesome at that. I find the young people now. It's like, I can get them to do anything and understand anything if it's like, okay, so I want you to pull that window regulator out of that. We had one dodge journey last week, and before I look over, like, 20 minutes later, before he pulls it in, he's looking at a YouTube video on how to do it. And I'm like, part of me is like, like. And then the other part of me is like, he didn't break one clip.
Like, he knew exactly what the tools he needed. Like, and I'm just like, what a neat. What a great tool. I wish I'd had that in 1998 when I started, you know, we didn't have plastic trim. I warned him. I'm like, okay, so, you know, this is a 2004 GMC Sierra. It's been sun baked for 20 minutes. It won't matter.
It's gonna crack. Just make them aware that it might crack before you go and crack it. Just go out and tell them that it isn't like they're. They're still gonna want it fixed. They're still gonna. But just make them aware that, like, hey, we may have to do some repair on this after to get it done. And they're great. Like, I'm so.
I'm envious of the young people now that it can, but I do see it as, like, it's. If they don't have that, they don't have confidence to go forward. And I'm trying to navigate with my own people. Like, how do you do that? Right? Like, they're okay, so this is. There is no video how to do this repair yet. This is a brand new car. There's no video yet. I find that it's.
It's tough for me to just. Cause I'm like, okay, I'm going to get in there and I'm going to pull and I'm going to do it. You know, they're like, if they don't, they seem to lack that confidence. It's. It's tricky. It really is.
It is. They just got to dive into it sometimes, and I don't think they have the confidence, like you said.
Yeah. Do you find a lot of people when they're looking to hire, because we see the conversations happen all the time and they're like, young people are unreliable, young people can't be on time. Young people. Is there a lot of that?
Like, there's a lot of that. There's that, you know, preconception of that's, that's that generation nowadays. So.
Yeah. You think there's truth?
I think there is, honestly. Yeah, we have a lot of people that ghost us, you know, that don't show up for an interview or, you know, we're working with them to find them a job and they just disappear. But in going back to that, it's not even, it's just a thing now. I don't even think it's really an age thing.
Right.
More than I think about it. We have some older guys that, you know, my age, forties, and they'll just disappear on us too. So I don't know, I don't know what's going on with that.
That's weird to me, that they would put the effort into getting promotive on board to help them out and then not follow through. I think the only thing I want to maybe say what could happen is we see that dynamic happen sometimes, Brian, where it's like they were ready to leave the shop pay wise, say, right, until they went to them and said, okay, this is my notice. And then all of a sudden it's like, okay, we'll give you that $2 more, you know, greedy old bugger. Right? Like they, that's. And then it just keeps cycling. We see it in the groups all the time. The best way to get a pay raise in this industry is to go turn your notice in.
And it's, that's, that's what happens. And, but my, my thought has always been on that. Why do I have to put my notice in for you to really know my value? Why, why do I have to do this? And, you know, I encourage a technician if you're having to do that, why, why are you not doing that before I put you a piece of paper in your hand?
So. Yeah, yeah, and we see the talk all the time now. It's becoming more prevalent every month. Don't work for the crappy shops, right? If it's, if you're in a crappy shop, leave it. And I tell people all the time, listen, strike while the iron's hot, because there is no better time right now to shop yourself around to employers. Then a conversation just came up today. Shop owners talking about, you know, a new hire that they have and they're struggling. And I said, like, I understand where you're coming from and I know you're personally and you guys run a top notch facility and you know, you're probably doing nothing wrong.
I'm not saying that the young person is going to make it, but here's the thing, it sucks to right now you may, if you want an Atec and their self admitted, he's an Atec, he can diagnose cars, but he's like everything that goes to them when he comes to them, when they go to him. With a little bit of construction criticism becomes a dialect back and forth of like this and that. And the other thing, it starts to trigger her. And I kind of say to my friends in the background, unfortunately, you might just have to live with that for a little bit. Right. Until we get ahead of this shortage problem. A text are they're not like four leaf clovers, but they're getting pretty close, you know what I mean?
They really are.
Yeah. And I, my heart breaks for both people on both sides of the argument, really does. Because I love this industry and I want to see everybody succeed. I mean, like, I love my shop owner, I love my, like my boss, he's great. And it, I want to see him succeed. It really does. We, we need to understand that, like the technicians, when we come to work every day, yeah, we come to get paid, we're coming and get a paycheck and we want our time away from work to be able to enjoy our family and whatnot. But they genuinely want to see the shop owner succeed.
Absolutely, genuinely, 100%. It's, no, it's only smart business to want to see you succeed. To say otherwise is asinine. Like, I would not go to work and I don't care if my boss is successful or not. I know that if he's not successful, I don't have a job next month, right. So I have to apply myself. But like they've got, it's gotta be a little bit more give and take. I think sometimes, like we're, what makes us so effective as technicians is the ability to think broad.
Like understand. So always I keep saying, don't take every question as a challenge, don't take every input as a challenge, take it as. It's like I'm trying to be more effective. So in order for me more effective, we have to know just by nature. We have to understand how something works before we can fix it. So it's like my boss says to me, why are you so wrapped up in what the business is doing? At the business. Well, because like, you know, I need to be efficient and my efficiency needs to be reflected in my, in my hours sold when we, when we shave labor, do things for free, whatever. It affects my efficiency 1000% in my production it shows different now.
Now you can remember that like I fixed the car and long after the money spent, you might have even forgotten that we didn't charge her for that. But I going forward then to my next employer, should that have to happen, I have to be able to show my numbers. Right, right. And that's where when, you know, Kat was on here talking about it, I wanted to get into that because it's like we can see well, I used to turn 60 hours a week, no problem could do it. Stand on my head, one arm. Then you get into a place where it's like completely different, where it's like, you know, it took 3 hours to get to that problem. We had to tear the engine down, but we found it. I had 1 hour diag approved.
Right.
You know, and it's so much of that becomes a situation of it's like it's used for marketing, it's used for good relationships with customers or even call it, but it doesn't reflect on the taxability then if we get wrapped up in the numbers. So I always, when I'm, when I'm thinking about how to help promote and I'm helping technicians and shop owners, you kind of really get to know the person, you know. And that's why ase going back to that, that's so critical because like we don't have it up. Where I am in Canada, we have a licensing program. Like it's an apprenticeship, full bore license. Like I'm a red seal trade certified person. That's what it is. So it's like I'm recognized, I can go anywhere in the province and I demand a certain level of pay.
And it means that within the legal lies of the law, I can actually take a car and certify it to be legal for the road. That's what it, in a nutshell, what it means in order to be sold, it has to be looked at by me. A lot of repairs can only be performed by somebody like me. So when I see somebody that like has ase's, I go, okay. That person has at least put in some motivation, some effort into showing a level of competency, a level of certification. The argument if you go and hire somebody without them, it doesn't mean that they're not good techs, but it's. There's a whole lot more discovery of like, ooh, what can they really do or what do they really understand? Right. So, yeah, I, you know, it's tough what the service advisor route, when you see what makes a good service advisor.
Ability to communicate well, yeah, so I went from the shop to upfront being a service advisor and I really flourished and I loved it. I'm a people person and coming from that role of knowing how the vehicle works and then actually being able to explain it in layman's terms, like I said earlier to the customer, put it into perspective, put the ball in their court. But it's the communication and people person is really what makes you successful. We don't all want to be up there with the used car salesman. The way you talk to people or approach it or present it to them is really key.
Yeah, I'm looking for my exit strategy out and honestly, in some days I think I could do the advisor role and then the other me is like the first difficult customer, I guess if you want to call them difficult, you know who the type that, I mean, right. The type that already come in with a preconceived notion and, you know, fists up like, I'm not getting ripped off today. You, I don't have patience for that. I really don't. Right. It's too hard for me to, I can't take 25 years of experience and value of what I've trained into myself and what I've built myself in to be able and sell that to you in five minutes. Like, if you're already coming with a not trust attitude, I'm not your person, you know, I'm gonna take your car and I'm gonna, like, if you're tasking me with fix it, I'm gonna fix it. I'm gonna fix it very well.
But if you come at me. So how does somebody like me work on getting to that, if that is what is probably my best exit strategies to stay in the industry, is to work in advisor. What do I do? Is there things available to me from promotive or is there things available to me not promotive that, that helped me become better at it?
Yeah. So obviously, if we're working with you, promotive, reach out to the recruiter you've been working with. We always keep that relationship open, but, you know, put the feelers out that you want to be a service advisor. Why would you be a good service advisor? And I presented it to shop owners before a technician is wanting to move upfront, I'm like, hey, this guy understands how a plus B works, right? He can explain it to the customer and he worked out great. Communicate with your owners. Say, hey, let me try selling a job real quick. Just let me give it a shot. Take the customer out to the car, explain to them what's going on, but be open about it.
Let us know, let your owner know. And it doesn't hurt to give it a shot.
So, yeah, yeah, I, and I, I've done it. I've had to step into those shoes a couple times now. The way it's always been traditionally for me was like, so the first ticket I sold was almost 5000 and it was a very neglected Kia. And it was actually a friend of the family's sister. So we kind of like, I knew who she was, she knew who I was. I was the reason that she had brought her car. But she didn't understand the scope of how unsafe that car was. She knew that, okay, it had some rattles and the brakes didn't work very good.
But she didn't understand that. It's like, this thing's really, like I told her, I said flat out, I said, beth, this is one of the most unsafe cars I've seen in 20 some years of working on cars right now. It had always been, you know, rollover, quick lube, and that's how they got. And that's, that's a whole other sport. People that are familiar with me know what I think about that side of the industry, so we'll leave it out of that. But I would when. So I kind of like, showed her the whole car, showed her everything that was wrong. I didn't tabulate the numbers on what it was going to cost, but it was just, so when my manager came out and said, okay, she, she agreed to it.
And I'm like, okay. He's like, that was like almost five grand. I'm like, wow. Like, so then I thought in my goofy head, maybe I can do that. But there's somebody that I already have a rapport with, right? Like, there's a familiarity. Strangers. Sometimes it's hard for me not to feel like I'm being judged and not judge them. That's the tough, you know? But I, I, I've had an interview before on here and I've talked to a couple advisors now and some shop owners and everything, and some shop owners are like putting a tech out there as an advisor.
I don't think that'd be good. But it's, it's, it gives me hope to hear that you did that, that transition. I think that's it.
It's all about personalities, too. You've got a lot of work texts wherever, you know, their heads down all the time. They're not a people person. You know darn well you don't want to put them up front. It's not going to go well. So, again, if they have the personality for it as an owner, notice that, too, and give them the opportunity.
Did you have a financial reason for making that switch, or was that like, a physical thing, or you just want to try something different?
I want to try something different.
Cool.
I've always liked talking to people.
Yeah. So, yeah, I. I mean, on certain subjects, like, on cars, I can talk to most people about, but it can sometimes come across as you've seen the Seinfeld skit, where the mechanics, like, lecturing Jerry on Jerry, you know, you've been going for those cheap oils. That'd be me.
Yeah.
100% me. Like, what are you doing to this car? And, I mean, at the time, I think back to the episode, I think it was a sob. I mean, like, I don't get that. Whatever. But, you know, but I'd be that way where it'd be like, you know, because. And I can be that way where somebody's like, they've got something blown up. It's obviously neglected, you know, and I'm. It's hard for me sometimes to separate myself and go, well, if you'd have just done your stupid oil changes when you're supposed to, you wouldn't be sitting here with it blown up.
And then you realize that if they drive in with a key, it doesn't matter, you know, maintenance or not, it's blown up. Right. Or. Or unfortunately. And that's where the struggle, I guess, is, because I see people. We've had a lot of it lately, the economy the way it is. They buy a used car, and then they bring it in, and you're like, you bought this?
Yeah.
Did you have it checked out? No. Okay. We'd looked at a journey last week. Bought it for his daughter. She needs a car. And that's the worst thing, because it's always like. It's a rush impulse buy, because the last one, whatever, blew the engine or transmission, and now they're not fixing it, and they get this journey, and I'm like, I go driving. I'm like, okay, tranny on this one ain't so good.
And then you look the car over, and it's like. I mean, it's got calipers that the flex lines are twisted on it's. Got brakes that are shot, tires are bald, air conditioning sometimes works a little bit, like all kinds of stuff, right? Electrical things going on. And you're like, just the safety stuff was like almost $4,000.
Yeah.
Just to get it safety legal for the road. That's not counting the transmission. That's not counting on. And you feel bad for those people. You really do. But, you know, the old dealership me is always like, well, these people don't want to even do maintenance anyway. So, like, who am I to, like, help them save money? Like, they were always the ones that I had to work for just about free on, like, this is where my stupid brain goes. So I'm working on my empathy, is what I'm trying to say.
Yeah, that's good. The shop owners, when they're, are they understanding, like, do you see it improving, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. Or do you just see right now, like, where they're just desperate, or do you see it improving and like, what's the success stories? I guess. Give me some of the success stories you've had with promotive without naming names. If you can't name names, it's cool too, you know?
Yeah, no, I can do that. We have shops, obviously, wherever I. There's a less dense population, you know, the city population is quite low. And finding a technician, you know, out of 2000 is kind of difficult.
Right.
There's only two techs in the county. And the, the owner, luckily, wasn't desperate. He was patient, right. Got a little impatient, but he gave us time and we found somebody for him. Desperate. Yes. At times because of the car count. You know, I talked to a shop last week, and they're 30 cars deep, three weeks out.
Dad and son are out there working on a car, and I'm talking to them and they're on speaker. So there is desperation out there, obviously, but other shops are more patient because they understand the market that they're into.
Yeah. I think that sometimes, though, when you see, and we have the conversations in changing industry in the ashog sometimes where it's like they're three weeks deep, you know, 30 cars on that docket that day needs somebody bad. Sometimes it's like, you really don't need another tech, or like, I need an, a tech to come in here with me. Well, that can be tough, right? Because depending on how, maybe you got to wear your three weeks out and 30 cars deep that day could be the limiting factor on maybe why the last tech left or why techs are not staying is because maybe the, maybe, maybe there's just not enough incentive pay wise to make it work, or maybe the stress level is just too much. And that's the other thing we don't even talk about. Everybody's like, techs want to make six figures a year. You're darn right we do, because I know lots of other guys in trades that make six figures easy, standing on their head, working four days a week, and if they work Friday, they're done by eleven and they didn't really do much. They maybe did an inspection, bid a job, and they're making six figures and driving around a company truck.
So of course technicians wanna make six figures, that's not, but when I see the stress level sometimes of like you said, a shop like that booked out three weeks, 30 cars that day, you know, nightmare car after nightmare car towed in, because they have that rep as being able to fix that car. For some techs, there's not enough money in the world to make them go jump from that. You know, like the dealership thing. We're used to like our busy months and we're used to like that chaos. From seven in the morning until noon, we're used to that chaos. And then after that, like, the way we worked, it was like everybody dropped at eight and picked up at five. If you straggled in at 130 in the afternoon, you weren't getting looked at that day. It was just the way it was like, you know, we had a drive through oil bay and that was it.
Like, you might get there, we were really dead that month. Like if it was January, which is slow, traditionally up here. Yeah, then, yeah, we get you in. We were dying to have you. We'll run out there and fist fight in the parking lot for which advisor gets that ticket. Right. But the rest of the time, if we were busy, it was like you dropped off at eight and we promised you at five and so on, that little bit of chaos every day, I can handle that. It's a really, it can be really overwhelming opportunity for some techs.
When they look and they go, they're how far out? And they're running at this. And that's the thing we start to know. They're charging what in what area? Oh, that's gonna be a nightmare, dude. Right? Like this is the kind of stuff we share. How much do like, people are coming to promotive? Are they, is it, do they have to be completely upfront honest? Or do you find that some of them are kind of like sandbaggin or.
You know, as in technicians?
Well, I'm thinking the shops. Shops, yeah.
They're pretty. Pretty honest with me.
Yeah.
Spoke to one this morning, and, you know, there's some weak. We're dead. You know, they call it. It like it is. And I made my notes in there, but there are times when they're busy. But the good thing about that shop was they understand there's gonna be dead times, but they are going to guarantee a paycheck to that. To that technician, too, which I loved. I haven't really heard that much in the industry.
So it seems to be a trend up here that's happening more and more. Like, when I going back to Covid, when I left Covid, nobody had a guarantee. Or if they had a guarantee, it was like, okay, you're guaranteed to show up here and we're going to give you 30 hours. And if you hit only 30, we're going to have a talk. And you'd be, like, looking around the shop and it was like, what did you make this week? I hit 40, but most of us hit, like, 32, 33, 35. So, like, they just seemed to staff it, so that was like they had enough so that nobody didn't have to rely on their guarantee. But, like, it wasn't like everybody was fruitful. Now it seems they're like, okay, you're gonna be here 40 hours a week.
You got a 40 hours guarantee. You're gonna be flat rate, which means that we want you to hustle to try and hit 50. But here's the rub. If there's no work, you still have to be here. And. And that. That, for me, I can't work that method because it's like, it really messes with my attitude. If I'm standing there like this toolbox and there's no work that really.
Cuz even with the guarantee, man, I'm like, if it's nice out, I want to be fishing. I want to be okay. I want to be, you know, or. And if it's even not nice out, it's like I'm going. I'm thinking I'm gonna go home and work on my resume because it's like, even if it's paying good, I want to be busy.
Right? Makes the time go by faster.
Yeah, that's the struggle. I see. So I've seen that since COVID is, like, a lot of the places have ponied up and got that guarantee that matches. Like, if you're in the building, we're going to have you here.
Yeah, I've seen a lot more of that, too, now. And the difference between when I was in the shop to now, the pay plans are. Yeah, there's hybrid ones out there, productivity bonuses, which is great, you know, trying to push that technician to do more, turn more hours.
Yeah. So in closing, what's your one piece of advice that you give to a shop owner, and what's your one piece of advice to give to a technician that makes this relationship work better to finding each other? I know. It's a good question.
Eh, that's a good one for the shop. I would say patience.
Okay.
Your. Your expectations are here. I. But your patients need to be here, too. So we're gonna find you that a tech. It's not gonna happen overnight. As you said, it's like a four leaf clover.
Yeah.
Just patience. If. I mean, we can find somebody tomorrow. That's a lube tech. Right. We're not gonna go there, but if they're wanting that atech, just be patient. Technicians know your numbers. Right.
So knowing your numbers is another tool to put in your toolbox. I wanted to mention that earlier. Having that is like having an impact wrench. Knowing your stuff, being able to present that to your owner or potential, you know, new employer, that's a huge tool. And don't ever think you know it all.
Yeah, no, it.
I've compared being a technician to being a medical doctor.
Yeah.
I mean, look at the cardiovascular system in a human body versus a wiring diagram, you know, in a wiring harness and a car. That's what it looks like.
Yeah.
So continue to learn, be humble, and just be open to learning and keeping up with the trends because it's continuously changing.
I'll counter with the. The shop owners that are of. Are thinking about reaching out to find another tech. I'm going to make this challenge. Before you think about reaching out to find another tech, think about, have you done everything that you can do for the tech that you have? Have you provided them with every training opportunity that they need? Have you, have you looked at how, if the cultures are not aligning, why is that? Now, I'm not excusing, like, if they're just tardy, if they're unreliable, if they're, you know, all about the dollar and they're butchering cars up. I'm not here to defend that guy. Not at all. Ergo, don't.
Don't take it that way. But before you reach out and say that the problem is with the technician, let's stand in front of the mirror for a minute and look and go. Is there anything more that we can do first, because that's. We want to talk about leadership. That's where it still falls on. At the end of the day, I'm. You are my leader. When I go to work, I expect you to lead me.
I expect you to lay it out for me what it is exactly that you want. And I will provide that with you, for you. Or I'll tell you, be upfront and honest, I can't provide you with that 100%. If you give me a car and it's like, I don't know, a darn thing. If you give me an Ev, cool, man. Like, I'll take the wheels off. Like, I don't have a ton of training. I'm not confident in it.
And it's really doesn't get my goat, you know? It's not something I'm even dying to learn how to do. So think about before you, I need that unicorn atak. Think about, do you really? Because this is the conversation that came up. A lot of people counter with, I need an Ateq. And it's like, no, what you really need is to think about the jobs that you're booking in. Are they really fruitful enough to justify the expense of what that Atech is going to be? Because if you can't keep an Atech fed with Atech work, you've got a very expensive b tech, right? And that's something that even a lot of people don't want to hear that reality either. If you break down the numbers of what you need an Atec for, you really don't need an Atec. You need to stop saying yes to that type of work.
And then I'll say this, I'll counter with the technicians. Kind of what Brian said, make yourself indispensable to the person that you're working for, and then make sure that when you go in there, you don't over promise. And then, like, you want them to be pleasantly surprised with what they go, wow, you kind of like, there's nothing better, no better feeling than it's like, you know, I've seen it. I've talked to shop owners. Like, I just hired him, but, like, he's been a keys. Been killing it his first three months. I just bumped him 4 hours. Didn't even tell him, just put on the pay.
Like, nothing makes somebody feel better. I'm not four, four boxes. I just don't, don't think it has to be that, to me, anything at all. It could be. Come along and pat on the back and go, wow, we're really impressed you. We didn't expect you were going to be at the level that you're at when you came to us. Nothing makes a tech better, makes them feel better than that. It's not about the artists, not about.
So that's something to take away both people, both sides of this equation, something to take away. That's, you know, I'm not, I hate where we are in the industry for a shortage. I really do. It breaks my heart to see, you know, we're all to blame for it. Technicians are to blame for it, shop owners the way we've done. We're, we're reaping what we sowed to. So, but always be, be upfront with the man in the mirror or the lady in the mirror. Both sides know what you're actually in tight in what you're selling them and know what you're really looking for when you're going to find that tech.
Be upfront and honest with everybody. And that's the, you know, promotive. Will, will be, will help you find what it is you need to find the job or the person or both sides. We'll help you find that. They have been an absolute fantastic supporter of me. I couldn't be more perfectly aligned with a company, I think, than with promotive. And where I want to go in this industry and where they want to go, I think we're exactly on the same track. And it's only, I hope that we can become more involved in the future and getting it aligned up because, I mean, my insight is what it is, but it's very aligned with what is typical right now.
And I think that the more we share, I think the better it becomes for all of us. So, Brian, any closing thoughts?
It's been, been a pleasure. Thank you for having me on here.
Yeah, thank you for your time. I know it's a Friday and I didn't mean to keep you as long as we did, but sometimes it goes that way, so.
Absolutely.
Yeah, I appreciate what you do, too. Yeah, thank you. I'm excited to see. So I'll see you at Seaman Apex.
I will see you.
All right. I'll buy you beer.
All right, sounds good.
Thanks, man. All right, 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 ASA group and to the change in the industry podcast. Remember what I always say.
In this industry, you get what you pay for. Here's hoping everyone finds their missing ten millimeter, and we'll see you all again next time.
About this episode
Brian Burris from Promotive continues his insightful discussion on the evolving role of technicians in modern repair shops. He emphasizes the importance of understanding technicians' backgrounds and the challenges they face when transitioning from dealership to independent shop environments. The conversation covers the need for effective mentorship, the significance of diagnostic skills, and the impact of shop culture on technician retention. Burris also shares advice for both shop owners and technicians to foster better relationships and improve workplace dynamics.
Original notes
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In this episode, Jeff is joined by Brian Burris, an experienced technician from Promotive. Brian discusses the importance of transparency and specialization within automotive workshops. Jeff reflects on the disparities in diagnostic methods between dealership-trained and independent shop technicians.
00:00 Continuing industry conversation: Promotive's Brian, Jeff.
04:26 Time-limited service challenges technicians' efficiency perceptions.
08:04 Made myself indispensable despite flaws at work.
11:14 Diag was easier; now, it's software-dependent.
14:35 Not good at mechanical tasks like carburetors.
17:50 Best pay raise tactic: submit resignation notice.
19:24 A Young, skilled mechanic struggles with constructive criticism.
24:57 Seeking exit strategy, can't handle difficult customers.
27:23 Beth's car was deemed extremely unsafe initially.
29:27 Neglected car due to missed oil changes.
32:40 Tech retention suffers due to workload, and low incentives.
36:06 Trend of guaranteed 40-hour work weeks now.
41:02 Reevaluate the true necessity of hiring an A-tech.
43:20 Be honest; aligns perfectly with Promotive's support.
44:57 Quality varies; good luck finding ten millimeters.
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The Jaded Mechanic Podcast
Jeff Compton
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