Tom Schearer - TOOLS, Training, and Team Development
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They'll spend 10 minutes and say, oh, I need more time. They paint this big crazy picture of all this bad stuff and everything. And we go and we sell six more hours. Fifteen minutes later, the guy comes and says, yep, I got it fixed. Look how much money we just made. That's just wrong.
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another exciting episode of the Jade Mechanic podcast. I'm sitting here tonight with somebody that is, I don't want to say a stranger. I've seen the name pop around, but we've never really had a conversation. So this is going to be a first for all of us. I'm sitting here with Mr. Tom Shear of Shear Sales and Service. Tom, how are you doing, man?
I'm great. Thanks for having me.
Jeff, thank you for having. Coming on. You're in Pennsylvania?
Yes, sir.
Yeah. And we were just talking. You're headed up to tools in about three weeks time with me. So. So that's going to be pretty cool.
Yeah, yeah. Looking forward to it.
Is this going to be your first time?
So I've been there multiple times.
Okay.
This is the. I mean, we've taken our team with a few members of our team here and there over the past couple years, but this year will be the first that we're kind of. Almost everybody's going to be there. You know, I think there's one or two that can't make it, but. But yeah, it's, you know, we're investing into getting everybody out there. There's some really good training going on. This, this, this. They're really building on that.
Yeah. Now kind of tell us a little bit about sheer sales and service. What's you say you bring in 10 people?
Yes, yes. There'll be 10, 10 of us there. So. Share sales and service. We are in Allentown, Pennsylvania, July 6. It will be 30 years for us in business.
Congratulations.
Thank you. Thank you. We've kind of went all over the spectrum over the years. So we started out Volkswagen Audi, only shop. We're doing sales, used car sales, service. We had a salvage yard and we did new parts as well. And over the years a lot has changed with that. We've gotten away from the salvage side and over the counter new parts.
But we've expanded out at times when, you know, it was tough to get the Volkswagen Audis into the middle of nowhere on our original shop. So we're started working on everything. Back in 14, we moved out of our original location, which was kind of the middle of nowhere. It's closer to Lancaster, closer to tools, but we're in Merchtown, Pennsylvania.
Okay.
And we moved out into the Allentown area and at that point we actually got pretty, a lot heavier into the Asian domestic because of the company that we bought out. We bought out Gaiman's Garage, which they were typically a general repair. 17. We moved into our location that we're at now. We bought out our competition, friendly competition. They were going out, they were closing up. So we bought out them and moved into my dream shop and put our focus on all the European stuff. So we still service everything but our main specialty, what we really get, get in deep with is the Europeans.
Now when you guys, when you talk about you have a little bit of a tiny kind of used car sales dealership thing going on, but you're, you're kind of weaning it back, that brings some challenges with it. Right. That we see sometimes people talk about is it been. Because I know what can happen. Right. Is if the car, unless it's conveyed to people that, you know, and I mean, I would think it'd be even more challenging with European stuff, you know, because how those cars can be, I'm not trying to say that they're junk, but, you know, they're, they're, they're a high maintenance, you know, get used to doing repairs on, on European cars with you own one. Sure. How is that, how do you communicate to that, to your customer that you're selling them something that, you know, isn't a lemon.
Right. Or, or isn't, but will require, you know, ongoing repairs and service?
Yeah. So, Jeff, I'm going to tell you that is one of the big challenges with that side of the business.
Yeah.
And, you know, I don't want to take anything away from anybody that's in that, in the sales, in the sales world, because I, I love the, I love that part of the business. And honestly, I'm the only reason that we're still doing a little bit of it. You know, if it was up to my daughter, my wife, anybody else in the business, they would have canned a while ago.
Yeah.
But you know, it's. And I always say when, you know, our focus is more on the service side and our main focus is taking great care of our clients.
Okay.
And I can control the service side of things a lot easier than I can the sales.
Yeah.
Because, you know, it's, we can, we can control how, you know, the product and everything and what we do, how we do it, why we do it. But when you get into the sales side to use car sales, you know, I mean, it's, you know, the big. The thing you're selling is a big question mark. You just don't know. We do our very best. And probably one of my biggest faults with the sales side is because of how in depth I get with the cars. I just. I just go over the top because I don't want.
I don't want. I want them to come back for their. For the next service.
Yeah.
I don't want them to come back because, oh, this lights on or that's lights on, or it's making this noise or, you know, it's not doing something. So, you know, I go too far with that and end up spending too much money on it. And you know what happens then? There's just. There's no. There's no profit at the end of the day.
Yeah. Because it's challenging. Right. You want to build. You want to build a client base for the shop based on the sale of the car. You know, it's not. Otherwise, I guess you could say we're a European shop and we're selling only, you know, domestics off the front because you don't really care if you want to see them back. But as a European specialty shop, you would want to keep that customer in the family, per se, and I.
I can't. Like, hats off to you. That'd be. That'd be a challenge. Um, it's a challenge. I think when I've talked to other people that used to do it and, you know, because it seems to be the trend, right, Tom, is that people are like, well, we used to sell some cars and then we got rid of them. You know, we stopped doing that because it always seemed to be sore feelings. But, like, are you doing okay with it in terms of people understanding or is it just kind of like.
Like you were trying to say it's your love that's got you really doing it, but it's. You still run into the same pitfalls.
Yeah. I mean, sales wise. So, I mean, it's. It's actually a. It's a detractor from our profit.
Okay.
You know, again, our focus is mainly on the service side, and that's what's pretty much kept us afloat the whole 30 years. Okay. That's always been our main focus. So it's just natural that that's what we're going to gravitate towards. So I. Yeah, I mean, sales is not pulling its weight. I see a future in it. Okay.
It's. I just. I see. I see those two tied the sales and the service tied together so closely and you know, I've thought my, my mindset with the sales side is that's another marketing point for, to help support our sales service 100%. So it's, you know, I have a client who's, you know, I mean we work very closely with our, with our service clients and you know, we build that relationship and we get to that point where it's like, hey, you know Jeff, it's time. Okay, we need to do something else. If I can kind of walk them around the corner out front and show them something in my inventory and you know, keep them in my space, yeah, I'm going to retain that customer 100. Yeah, I mean, you know, we have, we have a great relationship and I send you up the street to, you know, Audi Allentown for example or you know, Porsche Lehiv Valley, pick up another car.
I mean they got the best of the best in their, in their, in their business selling and they're going to do their best to sell their place to you. So chances are I may, there's a good chance I'm going to lose you for a period of time if it's new and factory warranty. And there's also a chance that they're going to sell you on going someplace else, you know, sticking with them for the service. So you know, if I can keep, if I can keep them in my, you know, all at one place, it would be, it would be much better.
So 100%. I can remember my days at the dealer like the way it got to be where they always like I've talked to so many sales managers at dealerships, especially on the used car side. That's like if we could just sell them, you know, the marquee brand, the OE brand as a used car, they would be so much happier, so much easier and we would, we would in service would sitting there nodding their head going yeah, like we would love that. Because you could see not only that they approached it differently, right in terms of trying to retain that customer in the dealership when they sold them a used Nissan or they sold them a used Chrysler. From my experience, versus selling them a Chevy, you know, like always sold a Chevy Cruz, like we hope we never see that customer again. But then you know, you're selling them a, a, you know, a five year old Pathfinder at a Nissan dealer, you're hoping that you're going to be able to continue to bring them back in because you're selling Pathfinders, right? You want those parts going in that Car. You want your techs working on that car. The, the.
The off brand stuff was always like it to me. I was just like, I'd probably make my. If I was in charge of the dealership, I'd probably make it a whole lot smaller, the used car side, and just focus on building more customers for my service. But sales is always like, hey, I got it for a good price at the auction. Let's get rid of it. You know, just. You got to think farther. For me, I always was like, you got to think farther ahead than that.
You want this customer because you know how that can be one brand that you're not familiar with. You go and buy the worst that. Go back to the Chevy Cruze and you're selling it somebody. It doesn't matter how good you are with the aftercare. That customer is like, you guys sold me a lemon, you know, and that's. That's rough. That's going back to it then, like. Because you hear the joke, right, Tom, all the time about, like, second and third Euro owners.
Yeah.
What are they really expecting is that. That's a truthful thing.
It's a truthful thing. And I have to say, I. I consider myself very lucky, pretty much across the board with our clients. You know, now we're. We're very. I'm at a loss for words. I'm sorry, Jeff. But, you know, we.
The way we work, the way we interview our clients, new clients when they're coming in for the service side and everything, so that helps us to make sure that we're going to be a good fit for them and they're going to be a good fit for us. Okay. And so we have really good clients coming in the door. But I also have to say, you know, on the sales side, that really was never something that I thought of doing. But I think the way we've always presented things as far as, you know, not promising things that were unrealistic, being down to earth with what the car is and everything else, I think that's helped us, you know, because let's face it, we all hear those stories. Oh, my God, you know, I have a sale. I have a service department. When I sold the car, and now they think that, you know, they have a, you know, a free repair shop for the rest of their life, and they expect this.
They expect that. I don't. I've never gotten that. No, I consider myself very blessed because some people, you know, experience some of the pretty nasty stuff.
And I think it's. It goes back to just Being truthful, I mean, and honest like you. It's one thing we always forget. And I do it too. To that customer. That car is their new car. You know what I mean? It's new to them, but in our realm, you and I that fix them every day for a living, we know that it's not new, it's very far from new, but it is not. Which doesn't make it less valuable to them, but it does make it more.
The reality isn't that you have a warranty that's going to look after every little thing and every time that you come in with every little squeak and rattle, you know it's going to be taken care of. Or we're going to just patch on the shoulder and go. Don't really all do that and you know, send you back out the door like you're on the hook for a lot of what the things that might frustrate you of owning this used car, you're going to be on the hook for. And if, I think if you have that conversation with the customers, very wide open knowing, because we run into a lot up here where we have to do a mandatory safety on every car that gets sold used. So people will say, I'll see it in, in online groups and everything. Oh, well, like, you know, the, the car was safety. Then the air conditioning quit working like next month. That and nowhere the safety side of things other than the blower motor being able to clear the windshield and the rear defrost being able to function.
No other part of the H VAC system has to function to be considered safe. So when people go, well, my air conditioning doesn't work and you just sold me the safety car. We sold you a safety car. We didn't sell you a pre certified, gone through, tip to toe, you know, stem to stern, completely rebuilt car. And that's where we have to get into these, these have these conversations about like, you know, it's not brand new, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. So that's where I feel we've always in the industry is dropped the ball, you know, and having that conversation. And we're not selling garbage here, but we are selling something that, you know, you should have a budget for, of unexpected, you know, surprises that will pop up. Because they will pop up.
Yeah, absolutely. You know, and it's. And like you said, it's just about, it's about being real and communicating properly with your client. And I think that's across the board just with anything, you know, so much better. If we learn to be better communicators.
Yeah. Oh, and even if we're not selling used cars, it's the same thing. We're still selling something at the end of the day. And Mr. Dutch hates that. It's. It's about sales. But in.
And Chris Enright, he made a really good post last week in his socials where he said, our industry is terrible communicators. And I have to agree. Degree like I've become so much better since taking this on upon myself as a project, but it's still like I've always been very good about. Well, you know, here's my realities as a technician that you, Mrs. Or Mr. Customer might not be aware of. I've always been very good at that, but at trying to sell and communicate expectations and value of what it is that is going to occur with your vehicle. I have had to work really hard at, you know, pulling myself back away from this angry person to somebody that can sympathize and explain better and slow down and, you know, seek first to understand, as Lucas says.
And it's, it's, it's so important in our industry that we get better at it. I think more. I think it trumps right now. I think it trumps even the technical side of what a lot of us have to learn is I think we have to become better communicators before we necessarily become even superstar technical technicians.
Yeah, I'd agree with you, Jeff.
Yeah.
And, you know, to that point, you know, it's just going back to the sales side of things. I mean, we're all salesmen. It doesn't matter what you're doing, you know, I mean, if you're a technician, you're selling your confidence to your advisors.
100.
You know, it's, you know, as, as a manager, you know, you're selling, you know, the dream and the goals to your team. So it's, it's not a bad thing. Okay. Can it be a bad thing? Yeah, 100%. Okay. Everything can be bad. But with that, with the understanding of that and then being able to go in there and being willing to just take the time, communicate better, learn to be a better communicator. Like you said, it'll definitely help us out a lot.
So where does the love for the European kind of nameplates come from for you? Like, is there a box?
Yeah, I'm a, I'm a muscle. I'm a muscle car guy. You know, I got a 69Z outside. I got a 71 split bumper Camaro.
What's under the hood of the Z.
The Z is, I just got that. So it's got a 350 and it doesn't have the 302. Yeah, the 71's got a 327.
Nice.
But you know, so that, that's where I come from. But my first job When I was 16, I worked for a man named Ken Miller. Ken Miller auto sales. And I was, I stripped cars for him in his salvage yard and he was a Volkswagen Audi shop. Volkswagen, Audi. That's all they did. And so a few years later I can really go deep into this. So I don't, I'm gonna spare you a lot of time.
But I actually ended up going back to work for him. You know, I was kind of, I was frustrated in the automotive world and I was leaving looking for something else and he kind of sucked me back in as in the office.
Okay.
Selling parts. And then I quickly kind of turned into service advisor manager and I bought the business from Ken. So my love for European comes from Ken. The Volkswagen Audi. It's. Yeah, I mean streetcar wise, you know, somebody asked me what's your, what, what do you recommend for a car? My go to is Volkswagen Audi. My wife drives a Audi Q7. My daughter drives, Danny drives an Audi A4.
Samantha drives a Volkswagen Atlas. So I mean it's. I have a, my, I have my European muscle. So that's a 02911 Turbo.
Okay.
That's a lot of adrenaline there. It's a lot of fun.
It's funny when you say to me, you know, I would recommend, you know, a Volkswagen because like so many else in that, in the circles that we run in with, put their hand up, they'd be like, oh, I would recommend a Toyota. Right? And like it's. But I guess it's what you're familiar with and what you're comfortable with. Like to you, you know, you, you love the marquee, you love the brand, you know that I'm gonna assume that you probably know a lot of the quirks and the intra syncrasies and stuff and so on and so forth. So what might be a, you know, a pitfall for a lot of other people, shops, techs is just day in for you, right? It's just, yeah, no big deal. You've been there and done that. So that's pretty cool. That's pretty cool.
And to that point, you know, I mean there's certain cars that I will not sell and I will recommend my customers stay far away from, you know, the 09 to 13, what was 12, now it's 13, now it's 14.2o turbos. You know, it's, you know, they're, they're a problem. So I mean I will not put one of those on my, on my lot to sell because I will not be responsible for putting that into one of my customers hands, you know, and I'm very vocal about that. I again, communication. I believe in letting people know what I know and not letting them. Doing my best to keep them from going down a path that I wouldn't like to see them go.
Yeah, yeah. I so do. You must have quite a few in the fleet people with TDIS then. And, and some of the. Yeah, and I can remember those. And I can remember some of the older VR sixes that was in some stuff like that engine was not something that I really, you know, love to see come in, you know, but mostly because. Not familiar with it. Right.
Like I understand and you know, everything's plastic.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Yeah. But I mean it's just, I think where we drop the ball sometimes is we always just looked at. And I see this in the, in the standard circles as we look at. It's like, okay, so this, this housing is leaking and it's plastic and we're going to go in and you just get so tunnel vision on this one particular failure, one particular part. I find that the people, when I'm familiar, even in the parts side, when you're talking to people that do the parts section in these cars, they're like, okay, you're gonna need this, this and this and you're going to need to do X, Y and Z at the same time because otherwise it's going to come back. And I found it going back to the Chevy Cruze thing, you know, it almost has gotten that way. Some of the domestic stuff where it's like you're going to be in there doing that, this is going to break and that's going to break and you're going to need to do it all at once. And I, I struggle with that because when you try to talk to the customer, they're like, listen, dude, I just got a coolant fan that's running all the time.
Right. Like, I just, I just want that address. And it's like, sure, but when I go in there to fix this stupid little sensor that's, you know, very common to malfunction. I'm going to break four things that are getting in there and they're all going to have to be done. So the job Sounds like a much bigger inflated sale than what you were hoping to get. That's where I think where it almost becomes somewhat specialized in the Euro side is because it's again, knowledge of what you're working on. Knowing your enemy.
Yeah.
You know, you. You avoid some of those pitfalls by just going, we've done that job. So we know that you can't do just X. Has to be X, Y and Z. It's pretty cool.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I mean, it's. To your point there with just that one leaking housing or whatever. You know, I mean, it comes to servicing a. A system, not just a component. Yeah. And looking out for the better good of them down the road.
Not just right here, right now, which.
Is something in our industry that we've been preaching for 20 years. Address systems don't address parts.
Yes.
But yet we still seem not to grasp it. It's funny, isn't it? Like, it's.
Why.
Why are we not grasping it? Because I think we're all just trying to, you know, in our head, we're stuck at. It has to be the cheapest price possible.
Yeah.
And that's not what advocating is. That is not advocating for the customer. No matter what anybody says. It's not. Everybody thinks they are, but you're really not. And that's why I can't remember if it was Rick or Cecil got on to me in a conversation once about, we have to advocate for the car. Stop advocating for the customer first and advocate for the car. Do the proper repair for the car and the customer will.
It'll take care of itself. I'm changing some of the words around and ad living, but that's essentially what he was saying.
Yeah.
Yeah. Tell me a little bit about your crew.
So our crew, we have. So you have myself, we have my wife Christy, who works with us on the bookkeeping side and she helps to keep me from making really crazy decisions. So. So we got Christie. We have our daughter Samantha, who has come through the ranks. She pretty much will. She'll run. Run the business at one point.
And so she's now our marketing manager. She trains our support staff and we'll going to be working her into getting into the financial side of things soon. And as we do that, my wife, myself and Christy are kind of working our way out of the business. So not to retire, not to get away, but just to be able to have that ability to get away if we want to. You know, we need to focus on our family. But we have Kylie, our csr, she's amazing. We have two service advisors. We have Jason and Priscilla with us.
We have almost forgot to mention Mike. Mike's a very long time friend of mine. I graduated with his older brother so I've known him forever. He's our service manager. We have Brenner, parts manager. We have Jeff out in the shop who is a. He's kind of stepped away from the technician role, but he is kind of like a production assistant. You know, he just helps to keep the guys in the shop rolling and does QCs and shuttles, things like that.
Very. I love that position. And we have. Right now we're down to four text but we have our fifth one starting next actually this week on Thursday. So.
Very cool.
We got a great group of people out in the shop. We have. So we have Zarin who's our BMW, Mini Jag and Rover specialist. We have Aaron who comes in with some Asian and domestic experience, but he's actually taking a love for the Mercedes side. So he's going through the ranks with our Mercedes.
Wow.
We have Ralph, who is our EV specialist and our Volkswagen Audi guy. And then we have Tom, who is our Porsche Audi guy.
A lot of smarts. A lot of smarts.
We got some really. We gotta. You know, I joke around all the time, but it's, it's real. You know, I just say my, my team makes me look good every day and it's the truth, you know, I mean we're, we're very blessed. We have a really good team. We've worked really hard to get the, the group that we have. The, the culture, you know, it's, it's. I love it.
Yeah. And that, that can be tough. I, I know because like even myself, I've been a long, like I've been attack a long time, like going on 30 years. But I mean there's just that those marquees, those brands, everything that you kind of rhymed off there it was, I was just like, you know, like. So it's, it's hard sometimes to find, I think people that are comfortable with those name plates. Right. Like it's, it's a, I've said it so many times. For me it's.
Can I, can I fix them? Yes, of course. But it's the way I have to like flick my brain to a different channel to kind of understand it. Right. And what's going on and get into that mindset. That's the, that's the struggle for me. You know what I mean is having to slow down. And what I was working on a 2020 Mercedes CLK this week for an evap problem. And at one point in the service information, essentially I call it the ESIM because it looks like a Chrysler esim.
But the leak detection bump, they had it called three different names. Leak detection, pump, fuel tank diagnostic module and you know, something else within the same printed service information. I'm like, like this is, you know that little things like that, everybody's listening and laughing. But I mean that kind of thing, like that makes the wheels fall off the cart for me immediately. You know, it's just like why are they doing. Because then I don't trust what I'm even reading then at that point, right? Like am I, am I getting a, a jumbled mess and it's not really all that accurate? Like am I reading fake news? And I think what happens is, or what maybe should be is that a lot of people, if you're going to work on those name plates, you need to be using OE information. Yeah, maybe, I think cuts down a lot of it because you know. Yeah, I'm assuming you guys do, right.
Like we do, you know, and geez, man, I'm gonna say Jeff, the frustrating part of that is, you know, I mean we have Esther for BMW, I have Otis for Volkswagen, Audi, you know, we have P Whis and we have the, I don't even know how the heck you say it, century, you know, for Mercedes and they're sun setting that tool for us the end of June. So I mean I have that thing, what, maybe five, six years at the most. I think five. Paid a lot of money for that. So now I gotta go and start over. And it's 38, 808 and some odd cents. So. But I mean it's, it's what you need to be able to do to, to, you know, to work on this stuff, you know, I mean we're doing, we're doing dealer level diagnostics and repairs here at our shop and that's what we need.
So it's, what are you going to do? You know, it's if you're serious about it, you're going to invest into it. I mean, is there workarounds? Yeah, of course, you know, I mean there's, there's other stuff and I mean I'll give a shout out to Iscan. I mean they're really coming into their game with a lot of their abilities and everything. So it's, you know, not take anything away from any of the other guys. But, but yeah, I mean there's, they're really improving upon what the aftermarket tooling will do. But you're still missing out on some of the OE stuff, like the repair information, like the wiring diagrams that you can get and you know, all the stuff that people don't think of with that OE tooling.
It's. Yeah, you just hit on some big points there. Like that frustrated me because I'm, I'm using an Autel on, on this, you know, which is a good tool.
Yeah.
But I mean, you know, like it's, it's 100% a good tool. But I can, most of my, you know, interpretation about working on it comes from 10 years ago, trying to work on BMWs and Mercedes with just a snap on tool. You know, there was no, there was no Autel yet. Like launch had just hit and nobody was buying a launch yet. And my shop, he's like, I'm not, I can still remember my owner. I'm not buying another scan tool if we can't get it done with that. I'm like, well then we can't get it done with that. And we could get it done, but it wasn't efficient, it wasn't effective.
Like yes, we figured out which coil was still bad as an example or something like that. I mean you go over to the OBD side and you read the data and you still treat it like a car, but it's a much longer process. And then it, it just exasperates the problem because the customer is expecting like. Well, the dealer guy knew exactly what was wrong with the car. Yeah. Just like when I was at Korizer, I knew exactly what was wrong as soon as I scanned it. Like we're, we hold ourselves to such a high standard of like. And I had this conversation this week.
Well, you know, and I'm not trying to cheer for the dealers or whatever, but I mean we say that all the time. The customer comes in and goes, well the dealer guy, he knew exactly what it was going to be. Yeah. Because he's done 10 of them that week, you know.
Yeah.
Whereas we're sitting back going like, I haven't worked on one of these, you know, the last one was five years ago. You and I know how on those nameplates especially the amount of changes they make in a five year run is crazy. Like you said, the Zentry's like not even a 10 year old tool and they're gonna down it like it's going to be done. Ancient history. How does somebody walk into a shop and just start to get comfortable with that? Tool maybe one year and then it's like, hey, we're gonna learn something completely new, guys.
Yep, here we go. Right.
Such and such is this craziness that we signed up for.
And, and the thing is, you know, you touched on it there with the snap on tooling and everything else. And the time that it takes is, you know, for our, for our business, we're. We're looking for efficiencies. We're always looking for, what can we do to improve upon our efficiencies for our technicians and make their life easier. You know, it's. And, you know, we can. Let's go away from the scan tools for a little bit. You know, Wall mech tools.
Are you familiar with them?
No.
Swedish company, I believe so I, I bought a number of their products from Apex and Seymour out there last year. Right on the. So basically their tagline is invest in time. Okay. So it's. Yes, we, I mean, we really dump. We really jumped in. We spend a lot of money for a lot of their tools and everything.
And man, their stuff is amazing. You know, could we have gotten that they call Chinesium, you know, kit from Amazon to get the job done? Yeah, you know, it was going to take us, you know, twice as long or three times as long. Yeah. Okay. So we're investing into time to be able to do a better job. Job in a short amount of time for, you know, basically work for our clients, but also to make it easier for our techs.
So are we talking about tooling? That's kind of like the engine set tools and, you know, undercar kind of stuff.
So. Yeah, I kind of got off track there. Sorry. They do saw squirrel, so. But so like hub bearings, they have a different. All kinds of different press tools. You know, it's, you know, different things to separate ball joints, tie rods, you know, bushings. It's.
They just have some really amazing stuff. So if you have never seen them, check them out. They got some really good stuff.
So I don't remember I was at SEMA this past November, but I don't remember bumping into them. I probably might have walked right past them. I was like, I was like a kid in a candy store. My first time I'd ever been and it was just like. Yeah, it was, it was daunting, you know, to say the least to see that kind of stuff. But that's where I really nerd out too, right? Is if you can talk to somebody in the booth and they're like, oh, you want to do this? Well, here's the tool you actually need. And you're looking at that. All of a sudden, it's like, something snaps.
Goes, I did that without that, and it was a nightmare. And he goes, yeah, it's, you know, it's simple with this, right? Like, and that's. I find even when we're looking in pro demand or something like that, like, they'll tell you. They'll walk you through this, you know, the service tabs, but they're not showing you even sometimes use special tool. What does special tool look like? You know what a lot of us are. Like, if we could get a picture of, we can recreate it.
Yeah, absolutely.
Don't even give you the picture, right. It's like, what is that? And then you're off to a Google search. And then everybody goes, why did it take so long to do this job? Well, I had to Google search an image, right? Refabricate a tool, get the job done. Oh, we were, you know, 50% efficient on the job. What happened? Well, that's what happened, right? Like, and that's. That's what triggers me sometimes is because, like, I look at it, at the end of the day, the customer is at our facility because they want to be there. They don't want to be at the dealer. So it really just irks me when we're.
We hold ourselves so tight to. It's like, we have to do it in the time frame that that guy, the dealer is able to do it at. When he's done 50 of them, we've done one. Like, what do you feel about that? Do you understand what I'm trying to say? Or is it just like, you know, you're a little more flexible, where it's like, listen, we're gonna put some extra labor time down because we can't do it as fast as that guy that's done 50.
I mean, from my point of view, it's. You know, there's. There's. I mean, yeah, there's definitely, you know, a pro for the dealership. You know, I mean, they have the. All the tools their fingertips. Did they have the choice? No. You know, they were forced to buy it.
But, I mean, hey, they. Again, they have all the tools at their fingertips. They have everything. They have everything there, Jeff.
Yeah.
To put you and I out of business. But they can't.
No.
Because they don't focus on taking care of the client. So don't show this thing to the dealership people, because I want to keep my job. So.
Truth 100.
Yeah. So, you know, I mean, what is it, is it 70%, 70 some percent of the cars out there that they're, once they're out of the warranty period, they are migrating over to the independent side. So, yeah, I mean, one could argue, and I do argue this with, you know, some of the local dealers that they're actually, they're. Those are my customers. You know, they're basically giving me, you know, slack about my marketing and everything else. And, you know, they're saying I'm going after the customers. Well, no, I'm actually, I'm looking to get my customers in the door and you're going after mine. Yeah, so, but, but no, it's got off track there, you know, I mean, as far as the, the times and that stuff there.
I mean, the labor guides, let's face it, it's a guide, okay. And we rely very heavily on our technicians to provide us input on what we're going to need to do that job. You know, it's part of our processes is getting a rough idea on actual time from our technician for that job. And that will help us to determine if we are going to create a win, win, win situation. You know, it's. We need a win for our client, a win for our team, one for our company, in that order. Okay. And the only time we can have an effect on that is before we sell the job.
Okay. So, yeah, the client, we want the client to get a properly repaired car that we can stand behind, but we also need our technician, our team to be successful with that. And we need our, we need our company to be profitable. So if there's, if we need to add some other time, additional time on there or get some other tooling or something like that, we're absolutely going to do that. And the key to getting this across to your client is not just saying, well, this is a price, take or leave it, you know, if you don't like it, get out. That's, that does nothing for anybody. Okay? It's, we're going to come back to communication. It's properly communicating that to our client and letting them know what's.
What, what's going on with this, why we have to do what we're doing, what we're going to do and what the outcome is going to be.
Yeah.
And I mean, yeah, you're going to get some people that just don't agree, but you know, for the most part, you know, it's. They understand it once you explain it to them.
I think, I think that's only fair. And again, it Comes back to communication now you kind of said something that made me want to ask some more questions be going on about you. So this is it fair to say some of the local dealerships have take issues with your marketing? Like yes, I'll say this when they're noticing you, right. Or noticing us in the aftermarket and are starting to get. We are really starting to hit that level of where we need to be. I feel and I'll say this like with what you're talking about. They are our customers, right. Because their mindset is still I sell another.
People heard me say I sell another car. I replace a customer that I pissed off today, right. Where we do not have that luxury. We do. We in the aftermarket lose customers. Yes, we do. Sometimes we overextend ourselves. We over promise all that kind of stuff.
But we can't just go out and sell another car to generate that customer back. And that's what sales can do at a new car dealer. Good on you for starting to, you know, kick the feathers of them. And, and because that means you're doing everything well that you should be. You're. You're seen now as a viable alternative which is what end goal all of us should really be is a viable, lucrative, financially rewarding alternative. You know, I wish we could, we could get along better the two sides because I mean I'm the guy that's been had my foot in both sides forever for my whole career I've gone back and forth and, and when people go, why can't they? Well, because the dealerships too oftentimes piss off the people that are most important to them. Their customers and their staff.
And that's how let's be real, that's how we exist is because we're able to recruit their techs and we're able to bring their customers over. And it scares me because if they just tweak it a little bit it would make it so hard for us. But they're just so bloody like blinders on. They won't do it. They will not do it. That's why I think we're very safe in our. I used to think like you know, the always could put us all out of business in a very short period of time. But I'm starting to be word.
I'm with you in agreement. I don't think they're ever going to get it right. I really don't.
No, I don't.
It's too bad.
Yeah. And to that point I, I got to be honest, I would love to have A better relationship with. Yeah, unfortunately, it's. I'm experiencing this with two dealers right now. Two different markets and everything. One. It's just gotten to a point where it. It.
It got ugly for a while. And, you know, I mean, it's to the point that they were harassing me. So it's. Wow, it at once. On one end, it makes me feel really good. On the other end, it's like, dude, I've been trying to build a relationship with you for a long time, and this is what I'm getting.
So.
But. But, yeah, it's tough.
But now, did it used to be better The. The relationship going back and forth between. Because I seem to remember as a child, and again, because I had family that had been kind of dabbled in this industry. Right. I had uncles and. And my father were in the auto body collision side of things. And it always seemed like it was commonplace that, like, the guys down at, say, Joe's Garage were able to call up the dealership and talk to a technician about a car that was maybe relatively new for what they were working on and get some help. And now I feel like those avenues are completely closed off unless you go and find it outside of the network.
Right. Like, if you go and find it on Facebook or something like that. I don't feel like anybody's got a situation too often now where you can call up the dealer and say, hey, and they can call you up and say, hey. You know, did it used to be more friendly?
I don't feel like I never really had that good of a relationship.
Okay.
Across the board that I can really recall. I mean, there's been times when we've reached out and everything, but, you know, we've also had them read, you know, different dealers reach out to us for markets that they're not covering. But it's. I mean, I hear it, you know, good friend of mine has a, you know, local Porsche shop. I mean, he's got a amazing relationship with, you know, one of the techs down the street from me, and, you know, if I tried, that wouldn't work so well for me. Okay. So I don't know where that bond started, you know, with them, but it's a. It's a great one.
You know, they. They're very good friends, and they help each other out a lot. I think maybe that's where it came from, our friends outside before, but I do. I wish we would have that type of relationship.
Yeah. When you're, when you're staffing, do you look at dealership technicians or dealership, you know, advisors or whatever as like they're a no touch for you or do you see them as like an advantage because they've got a lot of experience on them on the marquee brands and, and I'll say it, factory training.
Yeah. So I mean, I look at both aspects. You know, the younger kid, Ryan, who's coming in to start with us On Thursday, amazing, 23 year old, you know, new to the, fairly new to the business, but I mean, just super smart kid, you know, not just as far as, you know, the cars, but just well educated, speaks well, you know, he's coming from Nissan. Okay. To work on my European shop. Okay. We've hired out of some of the local dealers and everything. And you know, typically if, if I know where they're coming from, you know, I'll basically, for example, you know, spoke to a technician about eight, ten months ago from the dealer down the street and you know, he just wanted to talk to us.
He's basically airing some frustrations about what's going on down there. I knew he wasn't a fit for us. Okay.
Okay.
So basically, rather than just saying, no, I'm not interested, you know, we kind of turned this around and say, listen, what's going on down there? What can you do differently? And you know, I kind of send them out the door with a, a handful of things. Hey, why don't you go talk to your manager about this and you know, explain to him and talk about, you know, these things there and try to work through it. And I'm proud to say he's still working there. And by the way, that's the dealership that I said was harassing. That's the one.
Okay.
So, you know, so I mean it's, it's not like I'm out there to, you know, do anything unjust to them or anything like that. I mean I, right there, I just kind of sent somebody back there and you know, I feel like I helped them.
You know, I would agree. Yeah, they're gonna lose a technician which we know in the shortage is going to really hurt them.
Yeah.
Like, you know, and then to be able to give him some perspective, to go back there and say, listen, it might not all be terrible, some of it might be on you. But then at the same time suggest to them that like, if you're struggling with this and that, what about adopting this process or that process or why, you know, I, I've, I've, I'm known for asking a lot of questions and sometimes it's like, even when somebody doesn't want to hear me ask another question, I'm known to ask it because I'm and it. And it isn't to challenge, it's more to understand. It just seems to be I'm almost on a quest for knowledge of why the thing is done that way. Right. Because then it's not to say it's done wrong. It's just I have to know the why to understand then how you want it done.
Yeah.
And then, you know, it may make no sense to me, and then I'll probably come to an impasse where it's like, okay, I'm gonna do me.
Yeah.
But as soon as I find out, like, there's been so many good answers that as soon as somebody told me the why not just do it this way, that has been so powerful, me in, in opening up other avenues and made me a much better technician. You know, it was just, it was key, but it was like, why? Why do we do it that way? Why?
Right.
Yeah. And it's tough.
It's tough for sure. You know, and I mean, you know, we talked about, you know, bringing in people from dealerships and, and everything else. You know, typically if. If I have somebody that's coming in that, you know, if I know they're coming from someplace that they're really going to put a hurting on them to leave, I'm not going to. I can't jeopardize the potential relationship between that applicant by reaching out to them and saying, hey, you know, just so you know, your guy's doing this, you know, but I am going to kind of point them back, say, listen, if you talk to, you know, your manager or your boss about this, you know, do they know what's going on? And, you know, because, man, it's like, I, I know what it'll feel like for me if, you know, one of my, I mean, any one of my team would leave because, I mean, I rely on them heavily. They're. They're a great, great group of people. So it's, it's not just always about stealing somebody, you know, it's.
I, I honestly, I, I just despise that, that thought process, you know, I'm not gonna go and steal a tech. I'm gonna hold the training so I can steal a tech.
Right.
You know, sorry, what are you doing? But, you know, you know, but, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's a help. I mean, yeah, you can look at it for, just for yourself, but, you know, what about that other place, you know, it's potentially putting a good hurting on them. And some are going to say, listen, I. Whether it's for you or somebody else, I'm leaving there, you know, at that point. Okay, I. I get it, you know, But I still think it would be good to communicate again. Going back to the communication. Yeah, there's a problem.
Give me one second to communicate. I gotta just pause this. I gotta move my puppy. She's, like, starting to whine and pick it up in the back, and so I'll go. Just hold on one sec.
Sounds great.
So you touched on something really interesting, and it made me think, because around here, for a long time, we had two Chrysler dealers and they had a policy where if a technician had worked at one and came to apply at the other, they wouldn't hire him or her. And it was about the only handshake agreement I think, that they had between the two of them. Otherwise they would have stepped on each other's throat. But that was just something that I know for a fact that they did because it became always, you know, door rate would go up five bucks, pay would go up 50 cents. Immediately they were walking in, and if the 50 cents wasn't there, they were flagging the, you know, shoving the resume across the street, making a phone call. Yeah, we need to get past that in this industry. You know, like I've said more than once, I think sometimes it's like we should poach talent if you really need it. But, you know, like, I.
I would counter also with, what are you really getting when you're getting that person, right. That. That is willing to jump for 50 cents? Like, you know, are you really. Are they really the asset that you want? You know?
Yeah. And, you know, it's. I mean, a lot of times there's a lot of the technicians that have come to me. I shouldn't say a lot of them. I've had a few over the years that have come to me, and they basically took a pay cut to come and work for Shearers.
Wow.
Okay. And it's, you know, what we come to the conclusion is it's not always about the money. You know, it's about the atmosphere. It's about, you know, the. The culture, you know, I mean, when you talk to Tom, the other Tom at Shears, you know, I called him old times. He's a couple years older than me, but I say, I'm cool Tom, he's Old Tom, but super, really great guy, you know, I mean, just to. To hear him talk about how he feels about being with us and the, the difference in the working environment from where he was to where he is now and everything. It makes me feel really good that I have the ability to offer that type of atmosphere and environment for, for my team, you know, and that opportunity.
So it's, it's not always just about the money. You know, it's. And I mean, it's been, it's this. I don't know, what the heck you want to call it, Fable, whatever, you know, that for years, like, well, us independents, we can't touch the dealership. You know, we can't, we can't touch. We can't do what they do. Well, I mean, just look at, we, we pay 100 of our team's health insurance. Okay? What person at the dealership have you heard of, you know, almost ever that 100 of their health insurance was covered? No, it just doesn't happen.
But we, we do that, you know, and we, we offer someone so much different, so many different perks and benefits that the dealer doesn't. So it's, again, it's not always about the money. You know, for us, we are a performance based shop. So, you know, I mean, I know people will frown upon that. I know Dutch is definitely against that and everything. And hey, I respect the hell out of Dutch, you know, I mean, but we are, it's, it's what we do. I mean, and us as owners, I mean, we're the ultimate performance based pay. You know, I get that from, you know, Rick White says that, said that a lot.
And he's, he's right. You know, I mean, hey, if the company doesn't perform, we don't get paid. Right. You know, but when we're bringing people in, we're basically, we're providing them that avenue to be able to make, you know, the sal. You know, that not the salary, the, you know, the earnings that, the wages that they're looking for through production and performance. Okay. We're not going to just throw a big dollar amount out there and say, hey, yeah, come and you know, yeah, let's hope that you work, you know. Yeah.
No, you, you got to earn your rent. You know, just like we talk about with our vendors with contracts. Now, we don't want to, we don't want to contract. We want them to earn their rent every month.
Yes. And I find that that's, that's the wrinkle that a lot of people are getting at is they're looking at it just from a, an hourly pay standpoint. Right. I pay I've said it so many times. You know, every local shop, to me thinks that if they pay straight time the same hourly rate that you'd make at the dealer, that you're, you know, heaven on earth for attack because you don't have to flat rate them. The reality is some of the time what you end up working on, you know, is like the flat rate time would have worked when that car was 10 years older or 10 years newer. Now it's 10 years old and it's like, so you're not flat rating me, but you're still holding me to the same labor time. There's no been matrix put in.
None of this going back to, like we said, allowing, you know, extra time for age decay modification, so on and so forth. So everybody goes, oh, I'm, I'm paying you. It doesn't matter, dude. Like, if I can't hit 8 to 10 consistently for you, and it's got nothing to do with me, and it's on the fact that we're not charging enough for the jobs that are coming in here. I'm gonna look like crap to you no matter what comes through the door. Because we're not looking at the big picture here. We're looking through this little narrow scope of I can't charge more than that and it's crap. It's, it's bs, it's, it's because I know at the dealer we all had our labor times, but we also knew, and I say it, I have to say it always this way.
There were some jobs that we didn't charge the full amount because we could do them so fast that we all, eventually the advisor said, can we charge Ms. Smith 5 instead of, you know, 6.2? And we all went, yeah, I can do it in three. Five will work. And then that became the new standard. And then there were other jobs where we went, there's no way I can do that job in 3.4. It's taken me 4.5 every time I've ever done it. I need 4.5. And that's how it goes.
And it's just, it's that little thing of everybody, as soon as you start to talk about like, I need more time, everybody assumes the tech out there is going to double it.
Yeah.
And let's be real, there's some cases where you should double it. You know, if you see some people's metric, by the time they put it in at so many per age, per year, it ends up double.
Yeah.
But then we also know there's Some jobs like those Toyota, you know, control arms and stuff, where when they said all the engine has to come out to do the control arm.
Yeah.
Like you don't have to charge the full amount.
Right, Exactly. Yeah. At some point you're, you know, you, you're taking advantage and you know, and, you know, to that point with the I, again, I feel very strongly that proper communication between, you know, whatever you want to call it, tax advisors, front of house, back house, whatever is, is going to help with things. So, yeah, I mean, we're. If we have that job that's, you know, builds four and a half hours, but we know it's going to take us six, we're billing six, you know, it's. And we're going to educate our customer on that. You know. Now have we had experiences where, you know, it's.
Tech will come and say, oh, I need, you know, it's. They're diagnosing a check engine light. You know, we do, we do like a level one and, and so on and so forth and, you know, supposed to spend X amount of time to diagnose and, you know, maybe that's 45 minutes. We're not saying they need to have it done in that time. We just say, I want you to invest 45 minutes and come see us.
Right.
They'll spend 10 minutes and say, oh, I need more time. They paint this big crazy picture of all this bad stuff and everything. We go and we sell six more hours. Fifteen minutes later, guy comes and says, yep, I got it fixed. Look how much money we just made. Yeah, that's just wrong.
You know, that's not right either, for sure.
And that's, that's where the culture comes into play. Okay. If you have the team that is focused on taking great care of your clients, that stuff's not going to happen. Yeah. Plain and simple.
And, and that comes down to. It's not just how they're paid method. Right. It's about how they're rewarded. I've said so many times. I was talking with Lucas. There's so many times too that like, I think we wind up working for people that it wouldn't matter what they did, they wouldn't necessarily get a pat on the back or a wow, good job. That wasn't really impressive.
They don't get that. They just, I think sometimes in our industry, it's like an. And, you know, I've heard people in the groups go, listen, you know, you're not all going to get a medal. You're not all going to Get a T shirt. You're not all like, it's just part of what your job is to fix the car. And I get it, I 100 get it. My job is to show up, fix the car. But sometimes when you do something like a hard diag or, you know, you pull it back from the brink of going down a rabbit hole and, and the least that anybody should be doing is saying, wow, good job, thank you for that.
You know, and then it's not about the pay at that point. It's like the recognition of that was a close one. You know, I would have never thought that because when I hear somebody say to me, as a, as an owner or a boss, it's a tech, I would have never thought that. What you're telling me is that, like, I went in a very efficient, direct way and got to the solution and you're kind of saying, I would have, I would have been lost. And I'm not trying to say that, that I level up and pay, but just tip, tip the hat to the tech and go, wow, good job. That's all a lot of us are really looking at some days. I know lots of texts that, coming back to your culture thing, they'll work for somebody that really appreciates them for a lot less money than the top tier pay that they can get. Because the top tier pay normally is like, you go in, you put your head down, you shut your mouth, you grind it out and you hustle and nobody acknowledges whether you made 20 or 10.
Right.
Whereas if you go in every day and it's like you fix some pretty cool stuff and you, you know, you take care of the customer, like you said, you're invested like you want them to be. And somebody goes, wow, I really appreciate what you do for the team. That's worth so much more than, than a number on a paycheck. So much more.
Yeah. And, you know, and to that point, you know, it's, I don't want it to, to make it, you know, come across that we're not paying our team well, because I feel we are. I feel we're, we're.
I feel like you probably are too.
Yeah. So they're, they're doing well because I believe that again, win, win, win. Okay, one for the client, win for the team, win for the company, specifically in that order. And you know, if the, if the company is going to be profitable, which we are, the team should be profitable. It helped us get there because it's not just me. I didn't do this, they did. Yeah, we all did it together.
Is it tough finding text right now?
I mean, we had a couple of good potentials with our. With our recent hire, and it's not easy, let's put it that way. Okay. You know, it's. There's. But they're out there. Okay. We invested a good amount into our.
Into our, you know, our job. Job search here. Sorry. But we've created some relationships as well, so. And I hope that will. We can work to build a bench for, you know, down the road. And even if it's not building a bench, just create some relationships and help some other people out. So, you know, what we always do is.
And we did this with our last time when we brought Jason on for our advisor. We had like 90 applicants for our service advisor role and some really good talent, but not what we. Not didn't specifically match what we did. So something that we do is when we respond and we're communicating with them, we said, listen, you know, we. We went in a different direction. I'd like to keep in touch in case things change, but also like to keep in touch just in general. Also, would you be interested in us sharing your information with other businesses that may benefit from your service? You know, and I mean, I've got. I got responses back from that like, yeah, screw you, dude.
You're missing out. No, you know, but I mean, other people are very appreciative of that. So, you know, then, you know, I hear of, you know, one of the shops around us that's hiring or they're looking for something specific. I can say, hey, you know, check this guy out. And, you know, it's. It's helping. Helping them out. It's not just about us, so Lifting up the whole industry.
I guess so.
But I find that more people should probably do that because it's like, I know from the technician standpoint, it's like, well, myself, I've sat down to more than one app, more than one interview, and it's like, they asked me what I'm good at, and I tell them, and they'll say, like, I don't. You know, I don't have enough of that kind of work to keep you busy. Yeah, okay, fair. And it's like, you know, but I never. I never get a call from somebody else going, I heard this about you. You know, would you be interested in coming in? Like, it's still. It's. And I'm not.
Listen, I understand it, everybody. Most shop owners are so busy that it's like, they don't have time to Be doing the placement networking for. For people that don't even hire.
Yeah.
But it would be something that I think if a lot more people just slowed down and thought about, because it's like, I think we're all a fit for somebody. It's just like, you've got to. Especially in smaller communities, you've got to be sharing, you know, And I think sometimes too many people hold on. It's like, well, that's not my first choice, but he'd been my second, so I don't want to, like, you know, and that's just like, if you're already thinking about a second choice. When you made your first choice, your first choice probably wasn't all that strong. Yeah. And. And, you know, and that's like something that is.
You got to maybe look at before you think about.
Yeah.
What you're really doing.
You know, I think a lot of this, you know, we're talking about comes down to a fear as well. You know, I mean, it's like, if we're so worried about us, you know, how can we possibly be looking to help somebody else out? And, you know, it's this fear of missing out on something or, you know, whatever. And I think once we get past that mindset and just look at working with each other to help help each other out, lift each other up, support each other, it's part of the rules of engagement with our company and everything. But if we could put that outside with our, you know, professional relationships, it could. It could help us out and realize that people can help us, not hurt us.
Yeah.
So.
But, yeah, going back to Tools.
Yeah. Went off track a little bit, right?
Well, not really. This is. This is kind of always how it goes here. Like, I warned you, we don't come on with the script. It's very organic. What are you signed up for and what are some of the other people that you're bringing? You said you're bringing your whole team. Kind of give us a rundown on what everybody's really excited to. To take and.
And do. And we've got Paul, Dan. Like, I don't know if you've seen it. You've probably seen Paul Danner in his videos this week talking about he's got some really cool stuff for the charities for the auction that he's doing. Like, what are you guys really pumped about for Tools?
So, I mean, there's a lot going on there this year. And, you know, Brett's worked really hard at just continuing to build on this program. I think he's. I think there's like 52 right around 50, 50 plus classes. Okay. And I've been able to work with him this year to help bring some of the European stuff in.
Nice.
Or you know, for our team but also for people who are, you know maybe they're a general repair shop but they want to kind of get a little bit into the European and learn some of it. They, they have that there. So. But I mean for us which is kind of across the board, you know it's Kylie and some of her other staff is excited for the. Oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna apologize ahead of time. I'm gonna mess up her name. Kim. An hour maybe R.
Nower but she's got a. Jeff. I'm sorry, I just kind of totally lost it. But she's got a class as far as like organizational and everything and so time management and everything. So Kylie is looking for. That's an area that she's looking to build on her skills. So you know we're excited to have her Kim there for that. I've been in her class stx 2022 I believe down in Florida and I really enjoyed that.
Got a lot of, a lot out of that. So it's good to have her up with that. We have I think his name's Dennis Wool coming some Mercedes training. Two different Mercedes chassis and suspension I believe. And then also he has a diesel for. Diesel class for the Mercedes. So we're excited for that. Got some Volkswagen Audi stuff coming in for things at DSG and one of the engines, like a supercharged engine, hands on.
I believe I could be totally jacking that up. But. But yeah, so we got some really good stuff coming and it's, it's pretty good across the board. Whatever you. I mean Rick White's going to be there. He's got some amazing training classes. I know Cecil is going to be there.
Brian Pollock is teaching this class.
Yeah, yeah.
So Brian Olivia is coming up. Bren Steckler is coming up.
Yeah. Brandon with us a couple years ago for some on hands on training. He's. He's just amazing. I love Brandon.
He's next level. Yeah.
Yeah. So yeah, really good, really good stuff. I think Andrew Fisher is going to be there. So the. Yeah, there's some just across the board. Whatever position you're in it'll. There's going to be something there for you and I know, I'm not sure how much you're. You reach out into the collision side but you know they, they have brought in collision classes this Year as well.
And I think that's an area that we could stand to get some support on.
So. And I agree 100. I think that the industry, you know, because like the most I think we ever see sometimes is that somebody says like I did some programming for a body shop or I did you, you know, some made ass calibration for body shop. But that's like we're seeing that these repairs are becoming more and more linked all the time. You know what I mean? And I think that that's something that if I could speak with more collision people about how they do things and how we do things, I think we could see a little bit less of the nightmares that, you know, we sometimes end up fixing after the fact. You know what I mean? Like, it's just if we could sit down with some of the guys to do the estimations and go, okay, like you're looking at that just from a quarter, you know, a fender and a bumper and a. And a door pillar on that corner. But I'm telling you right now, there's a whole bunch of wiring and stuff in there that's going to be done.
So please add more time to, to your guy so that he makes sure that like it actually goes together properly. Because like we've seen. I've. I can remember so many times I saw. I'm gonna date myself. The old, old Chryslers had this relay box in the inner fender. Well, and it would be always when it came out of the body shop, as an immediate red flag, it was flipped upside down. So the water wasn't able to drain it.
It was just the relays were filling it. We're talking the little front wheel drives like the compasses and the calibers and stuff like that, little things like that. If we could just get them to slow down and go, like there's more wires in here. You guys have to be. Take a little more time. I think we would get a much better repair done for everybody at the end of it all. You know what I mean? Like, it's just, you know, because they're, they're got some huge liabilities coming up in their industry with the way the ADAs and all that kind of stuff that is going, right? And I mean we have it too, but so many times it's like they're, they're bearing the brunt of it because, you know, if they don't do their due digital due diligence, we. We are.
Are handed something that we can't fix. And then it's like, you know what do we do while the car goes to the junkyard? Right. Because. Or worse, you know, kind of the stuff that Keith Perkins talked about, like where that guy's, you know, in there putting resistors in to shut airbag lights off, like.
Yeah, yeah, it's.
We don't want sketch stuff like that happening.
Absolutely. You know, you gotta just, just be educated and, you know, it's. You don't have to be, you know, a genius with all this stuff. I mean, let's face it, with what our technicians these days are doing, it's just the stuff that they can do is amazing, you know. Yeah. So it's not just, you know, turning wrenches and replacing a ball joint and everything. It's. They're doing some serious, some serious work and.
Oh, you know.
Yeah.
So.
Yeah.
But yeah, if you could help get those body, those collision guys just a little bit more to go that one step further, I think would help everybody.
And if, and if anyone are listening to me right now and want to reach out to me and be on here, I would love that. I 100 would. I mean, my father was a collision tech for, God, 40 years. And so, I mean, I have, I have kind of fond memories of that industry and like, you know, it's very much in my blood. But I mean, I would love to have somebody kind of be able to share with me what they witnessed, how it's changed and what scares them. Because I can tell you from the technician side, our side, what we know what is coming down the pipe for us, Tom and I, what has got us worried. But it'd be nice to hear what has them worried, you know, or, you know, people are talking about Nastif and all this other stuff and, you know, there's so many levels to this. Hey, Tom.
It's just crazy.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But. But yeah, I mean, as far as the tools things go, I mean, there's just, there's a lot of opportunity there for pretty much everybody within the business. And, you know, I said that we have 10 people coming. I personally have not signed up for any classes because I like, I like the networking side of things. Okay. And things have changed for me recently, so I had some. Earlier on, I had some different plans, but.
But anyway, I'm going to be out there, just kind of there to meet up with fellow shop owners and, you know, just be able to talk with them, learn something from them. Hopefully I can, you know, maybe give some advice to help somebody else out as well. But I mean, back to the team being there, one of the things that we do within our company. And I have to admit, we need to get better at it. But, you know, we'll invest into, you know, a big training when we, we love going to stx, you know, and they've, they've supported us very well. They featured us last year or. Yeah, last year down at Nashville as far as for the opening ceremonies and everything, for our commitment to, you know, our training for our company. But, you know, so, you know, we'll send, you know, Aaron, for example, is going to be in the diesel Mercedes class.
And Asher, Ralph Asher, who is he kind of backs, backs Aaron up with the sprinter stuff. He's going to be in that class as well. So they're going to go, they're going to be the ones getting the main meat and potatoes. Right. But then what we're going to do is we're going to come back to the shop and we're going to have them present and teach what they learned to the rest of the team.
Yeah.
So basically we're going to do some cross training and what that's going to do is going to help solidify what they learned because they're going to learn by teaching. Okay. So they're going to get more out of it. Plus it's going to sprinkle a little bit of that knowledge onto the rest of the team. And so it's not just that one person now. Okay. It's just, it's I, I feel it's just a really strong thing to do that can, you know, again, to work with building up your team and becoming great to take care of your clients. So that's one thing that, that I focus on, that I, that I think is really important.
So, you know, you can all come back, you can all know, learn a little bit more, you can share that knowledge with the rest of your team and you can lift each other up, you know.
Yeah. Because we, we've heard them say, Tom, that looks like. Well, you know, we all went to the, we went to the event and I sat through this really great class and then I came back and I never implemented it. And I think that has a lot to do with just what you said. We don't immediately come back and teach it to somebody else. You know, like, I mean, it, yes, it would be great if everybody in your team could all attend the same classes and everybody comes out. But I mean, it's not feasible and it's not really as effective as if somebody comes back and goes, okay, well, you know, for, say the advisor is sitting in on a class that now your tech is teaching on a system on a car that you service a lot. That's key information for that advisor to hear to know when the customer might be coming in with that complaint of how in depth it really is or how and same, you know, the advisor is going to sit down and they've had this wonderful class and they've taken it on, you know, proper utilization of a dvi.
That should be taught very well to everybody in the process because it has to become part of the process. I think that's where some of these training events get a bum wrap is because we, we attend it and we think that that's all we have to do is we just have to attend.
Yeah.
And then you know, we take a little bit of nugget out of here and a little bit of nugget out of there and suddenly our worlds change. We have to come back and work just as hard to implement what we learned. Yeah. Immediately when we get back or else we're going to forget we revert back to way we've always done.
Yeah.
And I don't, you know, I think that's where a lot of good intentions wind up as only intentions and not follow throughs is because we fail to immediately start to share what we learned on these events and then implement it. And that's where I think we need to work harder on that. So that's what I challenge everybody that's going to be. Then I'm gonna, if I bump into tools and you, I'm gonna ask you what are you taking? I'm asking because I wanna, I'm curious to analy nosy. And then I'm also because when we're talking, when we get back, I want to know, I'm going to ask you how did it work? Like how did you implement it when you came home? And I think that's where we start to really make some big progress in here. Not that this industry is doing so much better I feel in a lot of ways than where it was three years ago.
Yeah. You know, definitely there's a lot of change that's been going on and it's a lot of positive change, good thing going.
But I want to see it get so much better. Like I got, I got a lot of stuff still left to say and do and you know, I'm trying to. I'll be 50 in the fall and I want to. My goal was to be out at 55 in terms of out of like yanking on the tools and just doing some Kind of either leadership role or mentorship role or some kind of role that I didn't have to, you know, lift 100 tires a week to, to make a paycheck. But, you know, it's going to be tough if, if I, you know, if we don't bring up what I'm trying to say, my next generation, I'll be doing this till I'm 60 because, you know, the money will just keep getting better and better for me to keep doing it. And then, you know, that's, that's the other thing too is, you know, we want to, we want to share this love that we have. I mean, this has been a good industry for you, I think, Tom, is fair to say. Like, it's been good for me.
There's been challenges for me, but I mean, it's been good and, you know, it's. I want to see it continue to improve. So.
Absolutely.
Any closing thoughts, Tom?
So for me, I don't know, I'll put a shameless plug in here real quick, you know, because when we're talking about train training and everything, you know, my daughter Samantha just, you know, just launched Shift Point Training Academy. And one of her taglines that she focuses on is train a team, transform the business. And, and that's, that's real, you know, it's, you know, you can go and you can sit in on something and just walk away and say, yeah, that didn't do anything or, you know, whatever. But, you know, if you walk away and you, you actually go intentionally to, to learn and, and get something out of what you're doing, not just to check something off. You know, you're going to, you're gonna, you're going to come back with something. And then we talked about earlier, you know, cross training and, you know, getting the rest of your team involved with it, it's just going to help everybody that much more. So, you know, closing thoughts on, on, you know, our conversation and tools. You know, it's really great program.
You know, it's. Look it up. It's the last weekend in May, so I believe the dates are May 29 through June 1. Wyndham Lancaster Resort and Convention Center. Really great area. You know, if you bring your family, there is, oh, my God, I just lost the name of it. Right across the street there's a, there's an amusement park, a little amusement park right across the street. But it'll be a great time.
And there's, there's, there's just so much there for everybody. And I mean, we didn't even mention, uh, Josh Parnell. You know, it's a keynote for Saturday night. He's really made a name for himself and he's got some really good leadership stuff out there. So, I mean, even just come to see Josh, that's. That's huge.
But I'm excited to meet Josh. I mean, he's been a guest on the podcast before and I've been on with him and just a super guy and I mean, and some great beard products too. Like, I mean, he's. He helps me out with that kind of stuff as well. And I was going consult him just before because I'm thinking about, you know, do I clean myself up before I go to tools, or do I just kind of continue to let it go? And I'll. I'll consult with. With him and see what he says.
But I'm feeling a little bit inferior here around you guys.
But it's. I. I'm the low maintenance man. I really am. Like, it just, it's. It's so. You know, I used to had joke that it was like, oh, when I worked in the truck shop, I used to wear it long intentionally because we used a torch a lot. And I mean, so it's like I, you know, keeping some of the sparks out.
But burnt hair is a terrible smell. And so now when I get the sparks in the beard, it's like, you know, to heck with it. Tom, I want to thank you for coming on here today. This was a lot of fun.
Yeah, I appreciate you having me and I'm looking forward to meeting up with you out there.
Yeah, I'm amazed I haven't had a chance to talk to you before. But, I mean, it's getting, it's getting bigger every month that I like more and more people that I just am, you know, are sharing with me, and it's like I haven't had time and I just, I want to apologize for that. But I mean, I appreciate you coming on today and sharing your story, and I'm excited to meet some of your team and, and, you know, I'll be checking in with you when you come back to see, you know, how it's working. I really, I. I think I'm going to be genuinely impressed with what you're going to bring and how you implement it. You seem like you're very professional operator, and I think that's what we need to really showcase. So thank you.
Thank you. I appreciate those kind words.
Yeah, I'm excited. So everybody, it's May 29th to June 1st. It's in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. SCANDER Dan or myself will be there. Tom's going to be there. Lots of people that are in the know are going to be at Mr. Brett's event. So I think people are listening to this.
Try and make it down. Seriously. I think you're really gonna have a good time if you can. And it's not that far away for people that are up in my, our neighborhood. I'm like, I'm in Canada, so it's a six hour drive. But I mean, you know, if you're in the north, think about making the trip. You know, it's New York to Pennsylvania is not that far. And you know, there's lots of good opportunity for there.
You know, you're not driving in the middle of winter, so no excuses of that. You're not battling hurricanes. Like, you know, let's make the trip. Let's have a good time. So, Tom, thank you.
You're very welcome. Thank you for having me on there.
Yeah. Have a great week. We'll talk to everybody soon. Okay? Thank you. Love you all. Hey, if you could do me a favor real quick and like, comment on and share this episode, I'd really appreciate it. And please, most importantly, set the podcast to automatically download every Tuesday morning. As always, I'd like to thank our amazing guests for their perspectives and expertise.
And I hope that you'll please join us again next week on this journey of change. Thank you to my partners in the ASA group and to the Changing the Industry podcast. Remember what I always say, in this industry, you get what you pay for. Here's hoping everyone finds their missing 10 millimeter and we'll see you all again next time.
About this episode
Tom Schearer from Shear Sales and Service shares insights on tools, training, and team development in the automotive industry. He discusses the challenges of selling used European cars and the importance of honest communication with customers. The conversation highlights the significance of investing in training for technicians and the value of creating a positive work culture. Tom emphasizes the need for effective communication within teams and the benefits of cross-training. The episode also previews the upcoming Tools event, showcasing various training opportunities for automotive professionals.
Original notes
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In this episode, Jeff is joined by Tom Schearer of Schearer Sales and Service. Tom talks about the complexities of used car sales, emphasizing the importance of honest communication with customers and building long-term relationships over short-term profits. The conversation also touches on investing in specialized tools and training to stay competitive, and the value of strong shop culture and effective team collaboration.
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00:00 Challenges in Used Car Dealership
08:34 "Dealers Prefer Used OEM Brands"
12:13 Limited Used Car Warranty Realities
19:53 "Tackling Car Repairs Holistically"
22:58 "Leadership Transition and Delegation"
26:16 Inconsistent Terminology Causes Confusion
35:17 Post-Warranty Car Maintenance Shift
38:33 Dealerships: Balancing Sales and Relations
45:36 Employee Transition Concerns
47:25 Chrysler Dealers' Hiring Agreement
56:23 Recognition Over Pay: Valuing Appreciation
01:01:36 Overcoming Fear: Embrace Collaboration
01:06:14 "Collaborative Collision Repair Insights"
01:12:32 "Importance of Knowledge Sharing"
01:14:50 Retirement and Mentorship Goals
01:18:49 Apology and Anticipation
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The Jaded Mechanic Podcast
Jeff Compton
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