Why Retention in Automotive Starts With People
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Company
BG
BG is a company that makes products to help keep cars running well. They create things like cleaners and additives that mechanics use to improve car performance.
Brand
GM
GM stands for General Motors, a big car company that makes many different types of cars, like Chevrolets and Cadillacs. They are one of the largest car manufacturers in the world.
Brand
Nissan
Nissan is a car company from Japan that makes many different kinds of cars, including electric ones like the Leaf. They are well-known for their reliable vehicles.
Term
alignment
Alignment is about making sure the wheels of a car are straight and pointing in the right direction. If they are off, it can make the car harder to drive and wear out the tires faster.
Company
Hunter Engineering
Hunter Engineering makes tools that help mechanics align car wheels and check how well they are working. They are known for their quality equipment in the automotive industry.
Part
tie rod
A tie rod helps your car steer properly. It connects the steering part of your car to the wheels, making sure they turn when you turn the steering wheel.
Term
fluid maintenance
Fluid maintenance means taking care of the different liquids in your car, like oil and coolant. These fluids need to be checked and changed regularly to keep your car running well.
Term
flush stigma
The flush stigma is when people think that services to change car fluids are just a way for mechanics to make money, not something that's really needed. This can make customers unsure about whether to pay for these services.
Car
GMC Acadia
The GMC Acadia is a type of vehicle called an SUV, which is bigger than a regular car and can carry more people and stuff. It's designed to be comfortable for families and has a lot of space inside. People talk about it because it's a good option for those who need a reliable vehicle for everyday use.
Car
Buick Enclave
The Buick Enclave is a large SUV that can fit a lot of people and cargo. It's designed for families and has many comfort features.
Part
AC evaporator
The AC evaporator is a part of the car's air conditioning system that helps cool the air inside the car. If it has a problem, the air conditioning might not work well.
Term
warranty time
Warranty time is how long a car company thinks a repair should take. If it takes longer, it might cost more money for the repair shop.
Part
differential
A differential is a part of the car that helps the wheels turn at different speeds, especially when going around corners. This makes driving smoother and safer.
Car
Dodge Daytona iRoc
The Dodge Daytona iRoc is a car that was popular in the early '90s. It was known for being sporty and fun to drive, making it a favorite among young drivers.
LIVE
But I do believe that the automotive industry as a whole,
we are really close to shifting from being a numbers business
to being a people business.
Beyond the Wrench with J. Gannon from Wrenchway.
Welcome back to Beyond the Wrench. My name is J. Gannon and I am your host. Today I'm joined by Eric Wagner,
an automotive industry leader focused on talent, leadership, and building stronger career pathways.
We're talking about what it takes to attract, develop, and retain technicians. And I'm really,
really excited for this conversation. Eric, you and I had, I think, a conversation prior to hitting
record that we could have actually recorded and it would have been a great podcast on its own.
So I'm just excited to have you on. How are you doing?
I'm doing great, Jay. And likewise, I'm very excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
You know, it's a terrific chance to talk about the industry and talk about where we're at.
And I'm excited and I hope the listeners are excited too.
All right. Well, let's start off with your background. You've spent a lot of time in the
automotive world in a variety of different roles. You've seen kind of, I think, the good, bad, and
ugly about dealerships. And just in general, I'm really interested to get your perspective
on a bunch of different things as we go through this conversation. But let's start with where
it started that. How did you get into cars?
So when I tell people all of this, they get a real chuckle because my career path is certainly
not one you would expect to hear for an automotive professional. I actually went to college after
high school, got myself a marketing degree. And I did what every other marketing major
did in the late aughts or whatever 2007 is when I graduated. Marketing jobs weren't paying very well.
There weren't a whole lot of them out there and they were not paying that great. So I did what
everybody else did and I went and got a sales job. And I was working for a distributor for BG
products, shout out to BG, love their products, good stuff. I worked for that distributor
for about four years, cut my teeth in the industry, and learned a lot. Learned a lot about how the
business works, how the service fixed ops business works, parts, all that good stuff.
When the economy tended to take a bit of a downturn in the area that I was in,
so I ended up transitioning to the dealership level at that point. Spent some time as a service
advisor for a GM dealer, moved over to the import world with Nissan, kind of worked by way up from
being a service rider to a dispatcher to a service manager, ended up a fixed ops director for a
little while. And then I had an opportunity to go independent and build a service center from scratch,
which was a very exciting opportunity. Looking back on it was a lot of fun. Not every day was fun,
but looking back on it, the whole of it was very, very interesting. And then my most recent role,
I just spent the past few years working with Ford Motor Company on technician recruiting and
retention initiatives. And that brings me here today. It's an interesting story in that you've
been able to see a lot of different operations because of the jobs that you've had, right?
And I think I learned that throughout my career working as a dealer rep from a manufacturer
standpoint, where when you get to go in and see all of the different types of dealerships, and
even though they've got the same brand on the sign, there's a lot of differences once you get
inside those dealerships. And I think the general public might see it as, well,
that's the one brand, and they all kind of run the same. And it's almost like a
McDonald's where every single one is kind of similar, right? Or at least they used to be.
Do you get the sense that that gave you some ability to learn some things that maybe you
wouldn't have had you just stayed in one dealership group the entire time of your career?
Absolutely. Absolutely. One thing that was amazing to me. And I'll never forget it
as it was on my ride along, I think it was my first day working for the BG distributor.
The sales rep that I was traveling with, he was kind of talking me through everything. And
he explained something to me. And I guess it was one of those explain it like I'm five
moments, but it stuck with me for the past 20 plus years. He said that not only is every
dealership its own separate business, but every department in every dealership is its own separate
business. And looking at it from that perspective was it was really interesting to me, but it's 100%
correct. You know, in a dealership, the used car department is service's biggest customer and a
lot of dealerships. And for parts, the service department is their biggest customer. And it's
how those dynamics work that it's really, really interesting to me. But you're right,
dealers, not all dealers are created equal. Some of them the larger operations operate a
certain way. Smaller operations can can work their way a little bit too. And when you take an
operation from a smaller and you try to build it into a bigger one, the growing pains can be
interesting to say the least. But you know, there'll be a lot of change and things like
that. That's one thing that I've always loved about the automotive industry is every day is
different. Oh, and every opportunity is different. And there's a lot of stuff that stays the same.
But there's a lot of stuff in there that that is different enough that that it keeps it exciting.
It was always fascinating to me. You know, more from the manufacturer side going into
these different dealerships and seeing how much of an impact the dealer principal had on the
whole operation, right? Or whoever the dealer general manager was. And whether that was in a
really, really good sense or really, really bad sense, there were both ends of that spectrum.
And I think you could you could sense that when you walked in the door, it was really,
really crazy. Once you start to see a lot of different organizations. And when you walk in,
you get a sense it's we always talk about culture and and really trying to make sure that
your shop has a great culture. But it's really evident when you're walking in the doors of
different dealerships, which ones had great leadership and really seem like the people
were having fun. And a lot of times those ones were the highest producing, whereas some of the
others that and again, this is just my experience. But some of the others where it
was very tight and very, you know, like nobody wanted to step out of line, it felt like
they struggled a little bit more. And then there's some that were just completely
unorganized and and had no idea what they were doing. And so I think being able to see
kind of the the different structures and the different just differences that does kind of
make it fun too, right? Because you're seeing maybe, you know, we talked about the good,
the bad, the ugly, when you're able to see a lot of organizations, you do see the good,
the bad, the ugly, and you're able to pretty quickly identify which is in what bucket.
Absolutely. And you can see the good, the bad, and the ugly in one day, if you just stick around
long enough a lot of times, you hit the nail on the head, Jay, I do believe that the leadership,
specifically ownership in the GM, that their, I guess their heat travels down.
Because if you've got, you know, I remember there was an owner I worked for,
a great guy. And, you know, he would come down and kind of socialize with us and, you know,
just kind of get to know us on the human side a little bit. He found out I liked barbecue. And
so he would come down and he would talk about barbecue with me for like 15 minutes at a time
every now and then. And, you know, he, it's funny because he liked to do things,
you know, one thing when we had a Christmas party one year, and it was a luncheon,
and he closed the service drive down. Now, this was a normal business day, but he closed the service
drive down, had a live band in the service drive and everything. And there were a couple, a couple
of folks in the, in the service line, they're like, God, this makes it really hard to work.
And I'm sitting here like, this dude's name is on the building. If he wants to have a
band in the service drive, let the man have a band in the service drive. But that was the
relationship that, that we had. And then, you know, you go to other dealerships where
that relationship isn't quite there because the only time you're hearing from that senior
leadership is when there's a problem, then you're just, you're constantly on edge, you're
constantly on eggshells. And it's hard to do anything but stare at the numbers and hope they're
good. Yeah. And that's, in my opinion, that's no way to live. It's, it's very tough to be
successful in that kind of environment. Some people thrive on it. But good for them.
There's a lot of people that don't. I think in a lot of ways, those are the folks that
have the hardest time with retention as well, right? If it's only numbers, conversations,
there's not the people element to it. Then I think you lose some of that
ability to retain your best. And, and because it's just the only time I hear from my superiors
is when it's about numbers. And I think when you, when that happens, you become numb as an employee.
And I think you look at it from the standpoint of, if I don't hit my numbers this one month,
how loyal are they going to be to me? And I just was talking with a friend of mine
who had gotten let go by his group. And he has a lot of the people that were under him that I think
are probably going to follow suit and leave. And, you know, in, in that conversation I was
talking to him about, I'm like, you know, I think there are a lot of businesses in general
that want that loyalty, but maybe don't show that loyalty back. And if there's not,
there's not that sense of like, they've got my back regardless, pretty easy to walk out the door.
Absolutely, Jay. And, and that's one thing that I really believe that over the next,
I mean, we're already seeing it now with, with technicians looking at the voice of the
technician survey that you guys just recently came out with and everything. We're already seeing
a large piece of this, but I do believe that the automotive industry as a whole
we are really close to shifting from being a numbers business to being a people business.
And what I mean by that is, you know, obviously, look, we're all here to make money,
okay? And money's good. Cars are not going away. No matter what you hear, you know,
nobody's going to go to ride a bicycle to work every day, you know, unless they just have that,
that opportunity to do so. And good for you if you do. I live in an area where I get snow,
so I'm not, I'm not comfortable doing that. Yeah. But you know, we're, we're looking at
situations where with technicians, you know, we've seen their wages go up astronomically,
you know, it's funny because I think about it, I took over a Nissan dealership in 2019 as a fixed
ops director. And my highest paid master technician through Nissan at that time was $31 an hour.
And I was way overpaying that person. The average in my area was about $2650 to $27,
which is amazing because now you can't, I mean, you can't even get in the room with a master
tech for $27 an hour. They'll laugh you out of the building. And so we've already seen the wages.
Technicians have made it clear that some of the most important things to them is
their training, a well-defined career path and consistency in knowing how they're doing.
I could tell you in my experience, I rarely, if ever got a performance review as an advisor or as
a manager every now and then I'd hear something. But it wasn't real common. It was really just,
you know, hey, you made a little more money because you sold a little bit more.
And the money's good. But we're coming to a point where I believe the money is not going to silence
all the concerns. You know, you look at it from, you know, a technician perspective,
from an advisor perspective, a good service advisor, if you've got one that's talented,
knows how to work the warranty process, knows how to get extra time out of service contracts,
they can make a good technician great on efficiency and they can make them extra money.
Conversely, a service advisor that's not very good, that doesn't know the tricks, that doesn't,
that isn't motivated, that doesn't sell, they can break a technician really fast as well. And
when a tech's not making their time, I have yet to meet a technician that doesn't want to break
40 hours a week. You know, even the guys that you would call lazy, they still get really discouraged
when they're not making their time. You know, technicians want to do well. And I believe
that advisors do too. But I believe that that we as an industry, we need to look at this from
a people perspective. What are we doing to train our people? Do we even know what our
people want? You know, do you have a tech that, you know, I'm not going to name any names or
anything like that. But I worked at a dealer at one point in time, we had a guy that worked for us.
I still talk to this guy all the time, he still reaches out to me, we've known each other for
quite a while now. I tried to get him factory certified and it didn't work,
he's a terrible test taker. And he admitted he's like, dude, I'm bad at this. Like, I'm just,
I'm just not, I wasn't good in school. I'm good with my hands, but I wasn't good in school. I said,
okay, fine. So we abandoned that. And, you know, the people above me were, you know, they looked
at him as like, well, he's not going anywhere, he'll just be on the Lou Brack forever. And
didn't really pay any attention or anything like that. And, you know, of course, after I
left that, that role, you know, within a year I heard from him and, and he came to work for me
in a different facet. And I just asked him because I had a little bit more freedom at the next role.
I said, what do you, what do you want to learn? What do you want to do? He said, man, I, I think
I could do a good job with alignments said, okay, great. So I spent $400. I sent him to two
day alignment school at Hunter Engineering. And he came back and he went from being a
lube tech with no real hope for growth. And now he's, you know, he's a specialist at the dealer
he's at a flat rate in 65 hours a week, you know, one of their top suspension techs. And,
and he's making a boatload more money than he was. And all it took was a two day alignment
class and 400 bucks. Like I'll take that return on investment 100 times out of 10.
I think, but if you don't ask the question, you don't know.
Well, to take a step back from there, this is where leadership comes into play. And I think
you showed great leadership and asking what drove him, right? I think our industry, and this
isn't just us, right? I think this is a lot of different companies in the country,
maybe the world that make assumptions on what people want and make assumptions that, you know,
hey, this person's going to be good here, or they make a lot of assumptions without
actually asking. And I think it takes having the relationship with the person like you did,
where they can trust that, you know, it's weird that somebody wouldn't,
maybe in that manager employee relationship, not feel comfortable telling their manager that,
hey, these are my goals and aspirations, but we see it every day where a technician doesn't
feel comfortable, or that advisor, or even a service manager, I don't feel comfortable telling
my boss that I have these goals, these personal goals. And I don't know what it is there. I think
some of it is just lack of trust between the manager and the employee. And when you have that
lack of trust, when you go to ask that question, maybe they aren't as forthcoming as they would
be had they had a good relationship with you. And I think that's where a lot of our industry
falls apart. I agree. I agree. And I think the question that a manager can ask themselves,
and honestly, you know, an employee can ask this as well, an individual contributor is,
what do you know about your people? You know, what, what do you know about your leadership?
What does your leadership know about you? And it is hard to talk about what you want,
because you don't want there's that fine line between being ambitious and being annoying.
And I think a lot of people are afraid to cross that line. They're afraid to be the squeaky wheel,
because the squeaky wheel gets the grease. And a lot of times that grease finds you rolling down
a hill out of the shop, you know, and, you know, I worked with a manager for a while that,
you know, one of his favorite quotes, and I hated it. But, you know, I heard him tell
three or four technicians, hey, your toolbox has wheels. And that's terrible, you know, and maybe
that worked 15, 20 years ago. Maybe it did. But I think at this point, you know, when we talk
about what's going to set the automotive industry apart in the coming years, and what's going to
keep the strong dealerships afloat and separate the, you know, the old saying was separate
the men from the boys or whatever. I don't know what it is now, but, but you get my point is,
you know, what do we know about who's working for us? You know, even back in the early 2000s,
when I was learning how to be a service manager and how service worked, I had a service manager
tell me, you know, he said, with lube techs with express technicians, you've got a year. And
in that year, you've got to figure out, are they going to move up? Are they going to move out?
Are they going to move around? What are they going to do? But at the end of the year, if you don't
have an answer for that question, then you've probably got the answer to the question. And
that stuck with me because there's not a lot of people out there. There are some, but there's
not a lot of people that just want to get, you know, get in the lube rack and just be on the
lube rack. You know, they either want to move up and continue to further their career,
or they're in the business and they want to, you know, maybe they want to write service,
maybe they want to go work in parts. The beautiful thing about the automotive industry
is there's a lot of seats to fill. And it's, yeah, it's a matter of knowing if you've got
somebody in-house that wants to fill one of those seats, that's going to be a whole lot better to
develop that person than just develop the one that's, well, they've been here long enough.
Let's give them a try. Are you sure that's who you want in that leadership role? Are you sure
that's who you want selling? I know a lot of great technicians that make really rough service
advisors. They're fantastic techs, but they don't have that, you know, quote unquote,
bedside manner that you would need as an advisor to sell work. I know a lot of great
techs and a lot of great advisors that don't make great managers. I know a lot of great
managers that don't make good service advisors, too, but they'll usually admit it.
They do. It's funny that you say that because I've seen the opposite happen, too,
where you have a terrible tech that ends up being a great service advisor, or, you know,
I look at my own experience, too, right? Just knowing that the technical side was never
going to be my strength. And I started off as a technician. And I think if I were being honest
with myself back then, I would have kind of seen that and said, okay, maybe I should look to other
avenues. I do still value early time in a shop, my early days in a shop, because it taught me so
much about the industry and so much about being in a shop. And then as I transitioned into
more leadership roles, sales and leadership roles, I think that was so beneficial to
me still is to this day of actually having that hands-on experience and understanding how hard that
job is, right? Because if you go from being a technician into being an advisor, I think the
where at times the really good technician struggle is that they'll get into that seat,
say, as an advisor, and they assume a customer knows everything that they do, or they are,
you know, they always talk about that from a service manager perspective. And we call it the
Michael Jordan Effect or the Wayne Gretzky Effective, like they were so good at their job
that they can't understand why nobody else is good at their job. And so it's that really hard
thing to overcome. And it's hard because they were so talented in a shop that it's hard for
them to understand why others can't be. And I think it really drives their patience level
down and even with customers, right? I've seen that happen with customer interactions where
maybe that good technician that walked into that role gets frustrated with a customer because
they're not understanding, you know, like a voltage drop test or something.
They're not going to understand any of that stuff. You have to be able to communicate
and break it down to them, which takes a different skill set than being an excellent technician.
A hundred percent, absolutely. And no, you're totally right. And it's okay if you're not,
you know, you don't have to be the expert at everything. You don't even have to necessarily
be good at everything. One thing I learned really fast in dealerships and in service
is a lot of your technicians, if you come to a technician, if I'm a service advisor,
and I did this a lot because my running quote is, you don't want me working on your car.
Like I can do a few things, but I'm not the guy that you're calling to ask to fix something or
diagnose something. I know how to read codes and I'm just enough to be dangerous, but I'm not.
And I think that that gives me a unique perspective because I had to walk in
with hat in hand and say, hey man, I don't understand this. I need you to tell me,
give it to me from the beginning. What do you mean it needs a tie rod? Why do I need a tie rod?
And most of the technicians, with some, there's always going to be those one or two
that are a little cranky in the shop, and that's okay. But with rare exception,
most of the techs are more than happy to sit there. If you're willing to listen to them,
they're happy to sit there and explain how it works to you and explain why it needs what it needs.
And I don't, you know, as an advisor, an advisor doesn't need to know how the
metal is cast and all of the engineering specifications. That's not important.
The advisor needs to know, why is this important to fix? How is it going to benefit the customer
and, you know, the basics? What's it going to cost? How quick is it going to get done?
And, you know, the options from there, they don't need to know, you know, every now and then
you'll get an engineer or something like that that wants to know all the specs and all the details,
and that's fine. But generally, you know, if you're talking, oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, exactly,
exactly. What was always really funny was doctors because doctors are so intelligent and so
well-versed in their world that going into a world where they're not as well-versed is not so easy to
do. Going back to your point of, you know, how is it that other people don't understand this? It's
so easy type of thing. But yeah, I mean, in general, you know, technicians are happy to
share that information, but on the same token, they're happy to share that information to someone
who's going to listen to them and also somebody who's going to act with that info. If they
can take an extra 30 seconds and get three hours of work sold, then it's worth it. But if they feel
like they're wasting their time, they're not going to be happy about it. That reciprocal
relationship that you were talking about, when it works well in a shop is such a beautiful
thing to see, right? Where the advisor feels comfortable asking the technician a question
and the technician then maybe starts to build trust with that service advisor that they're
acting in their best interest as a technician. And I think it's a very fine line there, though,
because it can go from a good relationship to one job kind of scrapping everything, right? And I
think those that on both ends of that relationship, when you can truly act as like professionals,
but also have kind of the camaraderie to give each other a hard time or like just, I don't know,
it's one of those that I think you can kind of define it. But then there's also some intangible
things that make that relationship work really, really well. And when it works really well,
it's beautiful. When it works really poorly, it's terrible.
Yes. And it's obvious either way. Yes. And I believe that I believe leadership has a large
piece to do with that. And the reason I say that is, you know, I mean, I was a service advisor for
a long time. I had I had the metrics I needed to hit to get the best bonus I could. So I
made sure I hit those metrics. And the technicians have the same thing. If they're on a flat rate scale,
or, you know, if they're on a premium pay scale, I always did, you know, a lot of my techs, I always
did premium pay where if they got to 45 hours, they'd get an extra dollar an hour, it get to
50 hours of extra $2, whatever, you know, something to give them the benefit of, you
know, knocking it out of the park. And my guys that knocked it out of the park loved it.
But as you know, by nature, we're all going to do what gets us paid the best, what fulfills us the
best. And if your goals aren't aligned, and this is this is on leadership to do, you know,
if I'm a service manager, and I'm judged on this, this and this, then I need to work the
pay plan for my advisors to support the things that make me more money. Because if I make more money,
then the owner makes more money. So we want everybody stepping in the same direction. And a lot of
times you get, you know, you get advisors that are paid off of one of them that honestly kind
of drives me nuts is effective labor rate. Because effective labor rate is easily, easily
cheated by cheating the technician out of time. And that's not fair. You know, I, when I was an
advisor, I made a mistake one time, I sold on a 370 Z I sold a timing cover gasket. There's two of
them. I sold the front one. It's an eight hour job. The rear one was the one that was leaking,
and it's an 18 hour job. Now, the problem is by the time we figured this out, we're already
over halfway through the job. I can't sit there and be like, Hey, guess what? Mr. Customer. Yeah,
I remember how I told you it was going to be 1500. It's actually going to be 3500.
That's not going to work. You know, I can, I can finagle some things, maybe get a little extra
money, but coming back at two and a half times the quote is probably not going to work.
But the good thing is the way that, you know, the way that my pay plan worked, and I
talked to the manager and we worked through it because I made the mistake. So guess who's fault
that isn't? It's not the tech's fault. The tech told me it needed a rear timing cover. I quoted a front.
That's my mistake. So I owned it. The tech still got his full time for the job that he was
expected to do, which was the rear timing cover. A lot of advisors will look at that and be like,
Well, I can only pay you nine hours. I know it pays 19, but I'm only going to give you
nine. And that's not fair. That's, that's not the right thing. And that's the kind of stuff when,
when you talk about the results and the voice of the technician and you talk about retention and
things like that. Technicians far and wide will talk about how they're cheated on their times.
And you know what? They're right a lot of times and it's unfortunate. But the advisors also
looking at it from a perspective of, well, I've got to feed my family this week, this month.
So it's a matter of finding a way to make sure that everybody's still getting their piece of the pie.
And I know, you know, there are folks listening to this right now sitting here like,
Why are you talking about when you made a mistake? But those mistakes happen every day.
It does. And that's how we learn, right? Like, I, I think acting like none of us
have made mistakes before is such a mistake in itself, right? Why not get these out in the open
and talk about them. And in this scenario, I am interested from your experience,
how does that work? Like in terms of allocation of hours. So in that example,
it sounded like the advisor had quite a bit of control over the time that the technician was
getting. How did that work in kind of your operation in terms of like how you allocated
hours or the power that you had as an advisor to allocate hours?
So when a lot of the shops that I worked at, when I was an advisor, I had control over
the hours that I build to the customer and also the hours that I allocated to the ticket.
You know, back in the, in the old days, the, the techs would use little stickers and flag their
time on the back, but then I could always scratch that off and change it or whatever.
I'll be honest, I frequent, I almost never did. And the reason is, like, I don't know how to
do their job. So I'm not going to tell them what they deserve to get paid for the job.
If the book says 10 hours, the book says 10 hours. If it took them for, and it says 10,
they get 10. That's, that's the way it works. There's plenty of times where it's going to
be the other way. But I, I've always been at the opinion that it's not fair to cheat the
person doing the work. You know, at the end of the day, the, you know, the advisor's job
is to sell the work. And sometimes it's not going to work out perfectly, but going back
to the people aspect, if the advisor and the manager and the technician, if, if we have
the relationship and we have that openness and communication, and we can say, Hey, you know,
on this job I've got, I got a bit of an issue. You know, I need to figure out a way to make
this work. There's always a solution. You know, as a manager, you know, you can get creative
with things. Sometimes it's, you know, the gross per RO on that ticket's not going to be great.
Sometimes you can, you know, peel time off of that, but put it on something else and make it work.
There's, there's things that you can do. And, and there's ways, but leadership and,
and everybody involved has to be receptive to the idea of solving the problem and not just
being angry that it didn't work perfectly. Not everything works perfectly. It'd be great if
it did, but let's face it. This is the real world. You know, we've got to think a little bit about
how does this affect the people involved and, and how can we come with a, an amenable solution?
What you just said there is really important, right? In, in that
not everything's going to go well, especially in our world, right? There are so many different
intangibles. There are so many different things that could go wrong. And we do our best to make
sure that they don't go wrong. But mistakes happen. There's a human element to everything
that we're doing. And, and I think the best leaders have the ability to kind of view
it from that standpoint of like, okay, this happened. Let's figure out how to make the best of
this and make sure it doesn't happen again. Or how do we make sure that we fix something in the system?
Whereas, I think maybe more of the old school train of thought is to just get really,
really pissed off and start screaming at everybody. And, you know, I think that,
especially as it relates to an advisor, and I point back to a conversation that we had with
our good friend, Chris Craig, who does a phenomenal job on a lot of
content surrounding advisors, because he was an advisor at one point. And,
you know, he had talked through the importance of an advisor. And we've had several conversations
throughout the history of the podcast of talking just through that of the importance that that
role has in any shop, right? And not just a dealership, any shop. And yet how little attention
that gets from leadership at times. And the attrition rate of advisors is through the roof.
And it's no wonder why it's because if something doesn't go right in one of those areas, if
a technician feels wrong, if the owner feels wrong, if the GM feels wrong, if the service
manager feels wrong, if the customer feels wrong, if one of those people in any scenario is upset,
a lot of times it's the advisor that's taking the heat for it. And it's unfair in a lot of ways for
that person. And yes, do they get compensated? Well, I think in a lot of cases they do,
especially if they're good. But I've seen good advisors, you know, when they end their day,
just be so mentally worn out that they kind of check out. And if it's just a constant,
it's a constant, like I'm trying to make everybody happy, and I can never make everybody happy,
and this is just frustrating, it can be really, really easy just to be like,
this isn't worth it anymore, I'm out. 100%. And a lot of times when we're talking about
service advisors, so comparing this a little bit to technicians, so I put something,
you know, on LinkedIn, maybe a month ago, just put a poll up, I'm not, you know,
I've got a few followers, whatever on LinkedIn, I'm not like huge. I'm definitely not you.
Right. But I put a poll up just saying, you know, what do people believe the hardest job
in the dealership is? And it was definitely a heated race between technician and service advisor.
And I would agree with that. The technicians, you know, we've talked at Nazium about the
challenges the techs have, the constantly evolving technology, you know, dealing with
whatever comes in, the warranty labor times, you know, et cetera, et cetera. But advisor
is another one that, you know, it's definitely one of the hardest roles that's filled in the
dealership. And the big difference between being a tech and being an advisor is technicians get
months of training a lot of times, or they go to tech school and they get, you know,
two year program or whatever. When I transitioned to being a service advisor, I had never worked
in a dealership. I had sold chemicals to dealerships. And I knew the layout. I knew how to get where I
needed to go, but I had never written service. I'd never used Reynolds and Reynolds or CDK or
any of those. I got a day and a half of training before I was writing my own tickets. And
there are so many, so many advisors out there that are not getting the amount of training
that they need and the amount of training that they deserve. And, you know, I'm not going to sit
here and blame any one person or anything. I think it's a systemic challenge. The advisors that I
see that are just blowing it away, that are making $150,000, $200,000 a year and whatever,
those are folks that have been at the same dealer for a long time. They built their
clientele. They got some training. They've spent some time learning and things like that.
But they've also been around for a long time. And in these days, the churn and burn rate
is so volatile. And you've got advisors that, you know, technicians don't like working Saturdays.
And I don't blame them. I don't like working Saturdays. Advisors are in the same boat.
And, you know, they're being worked six days a week. There's not a great deal of training. Yeah,
you've got the manufacturers modules or whatever. Okay, you know, you can learn some from an LMS.
But what I would love to see for that particular role is, you know, and honestly, it's something
I've been kind of working on on the side, but I'm nowhere near to a point of being able
to execute. I think that advisors in general would benefit from a bit of a boot camp where
they can learn some of these things. You're never, when I used to train service writers and things
like that, I would tell them like, I could sit here next to you all day every day for five years
and still not figure out every single thing that's going to happen to you.
You know, that's just part of life. But if you can at least, you know, some of these advisors,
they're not prepared for any time something gets weird. And, you know, it's sometimes it's just
the little things and that industry knowledge. And we, you know, as leaders in the space,
as managers at dealerships or us or, you know, folks at the corporate level,
you know, we owe it to the people coming in, just like the season technicians, you know,
we hope and expect the season technicians to share their knowledge with the new folks that are coming
in. We owe it to the new advisors to give them that same grace and, you know, help them kind
of understand some of the, you know, let's call it tricks of the trade. One of the biggest
ones that I've always said is, let's face it, most service advisors these days are paid on
some kind of commission structure. But the most important thing that I firmly believe this,
and there are going to be some people that choke on their tea when I say this, and it's okay,
the big difference between car salesmen and service advisors is, you know,
they're both paid on commission, but service advisors should not act like they're paid on commission.
They should act like they're advising. Because when you get a bunch of service advisors that act
like they're doing it to get paid, then the customer starts asking the question,
is this really to my benefit or is it to their benefit? And I learned that when talking
about fluid maintenance, because there's obviously the, you know, the flush stigma and
everything like that. Fluids wear out, fluids need to be changed. You know, that's a fact of life,
you know, as far as that goes. But the stigma says that, oh, well, they're just trying to flush
your wallet. And anything that our industry can do to combat the idea that we're just out
to take people's money, we need to be doing it and we need to be doing it fast because the court
of public opinion gets stronger every day. And, you know, that's one thing I've always told advisors
is like, yeah, you get paid on commission, but the minute you start acting like you get paid
on commission, you're going to make less money. Hey, that actually applies perspective
of transparency. I actually think it applies to car salesmen as well, right? Like I think
the ones that are, you know, I personally hate car shopping. And I love cars. And, you know, when I
think when I was 16, 17, 18 years old, I love driving through car lots. And then at some point,
you just get tired of, you know, you drive through some of the car lots and just get
absolutely attacked by salespeople when you walk in and you're like, this is not a pleasant
experience. This is over the top. And it's not in a lot of ways, it doesn't feel like you don't
get the sense that they're there to help you, right? That you get the sense that they're there to
make money. And granted, everybody goes to work to make money. So I don't think that's a secret
to anything, but have some level of just like relationship building. And even for that sales
person that's out there of any type, if you're building a relationship, it's far more likely
you're going to sell a second and a third car and a fourth car to them than if you're just getting that
quick check. And it's the same for advisors, right? Like if that's just evident that you're,
you are trying to do a wallet flush, like, that's not right. And, you know, if you
are following factory recommendations, you are doing the right things and educating the customers
in a way that they can trust you, you're building relationships for the future to where they are
going to trust you. And if they get the sense that you're trying to screw them over, the chances
that they're even going to come back to your shop again after that are little to none, right?
Like you need to act in a trustworthy way. And just for our world as a whole, the automotive
world, I'd speak to your diesel folks as well, collision folks, like the more you act in a way
that garners respect, the more we're going to get everything that we want as an industry. It just
takes like some level of decency and not just constantly hunting for that low hanging fruit,
like work on building some relationships, do some things and relationship building isn't
just external. If you're that service advisor, better darn well have a good relationship with
your team that's doing the actual work in the shop, right? Like you better have a good relationship
with your service manager. You better have a good relationship with the GM, the owner,
the list goes on and on and on. But if it's all transactional, you're going to have a tough time.
It's the people business. And that's what you said before. I mean,
yeah, your customers are people. As an advisor, as a service advisor, your technicians are as
much your customer as your customers are. You've got to take care of them too. As a manager,
your advisors and your techs are your customers just as much as your customers are.
And you've got to take care of them because if you don't, there is someone out there that's
going to and, you know, we've spent a lot of time, you know, over the past several years,
you know, Wrenchway has been integral in this of working to build technician pipelines and bring
new blood into the industry and working to retain that blood and working to keep, you know,
honestly, to try to prevent dealers from just poaching somebody with an extra dollar
an hour down the street. Because you're only as good as that extra dollar is, you know,
you're only as good as as where you are on that level. Because if somebody is going to leave
for an extra buck, they can always go back. And, you know, that was that was an experience I ran
into. You know, I went from one dealer to another. And it was a different environment.
I went from a small family owned, you know, operation to a larger corporate structure
thing and everything had more money, I could pay people more things like that. And I did to
bring a few people over. But then when the environment went south, those people that left
for a couple extra bucks went right back to where they were before because they realized that
money doesn't always make the grass greener. And, you know, there's there's environment
challenges and things like that. And there's there's also the matter of
people are going to remember how they're treated. And people are also going to talk about how
they're treated. And if you get the reputation of being the dealer in town that is, you know,
where where the mercenaries go, that's not what you want. Because there's not going to be
any consistency. Exactly. And even if you try to change those stigmas, those do not change overnight.
It takes time. Oh, you know, that's something you got to remember.
I think there's so, so much value in what you just said there, because it is so true
in that your reputation, it does not take long as a shot for word to start to spread that,
you know, and it is kind of funny to me, kind of being on the outside looking in in terms of
like daily shop operation now. But there's so many leadership folks in our world that
they talk publicly about how much their team means to them and everything like that yet they
don't know going back to one of your earlier points, they don't know anything about the
people in their shop yet they're out talking about how much they do for them. And so it's one of those
things where the actions speak louder than words internally. And, you know, I'm interested to
hear if you maybe have a similar experience, but I think it has to go beyond words, right? It can't
just be you saying how valuable the people are, which is great, like it's good to give your
people recognition. But if the internal perception is you've got the technicians all sitting around
and saying like, Oh, yeah, look what they look what they said there and that publication or
whatever. But in reality, this isn't this isn't that way at all inside these doors. And I you
know, I think I've seen that more than once. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It's it's one thing to
it's it's one thing to, I guess, talk the talk. And there's another way to walk the walk as far as
that goes. And I've noticed it before I've been in meetings with, you know, with higher ups and
things like that where they'll be talking to somebody and say, Oh, well, yeah, you want to be a
service manager someday, don't you? And, you know, the person that they're talking to be
like, Oh, yeah, yeah, okay. And I'll sit there and know for a fact like this dude doesn't
want to be a manager. He's already told me he doesn't want to go on that path. And, you know, it's,
you know, it's understandable that, you know, in business leadership, you obviously want
the business to go a certain way. You know, you want to be successful. And
you have a vision for how that success looks. But you understand that sometimes that vision
isn't always perfect. And you have to, you know, you have to be able to be a little agile and be able
to adjust to it. And also, you know, understand who you have in those, those seats and who you have
in those positions and whether or not they're the right, you know, the right person, let's call
it what it is. That doesn't mean that they're bad or good or either one. It just means,
you know, pay attention to who you've got and what you've got. And really a lot of
the challenges and things like that can be answered just by listening when people tell you what they
want. People tell you what their interest is. You know, one of the things that, you know, always
sticks out to me on the voice of the technician is it's almost 90% want a well documented career
path. That's not hard to do. But it starts out by their leaders sitting down and saying,
okay, Jay, so we've got you here. This is where you're at right now. Where do you want to be?
What do you want to do? You know, some people just some technicians want to be a used car tech
and I get it because they don't have to get in real deep in anything and they can make a ton
of money. I totally respect it. That's cool. Some people like to use their brain. They want
to do nothing but die act. Great. I've got a bar of gold waiting for you because you're
one in a million. But until you know, you're just guessing and guessing will get you so far.
I had a technician back in, I'm going to say 2009 2010. I was a GMC dealer and the Acadia's
and the Buick Enclave's had an AC evaporator problem where they'd start leaking. And,
you know, warranty time for it was like 6.8 hours, which was insane because you had to
take the entire interior out of this car. It was wild. The first one I saw, I almost had a stroke.
So we had one guy in the shop that, you know, he said, you know, like, it's not that dirty to
do. So I have to get real dirty. So why don't you just give all of them to me?
We're like, okay. And his philosophy on it was, you know, if I do one or two and I lose
time on it, that's fine, but I'll get better. And before you knew it, I mean, this guy, you know,
brilliant tech, he could have done the heavy line stuff. He was a guy who could do a differential
and engine transmission, whatever, but we had him do an AC evaporators and we had a bunch of them.
And we just gave them all to him because he asked for it. But by the time they started
coming out of manufacturers warranty where they were paying 6.8 hours and then they go to
extended warranties where a good advisor could get 15 hours out of one from an extended warranty,
all of a sudden he went from barely hitting 40 hours a week to hitting 75 hours a week and
not changing anything about what he did. He just got really good at a repair that nobody
else in the shop wanted to do. Right there though, right? He made a ton of money off of it.
But that's attitude right from the start. And for you technicians that are listening to this,
how many technicians would have said, Oh my gosh, I don't want to do that. That job sucks. I'm not
going to do any. I don't want anything to do with it. And then you have a technician, I've seen this
over and over again as well, where that technician that embraces it and says, you know, hey, I'm
going to get good at this. And really just out of repetition, you're going to naturally get
good at this. Like just looking at it through a different lens and not being so negative
and really, you know, it's easy when you go sit in the break room and everybody's complaining,
you hear that one tech that's complaining about, you know, I don't want anything to do
with that job. But if you have that tech that just says, I don't care what it is, give it to me,
I'll get good at it. And ultimately they'll benefit off of it. And is that refreshing?
It's just nice to not have to fight somebody to do a job.
It is, it is, it's refreshing. And, you know, it goes to, you know, technicians with the positive
outlook, you know, can definitely do that and be really successful advisors with that outlook can
as well. You know, it's, we've got fleet management services out there. We've got extended
warranties, fleets, government agencies, things like that. There's so many different pieces of
this business that come in and need service. You know, one thing that I think is really driving the
technician shortage is yeah, we have a shortage, but we also have such a drastic increase in demand
that we've got to get to levels that we've never been to because, you know, our patience
isn't what it used to be. You know, right now, like if I want chicken wings, I can order them
on my phone while I'm talking to you and recording this podcast and somebody will drop
them off at my doorstep in 25 minutes. Actually sounds great right now, by the way,
even though it's only the morning right now, like I could use some chicken wings. That's a
good suggestion. Oh, anytime. They should be their own food group. It's wonderful. But
with the demands being higher and so many different aspects, you know, a lot of advisors
will shy away from fleets because you have to do extra work to get approvals.
Don't, don't do that. You know, because once you, if you become their guy,
then you're going to make it back in spades. And, you know, the money is there and you
don't have to fleece anyone to get it. You know, you just, just work that's coming in the door
recommendations that make sense, build that relationship. And, you know, I used to love
landscaping companies because, you know, when I was at that GMC store, I cut my teeth on those guys
because fleets look at things different. The landscaping company looks at how much money
they lose for every hour of their shop, their trucks in the shop, but they beat their trucks
like they owe them money. So they need to have the work done and they need it done quick. So
you focus on how to help their needs. And then if you can prove that you can do it
and you can follow through, they'll follow you to the ends of the earth for it. And for service
managers and for general managers and ownership, it's the same with your people. If you pay attention
to their needs and you execute and you help them make, you know, help them make their situation
better. Because that's the reason that all of us work, right? Like we work to better
ourselves and make a better life for our families and things like that. So as a leader,
if we can focus on helping our people better themselves, those people will do anything we ask
them to at any time. And then all of a sudden, if you've got a short attack five hours, but you
tell them, Hey, I promise I will get you back. They'll believe you and they'll trust you. And
that trust is everything. So much of what we've talked about today is around trust, around
communication, around respect, some things that I think they don't cost money. It just takes being
a good leader. And if you're a technician, giving those things back to your leadership,
that will pay off for you if you really, really take that seriously, all really,
really good stuff. Now, we do have to end similar to what we normally do,
which is with some hard-hitting questions, some really, really hard-hitting questions for you.
First one, what was your first car?
It was a 1991 Dodge Daytona iRoc.
Nice.
Yep. I love that.
So I actually, it's funny because when I tell this story, people are like, you're a brat,
dude, but I got that car for my 15th birthday.
I got it because there was a combination of reasons. Number one, my dad always wanted one,
and he had never got one for himself. And so the opportunity arose. But the other was,
it was a stick shift. And my dad wanted to make sure I had plenty of time to learn how to
drive a stick before I took my driver's test in a stick shift car. So that was,
that was the first car. And I liked it a lot. It didn't last long, but that's okay. You never
know what you're going to get with an older used car, but it was fun while I had it.
That is so cool. I, and credit to your dad, because I think my dad, my first vehicle was
also a manual and there was not really a whole lot of a training period. It was go out and
figure this thing out. And I think I burnt the clutch out within like the first two weeks
and then had to replace that. So very, very funny. That's, that's great. Second question,
what is your favorite type of music? Oh, my favorite type of music. So if you looked at my
Spotify wrapped, you'd laugh because it goes all over the place. I will say it depends on my mood.
Now, the, the, what never fails for me is the 90s grunge era. I grunge music all day long.
Now, if I'm in the gym and you know, if I'm, if I'm trying to lift heavy weights and things
like that, then it's, it's gangster rap. Most of the time if I'm hanging out, it's,
it's going to be the grunge music, the 90s rock music. There's nothing like it.
I think the Spotify wrapped can tell you so much about yourself. I just, I love getting
that at the end of the year. I just got mine as we record this. And it is funny. I am all over the
board. Like I, there's, it makes no sense. Like I know when I'm on an airplane, I like kind of more
like I'll listen to classical music. I'll listen to like Mumford and Sons or something like that.
And then I'll listen to hard rock. I'll listen to rap. I'll listen to country. I'll listen,
I listen to everything. And it just depends on my mood. Yep. Yeah. That's why I'm the same
way. Last question out of these hard hitting questions is what was your first job?
Ah, this is a good one too. So my first job when I turned 16, I went that first summer.
I went and worked at Toys R Us. And I stayed there all the way through high school and into
college. And I loved it there. It was awesome. Really? For, for a teenager, it was awesome because
it, it wasn't all goofing off, but it was a lot of goofing off. And, you know, it's, it's funny
because when I look back at it, one of the reasons I stayed there as long as I did and one of the
reasons I liked it, because, you know, I was in high school, a bunch of my friends like, you
know, in the first year they were working, they got fired from four jobs. Like, I worked a burger
game for three weeks. I got fired because I stuck my hand in the deep fryer or something.
That's a joke. But, you know, I did and I stayed there. Yeah. Yeah. And, and one of the big
reasons that I liked what I did, and I think this kind of sticks out with me is like, we, as,
you know, a lot of our long standing folks, we would hang out, you know, and like if we,
if we had a good closing crew, we would stay in the store. We closed at 9.30 back then. But,
once we got all the customers out, we'd stick around, we'd clear out some aisles and play basketball
or, you know, we'd play video games in electronics or, you know, stuff like that. And then,
you know, so we had that, that camaraderie and that, that friendship and everything. And,
and let's face it, it was born from, we were all younger and goofing off and, and having
fun at our job. But it was, it was a blast. It was a lot of fun. We probably weren't as productive
as we could have been, but we, we did what we needed to do and we had a good time with it. So.
There's elements that I feel like we could take out of that and put in our professional day-to-day
lives that would make it more fun. And we talk about the retention side. I don't think having
fun is the worst thing in the world at times, right? Obviously you need to be productive
and you have all the goals and everything else that we need to meet, but there's also time for that
just having fun with the people that you're with most of every day, right? Like it's,
it's really, really important. Yeah. And, and you learn something from every job you have
and from all the people that you, you interact with and things like that. You're, you're
going to learn things and, and they're going to stick with you for a lot longer than
you think. Cause I mean, I started at Toys R Us in like 1999. So, I mean, that was, you know,
ancient history at this point. And, but I still remember being there. I still remember what it
was like being there. And, you know, that, that just goes, I know I'm not alone in that. That
kind of stuff sticks with people. It does. That's what makes us who we are at this point.
I don't know if you're an office watcher, but they, Andy Bernard at one point said,
I wish it was, I wish we knew it was the good old days when we were in the good old days or
something. And like that, that totally kind of, I'm botching that quote, but it is one of those
things where you look back over your different jobs and, and you're over the course of your
professional career and, and maybe some of the things like in the moment you focus on the
negative. And then over the years, you kind of look back and kind of really look at
how much fun you had and the relationships that you made and, and, and going back to,
it's about people like so much of it is about the people. And when you think back about those
memories, that's, that's a lot of the good. I keep telling my wife that before I retire,
maybe after I retire, I'm going to write a book about, and it's going to be a book of
short stories about random experiences in the car industry. Probably won't be able to be put
on shelves because some of them probably won't be as appropriate as they need to be. But it's
like, and you get with other car industry professionals. And I know that you've experienced
this. And, you know, in my last role, I traveled a lot and worked with a lot of field reps and
the ones that were car industry veterans, we would just start trading stories. And
you never realize how ridiculous the stories get is like, Oh, yeah. Yeah, that did happen.
Oh, you know. Yeah, you get, you get a couple cocktails rolling at a, at like a company event
or just a conference or something. And some of the war stories you hear from our industry
are hilarious. Some really, really funny stuff. So yeah, there's so much good about this
industry, so many good people like you in this industry. And I can't tell you how much
I've enjoyed this conversation and how much fun we've had. Hope to have you back on some time.
Likewise. Thank you very much for having me again, Jay. It's been, it's been a pleasure. And
I look forward to the next time we get to chat. You too, buddy.
About this episode
Shifting the automotive industry focus from numbers to people is essential for attracting and retaining technicians. Host J. Gannon and guest Eric Wagner, an industry leader, discuss the importance of leadership, culture, and career development in dealerships. Wagner shares insights from his diverse experiences, highlighting how dealership dynamics affect employee satisfaction and retention. The conversation emphasizes that strong relationships and a supportive environment are crucial for success, as technicians increasingly seek meaningful work beyond just financial incentives.
Original notes
Eric Wagner, automotive professional, joins the podcast to talk about why the auto industry must shift from a numbers-driven mindset to a true people business in order to attract and retain our talent. Throughout the episode, Eric discusses the role leadership plays in attracting and retaining technicians, why managers need to truly know their people, and what it takes to bring new talent into the industry—and keep them.
Check out the full video version of the podcast on YouTube!
About the Episode
- Host: Jay Goninen, WrenchWay, [email protected]
- Guest: Eric Wagner, Automotive Professional
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Beyond the Wrench
Jay Goninen
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