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Will the Service Advisor Role Go Extinct?? | Marshall Sheldon
Will the Service Advisor Role Go Extinct?? | Marshall Sheldon
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About this episode
Marshall Sheldon joins the Jaded Mechanic Podcast to discuss the evolving role of service advisors in the automotive industry. The conversation dives into the potential extinction of the advisor position as technology advances, particularly with digital vehicle inspections (DVIs) and direct communication between technicians and customers. They explore the challenges technicians face, the importance of mentorship, and the need for effective communication skills in the workplace. The episode emphasizes the significance of quality repairs and the technician's role in customer satisfaction, while also addressing the industry's shift towards more efficient practices.
Topics:
service advisor role
digital inspections
technician mentorship
customer communication
quality repairs
industry evolution
workplace challenges
training and development
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In this episode, Jeff Compton welcomes Marshall Sheldon. Marshall stresses the importance of selecting apprentices based on personality and willingness to learn rather than experience. Jeff and Marshall also talk about flat rate vs hourly, and how the industry might just replace service advisors soon.
00:00 Meet Marshall Sheldon
06:02 "Mentorship to Independence"
13:49 Personable Candidates over Technical Skills
19:46 Advocating For Technician Training
24:04 Employee Retention Through Treatment
28:43 Certificate of Qualification Reflections
37:18 "Mechanic's Night Shift Challenges"
41:11 Entrepreneurship: Balancing Risk and Reward
43:55 Innovative Technician's Essential Impact
49:03 Rework Incentives: Fair or Not?
54:31 Budgeting Training Costs
01:03:50 "Stop Performing DVI for Free"
01:07:35 Improving Advisor Communication Skills
01:11:07 "Three-Year Engine Warranty Assurance"
01:16:38 Hands-On Mechanical Training Guidance
01:22:12 "Commitment to Quality Repairs"
01:31:04 Autel vs. Zeus Tool Dilemma
01:33:11 Auto Programming with Autel Device
01:38:16 Dealership Mentorship and Financial Guidance
01:45:52 Jeep Module Issue and Dealer Solution
01:48:20 LinkedIn: Showcasing Technical Professionalism
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Meet Marshall Sheldon
"Mentorship to Independence"
Personable Candidates over Technical Skills
Advocating For Technician Training
Employee Retention Through Treatment
Certificate of Qualification Reflections
"Mechanic's Night Shift Challenges"
Entrepreneurship: Balancing Risk and Reward
Innovative Technician's Essential Impact
Rework Incentives: Fair or Not?
Budgeting Training Costs
"Stop Performing DVI for Free"
Improving Advisor Communication Skills
"Three-Year Engine Warranty Assurance"
Hands-On Mechanical Training Guidance
"Commitment to Quality Repairs"
Autel vs. Zeus Tool Dilemma
Auto Programming with Autel Device
Dealership Mentorship and Financial Guidance
Jeep Module Issue and Dealer Solution
LinkedIn: Showcasing Technical Professionalism
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I think honestly, Marshall, what's happening
is the industry is trending towards,
they're going to eliminate the advisor position.
Lance agrees.
100%.
100%.
They are going to do this with this industry,
whether we like it or not.
It's already been happening.
Denise on dealer, I was at, we had a kiosk.
Oh, welcome back ladies and gentlemen.
It's another exciting episode of the JD Mechanic podcast.
So, I've got a friend of mine here
that in some circles is very well known
and then in other circles, not so much.
We're going to break the trend and we're going to have an American on
because it seems like lately we've had a lot of Canadians
and then we have some Americans and back and forth.
Being that we want to keep things nice and even
because we're still holding out to be the 51st state, right?
According to the Donald.
Marshall Sheldon, brother, how are you tonight, buddy?
Hey, we're living it.
You know what I mean?
We're doing great.
Yeah, man.
Now, Marshall reached out to me.
I've known Marshall about it.
I guess about a year because our good friend,
our mutual friend, Mr. Joshua Taylor
from the Rentschers podcast get raving about Marshall.
Marshall is this.
Can I call you heavy equipment tech?
Is that fair to say?
Yeah, because I kind of work on anything bigger than F-250.
You know what I mean?
Anything bigger than that, I'm down.
And we've had a lot of guys on lately like episode that just came out Tuesday,
Lance Mechanics.
Lance works in the mining field.
Former guys, Lee Forget.
He kind of works in the mining thing, goes back and forth.
We've had a few guys in the heavy equipment and it's funny, Marshall.
More and more are reaching out to me every week wanting to know,
hey, can I be on?
And I'm like, shit, man.
Like I don't have any problem with, you know,
I don't care if you work on a motorcycle.
You know what I mean?
Like, wheels and your technician, let's have a conversation.
I'm not ready to say like, I want to talk to the HVAC guys
or anything like that, right?
Because I mean.
That's a different trade though.
That's totally different.
We're talking nuts and bolts.
You know what I mean?
They're sitting on a pile of money, right?
They don't need to come on.
It's pretty cool, Marshall, that the,
I'll say this, the heavy equipment side is even more varied scope.
You know what I mean?
Compared to the other stuff, like, and we were just talking
about that before we turned on about a PTO that failure
and a young man that you're working with.
And I was going to say, I think I shimmed up the last PTO I ever shimmed up in,
oh crap, 1999.
Oh, nice.
And it was the last time I've ever touched one.
So other than to like take the driveshaft off going to it, you know,
but I mean, and you got a young man with you.
That's working with you.
That is, you're putting a brand new Allison in a truck and this PTO had a failure and
essentially caused the transmission to fail.
Yeah.
So like we were talking before is, you know, this thing,
some of these, you know, you have a couple of different ways that the PTO can come online.
So they have like an air shift one, back in the day they had a cable one,
you know, that would shift it.
And then the newer ones on the auto transmissions, they're clutched inside,
kind of like a micro transmission.
And then what they do is the way they come online is,
they come online with transmission fluid pressure.
So when you flip the PTO switch on, it opens a solenoid.
It already has the pressure up against that solenoid.
So then that pressure, that solenoid opens, boom, it kicks that PTO one.
And so this one, the case had cracked.
And then when, you know, the drivers were utilizing it,
they were just pumping the transmission fluid out of it until it
said no more.
And then it wouldn't shift.
And that's when they finally, finally brought it in.
They run that joker till she burned down to the ground.
So is there no, no low warning fluid system on it?
Because I can remember like, obviously there used to be way back in the day,
I can remember when the PTO was engaged, right?
You get some kind of indicator on in the dash or light up.
But I guess a really smart guy might put in like some kind of fail safe.
So that one.
Well, a lot of those transmissions do, you know, I think, I don't know for sure.
So don't quote me.
I think they can be set up that way.
I don't know if they're all specced with it automatically.
And then it's just a programming situation or what have you.
But these ones definitely don't because they burn them jokers down the ground.
And you were saying this is a local county to you, right?
Yeah.
It's a town.
Essentially what up here in Canada, we call a township truck.
And it's used for refugees.
Yeah, refugees and stuff.
Yeah.
And how they always spec them as cheap as possible, right?
Low bid and the whole thing.
Yeah.
All the cities is like that, you know?
And it's basically like they when they build them,
they just build them with really low spec PTOs.
They're just so that they can win the bid.
And then two years down the road, they're needing a real expensive PTO
or worst case a PTO and a transmission, you know?
You said with you're up to $13,000 just in the PTO and the transmission.
Yeah.
We were on top of that.
We said, well, it'll be a $20,000.
It's going to be expensive.
Yeah.
Unfortunate.
So your young guy, he's doing pretty well then.
Yeah.
So it's kind of a crazy deal.
Like we've talked about it briefly, I think, and passing in the past.
But like I so basically I won on one apprentices for six months.
Right.
I remember.
And then and then they kind of peel off.
I take the next one and then it becomes a more of a mentorship after that
where, you know, they don't need their hands hold it at that point.
You know, they've got, we have a very aggressive training program for them.
And then, you know, all their online OEM trainings.
And then and then on top of that, they're working with me every single day, 50 hours a week.
Boom, boom, boom.
You know, they they it's like drinking from a fire hose.
They they do pretty well though.
It's that six month mark.
They're they're doing pretty solid by then.
And then they can kind of start getting that independence.
And then I'm taking on the next guy and then they're working in a bay
right next to me or whatever.
So they're close at hand.
So if they need help, they can they can ask.
So it's not they're not just getting kicked off and
having to figure it out themselves, you know.
And I think that's where in the industry, especially on the car side,
I think the ball gets dropped so much, right?
Because like, I can remember, like when I walked into the independent shop
way back when I was set up next to a senior technician, like an old guy.
And he and he kind of I was over his shoulder.
He was over mine all day long, right?
And and it was good provided, of course, that that person is good, right?
In terms of their to work habits and all that kind of stuff.
Right.
He was a funny he was a funny guy.
He was a kind of guy.
So people that are familiar kind of with my area.
This is when I worked at Ottawa.
And he lived over in what we called Hall or Gatineau.
So he had like an hour commute every morning to get to work.
And he was a funny guy.
He hated to drive in traffic.
So he would tend to drive over from to Ottawa in the morning at like five in the morning.
And then it didn't matter what time he like what time of year it was winter summer.
You'd find him asleep when I'd come to work at eight in his car.
Yeah.
It was running to have the AC going in the summertime or was running to keep him for
freezing and he'd sit there and then like so you go and knock on the window.
That was my first job.
Every morning is going to knock on Paul's window and wake Paul up.
And everybody thought well okay Paul will be in you know five minutes after Jeff knocks on the
window.
No.
He would then there was a there was a Harvey's right next to the shop.
And he would walk over.
He would get breakfast.
He'd start work around nine.
Yeah.
Funny guy you know very good technician.
But I can remember I'd be leaving at five and it'd be like I'd drive past the shop
six thirty seven o'clock he'd still be working.
And the boss would be waiting for him to like finish up.
And so when I joke about the guys it was maybe maybe thinking him when the last week
we had a discussion it's like how do I get my technicians to come in on time.
Like they're oh yes.
Five minutes ten minutes late.
And I never started following his habits of you know just setting my own schedule.
But he could kind of get away with that Marshall because like he was the best tech
that my employer at the time could find and can hire.
And he kind of had to put up with that.
And I'm not saying that it's right but sometimes that's part of the package deal right.
Like you get to get those kind of idiosyncrasies.
You're young guys.
Do you find that they're like how do you adjust to when they're different personalities
like that.
You know I one thing I figured out early on because I've been doing this for I've
been training apprentices for a long while probably a little over 10 years.
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And so I figured out pretty quick that like I have to be part of the
it starts at the I have to choose the apprentice to right.
So when we're recruiting like I'm like yeah I like this one.
I like that one.
I like this one you guys can pick whichever but like these are the three
that I like.
And I've never had a problem not having the options of apprentices.
We usually have a pretty good selection.
And then I kind of go off to the personality.
I think about the team that I already have and then also myself because
they're going to work with me and I'm like I don't know if this guy's going
to be able to handle my ways or are we going to mesh well or he's also
got to mesh well with the team once he breaks free.
You know so I think a lot about those things but over time I kind of just
developed the ability to kind of see if they're going to work out with you know mesh well.
And then once I got that kind of down then it you know I studied I read a lot about how
people learn and you know things like that that really helped out a lot because
then I would try to implement things into my teaching.
So like you know obviously I kind of had an idea that a lot of people in our industry
learn by touching feeling yes doing right. But you know if you want a successful apprenticeship
you've really got to hit all the bases as often as possible.
So I will show them okay this is how we do it.
This is the I'll get out the repair instruction read it out have them read it out.
I make them take notes. Some guys remember stuff by making their own notes.
So I'll say hey get out your pocketbook like all my apprentices I give them one little pocketbooks
I can put in their shirts and I say hey write this down write these steps down.
And you know I usually do steps like that first before I start bringing out the manual
because I want to know if like they're gonna remember steps and remember things that I
asked them to do in particular. So I'll start with like three steps do this and this and
this come get me when you're done. Yeah do this and this and this and this and I just
build it up. I keep adding and adding and adding and then I also keep tracking my mind like okay
he's already done this job once before and then I'll go over there and we'll pull the vehicle in
and we'll say okay walk me through the process you know what are we gonna do this you know how
we're gonna do it. See if they see how much they retained and then we just build on it
and build on it and build on it you know. That's pretty cool. And so that's kind of the
approach that I take because it seems to work no matter what kind of person they are because
you know I hit all the bases every time and they typically it works every time pretty much.
So what's something that when somebody is is applying and you see it in the resume or in
the recruitment side of it that they're coming from a background that you go oh that one's
going to be a good one. Like because people have heard me talk about you're like I had a
service manager and actually I've even had other multiple employers that you know 20 years
ago they used to find try to find kids that grew up on farms you know what I mean. Yeah yeah.
Oh they they they just and it wasn't like they all they know how to work you know what I mean. It
was like to be handy because lots of kids from my generation didn't grow up on farms but they
knew how to work like they were they were you know they had ambition. I'm not saying the
young people don't but what's what's it when you see that you go oh yeah like is it have
to be second generation technician or like farm kid or you know honestly usually the second
generation techs are the worst. Not that they're bad with their hands but they think they're better
than they are because my dad was a mechanic right. I'm like dude I don't give crap about your dad
nothing personal but like I'm dad now. You know what I'm saying you know I'm dad now you know
what I mean but I would say like one thing that I really I'm looking at resumes sure but like
I just want them all to come in. Okay. I'd rather meet them talk to them what I'm looking for me
personally is like I don't want a guy that's just like oh like I want them to kind of open up
sometimes I've had them where they don't really open up when it's like the GM and service
manager and me and we're all in a room and we're asking them questions so like I like to kind of
walk them around a little bit you know walk around the yard and talk and just see I like a personality
so if I got a guy I don't need a chatty Cathy but I don't mind one but I don't need one and
so what I look for is somebody that's personable. Right. I can teach anybody how to fix trucks
so I don't care if they know anything I don't care if they have any tools I don't care
about any of that stuff because all that stuff comes with learning and doing it and all those
things that they'll buy tools I'm worried about that but you know are they cool can you get along
with them does it seem like you're cut from the same cloth you know kind of thing. Yeah you
want some confidence right that they you know and again like I've talked to some that they
have stories of like jobs they tried and it went south right I'd like to hear that story
because then it's like I can probably go oh yeah I remember the first one you can kind of pick out
like from what they're telling you it's like oh I know I know exactly what you're talking about
if you did just on this yeah they go oh yeah like I eventually got there right like I figured
right that's the kind of confidence that I like is that they've got enough like my friend Brian
Pollock says like they I've broke more shit than most guys are ever going to fix is what he's
famous for saying and it's like it's true though right like I want the guy that I don't
want somebody that's hand-fisted and smashy bear but I want somebody that like is we'll go in there
and try you know like you break a bolt off whoop dee doo we'll get it out right there's another
square in there grab the welder and we're gonna get it out like stuff like that I don't I don't
want to see anybody get hurt and I don't want to see like a really expensive mistake happen but
I mean too often I think in this industry we you know a we're not mentoring them properly
we're well but like I just talked to a guy the other day he had this technician young
apprentice like yourself that you've had working for him like a year and the guy had given his
notice and was gonna quit because like the guy wasn't moving him up and I said why didn't
you move him up and he says well he never came it has to be to moved up and I said
what was he doing well oh yeah I could give him wheel bearings and brakes and you know some
he was doing all the services and flushes fine but he was this young man was gonna leave and go
be an advisor because he felt like and I'm sitting there going like and this is a shop owner I don't
know that well it's just in a conversation right he's reaching out to me and I'm like
we do this all the time in the industry and I said well did you like want him to leave no
I didn't want him to leave okay so why did he leave well there wasn't just about the money
like he but he felt like he wasn't moving ahead and this shop owner I don't know that well but
I said see this is the problem this industry sometimes like and you know I used to think
it was like they didn't want to move guys up because they didn't want to pay them more right
that was the old so it was like you know right right but he just genuinely I'm like why did
you not move him ahead he's like well you never asked I'm like never asked these people came
under this industry now I guess maybe I'm still funny that way and I think I think when they come in
and they start doing this I think they think they want to do it for their whole career right like
do you want them so he shouldn't have to come to you or she and say move me up to more jobs I
think if they're doing them well we have to we have a responsibility to make sure that we have
a plan in place of evolving skills right like give them bigger and bigger tasks more responsibilities
more repairs it just struck me funny and you know it was a good conversation to have with the shop
owner like this is the problem this happens every day technicians and I think even before they
they find another job you know how they're up here or sheltered and they might have a
I think that has to drop because not because their attitude got bad but because they felt like
maybe they plateaued in the eyes of the employer and what do I do so just you know
I don't give 100% anymore right I give 80 well and you know it's too much dick sometimes and not
enough carrot too you know where and that doesn't mean necessarily to your point that like they
needed the money they wanted more money of course they wanted more money but you know it's not
always that to me I don't think you know my guys I take a varied approach we have like
where I work we have a pretty structured like I said we have a pretty structured situation
but they want to go to the training classes you know they do all their online pre-rex and
then they get to go to a class they're looking to go to those classes right you know they're looking
for their structured reviews and if they're due for they they hit all their metrics you know
they want their pay raises of course but they're also looking for to your point that next
step and that next step sometimes is this training that they need for the next level to get to that
next that next point in their in their technician careers or if you talk to your guys sometimes
they're like is there any management training that I can do is there any service writer training
I can do is there any they might be interested in other things that we have the ability to
support and I'm all about that if I have the ability to give it and I will fight for my guys too
because I don't want to invest all that time in an apprentice just to give them to somebody else
exactly yeah I'm gonna go to the management team and I'm gonna say hey you all got to do whatever
you got to do I don't really know what that looks like but I've talked to the the technician
the technician is like hey why didn't I get to go to train it I see everybody else going
to training around me you know I I'd like to think I do a pretty good job of keeping an eye on that
keeping track of it and and really trying to fight for my guys and make sure like I'm in the ear of
the the management team saying hey my technicians need training my technicians need raises my
technicians need this because I'm I've got all this invested they don't have as much invested
I do because it's it's it's my legacy that I pour into these apprentices and you know
to them sometimes not necessarily my direct management but we're talking industry
you know in the in the industry they're thinking I would just get another one you can train that
one too you know we'll just get you another one don't worry about it you know what I mean
it's like no that's not how this works I train apprentice you guys retain them yeah
you know it's my job to train them you ask me for killers I'm going to give you killers it's your
job to keep them and if I've got a fight for them if I've got to put my stuff on the line
I'd go right down the street and get a $5 raise I don't I'm not worried about
about that for me but I'm in a good place where my management supports what I do and
they got my back when I ask them to so like I don't want to be put in those positions
luckily they they don't really put me in those positions right now you know
the program is obviously working right for you guys yeah oh yeah I mean they see the money
you know what I mean that's how they get paid they get paid off the financials and all those
things and they are incentivized for us to make money and if I'm put if I have a program that's
put together and that's built off of their program and it works and they're making money
they ain't gonna say nothing they're gonna keep letting me do what I want to do
yeah it always struck me as funny where like you would walk in and you know after you've been
at a new shop for a while like Lord knows I've moved around more than most techs ever have or should
but there's always a story you know every shop I've ever been at they always talk about this
apprentice and you know they talk about in two ways they talk about them like oh my god like
he thanked God he got out and he went somewhere else right he went to HFAC or
yeah your call or something like that and then they'll they'll talk about you know the other
guys that are like like I've said around here yeah he was really good and he left to go work
at the Goodyear Tire Factory you know that's a common story around where I were and you know
they're like why did why did they leave money was better you know hours were better they
ain't got to work Saturdays they the paychecks were steady I mean we just poke all kinds
of holes in this you know what I mean like when they go to the Goodyear Factory they're
going to work shift work but they want to shift work with a shift bonus for being nights and weekends
they don't buy a damn tool at all they walk in with almost no tools they get a tool allowance
every month work boots the whole thing every every piece of you know safety equipment personal
all covered like they literally have it's so funny I think of it it's like you know I can
remember having to go like ask for shop supplies at the dealership and they'd be like okay here's
your thing of like brake lube you know you better not or a can of brake clean don't ask for another one
until the end of the week yeah they have vending machines where it literally like yes I've seen those
you put your card in and whatever you want comes out of the vending machine
and it's not like anybody's looking at how much you're using it's just like they're tracking
okay it's it's a valid card good he gets his little thing of anti-seize whatever like that is
to me is so more efficient than thinking about like okay get the guy from parts to come over
grab a can of brake clean here's a can of brake clean like it's so fucking stupid and then we get
into this whole conversation we've always had about inefficiencies and technician production and
it's like why would you not just want to have everything that they might ever need right on
the bench behind them or in a service truck or in an example and they not have to go get it
and then maybe put somebody in charge of making sure that stuff stays stacked up well because
my god at the end of the year we might have used ten thousand dollars with a brake clean
instead of seven oh well like yeah it's all getting billed anyway what's the friggin problem
like yeah sorry it's just little stuff like that that they that we don't seem to do so it's
like there's an example of why people sometimes leave is it's it's not about always the
money it's about a better better way of being treated and and i always felt it was a weird
conversation because i was like pardon me it's like shit what am i coming into this job if they're
telling me about these guys that left you know it's it's funny you know the the guys that leave
for other trades i totally get why they do it um but man when they when they leave for another
shop i always feel like if a shop owner should look at it as like if you had a tech that left
you need to really look at why they left not if you fired them that's obviously you know why
right right if you got to really delve into why they left i think that tells a lot you know
yeah 100 you know um it's kind of a testament but like i've had one or two leaves but both of them
came back yeah right i always teach my guys like this is how you're supposed to leave a facility
if you if you're gonna hey you've got to go out there so you roots i get it um you may not work
here forever i'm not under any illusion that you're going to but you know i've been out there
and i know what it's like out there now i don't say it to scare them off or to scare them or
try to uh you know uh gaslight them into staying you know i i like i write all of my guys as
soon as they complete my apprenticeship i write them all a letter of character reference as if
they're leaving yeah but so you know if i don't i want them to know though that you know you're in
a good spot and a lot of times you know they'll say to me directly well you're still here there's
a reason you're here mm-hmm you could go anywhere you want to work you know i have all the
experience all the certs all the things i need to go out i could go somewhere else and i know
i could go somewhere else like i mentioned earlier and make more money yeah but i have freedoms that i
would have to earn back all over again yeah and uh you know honestly i'm kind of at that point in
my career where i'm not really you know i make enough money and i'm not really trying to be
do all that crap i would if i had to but i really don't want to you know what i mean yeah like
and you know everybody keeps thinking it's about the money and a lot of texts you know this
well josh i think did it hit one of his surveys and he showed that it's not even in the top three
that they're leaving because you're right i don't even know if it's in the top five
and that's really telling because like i know i left well i mean i left the first essentially
job i had as an as an automotive apprentice for more money because there was no way i could
i couldn't stay there right in 2000 i couldn't stay at ten dollars an hour i was going broke
buying the tools that i needed every day to go to work i think you see that more like in five years
or less right you see a lot more movement in that five years or less area i mean i know it's a
little different for you guys because of your uh you know logistics as far as uh how you guys
become mechanics there and how you get your tickets and stuff but uh sidebar i have been
working on getting my journeyman ticket through the ucon because i want to see what it's like
what you have to go through now i have to present twice as much
experience yeah and i have to there's a bunch of stuff i have to provide to prove that which i
have all that so it's not gonna be a big deal but it's not my been working on because i think
it's cool and i actually like the prestige of being able to say your you i mean real talk
like i think it's cool that you guys have this i'm a ticketed journeyman mechanic right
yeah and and i will soon be one also and i also have some things in the work to
i found a province that will take my that accepts my ticket that i can go set for my red seal so
eventually uh if daddy trump lets me go up there to the uh the big national park yeah i might be
able to come up there and set for my red seal and i've already been taking a bunch of the
practice tests yeah and uh and i've passed all of the practice tests that i've taken so
i'm feeling pretty hopeful that i can go there sit get my red seal and then boy be red seal
you know i'm saying and that's and and it's it's funny because like right above the the computer
that i'm sitting here looking at right now you can't see it on the camera but if i was to
spin the camera the other way mine hangs there all the time my cfq my certificate of qualification
and you know it's it's the third version that they've sent out to me because it changes every
time you know you renew it and you get a different one but essentially your your number stays the same
on there and there's still the red red steel right on the front of it red and i i look at that and i go
you know what i can remember now when i look at that how long and how many hours it took me i had
to put in to put into that yeah the places that it worked while i was getting it and the the
obstacles that those jobs came with and like i said super cool dude i think it holds so much
prestige i think you should be proud of it i think all y'all that have gone through got your red seal
i think you should be proud of it because i think it's cool stuff i i wish we had something similar
i don't like the barriers of entry that it creates for apprentices like i pick my apprentices
like we talked about from all walks of life they some come from college some come from the
restaurant i meet them at the restaurant and give my business card i like the way they talk i
like the way they are and i'll give my business card so hey when you're ready to make some
real money holler at your boy yeah well it's it's so funny like i i think about like my good friend
lucas from changing the industry his one of his best technicians that he has right now uh and
he's i would call him past the apprenticeship level you know he's getting very close to being
pretty much an atek he worked in a restaurant before he came to work for lucas yeah you know
what i mean and it's like but he he just has that like he's very good with process he's very
good with detail like and he worked in the restaurant as a cook he wasn't like
you know just a waiter not i don't mean a waiter yeah like he worked in the kitchen stuff so he
understands process he understands like stress he understands deadlines volume all that yeah
busy times and yeah and he's and he's just killing it like lucas adores the kid he's i love it
so i mean this whole thing of like oh let's try and find farm kids
uh yeah that's why i was trying to kind of bring it back around to that because it's uh you know i i've
got them from butcher shops i've got them from restaurants i've got them from colleges prestigious
colleges in the united states um and i i will tell you a small secret about getting them from a
prestigious college um they'd been bought out 900 times and it had gone uh privatized
and then it was all about pushing you know pushing these kids through
so i stopped looking at the grades and i stopped looking at i started looking at the attendance
yeah and so i i'd take a c average with a kid that showed up every day over a kid with a a that
showed up half the time yeah you know those are a couple things there and to be honest with you
one out of ten one out of ten was worth putting the time into and i don't really like those odds
when i could just find one at the place i'm eating lunch at you know what i mean
that's that's crazy or my friend brian paulik talks around like he walks around
now when he goes to harbour freight he's always got business cards from the shop in his park
because he's yeah every every young person at harbour freight he's standing in the card
hey technician no i just work on my own shit okay well here's a card anyway right bring it by
when yes you screw it up oh you are a technician where are you working and then in brian's little
corner of the world he knows every shop around so he knows who they work for and he can say
well what's it like to work for bob or whatever you know and then well if you ever decide to
move here's a and it and it's working for him right like that kind of stuff is like you don't
always need a recruitment company like like promoter that i love my family there but there's
so much more that we can do like you said pay attention when you're getting your lunch and
and the person that the at the you know beyond the other counters got some good skills in terms
of people or seems to be with it and enthusiastic ask them make up make a conversation you know
yeah might be a good tech might be a good advisor might be a good parts person we're
looking for them all right we struggle for to get all of those type of people and you know
i know you know i i've never worked at an independent shop so i i worked at a fleet
shop i've and everything else has been dealers so i would i know that they've got a you know one
or two advisors you know um but i've seen i've been to some of these taugino halls around
here and they got 60 bays and 900 freaking advisors and you know what i'm saying like
it's crazy and you know those people have got to be looking for people all the time you know so
the turnovers probably ridiculous so yeah it's it's wild work out there but hey let's let's let's
jump into um i've seen that what prompted all this was i've seen a tick tock that you made
about guarantees and how you get paid on a on a kind of a guarantee situation
and it has been crazy for me here recently because i'm an hourly tech i support that type of pay
plan i i like the uh i would prefer if there was some incentives you know a little more carrot
but um i'm cool with hourly as long as the hourly pay rate is makes sense right because like i
hire uh quite a few um automotive technicians to uh to heavy duty and it's really easy it's
so easy to poke holes in everything that they try to try to hit you with because they'll hit you with
well um well this is what i make fly rate hour and i'm like okay what'd you make last year
yeah right and they said well i made a hundred thousand right and you're like okay cool what'd
you make the year before that well i made 98,000 you're like okay so you got a dollar raised last
year and you build the same amount of hours probably and then i'm thinking in my head okay
i'm breaking it down okay how how would you like to work 40 hours a week and still make a hundred
thousand right because i know you did i know you i know you worked you more than 40 hours
a week to flag enough hours right to get your hundred k right it's the it just that's
way it is and you had to work every other saturday how about no saturdays you can work monday through
friday um if you want to work four tens that's cool if you want to work uh four eight or five
eights that's cool too i'm good with either one and you're still going to make a hundred thousand
if you want to work uh a little more you're going to get paid time and a half yeah so if
you're if you're hungry for a little more money and we get paid weekly so how about
you can it's always a week behind your paycheck is always a week behind so if you know you got
a big bill coming up you can work some overtime we we we're allowed to work 60 hours a week if we
want to that's how we work um for safety reasons we don't work more than 60 yeah and um so how's
that sound you know and i could sell that all day i could sell that all day every day and i have
zero problems recruiting flat rate technicians and and that's the thing like everybody we always
gets into the conversation of like because again it started with the one guy saying and again
he reached out to me in in a dm and we got talking and and he was against guarantee because
he found that or he thought his perception was the guys that were at his dealership
that were on a guarantee were lazy he's like they weren't really they didn't seem to be all
that hustle anymore and i'm like let's back it up a minute though you're a bit younger guy
you're going into kind of a leadership role within this dealership these are kind of we'll
call them the a little older heads in the shop um maybe they are at a point now where
like they're comfortable and they're riding you know what i mean and there's nothing wrong
because he's like well they're gonna guarantee because they're given you know the more complex
the harder cars the boomerangs as we call them you know what they're like right the yeah
back and they handle it and i'm like so what's the problem then like that to be is a very
valuable person to have if they always get through it well but you know i'm paying them for 40
and sometimes they're not putting 40 out okay i know how that that's a cost of doing business
brother that's why their name's not on top of the on top of the building and somebody else's
is that's a cost of doing business and i know how those numbers can be manipulated because like
i keep coming back to my first kick at a dealer i was a straight time guy
and i had everybody's comebacks and all the boomerang cars and all the nightmare
shit that nobody else wanted to do and i'm not talking like one recall after another i'm talking
about like it left at two in the afternoon with a check engine like dyag supposedly done
and because i was on second shift it showed back up at seven at night yeah it went to me
and the next morning i was still working on it you know what i mean when i came in at two
was in the bay and the tech would walk in and the car that he thought had fixed
was sitting back in jeff's bay right and then i would come in on second shift and finish it
and yeah when when they would flag my hours i didn't make shit because it didn't take the
hours back from them the first because that's a whole other can of worms they didn't charge
the customer again so it was just like all unapplied so to me the whole hours thing is like
who cares like who gives a flip and i understand that to business we have to
have some kind of metric to be able to track i get it yes yeah hundred percent but those numbers
get skewed marshal when it's like when we're not really when we're looking at the unapplied
and then it's like what do we do how does how do we fix that yeah and i think though
that it breeds that type of environment though like and what you just described is exactly
what 80 percent of the other fly rate techs out there are dealing with we we do this deal where we're
like well these 20 percent of the technicians are making it work so the rest of everybody else should
be able to do it yeah you know what i mean and that's that's the that's the problem
and you know from my perspective the way i see it in the way that in an hourly situation is we
do track it right so if i have one of my guys messes something up right it's bound to happen
if you put your hands on enough trucks and what i always tell my guys if you don't mess anything up
you're not putting your hands on enough trucks that's right you're going to mess stuff up we
build that into our business plan we know that you're going to mess things up i know that it
hurts your feelings that when you mess something up it's part of the deal we're going to mess
stuff up i messed up up i messed up up all the time it's part of the it's part of the deal
i've just got to the point in my in my career that when i mess stuff up i mess it up barely
it's easy to fix it right yeah so i don't make big mistakes i make little mistakes and they're easy to
fix you know uh and that's where we want to be but so when one of my guys messes something up
we add a line to the ticket and then i take that in as a policy and then we we eat that
if it's parts we put it on there if there's labor we put it on there and we take that to
policy and that is that cost and that cost is what i pay the technician and we move on with our lives
right now when the technician gets their review that policy is going to be brought up like hey
you had x amount of policy this quarter you know company standard we have one it's x you're only
supposed to be here but somehow you know you're up here so we need to we need to work on policy
this this quarter i would have loved to give you a raise but sorry about it yeah you know what i mean
you need to you need to get your shit together whatever you know so for them to say like but
that's the business's responsibility you know what i'm saying it that's not the technician's
responsibility to otherwise they just go start their own shop if they wanted to take it in take
it every time right and that's and they cry about that right marshal like the the shop owners
that i talk to all the time they're like they they're not frustrated but you all talk you talk to them all
right and josh can attest to this too for the when he's talking to the guys in the aftermarket versus
the guys in the dealer network they're all guys that were fed up with how they were treated
right just yes and they went and started their own because they're like fuck it i make the same
amount of money in my own business as i did as my own employee but you know what it's all on me
i take all the rest of the liability i get all the glory right for them sometimes they don't
have to make any more money to me it doesn't make much sense i'd rather like make a little bit more
or a lot more because of all the ability and the risk but for some of them it's just that's enough
you know it just the liability parts of it i've i've said it once i've said it a thousand
times flat rate puts all of the liability on the technician and then the management teams
like to throw it in our faces gaslight the crap out of us the ones that still stick
up for flat rate the technicians still stick up for flat weight are working in high volume
shops and they're they are making a killing yeah and those are the only ones that stick up for it
like i said that's that 20% or less that's out there and they're the only ones that are still
fighting a good fight and you know what go for them if they're out there make a 200k at a
high volume store hey i applaud them for it and marches you know what i'm gonna say it right
now is gonna offend some of them they're gonna call me a liar and it's gonna blow up i think
they cherry pick the work i like it because you and i both know you know what i'm saying it's like
yeah i think cherry picking should be reserved to technicians that are training apprentices
because i need to pick certain jobs on purpose so that i can train an apprentice properly so
sometimes i need to go okay that's a clutch job i need that because i need my apprentice to learn
this particular skill yeah that that's this type of job this a time and change job i need this
apprentice to learn that job this is a whatever job you know what i'm saying i need to be able
to cherry pick jobs in order to train my apprentices properly give them a bumper to
bumper experience yeah and uh those technicians that are out there fighting a good fight and
bringing more prodigy into the into the business into the industry plot them and if you're not
able to have that ability you need it because you will make a more well-rounded apprentice yeah
by having that ability you know a lot of the guys i think that you know defend the flat rate
thing or like they're on that heavy line muscle memory you know repeatable rinse wash and repeat
like i'm doing another camshaft and another ls engine right or i'm doing yeah i'm doing another
cab off on a power stroke right i've got them where the cab's off in 45 minutes like
they're defending it and i'm not saying that they're not good technicians and i'm not saying that they
they're only nuts and bolts like i'm not trying to say that but like it's different than the kind
of technician that is always just inherently slower looks at reads all the service information right
things outside the box and they go fuck marshal you know we had that car that had been bounced
around her trucks and bounced around to everybody and and marshal picked it up and he had it
knocked out in an afternoon right he went and found the breaking up or something like that
that kind of technician is never on the metric of production is going to look as valuable
i'll argue it until my final day it's the kind of guy that can do that kind of work
and then repeat it over again with another nightmare car and another and not come on crazy
and not come on glued and not go nuts that kind of tech keeps the the business looking viable
because when the car the difficult car comes in or truck or piece will come in whatever
it's solved right and then you get all the other work you you you retain that customer
because you fix the problem that's what it is it's not about production this is this is an
industry about fixing problems yeah nothing is a is a that crazy a problem right like a lot of
this is rinse washer beat muscle memory right it's another bad and sure we take the cab off
but it's these weird ones that if you've got a guy over there and you guarantee him
and he gets all those cars done if you can't figure out how to build his salary keyword salary yeah
into your business expense then you probably don't have any business being a business because
you haven't figured out how to make it work yeah build it into the cost you need that person
what are you gonna do if they leave just start handing all those nightmares everybody
watch them go no fault found kick it outside yeah all the kind of guys in the shop that are the no
fault found guys right they got the three flush machines at the beginning of their shop at the
beginning of their bay every morning right they do a break job man you never see their customers
get noisy breaks because they're doing the pads early you know like we know those kind of techs
the no fault yeah but the guy in the back that's like here's a comeback yeah you know
like they just they just get it done build it into the operating costs of the business make it I mean
it's it's all there and the B plan it's pretty easy to have a portion of your your business plan
to have those costs and you know it should be like two percent of your GP it's it's pretty standard
and if you they just don't want to pay it you know what I mean they just don't want to pay it
they'd rather the technician pay for it yeah and the technician pays for it by not getting paid
and it's it's jacked up dude it's I always joke around and call it slavery because that's what it is
it is and it's so much more than just slavery because eventually you take somebody
and you poison them right like they used to be this young new ball you know
viable excited mechanic you know young apprentice yeah and then they go through three four five
ten years of being like ground down and and charge back for bullshit like that and all of a sudden
they're a jaded mechanic there are somebody that's like hating the industry they're hard on any young
person that comes in they're telling get the fuck out of this industry yeah crazy and then all
of a sudden we wonder why the culture the other trade is is shit well there's why because we took
somebody that had so much potential and we poisoned them we said oh it's listen it's always been that
way it's always been on you it's gonna be you you use or the liability and he'll like why you know
why why and again I had a conversation with somebody last night we were talking
about if they put a rear main seal in and it starts leaking later
they're gonna get paid to put it in but it doesn't go towards their bonus plan he pays on
incentivize plan they're going great but I said what about the guys that work in a shop where
they're handed a ticket and it says go put a rear main in this car and he goes puts the
rear main in the car they say the car's an Audi Marshall yeah and it turns out that the
PCV system is fucked right right and it's building too much crankcase pressure
close the rear main out of it in another month he was not handed a ticket that said hey check this
for her PCV malfunction right he's handed a ticket saying rear main seal when leaking
diagnose somewhere else install rear main seal you mean to tell me you're gonna make that technician
warranty that seal out I'd roll my friggin toolbox sorry yeah yeah like I didn't die I get
you know what I mean that's somebody else's problem again you know how many times did
we always have to look for when we saw a rear main leaking out of car always have to assume
that the PCV system was bad no rear main leak but now it's a new thing right we know the
common players uh Audis uh Mercedes you know a lot of the year old stuff Chevy Cruises Chevy
Equinoxes uh you know like yeah yeah anything turboed basically but Cooper's but like it wasn't
like that 10 years ago that yeah you could get handed that ticket I don't think it's fair and
you know yeah if you like Brian Pollock was talking about um if you get handed a car
check engine light on you put the oxygen sensor in the wrong bank and the car comes back
you're crazy if you think you should be working like if you're on some kind of incentivized
I would think that you would be like really ashamed that you did it wrong screwed up
and you wouldn't expect some kind of bonus for having to do rework right let's call it like that
I'm not saying they should work for free but you shouldn't expect every work but if you legit
you know have an intermittent lean DTC and you say this is my scan capture and the oxygen
sensor seem to be flatline right now and you know I think we should do an oxygen sensor and the
customer agrees to it and everybody's on board this is not necessarily a guarantee and that car
comes back that car that everybody was up front and on board yeah you shouldn't be continued to work
on dyag on that for free now go hey sorry like you got your one shot at this you guess what you always
know yeah that's crap you know if I thought about all the cars that I didn't get the dyag
right the first time if I remember them all I'd go crazy yeah lots of them and it was
sometimes intermittent sometimes it was like oh shit you know never big problems like I'd be like
I can remember putting a leak detection pump in had a broken wire to it you know thing like why did I
put the LDP in because I'd done five that week there were all the LDP same code yeah one time
that I don't check power ground it's broken wire I stayed late and fixed it nobody paid me extra
for that that was on but my god like you know we beat these people up with this idea that you know
flat rate you have to be your production is this and then the guys I still challenge the guys that
say you know they turn 200 every two weeks like man you're must be some kind of unicorn or you
must be really hard to work with in the shop yeah it's like I said it's just it's they're so
far and few between and the technicians have just been gas lit for so long that they they
almost like believe it themselves now it's like yeah if you don't work flat rate your crap
you know only only flat rate texts are faster what they do no they're not we're we're held
to a an efficiency standard we're held to a productivity standard which is being clocked on
RO's and not idle right yeah and we're held to those standards if we don't meet those standards
we get rowed up we get rowed up three times we are fired yeah so it doesn't pay to be a a slow
hourly technician either because we want raises if I'm quick at what I do I'm efficient at what
I do and I get them fixed most of the time every time you know as as often as possible are obviously
I'm going to get a raise if I do my training I'm going to get a raise I know I'm going to right
and I'm going to get a paycheck every freaking week and it's not going to be for 20 hours it's
going to be for what I put in that's right right I want to get paid for at least what I put in
you know what I mean like if I worked 50 hours I want to be paid for 50 hours that's not my
shop otherwise I'd go if I wanted to run myself ragged for a barely a paycheck I'll go buy a
service truck and run my own mobile business you know what I mean and and you hit on a really
key point there like you want to take the training and you want to be paid for the
training I think this is something that again like and I know the people that listen to us
and our channels and stuff right for the most part they're doing a right a martial like
they're paying yeah yeah but there's still so many guys that are like all they can go back to the
low hanging fruit that's all they can do well did you provide them a training to do anything more
than that no no I didn't I didn't send them they didn't seem that interested they didn't ask
they didn't ask they didn't ask for training well we look at it as a training as a cost
oh my god like you know you mean I got to send these guys to the Napa classes or
the world pack classes after hours you know what that costs each got like that's like 150
dollars each person I send you know and and the sons of bitches they want to get paid now when
they go after work like how dare they you know if training your technicians it is a cost but
here's the thing if if it's a good technician they're gonna fix more things right the first
time the more we train them right so if we're not getting that as an investment return on our
investment then we need to take a hard look at that technician and ourselves because if we're
not holding them accountable then that's on us right it goes back to building it into the
cost of expense right if I'm yet for training training should be in your b-plan it's the
simple 10 if I'm sending them to 10 hours of training a month 10 hours aesthetically easy
math and it costs x amount okay that's that's that's got to go right into the plan like you said
of what it's going to cost me to run this business this month I've got training and then that means
that maybe I put my door right up maybe you know the the check engine light scan that you know
I charge the customer an hour for and the tech walks out in 25 minutes and he knows exactly
what it is instead of knocking it to a half an hour leave it at an hour that's how I pay for it
rocket science guys it's but everybody comes back to marshal that idea like oh I can make that
customer really happy though by doing it in 30 minutes I look really good I look really good
I fixed it I fixed it that's all I care about is fix the car I don't care how I look with the
price I don't I don't get shit doesn't matter to me and that's why I'm not in business because
I don't care show me the customers chose you for the value that you bring you you have good
technicians that fix cars right the first time every time whatever and they do good quality work
that's why they chose you they didn't choose you because of your price if they did then it's too
cheap yeah and I see it now a google all the time like you'll see the shops all the shops that
are known to be really good at fixing cars there's also detractors in that's google review
thread right let's say they're really expensive they've obviously read it if they're here if
they found about you from google and they're in your shop they've obviously read that you're
expensive yeah right you don't have to try and convince them that you're not yeah you just
fulfill the obligation and live up to the reputation that you're competent and you can
fix the car that's 100 that's what they want that's all it is that's all like you said it
ain't rocket science this is easy they they make it out more you know let me hit you with something too
yeah I've been getting beat up online right now about uh video multi-point inspections okay yeah
so I say technicians should be paid for doing a video inspection right so here's the deal here's
my here's my spiel I bring my customer's car in I put it on the lift I walk around it I do my
inspection right oh this is bad this is bad based on mileage we're getting close to the
time of belt whatever this is the tires are here yada yada brakes is good yada yada okay
go now I get my camera out right that's what that took me eight minutes walk around do a
decent little quick inspection now I'm gonna get my camera out and I'm gonna record me
me my likeness my voice my personality I'm gonna sell this work yep I'm gonna show my customer hey
I did a thorough inspection this is the stuff I found this can wait this is good and you know what
every time you tell a customer this is all right right now but next visit maybe the visit after
that you're gonna need breaks you're gonna need tires yada yada nine times that 10 they want
you to do the stuff that you're like I ain't gotta do it right now right I digress but so I'm
selling that my service writer did not sell any of that all they did was push a button and send my
video to the customer and then the customer says yep go ahead because they may have put up the
quote together they may have put the quote together but let's be honest nine times that
10 they don't do that either we put all the parts we find all the parts we put all that
together then we send our quote and our video to the writer and all they did was send and then
that customer isn't even here because they're not a waiter anymore mostly and I don't know about
that but when we bring our car to the dealer we drop that joker off and I take my wife and we
leave right so I sold that whole job yep I sold that whole job and now that writer
is gonna get paid on gross or whatever they net or whatever they're paying them on
off of my back I'm the one who's not only did I do all the work yep I sold that with my salesmanship
my personality all of those things and I take pride and make my quality videos because I know
I'm gonna flag more hours well the managers out here are saying well you you got paid for that
with the additional hours okay but I still did the work and I still didn't get paid for it forget
all the hours because if I didn't sell any of that I would have pulled the next car in and I would have
got paid yeah right so and I did the math on it right it's so say we round it to eight minutes
but we know it took longer than that but let's just say it's eight minutes I figured it all up
how many minutes it is a year how much how much lost money that I lost out on and say I do five a day
right at eight minutes and I work five days a week you know and I anybody can do the math right yep
it's it's like a 167 hours I got a LinkedIn post on it it comes out to like 167 hours and you
multiply that by the industry average right and it's like four thousand dollars so you're telling me
that a dealership that's working at the 80 plus percent a gross profit percentage can't pay me
four grand and I'm averaging 65,000 on my upsells for my video you're telling me you can't cut me a
slice on that of course they can if they made 70 percent on that 65,000 right we could wing out a
number and call it 50,000 and you're telling me that we couldn't I couldn't get a slice of that
and then they'll say well what about Oliver we have all these expenses that you guys don't have
oh well here's the thing I upsold all that that was free money stop stop trying to say
that that's part of we we need all we need that money to cover all our expenses you were paying
all those expenses before I started doing all those upsells this is free money to y'all yeah cut me
a slice the internet in the waiting room the coffee in the waiting room it was already all there
right yeah so now we have these technicians that are doing and and and they hate it when I
say it the advisor's job right because we can remember like I can remember being out there
in the car was on the rack and the advisor would bring the customer out I would go fuck
off somewhere because I didn't want I didn't want the customer asking me questions you asked the
advisor that's why and he would show them what I had shown him or told him about and you know all
that kind of stuff right the hell out of the way now if I'm filming it and creating a file
and sending it to the customer and the customer is approving it just like you said we're eliminating
a lot of the steps to the advisor while limiting a lot of them I think honestly Marshall what's
happening is the industry is trending towards they're going to eliminate the advisor position
Lance agrees 100% 100% other people say no and I get it there's always going to be these little
shops that are going to be holed out and you're going to you know people want to talk to a
customer it's the same I if I can walk up to the to the counter and order my McDonald's versus
walking to the kiosk I do because here's my silly brain the way it works I'll use the kiosk
if they give me a discount for using the kiosk right 100% I'll beg you you're going to I do
you're doing it they give me a discount if they don't f you you're gonna you're gonna ring my
shit through because that's your job yeah 100% you gave me 5% off my my $150 grocery bill
I listen I bring you I would be cashier of the week like yeah because I'm like I'm saving money
they are going to do this with this industry whether we like it or not it's already been happening
at the Nissan dealer I was at we had a kiosk now our clientele didn't like it so we got rid of it
and it didn't really work but I mean I'm not necessarily saying the kiosk is going to be the
thing but with this DVI thing the way the texts are getting onto it yeah it's going to
eliminate a lot of advisor positions and what I think is cool about it right I think it's
cool for one like I know that there's going to be guys that don't want to do it and I'm cool with that
I ain't saying everybody's got to do it but if you're a guy that's like a young guy a lot of the
young guys really dig it right because they're out there creating their own brands out here
you know what I'm saying I got you got a customer that calls and says hey I need to
make an appointment with David next week he always works on my car um you know just like
your barber you go to the same barber every time you go get your haircut I know I do I
got the same lady I always go to her because I like the way she does my hair um you know my
wife has the same lady she goes to all the time to dye her hair you know you're that's what you're
going to get you're going to get that you're out there creating your personal brand you should
get paid for that you know and I'm I've made the argument that the dealerships that say
you've got to do it in order to generate uh hours sold first of all that's horseshit
be it's illegal if it ain't illegal in some states it is I know it is for a fact because
if you're tasked with a job that has to be done they have to pay for it yeah the labored line
that says perform dvi there has to be some kind of pay time next to that line if you if you've
been duped into doing them for free stop stop tomorrow and say it's worth two tenths three tenths
whatever I miss them now at the shop that I'm at we don't have to do them I miss them because
it really helped my efficiency now there was caveats to it though because I've I've
said it before right if I do the same dvi next time the car's in and all this recommended work
wasn't done we've already fucked up at the front counter and we don't need to keep doing the dvi the
customer's not interested in really being a customer they're only interested in getting the
normal change done and a false sense of security because we don't tell them that there's anything
wrong they feel like their car is still very good you know yeah if your tires are at 330
seconds and they come in now three months later and at 230 seconds and you didn't have the money or
any interest in buying them at three to make me go through the same video again pisses me right off
it should be by here's what we have advisors for now this is my mind blowing yeah is they take
all the wrecks from last time and when they're taking the phone call for mrs smith to make the
appointment mrs smith last time we're in your tires are at 230 seconds like are you interested
having a set of tires shipped over before you've been here mrs smith mrs smith says yes great
that's what an advisor now should be doing right and i'm to the now the car's dispatched to me
i do the four tires on it i do another dvi if they have not even bothered and just expect me to
do another dvi and do the this time the tires are at 230 seconds this time the the oil leak
that was in yellow last time is red now it's gushing in the bay if you want me to do all
that and you're dropping the ball i ain't doing it i'm not doing it because at some point the wheels
fall off the cart and we're just we're just spinning we're not we're not making headway that's what an
advisor's role now should be not sit there and go um i can't i can't call her until your dvi's
finished well she's not even here for dvi this is another thing that drives me nuts she's here
for a check engine light on and we're giving her a complimentary dyag or complimentary dvi
excuse me um i need some questions answered about this you know when when this check engine
light popped on what was she doing okay well as soon as you have the dvi done i'll call her and ask
the fuck the fuck out of the chair your phone i'll call her myself like yeah it's just a little
shit like that that would drive me crazy or you would say i've talked about their shells
or marshal multiple times customer comes in it's got a timing fault it's low on engine
oil it's overdue for an oil change right uh okay it needs an oil change before i can continue with
the dyag um okay well they're not here for an oil change no frigging shit so you don't want
well is the oil change going to fix it what's the first step make sure there's enough oil in
the engine make sure it's good oil in the engine okay yeah if you if i have to split
hairs with you about that in the dvi i'm just gonna i'm just gonna walk out i'm just gonna be
you know i call that part of the dyag on those type of deals where it's like i run into those on
the big trucks something similar is that it'll come in with fuel codes right it'll be like
low high pressure fuel pressure and um i'm like okay cool i just go get me a filter and put it on
if y'all can't sell us like a filter to this customer that ain't on me i'm here to diagnosis
truck i put a filter on it i take a measurement of the restriction on that filter it was high
i put a filter on it it fixed it if you can't sell a filter to this customer in my hour dyag
you need to get the heck out of here because i'll call this customer right now and i'll sell this
yeah yeah same same type of deal you know go ahead so what do we do marshal to kind of bring
up the the the advisors that we're going to keep in the meantime before we completely phase
them out with the guy and want that kind of stuff how do we bring them up to where that's
not happening like you and i were just the two examples talking about like do they have to be
i don't want to think that they have to have been techs themselves but it's it's the pushback
that i've gotten where it's like well i don't want to make that phone call or i don't want to have
that conversation and i say listen all the time like you signed up to have tough conversations
all day long every day in this yeah you're trying to be a service driver and i know what
sucks and it's much easier to give good news and bad news but the reality is when it's good
news they're they're not even in your fucking shop right it's bad news it's broken that's why
they're there so get used to having hard conversations it becomes easier right and you
how do we get them up to speed on that marshal you know they just i think it's kind of trial
by fire because they just they have to like you said you have to have those tough
conversations you got to get used to it um you you know i so since i'm in a service
trek right and all all my guys that work with me we're all in service treks right so we have our own
customers we set our own schedules we are make ourselves available to our customers and we do
our own quotes we look up our own parts we bill all our arrows we close all our own arrows
we are our own service writers we don't have a service writer right so when i'm talking to
a customer i have to have conversations with a customer that i know sometimes is been having
a lot of problems with their truck this is how they make their money and i am about to tell them
that this engine needs replaced and it's 55 thousand dollars right and then my labor is
another five or six thousand to replace this engine right so i'm about to tell this customer
they need to come up with 60 plus thousand dollars yeah it's not easy and i think if you don't have
any empathy then you're not going to be able to have that conversation correctly with that customer
so it i think it's a good sign that a writer would say man it hurts when i have to tell a
customer this right and i get that but you still have to do it right not doing it doesn't help anybody
cur you know selling around it doesn't help anybody yeah you have to sell it like that's the deal
reducing the price doesn't help no the opposite we did that forever it's like the transmission
we started the conversation with right imagine that you're calling them up telling them that
their choice on using a two thousand dollar pto versus a four thousand dollar pto
cost them a twenty thousand dollar transmission right yeah right like that's not an easy conversation
to have because it's going to be met with really oh i'm not sure i don't believe that i heard that
you know blah blah blah blah you go on and we run into that too you know it you have to sell
through it you have to you have to be prepared and you sometimes i talk that conversation in my
head like how's this gonna go i walk it through in my head okay i'm gonna tell this guy this is
what's going on and i found that it's always better to just rip the band-aid off right just hit
him with it right off the rip and i like to do the crap sandwich i hit him with some good
hit him with the bad and then i hit him with some good but here's the good news you're
going to get a warranty with this engine right it's going to be covered from the oem for three
years you know i know that that's going to be hard to come up with this money in the
situation right now but listen if we can just if we can come up with it and then we get this
engine installed you're gonna have a good warranty uh it's nationwide so you're not gonna
have any problems going forward for the next three years as long as you do your maintenance
properly there shouldn't be any issues um and then you know you hit him with the good stuff
at the end like you you know that's part of the deal though you know what i mean it does
hurt though and like i said if you if you doesn't hurt then i don't feel like you can sell
real well you know what i mean and i had an interesting conversation with uh an episode
that'll come out and i think in about two weeks time with Curtis Gardner and Curtis mentioned how
like he's been trained on his dbi's where it's like and i've heard the same thing i've sat
through coaches and they tell the same thing you got to make sure to show them the good
stuff too right and and i kind of always laugh at that because i have worked on some a lot
of cars in my career that there was more bad than good you know he would say so the good
stuff would be like okay so the tires are at seven thirty seconds that's a good tire unfortunately
yeah the three are bad
you know blow out and you put one new one on or unfortunately um they're winters and this
is august and they're you know they're they're noisy and they're and they're peeling right off
real bad because you know wrong compo unfortunately you had to you know local tire store who didn't
check anything and that's great you got four new tires on there but you have a broken coil spring
and a bad ball joint and you know the car's got a rust hole through the subframe and you know maybe
it wasn't worth four tires that's reality for a lot of us you know this whole idea of
well you got to show the good too i don't necessarily believe that they're all that
concerned with the good like i know we can overwhelm them with like everything is bad
everything is shit you can only ask for for sure but if it's all well documented and it's
legit stuff like yeah you can see that this car is really rusty you can see that your brake rotors
are really grooved and really rotted over it you know we didn't drive it at 60 miles an hour on
the highway but i bet you when you hit the brake it probably shakes for a little bit and they're like
yeah kind of does like i don't have to give them all the good i just have to focus on what
you know a what they're there for b the other stuff that didn't know about i have to make
them aware to go and make them aware and go all the wipers are good or or the cabin
air filter doesn't need to be changed this time or oh the engine air filter is nice and clean
like i i just you know yeah the battery passes of course the battery passes the car
sorry if they there's no warning light on like a course that's in their mind right that kind of
stuff is is important but i don't believe in that nonsense that we have to like show them the
good with the bad i think we just advocate for them document document document and present you
know it goes back to the 300 percent rule like you know do you in your line of work do you follow
that at all are you familiar with it right 300 percent rule no hit me with it so 300 percent rule
is that you you inspect 100 of the cars that come in now that gets into because like i've seen
guys that customer comes in just needs a set of wiper blades they do a full blown inspection
they rack it they shake it down they look for leaks like that's a little overkill
but essentially you inspect 100 of the cars you document 100 of the required work and services
and you present 100 of the required services that's the 300 percent rule um it's met with a lot of
people that are on the fence about right now marshall some people have adopted it and they
absolutely love it and it's worked it's it's one of them tools marshall that can turn
the shop around from being just fix what the customer is asking for to get into that
profit level of like we're starting to eliminate some breakdowns we're starting to prolong the
life of these cars because we've got them thinking about you know proactive but there's a lot of people
marshall that like they they feel like it kind of feels yeah it kind of feels like to me that
you'd beat an every customer over the head to be honest you know what i mean but in your line of
work like your customers when they have a car or a truck that they make a living with right it's
it's a it's a right you know i think that you just instinctively tell them everything that the car
the truck needs because it's right well that's literally how they make their money right and
so like what i do is i do inspect every every truck that i look at right because i'm the last one
that touched it and the liabilities are on a different scale so like when i look at a big
truck i need to make sure that all the safety requirements are met right all the doors have
to open and close because if there's emergency the driver needs to be get out there's all the
dot requirements right so i i do a quick walk around and i've been doing it so long that i
know things that i definitely have to check every time you know the deal sure and so
there's certain things that i want to check every single time and i train my apprentices
this way put your hands on absolutely everything because one time you're gonna grab something even
if you don't know what it is and you're gonna go that's not right they don't normally do that i don't
know what that thing is but i'm gonna go get a mentor and i'm gonna say hey what is going on here
because when i normally grab this it doesn't normally move right you're gonna grab something
it's gonna flop around it's gonna do something weird and so i teach my guys you put your hands
on everything especially steering components brake components drive shaft component drivetrain
components you put your hands on everything right you grab the steering wheel i grab it around i move
it around i grab the shifter i make sure the shifter isn't extra floppy you put your hands on
everything and one day you're gonna grab something you're gonna go oh that ain't right i was i was
taught early on when i was working in my truck shop early early on in my career we would get on a
creeper and we'd grease the truck right we didn't have a pit yeah everything was in and my mentor
taught me marshal every time you see a brake chamber you hit it with your fist you're listening for that
ting ting ting you're listening for that spring and and and now i haven't been under a truck on a
creeper in 20 years but it would be instantly that if i rolled through i would still be going like
this you know yeah yeah well it's the same deal you know uh you're gonna smack something one
day and this is you're gonna go oh there's something wrong with that you know what i mean
it's the same kind of concept and you know um so we do safeties on i'd call it a safety
you know i do a safety on every truck i look at because you know the liabilities are so large
that if that truck leaves and i didn't let my customer know that there was a safety related
thing and they get in an accident we i this is a term i don't know if you guys use it in
light duty but in automotive but we like to say the proverbial school bus full of nuns right
that thing's gonna leave the brakes are gonna fail it's gonna hit a school bus full of nuns
and then you know and i say a school bus full of pregnant nuns yeah it's gonna hit a school bus
full of pregnant nuns and you're gonna go to prison because it doesn't matter it doesn't
matter what yeah it don't matter what customer what business you're working for if you're working
on a truck and it leaves there and it gets in an accident and there's a fatality you are probably
gonna go to prison if your documentation is not up to snuff yeah and see that's the thing with this
red seal like everybody talks about it and you know i was for the long time i was on the fence
about like i think you should have to research and i still think you should up here in canada
but here's the thing with the red seal if you should do something like that that causes you to
and it's not so much like accidents happen the guys have had the red seal they've had tires
fall off they didn't lose the red seal but when you safety a car to sell up here an mto ministry
transport of ontario checks it over and they find a gross negligence multiple times on multiple
cars i talked about a couple weeks ago there was a lady she bought a car uh it was a hinday product
she had it five weeks the engine failed who would have thought it yeah pretty standard so she takes
it to her regular guy to get the engine put in and uh the regular guy looks at it goes
this car should have never been safety and sold there's holes in the subframe or anything
else now it had been safety that a canadian tire up here which is canadian tire josh
should probably filled in they're the biggest in the industry up here right like they are it
well canadian tire gave her five thousand dollars because that was what she paid for the car
and then that they lost their ability to write safeties for two months slap on the wrist
i don't know it didn't say what happened to that technician that wrote that safety i'm gonna
bet that probably he maybe lost his job but i bet you he kept his coq we are all up here in
canada if you're not you should be but a lot of us i talk to all the time like we take it very
seriously where i work when i write on safety because if mto decides to get involved the
first thing you're gonna want to do is take my license from me yeah and without that license
i'm unemployable and it's so weird marshal because it's like i'm as smart as i was the day
before but all of a sudden that coq i'm not going to get hired anywhere because i'm a
ability i can't work for them so in some ways like you guys don't have it down in the states
but here's the other plus to this it is something i think that once you have it you truly really value
your integrity so just i don't want to say a little bit better but you value your your
liability a little bit more i guess yeah like you don't let shit go that shouldn't go for
anybody i've had i've had employers that wanted to fire me because i wouldn't sign safeties
because they felt that it was like and i'm like you sign it then oh wait you don't have
yeah a hundred percent and guess that guess who has the power here me and it's a shitty way to
have to deal with people sometimes right but it's the way it goes because if they take
him from me i'll never get it back they will yeah me they'll never let me re-qualify they'll
never let me take the test again i'm done i'm done i am now cutting hair or dancing or
something right yeah different you know different line of work all together it's it's a
serious thing it really is you know yeah you you know like i said i i tell my guys all time like
you have to take the stuff serious what we do is very serious in nature we get paid well
and we get paid in a fashion that there is absolutely no reason why we should let a
vehicle go that is unsafe at least at least in a manner that it's from us you know what i'm saying
of a poor quality repair because you you get you get paid by the hour buddy you know what i mean
like you get paid to do a quality job i don't care if that's a five-hour job and it takes you
10 it will leave here perfect your job will be perfect yeah and and uh that is an important
thing that i think uh to your point like sometimes the flat rate stuff misses out on
yeah and here's the thing the flat rate thing is is to come back to that
you can have a couple jobs that go bad and you're flat rate tech and all of a sudden then that job
that should be jammed for you and you would take a little bit of care for you're gonna rush it
through right because you're trying to make up right that's the one that bites you
mm-hmm that's the one you're always you're always chasing you're always chasing yeah and that's
that's why with me i just don't like i don't like who i am when i work flat rate anymore
because i get to be very or even even incentivize right incentivize to me is the same thing hourly
with a vote is the same thing i'm still chasing a number and i don't like that because i'm
chasing the number because i've immediately become more critical if everyone and everything
that might have slowed the process down this is something we really should talk about more
in the industry that's why why is there such a distaste for parts guys marshal well because
they can slow the process down why such a distaste for advisors well because sometimes not
only do they give the labor way but like their scatterbrain sometimes and they forget to do
shit that slows the process down if i'm always chasing a number i am looking instead of looking
within me i'm looking at all the other people that are holding me back from that number it's
just human nature it's way where whereas if i'm just tasked with doing a quality repair
i only have to focus on doing a quality repair that's it we owe that to our customers
we owe that each and every time you know when i pay for something i want to get what i paid
for yeah right and when i send my wife over with the car to get it worked on i expect a quality
repair because i'm going to put my wife in that car i'm going to put my kids in that car this is
real talk i expect a quality repair that i can trust my family with you know what i mean otherwise
i'd have done that shit myself i wouldn't have sent it to you know what i mean yeah and so
go ahead that's that's just the reality of it you know would you put your wife in that car
you know what i mean are you finding it you're having a hard time getting good quality where you are
you know um i've been pretty we just recently purchased a new car and um because my wife's a
nurse and uh she just passed her nurse in school she's working in the nicu and working
with little micro babies and uh you know we had uh i had been the only person working because
i was paying for my wife's college and paying our mortgage trying to do everything myself
now she's uh contributing which is awesome and uh so she just bought herself her first car
it's her second car but she's bought a new car for herself and uh our cars have been long
paid off and both of our cars were new in 2012 and so i had a i have a gmc train and i got
a mini cooper because my wife loves a mini cooper and it's the all-wheel drive one they're both
all-wheel drive because we came from Wyoming right i have put transfer cases in both of those cars
and i'm on the third mini cooper transfer case yeah three once a year i'm putting a transfer
case that i hate mini cooper's but anyway it's a cool fun little car but it's a race car right
race cars you you have to work on them all the time it's just the nature of it so
so because of the financial burdens i have had to work on my cars all the time so i told my wife i
said i don't care what you get go pick a new car buy it because i don't want to work on it anymore
i don't want to work on our cars and then i said after you buy your car probably six months after
that i'm gonna buy a new car because i don't want to work on my cars anymore i want somebody
else to work on and i'm gonna trade them in for the warranties out i'm gonna buy another new car
yeah i and i i'm the same right right now i should be flushing the like i should be i should be
servicing the jeep the transmission should be and i started on first thing in the morning now and
i feel a little misfire for like the first you know 10 seconds and now everybody's gonna comment
it's gonna be like oh it's a better start needs headgasket shut up it doesn't need headgasket
that's not what so i gotta ask you a personal question do you still believe in mopar oh yeah
100% okay yeah you'd be proud of me you'd be proud of me then we got a jeep hey congratulations right
on yeah she got her grand Cherokee L which you know when she went there she asked them like hey
can we see your guys's shop and they said oh yeah of course so they walked around the shop
and she said okay i don't want a jeep wagon here right because she said the shop was slap full
a brand new jeep wagon here so she said i'm glad i walked through there because i was looking at
those or the grand Cherokee yeah she said i didn't see a single grand Cherokee in there so i said
i'm going with a group jeep grand Cherokee because i didn't see any in the shop now i love
the way the wagon here looks call me crazy but i just dude i do too we love it but
but i hear so many nightmare stories on tiktok and guys are posting videos up like
they are it's like you said they're fucking constantly working on yeah weird she said the shop
was playing full of them it's like a Kia you know or a high on day they're just trash and apparently
it's all electrical problems like all is electrical not just scared like does electric
problem scare me not it doesn't scare me but like the thinking that like i would own that
and in five years when it's out of warranty i would keep it is is no yes like when it's got
50 modules in it and five different networks and all dude i don't want it in my climate
hell no no i'm totally with you i have okay so like totally off base but like so one of my
municipalities they want us to work on all their white vehicles so and we we call the white vehicles
f-250s and below all the chargers that they use for police cars we work on all of those
i have a technician that is dedicated to light duty he works there every single day he's got
a lift that the customer supplies this him a bay a lift everything he keeps a toolbox there
it's a whole deal well so i he that's my apprentice that i was talking about earlier you
know my almost two-year guy so he's been doing tons of light duty stuff and i figured out
that he has an ability and affinity to the light duty work so who am i to keep the man from making
money so i let him do his thing so he's been doing primarily a lot of light duty work i haven't
forgot about him so i'm making sure that's why we're doing this transmission because i don't
want him to fall behind in his oem training and things like that so but he enjoys the
light duty work so like i said who am i to stand in his way so i let him do it and um but that being
said is you and i both know apprentices can't go out and just buy a ten thousand dollar scanner
or eight thousand or even a thousand dollar scanner you know so i i had to buy all of the
automotive stuff that i would need for him to do his job um you know the i didn't have to i'm
sure the shop would have but it's nice to just have your own stuff you know the deal
yeah and uh i mean i got my own Zeus and everybody thinks i'm nuts and i you know
as i use it less and less i i think i'm nuts too because it's like i hooked it up to uh 2022
Volvo XC90 or something last week to see about if i could put the parking brake you know retracted
yeah that's one of the reasons why i had to buy a scanner was for those freaking park break
things dude what the hell somebody said and you know of course it comes up and says oh no you
need to buy this additional cable or which is essentially a different dongle and i'm like
so i asked the snap-on dealer i'm like how much is that dongle and she's like a thousand bucks
oh my gosh and i'm like uh uh auto does you know this $500 auto tool doesn't need a secondary
dongle to do what the snap on my own zoo so like i'm paying $300 a month for subscription
and payment on a use Zeus i've got two years left i think to pay it off and like the thing
gathers more and more dust every day because i'm i'm getting by with generic data and and a code
code reader and then if i can't back up the brake calipers through it you know i'm doing the old
school way i'm shooting power around to that i'm backing the thing dude i won't like i'm scared
to death to do it on a euro but i've done it on high end days i do it on toyotas and then i see other
guys this is like a guy tiktok is good like you know electronic parking brake guy or something he's
built a little tool with some switches and some leads and yeah i've seen that guy too yeah so i
probably shouldn't be that scared but i it's it goes against my training that i you know that way
that's all i'm frustrated with the the here's a plug for chrisler um chrisler a lot of them
you do it right through the radio cluster right right through the right of the control like for
does that too it's all these other stinking cars are now they're putting it behind the you need an
auto off subscription and behind the screen which i was yeah i was about to just mention that so i
just had to get that um i ordered this cable for the autel that is to bypass that and it's
behind the radio is the dodge ram so my my apprentice was working at dodge ram the other day
and it had that deal where what do they call it the um secure gateway the yeah secure gateway
and he was like i can't clear these codes i just made the repairs and i feel confident the repair
fixed it but i i can't clear the codes and we're you know the customers that we did to work for
is like well we can just send it over to dodge to do a quick for us you know and i was like no
we should be able to do that so then i reached out to a buddy of mine uh richard and i was like
hey how do i do this because i don't have a freaking clue and he's like okay so if you have this cable
you can you can plug it in behind the radio you unplug the gateway module and you plug the two
things in and then it'll hook right up and i have a an autel maxi sis uh like elite pro or
something i don't know but it does a lot of crap and it will program too and that's why i got it
for program those um restraint modules and stuff right because i was doing a lot of those in the
fords when we first started doing a light duty work for this customer well my apprentice was
and um so anyway long story short is i ended up getting a auto off like at the beginning of the
week because it was the same deal i needed to do this and i was like you know what it's only 50
bucks a year or something like that let's just go ahead and do it and it actually makes a lot we
don't have to go plug in and do all that crazy stuff the auto off thing it's like it just
made sense and you know but yeah it's crazy it is crazy and you know part of me is like
i understand why they do it and then the other part of me is like the the idea that they hide the
parking brake behind that to me is just it's just it's just completely should be against
the right to repair act because anybody that's going in to just do a simple break job i'm not
trying to download your song list or get all your info out of your car you know what i mean
yeah i'm not trying to steal that information that everybody's trying to i just want to do your
going back to it i want to do your job properly safely you know effectively as fast as possible
and efficient i can't do that if you lock it out and yes and here's the other thing we're
talking about it's in the auto off cool it's in the auto off great what if the dlc doesn't
communicate and now i've got to spend extra minutes and tell the customer hey i want to
do your break job but your dlc is all f'd up and it's not communicating and now i can't do your
rear brakes like they're gonna look at you like you're crazy like they're not gonna be here you
should be able to do all those from the dash yeah 100 i think you get a sequence or whatever and
you know like the like the crisis you can hear them back up and then i can shut the key off i
can go back i pull up on the switch twice when i'm done it recalibrates done beautiful yeah
that's why i love chrysler man i i just have always been and it's not just because the brand
i'm it's familiar with it's like guys go all the hammy trucks you know the hammy's got this failure
not for yeah seeing the news gm trucks like the engines oh i know a toyota's got a recall on their
on their engines now like i was watching the guy this morning tiktok like i'm sorry but people
people that call chrysler crap like they're not perfect but you can't tell me that ford or gm in
the domestic market and i don't talk about the other stuff because i don't know enough is all
that better you can't tell me that they're all that better than chrysler you can't well and that's
like you know my wife and i was talking about her going to your car is was the same deal you
know she was worried she loves the tahos but she was like i don't i'm worried about the engine
she's like you told me the engines are bad and i was like they are bad and i really don't want to
worry about that and their fix was just put another change the oil and put another oil cap on it like
that come on guys you know what i mean so i was telling her like yeah let's try to stay away from
that but other than that you know i mean they're all they all got their problems you know and
we're going to buy something under warranty so you know yeah and the thing that scares you
about the pentastars that are out there right now is the fact that the camshafts are like
400 000 back ordered that's what scares me right everybody's like well you're driving one jeff
you know you're going to need a camshaft eventually and i keep telling myself knock on
wood you know i'm going to keep changing my oil at 3000 miles which is like not even half the
oil life that you know 60 and that's going to keep it i'm knocking on wood here that that's
going to keep it from like uh you know ever needing a camshaft my buddy at the dealership
he laughs at me and he says it won't matter anyway but i you know he was my apprentice
sales still say that he might be yeah yeah it's just finding the time anymore to work on my
own stuff that's that's the kicker i would rather face than work on my own shit you know
dude i'm saying i like i like watching y'all's decision stuff that you post on tiktok every
once in a while you know we've been doing this uh little side quest and um we do this
mentorship with other mechanics and so i've got a couple people that have been in the industry for
you know 25 plus years um uh one guy uh rey her name is i'll shout him out and um gene ridleback
is the other one and she's awesome amazing lady and um and rey awesome in his own right you know
like platform director you know started from the bottom now we're here kind of guy
and just has a lot of advice to give and so you know there'll be four or five of us
and we're all in the in the little meeting together we try to do it like a couple times a month and then
we just talk to him about problems that we're having in the dealership and you know things
you know and he gives us good advice on how to overcome things and um you know how to
be successful and you know sometimes we have meetings about financials where we talk about
like because a lot of the guys that i hang out with are you know prospects they're looking to be
service managers or or they're already forming or they're looking to be a foreman those are kind of
people i like to surround myself with so it's really good to have someone like that that you
can ask questions about like yeah how does the financial work and how does this affect that
and you know why is my service manager asking me about this and you know things like that
where he can kind of pull that curtain back and say hey this is why typically somebody would
make a choice about fixing that particular lift or replacing that lift because this is how
the dealership pays for that and this is how the you know so then it's not they don't for
some reason service managers and gms and stuff they don't like to explain that to us they just
say no yeah you know they just say no and then we're like okay well that's me you know what i mean
we just see all the money that we're they're making off our backs and we don't understand why
they make the choices we make did they make and and that's why i need to reach out more i've been
summer's busy for me but like that's to give a shout out to our mutual friend josh taylor
like he has been such a a great insight into so much more of the understanding behind the
right of the dealer that i don't understand now sometimes we're not always like peas and
carrots him and i because like you know he we're not always on the same page i guess is what i'm
trying to say where i think how the how the tech should be paid and you know like he said like the
dbi they should want to do it because it generates work um you know where i'm on that completely
against it but i mean like i have so much respect for josh because he's there isn't much in the
dealer that he hasn't done you know what i mean right right to it that i don't have i only
have it from a very jaded very not a very like you know underappreciated position whereas he has had to
sit in all the different chairs and he knows comes with every chair i guess is what i'm trying to say
i have so much respect for my i i'm we keep saying you know the summer we got to get together
through the summer here we are halfway through august and i haven't even tried to say because
he was like you know he put he put this little group together you know there's a they're just
folks from his podcast and you know we have our little 10 mil group that we do our little
podcast stuff with with josh and so it kind of started with the 10 mil group and then as he
created this other group with people from his podcast we started kind of pulling some of them
ones in the ones that we you know they're all fantastic so don't get me wrong but
there was just ones that mesh with our thought processes and things like that so we kind of
just started kind of bringing them into our little fold and then you know i got to think
in well it'd be cool if we had somebody we could talk to about crazy stuff you know
and so that's how it all kind of started and then you know the guys in our and we have a
little group chat and they be throwing stuff in the group chat like hey how do you deal with you
know this or how do you deal with that or you know my bay mate that you know i have a bay
mate that is into other dudes you know and i don't know how to talk to him about it right
like real talk like that's some real stuff you know and that might be something that
another technician is dealing with or or my bay mate is transitioning and they it's really hard
to talk to them because i've known them as john and now they're jane and they get mad at me when
i call him john because i've been working with him for 10 years and you know how do i go about
having a real conversation with that person and things like that and so you know we lean we lean
a lot on on gene for that type of stuff because her soft skills are just so insane that you know
she can really walk you through a whole if you tell her the whole deal and just be honest about
like this is the way it makes me feel i'm having a difficult time talking to my bay mate about
that or talking to my manager about that how should i talk to that person you know and she's so fantastic
about just giving you and you will write it down you will write it down because you're like dude i'm
using that tomorrow you know i'm gonna talk about that with that person tomorrow in this way
and it's just she does this too whenever she starts the meeting she'll say um i want everybody
to give me a win from today just one just one win right and so now in our group chat like every
other day somebody will jump in there and say hey everybody post their wins from today post give
me one win and and sometimes you have to dig for it like i know i do sometimes i'm like dude today
freaking sucked but my apprentice that i had overcame an obstacle that he had in a repair
and you know what it made me feel really good because um you know when they got it done they
had that smile on their face and they was pumped up about it and i was jazzed up for them you know
what i'm saying yeah so you know sometimes you have to dig deep for that win but i think that
that is a pretty powerful little tool that uh she she just gave us you know for free
i have to think about that too because like i had a day yesterday where it just was like
tires that were supposed to be delivered didn't get delivered so i had literally
the car sat on my hoist because i'd already taken the tires off the rims before i went home the night
before yeah i was just dead just dead and we only have two hoists two texts two hoists that's it that's
all we got because we use car lot we're only reconnecting and i'm sitting here going like well
how many cars can i kind of like test drive to get an idea about what they're gonna need how
they're gonna drive and start making notes like so i can get ahead of this thing but really
there's not a whole lot i can do all i can do is drive them and then go up brakes feel good
or brakes feel like shit you know and and start to work the tires and stuff do the basic checks on
the safety that i can and then i'm i'm on hold again because i'm waiting for these tires and by noon it
was starting to really mess with my mind like i was like i'd had the the morning from hell i was so
irritable because the old me is like i'm not making any stinking hours this sucks productions
for today and and then i snapped out of it in the afternoon i'm like why don't i care
like they're not looking at that they've already told us all we don't look at your production
we just need these cars to be fixed properly sold to these customers so that they leave that the car
lot happy with what they purchased you know nothing's falling off they're they're working
the way they're supposed to that's it we understand they're used cars like i've got a
grand grand charity i got a Cherokee a 15 that we sold it and then all of a sudden this
electrical problem came out of nowhere right that is obviously the reason it was at the
friggin auction that first yeah yeah you know it would happen very intermittently and i fixed a
random overlay to the left front wheelspeed sensor for a wispy fold that was the last
time i touched the car and then it came back with all this other shit and when i had done
the overlay i had seen that there had been a mouse nest under the hood and i'm like oh right
so i fixed all did you and then of course when this happens my brain goes uh it must be that mouse
nest again but i'm backed up with like all these cars that have to get done by month end and they're
like what do you want to do with this jeep jeep i'm like do you think we can send to the dealer
because honestly i said i think my Zeus is missing codes that are coming up that i can't get because
you know security way and stuff and i said like honestly it's so intermittent i don't know where
to go because i don't have a loss of being a case for the ship to the dealer the guy the dealer had it
one day and he looks at it goes oh yeah we we see this all the time there's two modules under the
rear bumper it's the uh parking brake module and the transfer case module they fill up with water
cause all kinds of shit um yeah it's 2,500 bucks for two modules and some jump our harnesses
be fixed next week here i am playing with my brain going it's the last thing you touch jeff
yeah yeah and all that kind of stuff and then i find out it's like nothing that to do with me
that goes to the machine marshal that's been there for probably since the last owner of that car
right and then it went off of course we bought it so do i feel good that it's fixed with the
customer yes the old me would have been beat up beating myself up right i'd be worried about
the cost of it all that kind of stuff the new me is just like it is what it is man we're
dealing with machinery and we're dealing with used cars and we just keep laughing that the joke is
it was at the auction for a reason that's 100 100 yeah uh so the little win thing i gotta reach it
and thank you know josh for that and thank you for it because um some days i forget to even do that
you know what i mean and and lucas is on me a little time to think about it but
this podcast keeps me so busy anymore and then so you know all the other things that come along with
the conversations that are happening behind things like you and i have and it's just like it's hard
to keep up but i gotta remember the little wins so um i want to thank you for coming on tonight
this was a lot of fun yeah i'm sorry we had so much technical problems but uh no i mean if we
do another one i'll double triple check that i'm in a good i normally am out here on the patio
and i never have any problems but uh we went 70 minutes now and it didn't and i know so it's
i can't blame your wi-fi i just i'm gonna blame zen cap but uh where can anybody find you marshal
well i'm most active on linkedin i do a little bit on uh like if you look at marshal shelvin on
instagram you can see me there yeah um but i do most of my real deal content is on linkedin
um mainly because i i prefer the professional side of the things because i my goal is to
show people how professional we are as technicians right so that's why i lean a little harder there
because if you want to go see funny stuff about mechanic stuff you can see it on tiktok and
instagram and all those places but if you want to see how professional we can be that's where
that linkedin stuff comes in you know i talk about industry problems things that are kind of
hot buttons i'm intermingled with a lot high you know lots of management folks are there
so i try my best to uh highlight those industry problems that we're dealing with from the technician
level and honestly i feel like i'm getting a lot of traction where you know people are listening
yeah you know that's the biggest thing i find that you know in the last year this is really
taken off and my phone my phone's beeping constantly with like some of the shorts that
i've done with josh and some of the shorts that i've done with some of the other guests
where people are commenting they're going on six months old and they're still like people
commenting every day like it is it is so cool to see that a little conversation that i have
with you or a little conversation that i have with josh is touching thousands of people
it's crazy and that's what it's about you know yeah that's how we're changing this industry i don't
i don't anybody that says it's it's the same as what it was five years ago you're not paying
attention because it is really changing the last five years and and i haven't even been doing this
five years it's been like two in a bit but i started to see it five years ago and then it's like
it's like a rocket ship now the way that things are going like the way yeah when i talk to
young people and they go oh i i know of you know i know of scanner dana now where i know
like i've been a pine hole five years ago nobody hardly except for a nerd group knew about those
guys and now like all these young people are are knowing about this so i mean i joked that like
if if i could walk into a shop one day and i see one of my decals on somebody's tool
but i didn't give it to them that's gonna be pretty cool so yeah thank you brother for
being on here tonight um as always i enjoy the conversations we have and uh i'd love to have
you back again yeah yeah you just gotta tell me when i'll be there well definitely do it then
everybody as always i love you all thanks for listening we'll talk to you soon
hey if you could do me a favor real quick and like comment on and share this episode i'd
really appreciate it and please most importantly set the podcast to automatically
download every tuesday morning as always i'd like to thank our amazing guests for their
perspectives and expertise and i hope that you'll please join us again next week on this journey
of change thank you to my partners in the asa group and to the change in the industry podcast
remember what i always say in this industry you get what you pay for
here's hoping everyone finds their missing 10 millimeter and we'll see you all again next time
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