Staying Motivated

In this video, David and Lucas answer emails with viewer questions. They talk about staying motivated to do the job at the highest level possible.
One way to stay motivated is by using an exceptional shop management system like Shop-Ware!
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[@oldsilkhat7893]

We used to have a great motivator/pay plan in our shop. We received a dollar for every total hour turned in the shop as long as you worked that day. For instance if the shop turned 300 hours, at the end of the week you got an extra $300 in your check. This made it a mission to help every tech in the shop to turn as many hours as possible. If you were stuck on diag, it's ok your coworkers doing gravy compensated your day. Then they gave us all raises and took that away, now it's cut throat again and shop morale is at an all time low.

[@ChangingTheIndustry]

That's a pretty slick idea!

[@noahnowak2604]

I think one of the strongest motivators for techs is like David said, the adaptive environment of forward-thinking independent shops. Techs who work hand in hand with ownership to understand what the businesses goals and aspirations are will understand their career path and future compensation projections better and know how they can make an impact, rather than just going to work every day. In the end, people working together towards a common cause is a huge motivator and knowing that the owner is commited to improving everyone in the company's lives is a great cause!

[@Craigs_car_care]

If you have the correct balance of USP's, service and competence you can bill what is required to correctly run your business and still have very happy clients. This includes knowing and understanding that not all clients are your clients. It is helpful to listen to the caller or person standing at the counter and have a shop to send them to. We have two other shops that are very honest and do good work, but do not offer everything we bring to the table and for the clients that only want the bare minimum or less than we offer this can be a great way to let them build that relationship and still love you.

[@ChangingTheIndustry]

Exactly!!! We do the exact same thing! We have shops that are a great fit for clients that might not be a great fit for us!

[@yourpro3653]

I thoroughly enjoy y'alls podcast and have been binge listening to the different episodes. However this clip was lacking and it would be great if you guys revisited this topic and expounded some more. It would be great to hear you guys talk about this from an owners perspective as well as an employees perspective and give examples along with philosophy.

[@paul2482]

I've worked in dealerships that had monthly awards for the best in certain categories.(most alignment upsells, most hours highest proficiency, lowest comeback rate) The problem was the same three or four people out of fourteen or sixteen guys would win. This demotivates some people and others just ignore it altogether. The best way in my opinion would be to set individual goals and individual rewards. Lets motivate ALL employees EVERY month.

[@ChangingTheIndustry]

Some people game the system. While gameification has its benefits, it can also become toxic.

[@crashm1]

Employee of the month has never been a thing for me. What has been motivating me at the current job is getting raises without asking for them, and having a boss who is always cheerful and happy to be there. The combo has me earning 30% more than any other job I've had which has me within striking distance of 90K this year and if we include the transportation fuel, tool allowance and health insurance he pays for I'm over. What he gets out of it is gross sales numbers that double those of his last tech, and someone who actively wants to see the shop hit the goals set. We added a C+/B tech to the shop in Oct and just changed the pay plan to incentivize improving shop productivity. Our goal for 2023 is to turn 850,000 out of a 3 bay gas station which is doable if we run at 90% productivity and an ARO of 700 on 90 cars a month. That is also doubling what we did this year. If we manage to turn those numbers I'll more than double what I earned at the last three jobs.

[@ChangingTheIndustry]

That's amazing! For one, I think its easy to let the stresses of the day get to you as an owner. And those stresses may manifest in a number of ways, from being grouchy and intolerable to anxious and disconnected. Often, these emotions or their resulting actions are difficult to interpret for the staff, leaving them insecure - wondering about the future their employment and trying to guess at how the owner feels. Congratulations on finding what sounds like a great employer! I know money isn't everyone's primary motivator but I also know it's easy as a business owner to look at the business account as a personal emergency fund (for lack of a better term). They often forget what it's like to not have that extra security, that in the event things get tight you've got something to fall back on. Because of this, they often don't recognize the importance of a true livable wage for their staff. It sounds like you've got a good boss who sees the importance of taking care of their people! In regards to the shop, I'd tell your boss you want to target more! It's doable, I promise! In fact, now that we've moved to the bigger shop, I almost miss the smaller one 🤣🤣🤣

[@crashm1]

@@ChangingTheIndustry He is a unicorn for sure and I'm not sure how I had the sense to take this gig over the other two I was considering at the time. I'm kinda bummed I only have about five to seven years left in me as a wrench.

[@crashm1]

@@ChangingTheIndustry "In regards to the shop, I'd tell your boss you want to target more! It's doable, I promise! In fact, now that we've moved to the bigger shop, I almost miss the smaller one 🤣🤣🤣" I like to leave a bit of room to over achieve. The goal this year was 375K and we will hit 425K by the end of next week .

[@danielclodfelter]

I too have struggled to stay motivated. It’s real world for us techs. For me it’s always been nothing more than management noticing my efforts. When that’s not present motivation deff slacks off.

[@ChangingTheIndustry]

I can understand that 100%, Daniel! I'm not always good at showing my team how much I appreciate them, either. I think that's a common, management not noticing efforts! How do you like for them to recognize those efforts?

[@danielclodfelter]

@@ChangingTheIndustry honestly just a hey doing good job or we see you killin it hard lately take half day off paid something the sort not much honestly.

[@danielclodfelter]

And it really don’t even have to be anything monitory. Just something that’s actually genuine not a fake effort at it.

[@leefhead1]

My problem with the "highest performer" getting a bonus thing is, its only based off of one metric. selling hours. Ive always been a diag guy. Absolute best case scenario, doing diag, youre getting 100% efficiency. We all know even thats impossible, because there are times between jobs, breaks, time waiting at the parts department, ect, with no possibility of making it up on the next job. The guy doing brakes and ball joints all day long is going to be 130% efficient, and me being 70-80% efficient, i look like a bad guy. Why do I (and anyone else that is/was in my position) get penalized because I (and anyone else) can do a job that most techs cant? This system demotivates the best techs and motivates the guys slamming brakes and front ends all day.

[@ChangingTheIndustry]

Absolutely correct, Lee! It's a huge problem for our technicians and our industry as a whole! As Paul Danner has often eluded to, folks don't appreciate or value testing - and instead of educating the consumer? We've often rolled over and accepted it. This unwillingness to help the consumer understand why it's important to test not guess is one of the key reasons shops don't charge what they should for testing. I'll give them that once upon a time, testing wasn't what it is today. But we must fix it now! I often see a ton of diag training at events and always wondered why - over the years I've realized it wasn't because we weren't training our people to diag that we didn't have diag guys... It was that there was no incentive to become a diag guy....

[@leefhead1]

@@ChangingTheIndustry i dont think this could have been said any better.

[@crashm1]

@@ChangingTheIndustry If you price your diag time correctly AND have a guy who is actually good at it it is profitable. Price it like any other labor then yeah it doesn't reward the shop or the tech for being better.

[@dr.oconnellsgarage5707]

How do you handle cherry picking of work? How should work be distributed?

[@ChangingTheIndustry]

Interesting question - I recently saw a video where it was suggested work be dispatched based on when the first tech arrived in the morning 🙄 I personally believe that it should be dispatched according to the technician who has the most skill or experience in the given area. That being said, this method does little to bring those who may be inexperienced to the next level by giving them experience, meaning the dispatcher must be actively working to create an opportunity where the tech not only gains experience but can do so while someone who can guide them has availability. Most production shops just lost their cookies at that idea 🤮. As far as cherry-picking the work? We dispatch the work in my shop so it can't exactly be picked. But I've heard horror stories of, and even caught myself dispatching unfairly. I think there are some reasons that may happen, and often it's blamed on the advisor or dispatcher having a closer relationship with one tech. While that may be true, as an owner who handles dispatch, it's usually confidence or trust issues between the advisor and tech. I can see the reflection of that trust or lack thereof in the close ratio and hours for that technician. Maybe it's the write-up, maybe it's getting burnt from a misdiag, maybe it's not properly setting expectations. But the only solution for that, in most cases, is forced trial by fire - start dispatching heavily to the tech again and see how things pan out. If the shop is busy, and there's enough work to go around - dispatching is simple: give everyone the maximum number of jobs they are capable of with your hr/ro. If the shop is slow? That's where you find unfair dispatching to be an issue from my experience. What's been your experience with cherry-picking?