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Shop Talk Her Way is where former shop owner and coach JeanAnn Saint Grace opens up the books on what it really takes to run a profitable, sustainable, and well-balanced auto repair business.
With decades of experience in bookkeeping, operations, and leadership, JeanAnn brings an honest, no-fluff approach to shop management — all from a woman’s perspective. From financial systems and staffing to communication and culture, she shares insights that help shop owners (and especially women in the industry) take control, build better businesses, and enjoy the ride.
Whether you’re turning wrenches, balancing the books, or scaling to your next location, you’ll find encouragement, strategy, and a healthy dose of “you’ve got this” in every episode.
Shop Talk Her Way is an AutoFix Auto Shop Coaching production — helping shops thrive, her way.
Thanks to WorldPac and the WorldPac Training Institute (WTI) for sponsoring Shop Talk Her Way. Visit worldpac.com for the latest in auto parts distribution and wtitraining.com to explore training programs that can take your career to the next level.
[00:00:00] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Instead of having that negative thought loop in their brains all the time, now we've created a positive thought loop that this team is something worth investing in, that this team is worth them putting their hard, you know, their sweat and their tears and sometimes their blood into, and that it's, it's for purpose and it's for a higher reason than quote unquote, "profit/greed."
[00:00:32] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So what does this one-on-one process do for us as a business and then for our team members? It gives them this one-on-one sacred, for lack of a better term, sacred time that is truly theirs to spend with their leader, right? The person that they look up to probably the most in the shop.
[00:00:57] JeanAnn SaintGrace: It's a time for, as an owner, you step out of the swirl of the shop operations, sit down in a quiet and relatively peaceful moment and have real ongoing conversations. Initially, what we wanna do with our team members is have some goals, is for them to set, uh, I like them to set three goals. I like them to set a goal in the shop, I like them to set a professional goal for themselves, and then I like them to set a, a life goal, an outside life goal.
[00:01:33] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And, and what does, what does something like that look like? So if it's an in the... it's- if it's an in-the-shop goal, the in-the-shop goal would be something like, um, I wanna get to 75% production. How do we do that? Um, for a, for a professional goal, they wanna get an ASE certification or the next ASE certification, or they wanna do a certain amount of training in a certain subject, and then figure out how, how do we get them there?
[00:02:01] JeanAnn SaintGrace: How can we help them get there if they need help? The third thing would be something like a life goal. Do they wanna buy a new vehicle? Do they want to buy a new toolbox? Do they want to pay off a debt? Do they... What do they wanna do? Something in their life outside of the shop, what do they do or, and how can we help them get there?
[00:02:19] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And how are they working towards that? And keeping them accountable for that, because it's easy to, to sit down at the beginning of this process and set some goals and then never look back at them, right? It's very easy to do that. So, so having that be part of the conversation, how are you doing on this goal?
[00:02:38] JeanAnn SaintGrace: What have you done? What steps have you taken to move towards this goal? And chances are you're the only one in their life holding them accountable to something like this. And, and it's good for them, right? It is so good for them to have somebody help them keep their eye on the ball, because it's easy as an individual to lose sight of that.
[00:03:00] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You know, when, when bills get hard or you've had some turmoil in your life or even something really great happens and you kinda lose focus on the goals that you want to achieve, it, it, it helps to be that person that grounds them back into, "Remember what you talked about? Are these still your goals, or have your goals changed?"
[00:03:18] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And it's fine if the goals have changed. It's absolutely fine. But, but to still have some kind of focus on the goals that we want, they want to achieve. And, and then, you know, how are things? How are things in the shop? How's everybody on the team getting along? How are you getting along with everybody on the team?
[00:03:36] JeanAnn SaintGrace: How, you know, um, what's going on in your personal life? If they've got kids, if they've got a dog, whatever it is that they, that's important to them in their personal life, that we touch on that and, and, and know that we know what's going on and that we're invested in their outcome, that we want to see them do well And, and this should be in the shop schedule, it should be in their schedule, it should be on your schedule, and it should be something that becomes a priority.
[00:04:06] JeanAnn SaintGrace: It doesn't matter how many cars are in the bays, it doesn't matter if they've had a colossal comeback and it's just an absolute you know what show. This happens on a schedule every two weeks, every week at the same time, same date, same place. It's, it's, it's regular, it's ritualistic, it's, it's revered and held sacred in, in your team And we don't schedule s- a special job that that person has to do.
[00:04:34] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We work around, we work the schedule around the one-on-ones, not vice versa. Because the minute they start to become, "Oh, well, we can skip this week 'cause I'm busy or you're busy or whatever, we can just skip it," we don't wanna do that because it takes away the specialness. It takes away-- it makes it sound like, well, you're important until I'm too busy, or you're important until, you know, whatever.
[00:05:01] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And if you can think of yourself as a little kid, if your mom or dad said, "On Saturday at noon, we're gonna go, um, get ice cream sundaes." As a little kid, they tell you that on Monday, Tuesday, "Oh, yep, you're-- we're going to get sundaes on Saturday." S- you know, every day comes along, we check in, that's still happening, that's still happening, that's still happening.
[00:05:24] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We get to Saturday morning at eleven thirty, and it's like, "Oh, I'm too busy. I can't do that. Something happened. Something changed." That, that, that something that has been looking forward to and held sacred now is transactional, is now no longer unconditional, but is fully conditional, and you've just told them that this other thing is more important than they are.
[00:05:51] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And we need to have our team members know how important they are to us, and this is the level that they need to know. Because if you can imagine these, these young people who have had promises broken to them over and over, they have had people promise them things and then break their promises. They've been told they're important until something more important comes along.
[00:06:15] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You become the person who validates for them that they're important, that their growth, their goals, all the things that they have h- held close to them are important to you, and that everything that is important to them becomes important to you. And what, what ends up happening as this pr- process gets further and deeper along is that they will start to look forward to it.
[00:06:45] JeanAnn SaintGrace: They will start to appreciate it even more. They see that you're keeping your promise, that you're invested in them, and in return, they start to invest in you through engagement, through doing an excellent job at whatever they do, at taking up a notch on quality control, on going up a notch on cleanliness and teamwork, and all the things that go on when somebody is seen and heard and appreciated.
[00:07:11] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And, and if you, if you haven't done this yourself, I highly, highly, highly recommend It's almost non-negotiable for me that this happen, not only because I think it's a good practice, but because of the group of, of young people and, and people across the board that we have in our shops. So many of them have been let down.
[00:07:34] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Some p- many of them have had promises broken to them. So many of them have never had somebody look at them with so much value that, that you're willing to spend anywhere from a half an hour a week to, to, to, you know, every half hour a week every week or every other week, that that is just their time, and they will start to flourish under this.
[00:07:58] JeanAnn SaintGrace: It's like it's-- if they were a plant, it's like fertilizer, good sunlight, and water. They're gonna grow to the best of their ability in this, in this greenhouse of leadership that we're creating. And, and you have to keep those promises. It can't... Like I said, you can't let it fall off. You have to be 100% dedicated to this time, this effort, and to showing up for them.
[00:08:22] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And, and I know and I have heard from technicians, "My boss made me this promise, and then they didn't keep it, so if they're not keeping this promise, what other promises aren't they keeping?" And you might say, "Well, that's stuff little kids do," but that's a human condition. That is a human need and desire.
[00:08:43] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And, and if, and if we're all honest with each other, you know, just at a, at a friends level, if we have a friend who we're always breaking plans with or we're always telling them, "I'll call you," but they don't, then we're not keeping our promises. They feel less important than they think they should be, and this is where hurt feelings and bad...
[00:09:06] JeanAnn SaintGrace: and relationships fall apart, right? So, so across, across the, the gamut, the one-on-ones are the glue and the secret sauce for leadership these days, and I strongly, strongly, strongly encourage every shop owner to make this part of their process. Um, even if you have a manager between you and your team, I still recommend that the owner do this because it gives them a direct line to you if there's ever a problem.
[00:09:34] JeanAnn SaintGrace: If there's ever a challenge, you are, you are the end-all be-all of the leadership team in the shop, and that's how it should be So I strongly, strongly recommend that. And before we jump into the next subject, I just want to share that the sponsor for this week's episode is Auto Fix Auto Shop Coaching. We all know that running a successful auto repair shop takes more than knowing how to fix cars.
[00:10:00] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You're also managing people, processes, customers, and profitability, and that's where Auto Fix comes in. Auto Fix Auto Shop Coaching helps shop owners strengthen their operations, develop their teams, and build a healthier business with practical coaching designed for the realities of the automotive industry.
[00:10:18] JeanAnn SaintGrace: If you're ready to spend less time putting out fires and more time building the shop you want, learn more at autoshopcoaching.com. That's autoshopcoaching.com. Auto Fix Auto Shop Coaching is helping shop owners build better businesses. So the next layer of this level of appreciation or understanding is giving your team some insight into your profit model.
[00:10:44] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And by this, I don't mean open up your checkbook and let them go through it page by page. I'm not, I'm not expecting nor am I advocating for that level of transparency. The level of transparency that I recommend is that they, at a very basic level, understand what, what gross profit on parts and labor means, what your profit margin goals are, and what your fixed cost percentages are, and what your net profit goal is, and that they understand where each one of those numbers comes from, and then also where those numbers go.
[00:11:22] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Right? So a basic understanding of the profit and loss statement, and I, and I recommend talking about it as percentages. You can look at it as, you know, um, quarters and a dollar, dimes and a dollar. You know, if, if our sales total 10 dimes, then how many dimes go to labor cost? How many dimes go to parts cost?
[00:11:47] JeanAnn SaintGrace: How many dimes go to, um, advisor cost? Then we get about a, a gross profit line. Our gross profit, say at that point, just for general figuring, and in reality should be somewhere between five and six dimes. We're shooting for a gross profit margin of 50 to 60%. Then where does, where does those five to six dimes go?
[00:12:11] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And what is considered fixed costs? And what's on the bottom line, which is your net profit, which should be two and a half dimes, two to two and a half dimes. That's what it should be, 20% bottom line, 20 to 25%. Because unfortunately, when your team sees your shop management system and they see that there's X amount of gross profit on this job, that's not total profit, that's not net profit, that's just gross profit.
[00:12:40] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And if you don't have it configured right, it may or may not show your labor cost. It also probably doesn't show your labor cost loaded, and it for sure doesn't count what your fixed costs are. So that gross profit number, especially when they see a gross profit number on labor, they look at that and they're like, "Dude, you're making 75% on labor."
[00:13:07] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And what they don't understand is that's hopefully labor cost loaded. It's at a minimum labor cost hourly without the load. And if it's not set up con- correctly, there may be no profit or no expenses against that, no labor costs. So in their mind, what this means is for round numbers, if, if they are getting paid $25 an hour and your labor rate's $100, all they see is we brought in $100 for an hour, an hour of their labor is 25%, $25, 25%, and then that means there's $75 that the, that the shop owner's just raking in, right?
[00:13:52] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Wrong, right? Because all the fixed cost, all the overhead costs, the rent, the power bills, the phone bill, the Wi-Fi bill, the, um, information cost, your shop management cost, your marketing cost. You and I know as owners that, that, that 75% gets eaten up really fast in fixed costs if we're not very, very careful with it, right?
[00:14:18] JeanAnn SaintGrace: But they don't see that. They just see 75% gross profit And, and this is their assumption. This is where when you see things in Facebook comments about, "Oh, the shop owners are just rolling in dough," it's because they're seeing these numbers, and they're, they're doing a tippy-tap on Google or Facebook, or not Google, or not Facebook, but Google, what does gross profit mean?
[00:14:44] JeanAnn SaintGrace: What is gross profit percent? And, and they're just looking at that. Nobody's talking about, I guarantee you Google's not going to the next level of, "Oh, well, but wait, you know, gross profit's this, and net profit's this, and there's... This is where the expenses come from." So again, I'm not, I'm not asking you or expecting you, and I don't encourage you either, to open up your books and let your team just go through it.
[00:15:06] JeanAnn SaintGrace: I don't encourage that. But I encourage them understanding what your gross profit goals are, and then what your fixed costs are, and what your net profit is, and what... Where does the net profit go? Because the net profit, where does, where does it go? It goes for, uh, bonuses that aren't in the budget, you know, that aren't budgeted for, something, productivity bonuses that might come up, h- end of year bonuses.
[00:15:32] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Um, it goes to, um... It helps to pay for vacation pay. It helps pay for e-equipment and equipment upgrades, um, renovations and repairs to the building, taxes. Taxes. Um, it, it goes so many places. So just because we may, and hopefully Hope that you've got 25% on that bottom line. We know that a lot of that is going to the stuff on your balance sheet, right?
[00:16:00] JeanAnn SaintGrace: To pay down debt, to, um, buy new equipment, to upgrade equipment, to upgrade the shop. That's what goes for profit. And there's al-also a misconception that profit equals greed, and profit actually equals the future. I, I would really like to-- for people to, to quit having so much judgment on profit as basically a four-letter word because that's not what it is.
[00:16:28] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Profit is there for future investment. Pro- pro-- Depending on your business structure, profit may be what the shop owner's taking home, um, uh, or at least part of it, and we need to be aware of that. They-- The team needs to be at least that conversant in, in Econ 101 of a shop so that they understand that, that they're getting 25% of the labor rate, but nobody's walking out of there with 75% of that in their jeans.
[00:17:00] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Like, it's not happening. Okay? And I think that's where some of this, these hard feelings or this misconception that shop owners are greedy is coming from, right? So we need to think about these things. We need to think about where are they coming from, where are these assumptions being made, and how do we solve this problem?
[00:17:23] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And, and also if we have technicians who might wanna own their shop, their own shop o- o- uh, they wanna own their own shop one day, we're building the industry of the future by helping them understand that profit does not equal greed, and that profit is important and necessary for the growth of, of our shop and the growth of the industry and the growth of their livelihood, and also their retirement, and also their this and also their that.
[00:17:49] JeanAnn SaintGrace: That's where that profit goes. And, and I think if we start doing this, then as leaders, we're helping them to understand the whys. We're, we're, we're getting them engaged in the whys by being there for them during their 101 ones, and then we're also educating them for their future because this net profit, gross profit, net profit conversation also applies to their private life.
[00:18:18] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And you can make it equivalent to their private life, right? If you take shop gross income and put over here their wages and then what's taken out of their wages and then the cost that they have, if you can put it in terms that they understand, then we're starting to clear some of the assumption and some of the f- the vagueness or the cloudiness out of this relationship.
[00:18:41] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Transparency is going to be key going forward. Um, you have, you have a generation of people who want to know why, who aren't, aren't willing and are not going to accept because I said so, okay? And even though I'm not a big fan of the top-down militaristic leadership, um, model, we all know that leadership in the military knows the value of a life.
[00:19:11] JeanAnn SaintGrace: They know that unfortunately there may need to be circ- circ- sacrifices, and they know that there's lives on the line. And I think our team needs to know that we understand that as well, that the reason we offer hybrid pay plans where they have a base pay and they're not on flat rate is so that if they only produce 20 hours and 40, they get paid for 40 hours.
[00:19:36] JeanAnn SaintGrace: It might be at a lesser rate because they're not as productive, but that's where the productivity bonuses or the hybrid pay plans come in, so that if they get their butt kicked around the shop on a job, they still get paid a base pay. They're not going home with nothing in their pocket for all the time that they spent in the shop And, and when we're trying to win the hearts and minds of this generation of technicians, these, these are, this is where the understanding comes in.
[00:20:07] JeanAnn SaintGrace: They have to know the why. Why is our shop rate $100? And I'm not advocating that, it's just a round number. Why is my pay $25 of that? And where is that $75 going from that profit? Okay? And, and we, in a lot of ways, this, this, this term is probably overused, but we need to be the kinder, gentler leadership than what, what my generation grew up with, right?
[00:20:37] JeanAnn SaintGrace: As Gen Xers and Boomers, we grew up with that, "Don't ask questions, just do what you're told," le- level of leadership. It doesn't work anymore. I'm telling you, if your people don't know your why, if they don't know why you turn the lights on and open the bays every day, they can't buy into, "Because I said so."
[00:20:58] JeanAnn SaintGrace: They have to buy into, "We serve our community. We're helping keep people safe on the road. We do this because there's a need for it. We have a higher calling of keeping people safe, getting them from one place to another, doing that to the best of our ability while adding value and charging appropriately for our time, and having profit on the bottom line for all the things that we need to take care of."
[00:21:22] JeanAnn SaintGrace: When you can build out a why statement that looks like that, and you can share it with them, and you can go step by step from the why to the, to the profit, to the budget, and how that filters into their personal lives, then you're winning. Then you're winning this quote unquote war, okay? And, and is it a l- is it a lot of work?
[00:21:48] JeanAnn SaintGrace: It is, but it's going to make everything else in the shop so much smoother if you take out the, th- the, th- the thought loops that they're thinking. Here I am in the shop turning a wrench for $25 an hour while the boss is getting fat and rich on the $75 that I'm not getting. You take that thought loop out.
[00:22:14] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You take that-- you transfer that thought loop into every good job that I do contributes to the team, contributes to people's safety, and if I do extra good, I can get better at this, then I can make more money, and I get a little deeper into that $100 profit, and it's still good for the shop, and we still have the benefits that we want and need.
[00:22:34] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We still have the team-building events that we have, the, the team appreciation events. We have customers coming through the door 'cause we're giving good value. Instead of having that negative thought loop in their brains all the time, now we've created a positive thought loop that this team is something worth investing in, that this team is worth them putting their hard, hard, you know, their sweat and their tears and sometimes their blood into, and that it's, it's for a purpose and it's for a higher reason than, quote-unquote, "profit/greed."
[00:23:08] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Profit is not a four-letter word. Please, please get your people understanding that, and please understand that yourselves. I've had shop owners push back at me because I talk about profit There's no better measure of how well a shop is doing than by looking at the margins. That's the health s- check on your business.
[00:23:33] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And unfortunately, too, the other misconception that I think our teams have is that all the bosses care about is numbers, and we have to explain why we talk about the numbers. Numbers are data. Numbers are facts. If we talk to them about how many hours they need to produce in order for the shop to be at its profit goal, say it's 90 hours a week, we need 90 hours a week out of the production team in order for the shop to be profitable.
[00:24:06] JeanAnn SaintGrace: They need to understand the why, and again, this flows back to our profit margin. What is-- what do those hours mean? How does that translate into money? How does that translate into the health of the business' profit, and how does us-- that get us to where we need to go? So we have to be careful because a lot of times our team members are thinking, "Well, all they care about is money.
[00:24:27] JeanAnn SaintGrace: All they care about is hours," and they don't understand the why of the KPI. They only understand that this, the boss is always going on and on about hours of production or total sales or whatever our KPI numbers are, because as bosses, that's what we're thinking. As shop owners, that's our level of thinking.
[00:24:47] JeanAnn SaintGrace: But we have to translate into our team and helping them to understand that the, the reason we talk about those things so much is not because we're greedy. It's because we're smart businesspeople, and we know how much we need to put to the bottom line in order for everything to work and for the shop to stay healthy and growing.
[00:25:07] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So again, it's why. Why, why, why, why? And I know when I say that we're all thinking about the, the two-year-old kid that goes through the, the why stage. But why? But why? But why? We have to answer every one of those whys with something other than because I said so. That's not a good enough why. So get your whys together, keep your promises, and, and s- and build the shop that you wanna have.
[00:25:38] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And as another part of our sponsorship for this week's episode, it is a team, a team up, a match up, a, a collaboration of AutoFix Auto Shop Coaching and ADP. AutoFix has partnered with ADP to help auto repair shops simplify their payroll, their human resources, their compliance, their hiring, and their employee management, while unlocking exclusive savings for eligible auto repair shop owners.
[00:26:06] JeanAnn SaintGrace: This isn't just a partnership on paper. Chris Cotton, the owner of AutoFix Auto Shop Coaching, he also, he also owns three repair shops, and he believes in ADP so much that he has moved all of his businesses to ADP. Through this partnership, eligible AutoFix members may redu- receive a 20% lifetime discount on eligible ADP services, waived setup fees, and up to six months for free payroll.
[00:26:32] JeanAnn SaintGrace: ADP can help you accurately, accurately pay hourly, salaried, seasonal, and split shift employees while supporting tax filings, hiring on- hiring, onboarding, compliance, employee benefits, workers' comp, and so much more. If Chris trusts ADP across all of his businesses, it's worth seeing what ADP could do for yours.
[00:26:53] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Please check your eligibility and connect with a dedicated ADP partner using the AutoFix and ADP link in the show notes. So to wind this up, thank you so much for spending part of your hard-earned time with me. I appreciate that, that week over week, month over month, so many people tune back in, spend half hour to 45 minutes with me a week, and, and really take the nuggets that they need to help get their shop to the next level.
[00:27:24] JeanAnn SaintGrace: That's what this is all about. I- my heart is with this industry. I love you all. I, I wanna see everybody from the bays to the front counter to the ownership team, I wanna see you all well, happy, healthy, and fulfilled. That's my job. That's my goal. That's the whole purpose behind all of this. And, and if, if you take a few nuggets from this and you are starting to build that out, then I'm doing my job right.
[00:27:52] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So go out there, love your people till it's weird, and get your shop your way. Thank you for joining me