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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.
Ep. 25
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[00:00:00] JeanAnn SaintGrace: If it's a total disaster and it's not, it's a dumpster fire and it's like, "No, we're not doing that," then we put on our, our leadership hat and we guide them back into a situation that's feasible. We share with them our train of thought so that we not only get them from point A to B, we show them all the little steps that we took in our minds to get there so that they see what our thinking process is.
[00:00:23] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Not just, and pardon my language, 'cause I don't, I do not believe this, there's room for this in our shops anymore, not telling them they're dumb, not telling them they're stupid.
[00:00:43] JeanAnn SaintGrace: As a leader in your shop, are you s- kind of sitting back waiting for other people to take the leadership roles that you're expecting them to? Hi, this is JeanAnn SaintGrace with Shop Talk Her Way, and I'm here today to talk about being proactive and taking initiative and engendering in your team the ability for them to do that.
[00:01:03] JeanAnn SaintGrace: A lot of times as owners and leaders, we're sitting back waiting for someone to do something we expect them to do And that can lead to a lot of frustration. It can lead to a lot of disappointment. We might see potential in someone that they don't see in themselves, and we're just waiting for them to tap into that.
[00:01:25] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And we might have the extra burden or weight of paying them a high wage or a high salary, and we're just kind of sitting back waiting for the fire to light. And what I'd like to talk about today is multiple levels, because I think this speaks to, um, every layer of the shop operations. If we start to, as leaders, put into our lexicon or our culture an idea of problem-solving, being, um, proactive, taking initiative, then I think we will start to see more results that we, quote-unquote, "expect to see."
[00:02:10] JeanAnn SaintGrace: But at the same time, as leaders, we have to relinquish control. We have to be willing to, to say that we're not the end-all be-all authority in our shop, that there might be a better idea out there. So as leaders, we really have to kind of soften our control levels and, and give some, some leeway and some initiative, some room for them to take the initiative as well.
[00:02:36] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So of course, any shop should have good solid standard operating procedures, also known as SOPs. So I will use that interact-interchangeably. I might also call that processes and/or procedures. So if I interchange those terminologies, I mean the same thing. We're talking about standard S- standard operating procedures.
[00:02:56] JeanAnn SaintGrace: But what I'm really getting at is we wanna create a, a, in our culture an idea of being a problem solver, and for some of us, that just comes naturally. We either are good at logistics, or we're good at pattern recognition, or we're good at taking an intuitive leap and trusting ourselves that that's the right direction to go.
[00:03:20] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And we have to know that not everybody's like us, right? We have to understand that our th- our thought processes are not everyone's. And what we might think is a no-brainer might be something so foreign to someone else that they can't even make that leap. And, and it's not because they lack intelligence or they lack anything except they don't have the same skill set that we do and vice versa.
[00:03:46] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So I want to start thinking about, like, w- how do we put this in our culture? And we could talk about being proactive or taking initiative or, um, you know, being curious, being Uh, a, a quest or being a pioneer. Um, there's all different ways that we can bring this languaging into our culture, but the, but the basics of it are we want people to really try to solve a problem before it has to go through the layers of command in the shop.
[00:04:19] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And, and it starts, it starts at the top, you know, and works its way down just like anything else. If we start to show this kind of leadership, then our other, our other leaders in the shop will model this and, and ultimately it, it pervades your culture. So if, if you don't want anyone in your shop to take a step without asking you, "Is this okay?"
[00:04:45] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Then you've created a monster where nothing can be done in the shop unless you approve it. Now, I'm not talking about taking off the guardrails. I'm not talking about the inmates running the asylum. I'm talking about really true problem-solving. And what I hear from a lot of shop owners is, and even managers or service advisors who are in a leadership role is, um, you know, "Nobody in the shop will do anything without asking me first."
[00:05:13] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And first of all, the most likely reason for that is they don't wanna make a mistake. So we can't look at this as helplessness or hand-holding. We need to look at this as they wanna probably make sure they're doing the r- the job the right way and the way we want them to do it. There's also an aspect of managing, um, the younger generations They, they need, intrinsically need a lot of recognition.
[00:05:45] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And so if we are not recognizing them in a daily walkthrough through the shop or sitting down with them, well, and/or sitting down with them with one-on-ones, getting to know them, spending time with them on a one-on-one basis and really seeing them, there might be some attention-seeking behavior that's happening as well.
[00:06:06] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And so I encourage any- anybody in a leadership position in the shop to make sure that you're recognizing your team for all the good things they do every day. You know, if they, if they do an excellent job on a diagnosis or a write-up, or if they take out the trash, or they, you see them pick up a piece of trash, or you overhear a cos- a conversation with a customer and you're like, "Hey, that was, that was really great.
[00:06:30] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You did a tremendous job." Whatever it looks like, A, it has to be authentic, but B, you start... They know that you're seeing them, and they don't have to come look at, looking for you to get the recognition that they need. And, and it's not... Some people, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna call, I'm gonna call us out 'cause I'm one of them.
[00:06:53] JeanAnn SaintGrace: It's the Gen Xers and the Boomers that, that feel that pressure. It's like, "They're always after me. They always want something from me." And you're, you're absolutely right. They do always want your recognition, and they wanna know that they're being seen, and they wanna know that they're not just a cog in your machine.
[00:07:11] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So if we ca- we can be proactive in recognizing their, their, the good stuff that they do and getting to know them at a personal level and make sure that they feel not only that they're part of our team but part of our team as a family, a lot of that goes away But if you still have people coming to you with legitimate problems, how do we, how do we empower them?
[00:07:36] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And we empower them by telling them, "If you're coming to me with a problem," quote unquote, "then I want you to come with at least one solution. I want you to have put at least enough thought into this that you come and say, 'Hey, boss, I see this, and this is how I would fix it. What do you think?'" And at that point, as a leader, you can say, "Hey, that sounds like a great idea.
[00:08:00] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Go ahead and do that." And it might even become a standard operating procedure because it's such a great idea that nobody else thought about that, that we put that into writing. Or it might need some finesse. It might be some tweaking, and then we have a conversation with them about, you know, maybe there's a better way to do this.
[00:08:19] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Maybe we can, um, do this in a slightly different way. Maybe let's build on your idea, and let's flesh this out. So, you know, and if it's just a bad idea, maybe then we step up and be like, "Well, I see what you're saying, but let's look at it from this perspective, and maybe let's do it this way." And, and you can see, and you could hear I'm couching my language in maybe we can try this or let's, let's implement this or, you know, some kind of softer language that isn't I t- I'm telling you to do it this way because I'm the leader and I'm the boss and that's just the way the water flows, right?
[00:08:57] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Because that style of leadership doesn't work anymore. They need to know the why. They need to see your reasoning. They need to know, um, that, that you have a reason why, not just because, right? A lot of times with clients, I have to tell them, "I'm not, I'm not telling you or asking you to do this because you need more work to do.
[00:09:17] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We might need the information or there's, there's something obviously broken in your processes and we need to take a look at that and figure it out." So, so it's never because I said so or because I want to send you on a wild goose chase. It's always because there's a purpose and a reason behind it. And hopefully the purpose or the reason is that it makes the shop better, the customers get better service, the shop moves more efficiently.
[00:09:42] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Whatever that looks like, we've got a good why. So I really like the idea of having them come to you with a solution. There's also a process of telling them or asking them to go to three other sources before they come to you, and that might be digital sources. That might look like all data Identifix and YouTube.
[00:10:06] JeanAnn SaintGrace: That might look like IATN, Identifix, and s- and Mitchell. Whatever tools you guys have available in the shop that you trust and you want them to be trying That's where we should point them first. Have we done this job before? Can you search the history of your, of your shop management system and see if we've done this job before?
[00:10:26] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Um, you know, whatever it might look like. You know, our supplier doesn't have this. Well, who's the next supplier that we can try? You know, these are the kind of things we're asking them to do to, to have a mental flowchart of if this, then that, and if that, then this. So, so that they start to see that problem-solving isn't a dead end.
[00:10:48] JeanAnn SaintGrace: There's always a yes or no, so that when they hit a d- uh, an end, if they hit a brick wall, they still can go left or right. It's just that that forward direction that they were in isn't available to them anymore. And if they've done that three times, then they come to the next person in their chain of command, whether it's the shop foreman, the service advisor, or the owner, whatever your organizational chart looks like.
[00:11:12] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And so that way we've empowered them. We have given them the resources to go and, and do some, do some research, do some digging around, and see what their, how their brain works and how their, how their processes are. This can be instructional to us as leaders because it will help us to understand them better, but it also shows them that we trust them to give this a shot.
[00:11:42] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We trust them to go out and try to find a solution, if not actually find a solution. Maybe there is no try. There is only a solution. Maybe they find somebody on IATN that's seen this problem like 5,000 times and the fix is this, and they're like, "Oh, let's check that," and it happens to be that. Then they've just fixed it, and they're the hero, right?
[00:12:03] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So at the same time as we're, we're kind of removing that part where we have to have all the answers, we're also empowering them to see that they can find the answers. And, and in a lot of ways, this goes all the way back to ancient Greece, where the Socratic method was the method of asking questions of students.
[00:12:23] JeanAnn SaintGrace: What do you think? What's your interpretation? So this is an ancient method. I didn't just pull this out . This is an ancient method of h- teaching people how to, rather than how to ask. And, and it's the same, um, the same old, um, cliché of teaching a man to fish rather than giving him a fish, right? We can tell them over and over again to do something a certain way, but until they figure it out and learn how to do it themselves, we're, we're just giving them fish, right?
[00:12:53] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We're not teaching them how to fish. And I would argue that a f- a shop full of people who know how to fish are going to have a much more efficient, effective, um, shop management, shop flow, um, ultimately customer service, right? It's all gonna flow into that bucket of making the shop better So, so the, the three before me, and I didn't make that up, that came from somebody else, having checked three resources before they, they ask the human in their chain of command.
[00:13:24] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And not because, again, we don't wanna spend the time with them, but because we want them to start to learn And, and for those of us in earlier generations like Gen X, when we were given a research paper in school, we had to go to the library, we had to go look through the card catalog or LexisNexis, whatever, you know, we had available to us, and then we had to go find source material.
[00:13:48] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So, so this is hearkening back to the old days of, you know, having to follow the trail of crumbs until we found the information that we needed, then collating the information and, and presenting it in its fullness. And, and you can also relate this to a teacher. Like, did the teacher need to read 30 research papers?
[00:14:10] JeanAnn SaintGrace: No. But the teacher was teaching us as students how to find information. And does that mean sometimes you might have to take them to the computer and, and say, "Hey, here's IATN, here's Identifix, here's how this works"? I think a lot of times we assume, um, that people know how to do things. So, so the first round may be, you know, "Hey, I can't find this in Identifix."
[00:14:37] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Well, maybe they're looking up the wrong keywords, or maybe they just haven't figured out how to efficiently search. So maybe they need that help. Maybe they have tried, and that's the basics of it, is they just haven't used the right search terms, or maybe they're in the wrong section or something like that.
[00:14:54] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So making sure they're checked out on all the equipment, know how to use IATN, us- know how to use Identifix, you know, spending a lunch and learn with your whole team and showing them how the tools that you guys have work and how they're, how, what's available to them. So again, this keeps coming back to the leader, right?
[00:15:14] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And the truth is that any dysfunction in your team comes back to you as a leader. If you haven't, you have the tools, but you haven't shown them how to use it, if you, um, have put such tight guardrails on them that they're afraid to step off the path and get out in the weeds because they might have been yelled at or they might have been dressed down for it and, and they might have had some shock to their confidence where they've tried before and gotten their hand slapped or they fa- outright failed.
[00:15:44] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Maybe they followed a, a trail on a vehicle and it didn't get you- them where they needed to go and it was a comeback and now it's, it shook their confidence. We are always there as leaders to help them understand that we're human, we're going to make mistakes, and when we do make mistakes, that it's not the end of the world.
[00:16:05] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And we also have to tell them that we can mis- make mistakes in this, in this work. That can be the end of the world, right? If we don't torque lug nuts properly and a wheel falls off and somebody gets in an accident and gets hurt There's, there's real world repercussions to us making mistakes in this business.
[00:16:23] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So do they need to take it seriously? Yes. But we- do we want them living in fear of that? No. And how we get them past fear is mastery. So we teach them not only how to master the mechanical aspects, but how to manage or master the resources and the tools and the people that are available to them. But like I said, we wanna teach them how to fish, so we've, we've gotta, we've gotta drill that in.
[00:16:48] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We've gotta dial that in. And not everybody's gonna need the same level, but sometimes we have to start at the basics and rebuild the basics. Even if we've got a tech who's got 30 years of experience, everybody needs a tune-up sometimes. So if we've got a new guy coming in, or a new person, pardon me, a new person coming into the team and they need to know the basics, it's a great time to pull all the team together and do a back to basics conversation.
[00:17:14] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And I would argue that we need back to basics a lot of times. We need to go back to basics on why we do DBIs. Sometimes that slacks off. Why do we have maintenance mindset? Sometimes that slacks off. So to build in these, like, annual or y- half year or q- even quarterly reminders sometimes of this is why we do these things and sharpen the tools again, just like a knife gets dull, our people can get dull and they lose their edge, and we've gotta hone them, right?
[00:17:43] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We've gotta bring them back to basics and re-hone them, resharpen them, and then put them back in, in their positions and turn them loose. So and empowering ev- people at every level Not only to go seek some answers themselves, but them also at some point if they do truly run out of resource, then say, "Okay, now it's time."
[00:18:06] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You know, come to me with the solution if you have a question or if you feel like you've got it and it's within our parameters, go do it. Um, you know, if you need a backup opinion, seek it. You know, look to your other techs, look to your shop foreman, look to your advisor, look to the owner, whatever your resource is.
[00:18:24] JeanAnn SaintGrace: If you just want a second set of eyes or hands on something, there's nothing wrong with that, but it can't be all the time, right? It can't be your, the, the technician's 50th oil change and they're still, "Did I put the oil in the right spot?" Right? We can't have that level of questioning. I'm talking about you get into the weeds on a diag or something, you're doing a, a service, you know, a charging and starting checkout and something's not quite right.
[00:18:52] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Like, like everything looks good, but we still have got a problem. You know, I think it's this, what do you think? That's always a valid conversation, but I also want them to look for pattern failure. I also want them to go into their resources and say, "Hey, I looked this up. I've got three different ideas and these are the three things I'm down to.
[00:19:12] JeanAnn SaintGrace: What do you think?" You know, then, then we're, we're dialing in, not just I don't know what to do next And I hate to say it, and I'm probably gonna ruffle some feathers when I do, but our current educational system does not encourage these young people to ask questions. That, that isn't where they're at in most cases.
[00:19:35] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Most of the time they're being asked to memorize things and pass tests, not to be critical thinkers, not to understand the consequences of their actions, only to get a passing score on the next test and the next test and the test after that. So unfortunately, as owners, we're the ones using the Socratic method to, to ask questions.
[00:19:57] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Did you look at this? Did you look at that? Yes or no? Okay, if it, if it's no, then go back and do these three things, right? The other thing that we can employ is, again, a, a layer of three things. When somebody comes to you with a problem or they don't understand or it's outside of their skill set, you show them, you have them do it with you, and then you watch them do it, and by the third time they should have it down.
[00:20:25] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So, so there is that as well, and that might be more of a hands-on thing. And this is, this is kind of advanced, right? Like this isn't for somebody who, who is totally green. I'm, I'm thinking specifically of like your service advisors. This is gonna take more probably than three tries because what you're trying to do with a service advisor is to get them to think like you, talk like you, take care of customers like you.
[00:20:53] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And, and that takes time. It's gonna take time, but you're still gonna need to demonstrate. And we also have to realize that everybody's got different learning, um, skill... not learning skills, but learning, um, types, where some people need to see it, some people need to hear it, some people need to do it. So figuring out what their learning style is is also key to this.
[00:21:16] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So again, it's like yes, you almost have to be a, a PhD in psychiatry to run your shop these days because there's so many things going on, and these younger generations are so different. Um, and if you're a young shop owner, you know, again, not everybody's gonna think like you. So y- we still have to have patience.
[00:21:41] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Sometimes as a young shop owner you might have an employer or an employee or team member who's younger or older than you, and you have to, quote unquote, retrain them to do it the way you want it done. And again, that's why your hiring processes are so important because you need to know that if you outrank them by title but, but not by age and experience, that they're gonna adopt your way.
[00:22:05] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And you might have to adapt to their way if their way is better. You can't stand on the premise of, "I'm the boss so I'm always right." So back to proaction, back to taking initiative. We really need to, to instill this in them. Go try. When you try, it isn't, it isn't trial and error, it's trial and learn. And so as you prog- progress, as your team members progress, they should be learning.
[00:22:35] JeanAnn SaintGrace: They should learn that if they get to step A and they have an A or B choice and they chose A and that's the wrong one, they need to choose B next time, right? And they've backtracked their plan and they've gone to B. So and then there's a next layer and a layer after that. So is this something that might be pretty constant?
[00:22:54] JeanAnn SaintGrace: I think so, and especially with our... the, the level of technology in our lives, both especially as shop owners, right? Because new cars have new technology, the tooling systems are new, everything's new all the time. And so again, that comes back to training and, and understanding that we don't ever know it all.
[00:23:15] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We're always gonna have to be learning and growing, and that requires training. So in addition to all of this, I encourage all of you to create a, a continuing education requirement in your team members' job descriptions that they need somewhere between 40 and 50 continuing hours, which could look like an hour a week, or it could look like 16 hours in a weekend or eight hours in a week if they have a class.
[00:23:42] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So whatever that looks like, that not only are we asking them for it, but we're opening up the opportunities for that to happen. And as owners, we need to stay up, not only on the tech, but we need to be training ourselves as leaders and business owners and keeping our, our fingers on the pulse that we're growing as well.
[00:24:01] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So again, that proaction, that taking the next step, the finding out what's the next thing in my evolution as a technician, as a service advisor, as an owner, and keeping this, this evolution fluid in your, in your system, in your shop culture. So always these conversations that I have with you guys come out of conversations with my shop owners.
[00:24:24] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So recently this week, I had noticed that there's been some... I coach both an advisor and a, an owner in the same company, and I had noticed there was, like, some frustration. "Well, I wish so-and-so would do this," or, "I wish so-and-so would do that." And I'm like, "Have you told that person that they're empowered to do that?
[00:24:49] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Have you, have you actually told them you have the reins, just fix that?" Um, you know, the service advisor came to the owner with a situation that should not have happened in the shop, and m-m-in the back of my mind, the question was, as a service advisor, why didn't you just handle it? And what I figured out through the course of a couple conversations was that he hadn't been empowered to do that.
[00:25:15] JeanAnn SaintGrace: He was waiting for the boss to tell him, "Do this." And the, uh, the boss was waiting for the advisor to just do it. And so they both wanted the same thing, but neither one of them had had the right conversation in order to say, as the boss, "I empower you to handle this situation. Don't let that just slip through the cracks.
[00:25:39] JeanAnn SaintGrace: It's your job to manage that." And That it, that conversation just had never happened. And we also don't have a clear set of job descriptions, which the owner's working on right now, to tell the advisor what specifically his job is. Where's his red... Where's his line in the sand, right? Where's a bridge too far for him to make a decision?
[00:26:03] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Can he make a decision about, um, overriding the pricing matrix? Can he make a decision about whether one of the technicians takes a day off? Can he make a decision of whether the tech's going in the wrong direction and call BS and say, "Hey, I don't think this is the right way for us to do this"? Those are the questions that the advisor should be asking.
[00:26:24] JeanAnn SaintGrace: But, but the owner had never laid out where his guardrails were. Um, somebody put a great, um, analogy into my mind of when you go bowling with a kid, you know, with a b- group of kids, and you want them to have fun, um, they put the little bumpers in, in the alley so that they can't have gutter balls, so that their balls bounce back and forth.
[00:26:47] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You know, we need to think about that as leaders in our shop and putting up those little bumpers for them, you know, guardrails, bumper guards, whatever you wanna call it, so that they know where the edges are. And maybe the first couple times they bump into them, they're soft- softer landings. At some point, those guardrails might come off.
[00:27:10] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And another shop owner that I really admire, his theory was you've gotta let them fall down and scrape their knees. And as a leader, you do. You have to let them fall down, scrape their knee, and then be there to be the one to pick them up, dust them off and say, "Hey, what did you learn from this situation?"
[00:27:30] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You know, whatever it might be. And that's our job as leaders if we wanna grow our team. We have to let them hit the brick wall and then point out, even if you hit a brick wall, you can go left, right, or backwards. And what's your decision? What choice are you gonna make? And retreat, this seems like a strange thing to say, but, but stepping back several steps is a valid tactical move.
[00:27:54] JeanAnn SaintGrace: If you've gotten so close to a situation, maybe your perspective is in a tunnel, and you don't have a soft field of vision. So letting your team members know that backing up and retreating from a situation and then readdressing it from a different angle is a completely valid method. And, and we've gotta soften our thinking.
[00:28:15] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We have to ease our perspective. We have to widen the vision so that, so that we know that even though we think our way is best, and if we're in a legacy shop, that's the way we've, quote-unquote, "always done it." Our team members are changing. The way they need to be managed is different. The landscape is changing.
[00:28:35] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Our customer base is changing. If we don't change, we're going to lose a lot. We're gonna lose team members, we're gonna lose customers. We're going to lose. So unless we're in a super niche market where you can work on, you know, a very s- a very narrow area of vehicle, and a v- with a very narrow skill set, we have to evolve.
[00:28:59] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And, and evolution should probably be part of our keywords, part of our vision for our business, and part of our strategy, and it should be something that flows down into our team. So if we're looking for our three words, maybe our three words are integrity, initiative, and evolution Those sound like three solid words to me.
[00:29:21] JeanAnn SaintGrace: But what we really want to instill in them is movement, is, is learning, is training, is the ability to make a mistake and not have it be the end of the world. Are there some guardrails? Absolutely. Do we always need to get torque spec right? 100%. That's one place we can't mess up. Can we, can we get in the weeds on a diagnosis and then pull ourselves back and then re-engage from a different, a different, um, a different direction?
[00:29:48] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We can do that. Can we go out and find new resources to help us move through that process? Absolutely. So there's a lot of ways that we can bring this innovation and evolution into our shop. And, and I encourage you too, if you feel inspired, use high-level language. Let them know that there's growth here.
[00:30:09] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Let them know that you believe in them, that you know that each one of them has the capability to find their way and to find their path. And, and one of these additional ways that we do this is your one-on-ones, right? Bringing them in, showing them, getting to know them so that you know their learning style, and that way when they come in with a, a challenge or a problem and they come to you with a solution, even if it...
[00:30:36] JeanAnn SaintGrace: the solution isn't the one that you would have had, theirs might work. If it's a total disaster and it's not... it's a dumpster fire and it's like, "No, we're not doing that," then we put on our, our leadership hat and we guide them back into a situation that's feasible. We share with them our train of thought so that we not only get them from point A to B, we show them all the little steps that we took in our minds to get there, so that they see what our thinking process is.
[00:31:03] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Not just, and pardon my language 'cause I don't, I do not believe this, there's room for this in our shops anymore, not telling them they're dumb, not telling them they're stupid. I've had a couple incidents in the last couple months where a service advisor told a technician they didn't, quote unquote, "trust them," and this created a huge problem in the shop because it really honestly hurt the technician's feelings.
[00:31:29] JeanAnn SaintGrace: It honestly was like, "I... If, if you don't trust me, what am I doing here?" So we have to be careful as leaders the words and the terminology that we use. We have to find ways to use our l- our language and our words to make them understand they didn't quite hit the mark. We need to readjust. You know, um, we're-- we, we are marksmen.
[00:31:56] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We work on our marksmanship, and so sometime you're off target. How do you walk your, your, your shot into the target? It's through adjustment. And then the other thing about that is slow is smooth and smooth is fast. So if we're putting a, a, a younger tech or less experienced tech on a diag job, we have to allow for them to take twice as long as the A-tech who's done it a hundred times.
[00:32:20] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We have to give them the step-by-step process and let them learn from it. They have to walk into the target rather than hitting the target on the first shot out. We might have what, what came out this week in some languaging as snipers. You know, we might have one of those snipers in our shop who has this, this sixth sense about vehicles and is like, "Yep, that's the problem," and they're right.
[00:32:44] JeanAnn SaintGrace: But we also might have a, a, um, you know, a rifleman grade marksman who has to walk their shots in and figure out what that trajectory looks like. Either way, slow is smooth and smooth is fast. So hopefully in here I've given you some ideas about how to bring this level of initiative and proaction into your team and into your, your culture in your shop.
[00:33:12] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Over time, as this evolves, it's going to probably surprise you at, at what's, what's sink- what's lurking around in the depths of your people. And unfortunately, most of these people have never had anybody go deep with them. Never really thought about how they think, how they learn, what that looks like. You know, you might have somebody in your shop who didn't get the br- best grades in, in high school, and now they think they're quote unquote dumb 'cause they didn't get good grades.
[00:33:44] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And the truth is they just didn't-- they weren't in an environment lear- where learning was conducive to them. They might be a great hands-on learner, and so if you show them, "Hey, I'm gonna take this apart with you, and then we're gonna put it back together," and they get it the first time. You might have somebody who has to see it and hear it.
[00:34:01] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You, you have to learn this about your people. So back to the basics, right? Get to know your people. Do your one-on-ones. Build their, their inner strength and, and help them to shore up where they might be challenged or quote unquote weak. Um, we need to help them fill in those gaps and build a wall on a solid foundation of their knowledge So speaking of foundations, one of our foundations here is Worldpac and the Worldpac Training Institute.
[00:34:31] JeanAnn SaintGrace: They are a great partner to the podcast and help us to come to you week after week with content and, um, that's hopefully helpful to you. And then the Worldpac Training Institute, I think equally brings this opportunity for learning, this opportunity for evolution that I'm talking about. That, that availability and the quality of their training really plays into both growing yourself as an owner and your team as technicians and advisors in their technical areas.
[00:35:01] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Um, in addition to all the, the free one-hour weekly classes that are on Wednesdays and Thursdays, um, there's also pay-to-play classes that are either in the evenings or weekends that they can participate in. So there's all kinds and all levels of training in that, um, in that lexicon. And, um, there's links in the show notes to Worldpac Training Institute.
[00:35:25] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So thank you to Worldpac and Worldpac Training Institutes for helping us to continue to evolve as owners and as technicians. So to wrap this all up, like I said, I encourage you to open yourself to this, that you're constantly evolving as an owner, as a l- and as a leader. If you're an advisor, you're also constantly evolving, and then ultimately, as a technician, you're continuing to, to grow your knowledge base and to, to do your job with more efficiency.
[00:35:56] JeanAnn SaintGrace: The overall goal is that everybody who learns more brings more to the table, and that elevates the service, uh, that we can give to our customers. And after all, that's really what's the most important thing that w- at the end of the day, when the customers leave, they're happy, their cars are safe and reliable, and that they've received good prices, and we've given them value for the hard-earned dollars that they've traded for our, our t- our technical skills and abilities.
[00:36:23] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So, um, as always, um, I'm... my goal is for you all to have your shop your way. So take the, take the nuggets from this that land with you and start to implement them. Mine this for the gold that's there for you, and take that back to your teams, or encourage your teams to listen if you think there's something here for them.
[00:36:42] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Always, you know, if, if there's any questions, if you have any feedback, if you wanna take this discussion further, please don't hesitate to reach out for me. All my contact information is in the show notes, and I welcome that. I welcome your comments. I welcome your feedback, and, um, and it helps me be better at what I do.
[00:37:01] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So as always, go out there, build your shop your way. Love your people till it's weird. This is JeanAnn SaintGrace with Shop Talk Her Way, and have a wonderful day.