Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
My name is Jeff, and I'd like to welcome you on a journey of reflection and insight into the tolls and triumphs of a career in automotive repair.
After more than 20 years of skinned knuckles and tool debt, I want to share my perspective and hear other people's thoughts about our industry.
So pour yourself a strong coffee or grab a cold Canadian beer and get ready for some great conversation.
Becky Witt [00:00:04]:
If you're just dying for Chick Fil a and you won't take any other substitutions and you want a Chick Fil A on Sunday, what do you do? You wait till Monday. So when I tell people, when we went from doing business four days a week to only being open three days a week, what happened? We wrote more tickets, but he said those guys make a lot of money. Or he said, you can hire somebody who has potential to become a unicorn and train them.
Jeff Compton [00:00:33]:
Yeah, a thousand percent.
Becky Witt [00:00:35]:
All right, so this all sounds good, but it takes years to train somebody running a business. You need somebody today. And frankly, I have spent too much of my life being mom to all these mechanics that really have trouble fixing a sandwich. So the first half of my class is financials. This is a class that I wrote probably 20 years ago. I got a degree in business. I majored in accounting. I've taken as many hours as it takes to be a cpa.
Jeff Compton [00:01:11]:
Okay.
Becky Witt [00:01:12]:
So I understand it.
Jeff Compton [00:01:13]:
All right?
Becky Witt [00:01:14]:
I bought a senior level textbook, cost accounting. I read the book. 356 pages. I spent 155 hours to write this class, to read the book. And it's all about cost. Accounting is the science of eliminating steps in a process that add cost but not value.
Jeff Compton [00:01:41]:
Right.
Becky Witt [00:01:42]:
So the perfect example of that is you. You got two Tauruses in for brakes. You had the brake pads on the shelf for the first one. You didn't have the brake pads on the shelf for the second one. So now you've wasted 15 minutes of technician time waiting for the parts store to deliver the brakes. So you park them out front. Which one cost you more? Well, you'd say. One person would say they cost you the same.
Becky Witt [00:02:07]:
No, they didn't. Because you got 15 minutes of wasted time on this one.
Jeff Compton [00:02:10]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:02:11]:
So I said, here's how we're going to do this. We're going to look at gross profit per hour. The industry wants you to look at percentages, which is fine. But I take two examples. The first one is, is a, a job like a rear main seal. The parts are nothing. It's all labor.
Jeff Compton [00:02:34]:
Right.
Becky Witt [00:02:35]:
And this is the problem with selling diagnostics because there are no parts.
Jeff Compton [00:02:39]:
Right.
Becky Witt [00:02:40]:
It's all labor. This is why everyone says you can't make money with diagnostics. Well, that's funny, because I do, because I charge.
Jeff Compton [00:02:49]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:02:49]:
For it. And I have eliminated about a bunch of makes of cars that I don't take them in. I only take in Hondas and Toyotas. So we learn the product, we get to Be real good at it. Most of the things that happen We've seen 50 times before. It's easy.
Jeff Compton [00:03:06]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:03:09]:
And that. The first. The first half of the class is all about how to make money so you can pay a unicorn.
Jeff Compton [00:03:17]:
Right.
Becky Witt [00:03:18]:
So once you can pay a unicorn. Oh, now you got it. So then the second part of the class is, how do you do the things that would attract a unicorn? Gotta have a clean shop. Gotta have all update equipment. And the big kicker for me was a short work week.
Jeff Compton [00:03:39]:
Yes. Yep.
Becky Witt [00:03:41]:
So as you increase your efficiency, you build more hours.
Jeff Compton [00:03:48]:
So, ladies and gentlemen, who you just listened to is a really good friend of mine, Becky Witt, who I'm a new fan of Becky Witt in the sense that, like, I'm chubby and I like donuts. So Becky started with a series, Donuts with Becky a few months ago. And so I'm not a shop owner, I'm just a tech. I'm not. Somebody admonished me yesterday and they said, don't just keep calling yourself a technician, just a technician. I'm a technician, but I'm a technician that's been through who I network with. And as long as what I've been doing, I've started to get into what makes one business more successful than another business, what makes one business have a better culture than another business. And Becky has been the most effective person I've seen to date in being able to take things and simplify it to such a effective rudimentary.
Jeff Compton [00:04:38]:
Get your point across as fast, efficiently as possible as anybody. I've had the pleasure of starting to follow and read and everything else. So that's Mrs. Becky Witt for us. And I just wanted to sit down with her today. She gave you kind of a little synopsis of what her class was today here at ASTA 2024. And, Becky, thank you for sitting down with me.
Becky Witt [00:04:59]:
Well, it's my pleasure.
Jeff Compton [00:05:01]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:05:03]:
I. Go on.
Jeff Compton [00:05:05]:
Oh, please do.
Becky Witt [00:05:07]:
Because now I talk about what would a unicorn not want? A unicorn doesn't want to work on junk.
Jeff Compton [00:05:18]:
Yep.
Becky Witt [00:05:21]:
And shop owners are frequently their own worst enemy because they think, I need money, I'll take this in, or I've got a great customer. Great customer. They just. They just bought a Peugeot and they got a great deal on it.
Jeff Compton [00:05:39]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:05:40]:
And they said, I really need you to work on this. So we're afraid we'll lose the whole account if we don't take in the Peugeot. Yeah, it's a nice Peugeot. Leaks oil, doesn't run right, needs stuff fixed.
Jeff Compton [00:05:55]:
Sounds like a Peugeot?
Becky Witt [00:05:56]:
Yeah, it's a Peugeot.
Jeff Compton [00:05:57]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:05:58]:
It's no accident that I would mention a Peugeot. And they finally say, well, can you just change oil? I just had this happen just a few days ago. One of my former customers bought a Kia. I said, I don't do Kias. Well, can you just do oil changes? I said, here's the deal. Nobody makes money on an oil change. Everybody says, can you just do an oil change? There's a lot more that's needed.
Jeff Compton [00:06:23]:
Right.
Becky Witt [00:06:24]:
So you need an engine, air filter. I don't have that. And she said, I get it. Okay? But as I explained in my class, I look at gross profit per hour, and then I break it down by the minute. There's 60 minutes in an hour. And I showed them, you want to make money, and you're going to service a car and maintenance a car, you need to have on hand air filter, wiper blades, battery.
Jeff Compton [00:06:57]:
Yep.
Becky Witt [00:06:58]:
And I don't have the numbers right in front of me, but it was like hundreds. $350 an hour to put on an air filter. Because it's minutes.
Jeff Compton [00:07:07]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:07:08]:
300 bucks gross profit an hour to do wiper blades. We're overlooking this because it's. It's. There's no money in it. Look at an air filter. Okay, well, price it so there is money in it and put it in. We're. We're doing this too hard.
Becky Witt [00:07:26]:
The reality is, if we break things down to the minute now, things starts to come into focus better.
Jeff Compton [00:07:32]:
So can I ask you right there, when you say price it so that you can move it, are you referring to the markup of the part, or are you talking about the labor on the install?
Becky Witt [00:07:42]:
You got great questions, Jeff.
Jeff Compton [00:07:44]:
I do?
Jeff Compton [00:07:44]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:07:45]:
I know. It's gross profit per hour, which is labor and parts. Doesn't matter. The example that I gave to the class was you've got a rear main seal to put in, which has hardly any parts and all labor. And when you break it down, you're about $500 short of making your gross profit per hour. So what do you do? Well, the first guy in the first row says, you just add dollars to the job until it does match what you need. Bingo. There's your answer.
Becky Witt [00:08:19]:
And. And the second example that I used was a catalytic converter. The converter is 1200 bucks. The dealer only gives you 20% off. It's only an hour labor to put it on. So your whole gross profit is going to be 27%.
Jeff Compton [00:08:38]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:08:38]:
So what do you do? You can turn the job away. Sublet it or mark it up to industry standards. Fine. So I point out that your gross profit on the part is going to be 240 bucks. Gross profit on the labor is going to be 150 bucks. So you got about 390 bucks gross profit. What you need is 150 bucks an hour to run your shop. So your gross profit is 390 bucks.
Becky Witt [00:09:20]:
You only need 150. Why do you care about the percentage? Yeah, it's the same with your engine air filter.
Jeff Compton [00:09:28]:
Great point.
Becky Witt [00:09:29]:
So. So your engine air filter, maybe, maybe you've got 20 bucks profit in. It takes two minutes to put in. So now 20 bucks 20 times 30 minutes is what, 600 bucks. So you're going to make 600 bucks an hour by putting an air filter in.
Jeff Compton [00:09:49]:
Yeah.
Jeff Compton [00:09:51]:
Not bad.
Becky Witt [00:09:52]:
No. Yeah, you can do that all day.
Jeff Compton [00:09:54]:
Yeah.
Jeff Compton [00:09:55]:
Lots of jobs that aren't going to be that easy to implement that exactly.
Becky Witt [00:09:59]:
So well. But, but what happens is we're taught as an industry that we need to have 60% gross profit total and we're ignoring how long that takes. And then we need to go a step further, Jeff, and forget about build hours and look at actual minutes we're at work. Because if we are, if we are taking too long between jobs, we're wasting an hour between jobs. Well, that's not accounted for if we're only looking at build hours.
Jeff Compton [00:10:31]:
That's right. Exactly.
Becky Witt [00:10:33]:
So let's start looking at how long we're at work. As we start to eliminate these different steps, we actually can shorten the work week. So what I found originally was my shop is not on a main drive. I don't have a lot of drive by customers. I don't have a prime location to find my place. It takes a compass, a map and a Sherpa guide to get you there. I decided there ain't much going on Friday afternoon. So we're going to start closing Friday at noon.
Becky Witt [00:11:08]:
So we closed Friday at noon. Sales didn't go down well. Then we. Nobody wanted to make an appointment for Friday morning because we're only open till noon. So we started closing Friday. Altogether, sales did not go down. So now I got a four day week and I'm working real hard to find a unicorn because I know if I got a unicorn, I can bill more hours than we've been billing. So my ad listed all the cool things that we do and it concluded with, I'll pay you for five days, you work for three.
Jeff Compton [00:11:47]:
Sign me up.
Becky Witt [00:11:48]:
I know. I had 30 guys apply for the Lube Tech position, I couldn't get anybody to apply, and in walks my unicorn. He's worked like every place in town. Doesn't like the ethics, doesn't like the way the place is run, doesn't like this or that. And we just were a perfect match. We think exactly alike on taking care of a car. Like, you got a few oil leaks. So what? So what, is it broken? Could I fix it? Could I make money fixing it? Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:12:23]:
Does it really benefit the customer? No. If they got a leak, they're going to tell me, right? Unless, I mean, if it's leaking onto a coolant hose, it's going to do some damage.
Jeff Compton [00:12:31]:
So let me. Let me. Let me think. So what about then, the DVI and the 300% idea that everything needs to be written up and tabulated and presented, Yet I'm feeling like we understand the same. I'm on the same thing. If I've got an oil leak, that's a seepage issue. It's not dripping on the ground. It's not going to cause the alternator to fail because it's not leaking on the alternator.
Jeff Compton [00:12:57]:
It's not. It's not. I need to make the customer aware that there's a little bit of seepage there right now.
Becky Witt [00:13:02]:
Why?
Jeff Compton [00:13:03]:
But.
Becky Witt [00:13:03]:
Well, why?
Jeff Compton [00:13:07]:
Because. Okay, so why would be. I guess if somebody else happened to look at the car and made a note of it, and I had never made a note of it, they're going to be like, how? Well, Becky, have you been looking after my car? If you. This has been an old thing and you never told me about it, that would be one answer. Maybe somebody would answer you with that as an example.
Becky Witt [00:13:27]:
Well, nobody ever looks at my customers cars because they always come to me.
Jeff Compton [00:13:30]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:13:32]:
All right, so let's address this. Let's first talk about the DVI. I don't do DVIs. I know. Everybody says, well, what, you don't do the eyes?
Jeff Compton [00:13:42]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:13:42]:
No, I'll tell you why. Because I see all these photographs. I'm a professional. I've been doing this for 50 years. I know everything about a car. I don't know what half of these damn pictures are. How am I supposed to explain to a teacher who teaches English what this rusty thing is?
Jeff Compton [00:13:58]:
Yes.
Becky Witt [00:14:02]:
So why don't I just tell them, hey, your car's in great shape. You need front brakes. Here's the measurements. Everything else is perfect on your car. Boom. There you go. What the industry wants us to do is to do a DVI on every car that comes in and to do it for how much, Jeff?
Jeff Compton [00:14:24]:
Free.
Becky Witt [00:14:25]:
Okay. Thank you. I don't do anything for free. You want your car checked out? Pay me.
Jeff Compton [00:14:30]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:14:32]:
So let's talk about this. Covid taught me that I couldn't have any more people waiting. I used to do a ton of oil changes while you wait. What I discovered during COVID is that the people who wait don't buy anything. They're sucking my business dry. And just to be sure, I lost my butt. I had to have an extra service writer and an extra staff to do this. And this extra staff had to be somebody in the budget priced category.
Jeff Compton [00:15:02]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:15:03]:
So here we are. Now I'm all set to lose money. So the first thing. Are you paying attention? So the first. The first thing I did is I said, you know, I'm using a synthetic oil that's rated for extended service and a filter that's rated for extended service as well. They will go 8,000 miles. Gee. That's when your tires need to be rotated according to the industry.
Becky Witt [00:15:30]:
Rotate tires. The problem of the old 3,000 mile oil change is now you're all out of sync. You got to remember.
Jeff Compton [00:15:35]:
That's right.
Becky Witt [00:15:35]:
When do I do this and that? How about if I just do a package? I start with a road test. I road test every car. I bring it in. I do an underhood inspection. I place it on a lift. I lift it up in the air. I check the steering, the suspension, I pull the wheels. I inspect the brakes.
Becky Witt [00:15:55]:
I do measurements on all eight brake pads. Then I rotate the tires based on the factory. I do a fabulous job of computer balance so that when your car comes out of my shop, it's as smooth as it's ever been and it will not shake the fizz out of your Dr. Pepper at 80 miles an hour.
Jeff Compton [00:16:12]:
Right.
Becky Witt [00:16:13]:
Then I put in my synthetic oil and I do a second road test just to make sure that rotating the tires hasn't changed something. That runs about 475 bucks.
Jeff Compton [00:16:27]:
Some good profit there.
Becky Witt [00:16:29]:
Yes. Everything is priced at the normal rate. And when people say, I'd like to make a point for an oil change, we say, have you been here before? No, I haven't. Well, here's how we do this. This is called an annual maintenance. This is about 40 bucks a month. Is all. Is all.
Jeff Compton [00:16:46]:
40 bucks a month is all?
Becky Witt [00:16:48]:
Yeah, it's 40 bucks a month. You only have to come in once a year. 8,000 miles. I'll take care of everything with your car. And what happens is they realize they don't have any trouble they can keep their car. Most of our customers have over 100,000 miles on the car. And, and when you go to my shop, there are no oil spots out front. My customers, cars don't leak oil because the synthetic oil keeps the seal soft.
Becky Witt [00:17:15]:
So we don't have leaks.
Jeff Compton [00:17:16]:
Right.
Becky Witt [00:17:17]:
And then we've tracked battery failures. And battery failures in my town ramp up dramatically at 39 to 42 months. So we recommend a battery every 36 months to protect you. Women will tell you that when a car fails to start, it could be a potentially life threatening situation.
Jeff Compton [00:17:34]:
Exactly. Because that's the thing. Like it drives me crazy. And it always has. Where somebody would pay for a AAA services. An example.
Becky Witt [00:17:40]:
Sure.
Jeff Compton [00:17:41]:
That security thing of you can get a free tow. I have as, again, as I've, I've gotten wiser and older, I realized that that's still a very traumatic experience for somebody. Even if the toe is free, even if the boost is free. For a lot of women, that's still an uncomfortable thing. When a guy that might look like me shows up with some greasy coveralls on in a really loud truck, says, hi ma'am, I'm here to drag you wherever you like to go. It's still not a comfortable thing. Right.
Becky Witt [00:18:08]:
What happens while they're waiting? Yeah, who's to say that the tow truck driver ain't a pervert?
Jeff Compton [00:18:13]:
Exactly. So the idea that people have been for years spending how many hundreds of dollars for maybe for a triple A membership for protection, when the idea that it's like, what are you calling out there most of the time for a tire failure or a battery failure? I, as somebody, an advocate of the industry, I'd rather make sure that before it gets to that point, let's change the battery out, let's change the tires so that they're not to where they're looking like I can see through them and maybe it's going to leave her with a spare. The inconvenience thing alone is enough to say we should be advocating harder for this. But the safety aspect of this particular scenario we're talking about is another one that should be very easy to sell a battery. Just because the car started today doesn't mean I can't talk to you about having a conversation about replacing your battery. That to me is just asinine. When people, somebody says, well, if they had to boost their car, no, why are you trying to sell them a battery? It's ridiculous.
Becky Witt [00:19:12]:
The difference is because most mechanics are guys. If a woman's car doesn't start it's a potentially life threatening situation. If a guy's car doesn't start, it's just another adventure.
Jeff Compton [00:19:22]:
Right, Exactly.
Becky Witt [00:19:23]:
They don't get it.
Jeff Compton [00:19:24]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:19:25]:
And this is why guys don't get. If you take, if you take a room full of people and you ask the guys, what do you do to protect yourself against a sexual assault when you go out, they'll all look at you like what are you talking about?
Jeff Compton [00:19:43]:
You're taking away my good time.
Becky Witt [00:19:45]:
Well, yeah, but you ask the women and they will all say I do this. I hold my.
Jeff Compton [00:19:50]:
They have all have a checklist.
Becky Witt [00:19:51]:
They all got this checklist. All right. So women will not park in a, in a parking garage after dark. The problem that this industry has is as guys they're not advising and they're not offering. What I have found in addition to. To the battery replacement at 36 months is that I can make a starter and an alternator last longer because they're not worn down.
Jeff Compton [00:20:20]:
That's right.
Becky Witt [00:20:21]:
By a failing battery.
Jeff Compton [00:20:23]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:20:23]:
And I'm here to tell you, and I'm really proud to tell you Jeff, that last winter we had five days in Lincoln, Nebraska below minus 20. Not wind chill.
Jeff Compton [00:20:33]:
Yep.
Becky Witt [00:20:34]:
Actual temperature AAA was two days behind.
Jeff Compton [00:20:37]:
Yep.
Becky Witt [00:20:38]:
You know how many cars we had towed in were regular customers? Not a single one.
Jeff Compton [00:20:43]:
Exactly.
Becky Witt [00:20:44]:
Zero.
Jeff Compton [00:20:44]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:20:45]:
Every one of my customers cars started because they were our customer.
Jeff Compton [00:20:51]:
And that's incredible. Right. Because think about when the weather is all of a sudden like that situation. You get a blizzard or something like that. Those tow ins always happen when you're. When you're swamped.
Becky Witt [00:21:01]:
Sure.
Jeff Compton [00:21:02]:
Right. And it's unexpected. And you they. Regardless of whether that's in for a rear main seal or something like that. Mrs. Smith. It's just an unexpected toe in batteries dead. It.
Jeff Compton [00:21:11]:
It. Even though it shouldn't can it jumps the line to become the priority to get Mrs. Smith back. Because it's an easy job, it's an easy repair, get her back on the road. I have no problem with that. The idea that we couldn't though when we don't think in this industry. So enough about how to prevent that whole scenario from even happening.
Becky Witt [00:21:29]:
Exactly.
Jeff Compton [00:21:29]:
For the customer or for me as a shop owner.
Becky Witt [00:21:32]:
Yes.
Jeff Compton [00:21:33]:
It's called ineffective planning. Right. I could plan for you. People think advocacy is advocacy. Advocacy is also planning for the best outcome for you. There's nothing wrong with trying to say, hey, here's the scenario. What could happen if somebody says I don't want to put the battery in because it's still working okay, cool. I'm still going to warn you about the scenario that could happen.
Jeff Compton [00:21:56]:
Sure, if you want to roll the dice. Hats off to you.
Becky Witt [00:22:00]:
Yes. And I remember when I very first started talking about this to my customers. They all cocked their head like the bird eye and the worm and said, but I haven't had any trouble. I said, well, the whole idea is to not. And I knew I'd finally arrived after a year or two of this. When a woman come in, batteries, dead, she said, I should have listened to you. There you go.
Jeff Compton [00:22:20]:
So when you're. I don't want to say necessarily. I don't. When you're coming up with these concepts, maybe that's not the best utilization of the words. But when you're. When you're doing what you're doing with this and you get a little bit kickback, do you have the numbers and the stats to kind of show the customers, like your example? You didn't have one of my customers tow in. Is that normally enough, Becky, for the people to start to wake up, smell the coffee, and realize what you're trying to talk about?
Becky Witt [00:22:48]:
Well, I would tell them I've tested 5,000 batteries. I have recorded the failure rates in the ages. I have run a scientific formula for probability on them called standard deviation. And the numbers say that failure rates in Lincoln, Nebraska, ramp up dramatically at 39 to 42 months. There you go.
Jeff Compton [00:23:13]:
And if they say to you, becky, I don't know how old the battery.
Becky Witt [00:23:15]:
Is, well, then I can either. I'll give you a couple of choices. I can try to look at the battery, but if you're in doubt, let's put one in.
Jeff Compton [00:23:24]:
Right? That's the answer I like.
Becky Witt [00:23:27]:
Yeah, let's put one in.
Jeff Compton [00:23:28]:
I mean, I just bought that car, Becky, last year. I don't know how old that batteries are.
Becky Witt [00:23:32]:
Right. So when you've just bought a car, the best thing you can do is let us put in a battery, new wiper blades to do an annual maintenance that will. That will take care of most of what we know your car needs. Then we subscribe to carfax, so we can look and see if there's any recorded history of other maintenance items. But. But I'm not. I'm not into this. This dissection of a car, looking for things I can sell.
Becky Witt [00:23:58]:
I want to look for things that matter. That's how we work. And my unicorn guy that I hired, it's exactly the page he's on.
Jeff Compton [00:24:06]:
That's awesome. So when people say that this industry is not about sales what's your, what I, I think it somewhat is.
Becky Witt [00:24:17]:
Well, yeah, it's all about sales.
Jeff Compton [00:24:19]:
Okay.
Becky Witt [00:24:19]:
It's got to be about sales, but sales shouldn't lack ethics. If I sell you a battery because yours is over 36 months or I sell you brakes because the linings are thin, that sales. Right, okay. And, and at my shop, I only do the high end stuff. When I say high end stuff, I don't mean like, like a Rolls Royce.
Jeff Compton [00:24:53]:
Right.
Becky Witt [00:24:53]:
But I mean if I'm going to do the brakes on your car, on your Honda, on your Accord, you're going to get the Akebono brand, the original vendor for Honda and you're going to get the, the, the rotors that are coated to retard, to resist rusting. Rusting. And they're going to be the top end rotors. Since I started doing that, I have zero comebacks for break shake. Any complaints, boom, there it is. And, and, and people are paying. They're, they're just paying what I'm charging. And, and I won't tell you on air.
Becky Witt [00:25:27]:
No, that's how much.
Jeff Compton [00:25:29]:
But higher than the local dealer. Yeah, good answer.
Jeff Compton [00:25:34]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:25:35]:
Higher than the Lexus dealer.
Jeff Compton [00:25:39]:
Yep.
Jeff Compton [00:25:40]:
And nothing. And you don't get a lot of kickback. I'm thinking on that because you're probably pretty good at vetting your customers out that they're not there for about price, they're about service, right?
Becky Witt [00:25:50]:
Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, it, it's a, it's about, it's about service. It's about product knowledge. It, it's being able to come to you and say, Jeff, I have, I've done the research on battery failures. I can also tell you that if I replace your battery on a schedule, I can make your alternator last longer. I do. I make your tires last longer because they get rotated on schedule where they should. And you can go out and look at my tire pile out back and see that all my cars are there aligned because the tires, that's what we did.
Becky Witt [00:26:24]:
The tires are worn evenly and I get the most out of them. And furthermore that I replace your tires, I start recommending replacement at 5, 30 seconds because skid tests on wet pavement have shown that you've, that your, your stopping distance is way longer. So I have reasons for everything. And, and pretty much all my customers know I can't shut my brain off because I'm, I'm always thinking about this stuff.
Jeff Compton [00:26:51]:
So when you talk about at the beginning about like finding the unicorn and you're going to then develop one within the Shop. What kind of processes do you have in your shop that are mentoring that younger person or that less experienced person to that level? What do you do?
Becky Witt [00:27:12]:
This has to start, this has to start with who, who are you starting with? In my case, my unicorn is highly experienced. I ain't telling him nothing. I don't tell him how to do a job because he wouldn't listen to me anyway. And I tell him that he knows everything.
Jeff Compton [00:27:34]:
Right.
Becky Witt [00:27:36]:
And, and so we joke about that. I wouldn't tell you how to do the job.
Jeff Compton [00:27:41]:
But in, in defense, that really is his, his profession, that's his thing is fixing the car.
Becky Witt [00:27:46]:
Yeah, yeah. My job is to watch kitten videos.
Jeff Compton [00:27:51]:
But, and we laugh at that. But that's really in a perfect. If everything is, everything is aligning, everything is in synchro, it can really be that simple.
Becky Witt [00:28:01]:
It's too much work to do it any other way. So I'm asking this guy, how did you find me in the beginning? Because I'm like every shop owner. I'm utilizing all the search places, you know, and, and, and this, this guy and that guy and everything. And he said I was on Craigslist like every other mechanic looking for a deal. I come across your ad and I said to my buddy, I said hold my beer, I gotta call this when there's no way this is a legitimate deal.
Jeff Compton [00:28:34]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:28:34]:
Not five days pay for three days work.
Jeff Compton [00:28:37]:
Right.
Becky Witt [00:28:38]:
So he called up, we had an interview and you know, now it's a process of getting to know each other. But, but the guy showed up with a flatbed trailer that looked like he just bought it the day before. Towed by a 10 year old pickup truck that looked like it's never been driven, including the underside. Completely painted and rolled up. His big snap on toolbox. And as he's going through, I can see that this big drawer has all of his air tools lined up in a little rack. Everything is just. So I go, we found our guy.
Jeff Compton [00:29:11]:
That's a professional.
Becky Witt [00:29:12]:
Yes.
Jeff Compton [00:29:13]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:29:13]:
And then I hired, for the front counter, I hired a woman who has got a long history of interaction with the public. She is just fabulous. So the tradition, the traditional line of thinking in the car businesses you need, you need a person with mechanical background on the front counter so they can explain to people what's going to be done. And, and you can have somebody there that knows everything about a car and hates people.
Jeff Compton [00:29:47]:
That's what I was just going to wonder because my exit strategy is hopefully is to get into like. Because I'm sitting, you see me sitting Here, fidgeting, you know, I have aches and pains and I'm, I'll be 50 in two years, right?
Becky Witt [00:30:00]:
Sure.
Jeff Compton [00:30:01]:
Well, I'm 50 in a year.
Becky Witt [00:30:02]:
Yeah.
Jeff Compton [00:30:03]:
I don't want to be 60, pulling on a wrench and racking cars and everything else. Right. So if somebody was to come to you and they'd say, so you're unicorn. I don't know the age, but say the unicorn at 50 is still in your shop and starting to struggle with some physical limitations.
Becky Witt [00:30:21]:
Sure.
Jeff Compton [00:30:22]:
Would he be a good fit for going to your counter?
Becky Witt [00:30:25]:
No, he hates people.
Jeff Compton [00:30:26]:
Okay.
Becky Witt [00:30:28]:
He's real, he's real up front about I hate people.
Jeff Compton [00:30:30]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:30:31]:
Okay. I don't know. I don't know how this is going to end. I personally, I would like to think that he can continue doing highly technical stuff and, you know, letting young, young people take care of other things. I just recently bought an air powered wheel lift.
Jeff Compton [00:30:51]:
I saw that.
Becky Witt [00:30:52]:
Because I'm, look at this, I'm going, you know, we can't be doing heavy work. So I don't take in heavy work anymore. If car needs a head gasket, I'm probably not going to do it.
Jeff Compton [00:31:03]:
Wow.
Becky Witt [00:31:04]:
Well, you know, a repair shop is nothing but an empty building without your people, right?
Jeff Compton [00:31:13]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:31:14]:
So you got to do everything you can to take care of your people. And if you've got somebody that's really worth being taken care of, you take care of them.
Jeff Compton [00:31:23]:
It's very profound. I mean, it sounds simple, seems simple.
Becky Witt [00:31:31]:
It's about not being selfish, it's about having empathy, and it's about understanding what do I need to do.
Jeff Compton [00:31:40]:
So if you had a tech that didn't hate people, could you see it that they could transition to an advisor role?
Becky Witt [00:31:52]:
Do you follow car racing at all? Joe Gibbs. Joe Gibbs became an owner in nascar.
Jeff Compton [00:31:59]:
Yeah, I know the name for sure.
Becky Witt [00:32:00]:
All right, so Joe Gibbs was football coach. He won a number of Super Bowls. He coached the Redskins, I think. Okay, so he buys, he, he buys a NASCAR race team. So the first thing he does, he starts looking at this whole race team and he said, we got mechanics running out, changing tires. This particular position right here is the Jackman. He has to run out and put the jack under the car and jack the car. Said, we need a guy with a linebacker's body or a tight end.
Becky Witt [00:32:35]:
He needs to be about 6, 3, 2, 40 and real fast. He revolutionized the pit stop just by analyzing what's the skill sets. You got a car repair shop. There's not anything any different. You look at this position. What are the talents that this position needs to have? You need to be able to do clerical work. You need to be able to type fast. You need to be able to, to understand people.
Becky Witt [00:33:00]:
You gotta, you gotta got to be good at psychology. You have to have empathy with people. You need to be good with numbers. That's your talents.
Jeff Compton [00:33:09]:
Yep.
Becky Witt [00:33:10]:
So when you're going to fill that job, you got to say, who's got the talent to do this?
Jeff Compton [00:33:17]:
Great point.
Jeff Compton [00:33:18]:
Yeah.
Jeff Compton [00:33:19]:
I never really. Again. That's the beauty of you. You just break it down to such a simple, simple points. Right. It's fantastic because that's what I talk to a lot of technicians. Right. And as we're, you know, where we are, we're in the middle of this technician shortage.
Jeff Compton [00:33:35]:
Right. It's hard to find one. We're not even necessarily looking for a unicorn. I talked in an analogy in one of the episodes. It was like we're kind of looking for four leaf culvers. Right. They're not. How many times do you bend over and it looks like four and it's three or five.
Becky Witt [00:33:49]:
Sure.
Jeff Compton [00:33:49]:
You know, so I, I'm always thinking of, like, how do we kind of. When that transition is going to happen where we're bringing a bunch of you? Because we are. We're going to get young people in this industry. One way or the other, it's going to happen. But there's going to be a skill gap there and then there's going to be an age gap where it's like these unicorns are maybe not going to be able to retire yet financially, whatever. What do we do with them?
Becky Witt [00:34:21]:
Great question.
Jeff Compton [00:34:24]:
Yeah.
Jeff Compton [00:34:26]:
I talked to a good friend of mine. His technician of 20 years, 21 years, essentially has mentored his son into the business himself. And lots of chances, lots of choices, lots of coaches, lots of one on ones. You got to get your stuff together. You got to get your finances together. I'll go to the bank with you and try to figure out where your money's going. Didn't happen. The attitude just continued to sour.
Jeff Compton [00:34:54]:
Sure terminated.
Becky Witt [00:34:57]:
Well, the problem with too many parents is they want their kids to fill out their dreams. Ain't the kid's dream. My dad was a jeweler. He was very good. He wanted me to take over the jewelry store. I didn't care. I can't sit still.
Jeff Compton [00:35:18]:
Right.
Becky Witt [00:35:18]:
What do jewelers do that make custom jewelry? They sit at a workbench and they do fine work in front of them all day. I wouldn't last 10 minutes. Ain't me. Dad was heartbroken. He tried each of the kids, nobody wanted to do it. Grandkids, nobody wanted to do it. Same thing. Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:35:42]:
You know, think how cool this could be. Well, doesn't matter now.
Jeff Compton [00:35:45]:
When you talked about the beginning of the thing, it said too many technicians need to be mothered. What do you mean by that? I think I know what you mean. But.
Becky Witt [00:36:01]:
What I mean by that is every position, every industry, every profession has about 20% of the people that are good at what they do. 80% aren't. If you ain't paying top money, you're not getting a unicorn, your life is hell. I was constantly mom and of course my management style wasn't very good. I brought a lot of trouble on myself because I felt like I had to be mom all the time.
Jeff Compton [00:36:41]:
Is that in a term like you were sympathetic to the screw ups that maybe they were doing well?
Becky Witt [00:36:48]:
I'm trying to tell them how to do the job. I'm micromanaging at the finest. Okay, well you know, look, you got a tech and he's not, he's not. Tighten the lug nuts in the right order, what are you going to do? You're going to go say hey. That and the way you do it, you alternate, you crisscross. You don't go around, you crisscross. I, I am, I've done every position there is. I've worked as a tech.
Becky Witt [00:37:19]:
I've, I've been through the dealerships. I've been, I've been a service advisor, I've been a assistant service manager. I've been a service manager. I've been a parts manager. I've been a service and parts director. I didn't like the way I was treated. I didn't like the culture. I didn't like the way they treated our customers.
Becky Witt [00:37:42]:
Didn't like they were treated the way they treated a help. And I'm at some of the finest places there are and I'm fed up with it.
Jeff Compton [00:37:50]:
What about the idea then that the people that have allotted years in at a dealership don't fit well into our side of the industry. What's your take on that? Can a dealer mechanic be a good mechanic? In a lot of these independent shops?
Becky Witt [00:38:11]:
We're right back to the 8020 rule. Most independent shops are not very well run at all.
Jeff Compton [00:38:19]:
Yeah, I'd agree.
Becky Witt [00:38:20]:
Okay. Most of them are dark, floors dirty, take in crap. All you got to do is drive by and look at what's parked out front. That's the best way to find out what I work there. This is why in my class how to attract. How to attract a unicorn. Have the place clean. I pioneered the phrase soap, paint and lights.
Becky Witt [00:38:45]:
Clean a place up so it's spotless. Paint everything so it looks good. Put in brilliant lighting. I got a photograph that's in my. In my overheads, my PowerPoint of my shop. I've been. The shop's been open 29 years. I got a whole row of rotary lifts that look like they're brand spanking new because I paint the arms every year.
Becky Witt [00:39:09]:
Yeah, everything looks like it was just put in. That's the beauty of a car repair shop is, you know, they don't have tail fins or not tail fins. You can't tell.
Jeff Compton [00:39:18]:
Yep.
Becky Witt [00:39:19]:
You just paint everything up. Oh, damn, this looks great. Guy comes out to do the annual lift inspection, looks like I've never used him because I went through and I oiled everything and I got the little, little gear things replaced that were worn. Yeah, you just stay on top of everything. That's how you attract a unicorn. If you don't have the money to pay a unicorn now, you end up with the 80%. Then you have to do the coaching. Then you got to stay on top of it.
Jeff Compton [00:39:51]:
You got to mother them.
Becky Witt [00:39:52]:
You got a mother. You got to mother them because they insist on being mothered. Don't want to be mothered. Don't require it.
Jeff Compton [00:40:01]:
Very cool. What about. Because this is something that's been coming up in my kind of conversations for the last month or so, I see that sometimes, like the quality of advisor that comes from a dealership, they have a little more hustle, they have a little more can multitask better. Sometimes they're used to a higher count, I guess you could say, of people that they're going to deal with. In a day where it's been my experience and I've come out to the independent side of things because I've worked both for years and like if they have five tickets to handle in a day, the wheels come off.
Becky Witt [00:40:43]:
That's a great observation. There's a couple of differences. The first difference is the dealerships aren't there to fix the car. They're there to get car count out. They don't care if your car doesn't start next week. They don't?
Jeff Compton [00:41:00]:
Nope.
Becky Witt [00:41:01]:
And the service advisors don't have to look up parts. They don't have to find anything. Generally at too many dealerships, the service writer is only there right at the initial write up. Maybe make a phone call, make a sale, and they Never see the ticket again. They got a booker that books it up. Average service writer is going to do 25 to 30 tickets a day. I did it for 15 years. I wrote 25 tickets a day with gusts to 30.
Becky Witt [00:41:32]:
When I was at Oldsmobile was 12 tickets a day because every car had insurance that you had to call and you were on the phone forever and you never dialed up the number unless you had a stack of tickets to figure in front of you. But at the Honda shop, we could do 25 tickets. It was all customer pay.
Jeff Compton [00:41:53]:
Right.
Becky Witt [00:41:54]:
And, and they, they don't do long explanations. My tickets have long explanations on. I mean we really get into explaining. Here's what we did. There is no R and R alt.
Jeff Compton [00:42:09]:
Right.
Jeff Compton [00:42:11]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:42:12]:
So now this is part of my service advisor class. R and R, what does that mean? I mean rest and recuperation. That means you take the alternator and you put it to rest. Put it on the counter with some, with some low light soft music, maybe a little fishnet stocking, little chai tea. Yeah. You know, it'll be okay in the morning.
Jeff Compton [00:42:30]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:42:32]:
So we, anyway, we, we ride out more. The, the, the dealership service rider is probably going to make a lot more money. I know that, that when I, I advertised for a service writer years ago and everybody that worked at the Toyota there came and applied. They write more tickets and, and they run more volume and they're going to make more money. But the reason that people say the dealer is high priced isn't because of the price, it's because of how you were treated.
Jeff Compton [00:43:04]:
Yeah, 100%.
Jeff Compton [00:43:06]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jeff Compton [00:43:08]:
I went to work a lot of days with the, I wasn't there advocating for the customer as a technician. Every day, every car was completely removed from whoever might own it, whoever might drive it. I didn't know, I didn't even care.
Becky Witt [00:43:23]:
Sure.
Jeff Compton [00:43:24]:
That is a ticket for me that is like how do I maximize the profit for myself on that ticket.
Becky Witt [00:43:29]:
Yep.
Jeff Compton [00:43:29]:
If it was going to be a job, no fault found. Wind noise at a, you know, 100 kilometers. I'm Canadian. Right. So 100 kilometers is like. I can't drive that 100k on 100k today. Traffic's terrible.
Becky Witt [00:43:40]:
That's right.
Jeff Compton [00:43:40]:
That's why no fault found because I didn't. Maybe I knew what to look for, but I didn't feel like I needed to invest that much time that wasn't going to pay.
Becky Witt [00:43:49]:
It's so common. We have initials for that. Npf.
Jeff Compton [00:43:52]:
Yeah.
Jeff Compton [00:43:53]:
No problem found.
Becky Witt [00:43:54]:
Yeah. We don't even bother to write it out. Yeah, It's NPF and Jeff. Every technician has a hearing impairment even when they don't.
Jeff Compton [00:44:06]:
Even if they're not married.
Becky Witt [00:44:07]:
Even when they don't. Yeah, yeah. It's got a noise. I didn't hear it. Yeah, Yeah, I didn't hear it.
Jeff Compton [00:44:14]:
So how does that work, Becky, with the. The idea, though? Because, like, I mean, the whole thing about production comes back to, like, and you. So I'm thinking with your idea that everything is about the gross profit. It's not the huge metric then for you that it is for somebody else. Am I right to say that?
Becky Witt [00:44:36]:
I don't know where you got that idea? Well, that's all at the front counter. You got a noise. It's going to be 215 bucks. Two testing and inspection. We charge money for every line on the ticket. There is no such thing as a no charge.
Jeff Compton [00:44:53]:
Hallelujah.
Jeff Compton [00:44:54]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:44:54]:
Well, yeah. And I tell a customer, you know, you're gonna charge me just to look at it? No, I can see through the window, it's green.
Jeff Compton [00:45:04]:
But see, that's the exact sarcastic joke that so many texts I've. I've read in Forbes. We even do it work? It's like, oh, yeah, just look at it.
Becky Witt [00:45:13]:
Yeah, yeah, it's out there you go.
Jeff Compton [00:45:15]:
Yeah, it's lean a little bit. You might have a broken spring.
Becky Witt [00:45:20]:
Yeah, exactly. So you have to explain. All right. What's going to have to happen to do this noise? I'm going to have to take a drive, hear the noise, then I'll bring it back in. I might check for service bulletins just to see if there's a bulletin that covers this. And that's an important step. That takes time. Then we're going to do whatever we need to do to.
Becky Witt [00:45:40]:
To evaluate what's the noise. We may put it on a lift. We may do an under underneath inspection. It's going to depend on where's the noise and what's what. But that. That's what's involved. That is only a couple hundred bucks to do that. That either will fix it, or I'll be able to call you and tell you what it is.
Becky Witt [00:45:56]:
So I'm going to sell the value to the customer of here's what's going to happen. And then I'm going to ask the qualifying question. And this is the real kicker. You want the noise fixed or you just want to know it's safe to drive?
Jeff Compton [00:46:07]:
Right? Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:46:09]:
Two different things.
Jeff Compton [00:46:10]:
Yeah.
Jeff Compton [00:46:11]:
Huge.
Jeff Compton [00:46:12]:
Yep.
Jeff Compton [00:46:12]:
You got a bad strut mount that squeaks when you hit A certain bump, a certain thing. Cars 10 years old, probably not really high on the priority list, Right. Of being. Keeping that vehicle reliable and safe. You know, we just.
Becky Witt [00:46:28]:
We just had one that we put lower control arms on. It was. It was a. It was an old pilot with 280,000 miles or something. We put lower control arms on it and sway bar links and something else. And it came back a month later with a noise. I said, now it's something you guys did. So we checked it out and the nut on one of the struts had backed off.
Becky Witt [00:47:00]:
So now it's making a pop noise up and down.
Jeff Compton [00:47:02]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:47:04]:
So what are you going to sell? Tightening up the nut.
Jeff Compton [00:47:10]:
Right.
Becky Witt [00:47:10]:
So I talked to my technician. He said, we really need to replace the struts. This is my unicorn. So I call a customer and I said, the nut came loose. I said, I've been to nut and bolt school, and I can tell you that the first time you tighten a nut, you get a certain amount of compression on it. But the second time, you don't get hardly half of that. And if I just tighten it up, it's coming loose again. And being loose now, it's probably chewed up the threads.
Becky Witt [00:47:41]:
The proper repair is new front struts. Most shops would have tightened it up.
Jeff Compton [00:47:46]:
Yep.
Becky Witt [00:47:48]:
I sold them $2,000 worth of front struts.
Jeff Compton [00:47:51]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:47:51]:
Premium stuff. All. All put together ahead of time.
Jeff Compton [00:47:55]:
Easy swap.
Becky Witt [00:47:56]:
Easy swap. 2,000 bucks. And the lady said, she. Well, it looked like. It looked like it was our fault. You just worked on it.
Jeff Compton [00:48:05]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:48:05]:
This is the. Everett sent you?
Jeff Compton [00:48:07]:
Yep.
Becky Witt [00:48:07]:
Everett sent you. Work on it now. It does this. I went to the repair manual. I looked up we'd done a lower control arm. I printed the instructions on how to do that job. Here's the instructions on how to change a sway bar link. Here's the instructions on how to do this.
Becky Witt [00:48:28]:
None of which are anywhere near where this thing is.
Jeff Compton [00:48:30]:
Exactly.
Becky Witt [00:48:31]:
So there you go.
Jeff Compton [00:48:31]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:48:33]:
They bought the repair.
Jeff Compton [00:48:36]:
So it's important then when you're sitting at the counter and somebody's. I don't want to say challenging you, Becky, but we could kind of say that that's what that customer is doing and that they're challenging.
Becky Witt [00:48:44]:
Rightfully so.
Jeff Compton [00:48:45]:
So we have to be, like, prepared not to get into an altercation, but to be able to, like, give a point of counterpoint back that we didn't touch that. So your front counter person has to be prepared enough or know how to get the information to make the argument effectively that we're not responsible for this we're too many. Just Becky, go ball it up, tighten a nut, fix it. No charge, no, no pay to the tech. Ship her down the road. Tell her if it comes back now we're going to have a problem because now we're going to have to fix it and you're going to be really upset with me where instead of just educating them right at that point and saying okay, this is what we know it to be. We didn't touch it unfortunately, like you're less than 100% satisfied but here's the cost.
Becky Witt [00:49:37]:
You need a unicorn service advice.
Jeff Compton [00:49:41]:
Yeah, yeah, I'm people people shake their head and they laugh at me now. But it's like in the last year I've comment on and share this really I make the argument and please train your most importantly, set the podcast to automatically download Train your front office staff. I think if you only have a limit of I was talking to Chad Whitman this morning and I said if you only have a limited budget, please join us. You can only send one of the office thank you to my partner. I think if the shop has already got a high level performing remember what I always younger person in this industry, less experience. Here's hoping everyone finds their missing 10 millimeter and we'll see you all again. Some of the training happens organically right in the shop through you know, just like in nature, older, more experienced brings up younger, less experience at the front counter. There's methods there that have to be shown to be the effective method.
Jeff Compton [00:50:37]:
The processes have to be done. They can't necessarily in a lot of shops they're not learning that from anybody because there's nobody there that has it. And then we just continue the cycle, rinse, wash and repeat that we've always done. So owners that are listening to me right now think about that from a real serious point. If I only have a little bit of training, I might have to modify what I book in because I don't want to get into the high end diag if I don't have somebody that can do it, don't take it and put that training into somebody at the front counter that can even have the conversations of why we're not even going to do the diet instead of we got to do something, we got to bring it in and then it just becomes a can of worms at the back. It's people look at me like I'm crazy, but I don't think I'm crazy when I think that that's what more right now the emphasis needs to be on training your front versus training your.
Becky Witt [00:51:31]:
Back, I think the emphasis needs to be understanding. It's a team.
Jeff Compton [00:51:37]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:51:38]:
You know, you're screwed. You're screwed either way. I will tell you this, that a highly skilled front office person can make sales and keep customers coming back and save a shop more than a great tech. And no offense to the great tech, but if the front office is ticking all the customers off, you ain't got any money, so you got to be able to make a sale. Then you have to be able to depend on the person. There's too much animosity. Us versus them, you know, these guys versus those guys. Forget that we're all in the same boat.
Becky Witt [00:52:16]:
You can't tell somebody their end of the canoe is sinking. And each, each can make the other's life hell or heaven.
Jeff Compton [00:52:23]:
If their end of the canoe is sinking, I gotta paddle faster and harder.
Becky Witt [00:52:29]:
Yeah, but you gotta get to shore. That's what you gotta do.
Jeff Compton [00:52:33]:
At some point. They're dead weight though.
Becky Witt [00:52:34]:
Get out of this stinking canoe.
Jeff Compton [00:52:38]:
But you know what I mean, at some point they're just dead weight.
Becky Witt [00:52:41]:
Oh yeah, yeah.
Jeff Compton [00:52:44]:
I got a lot of unpopular opinions.
Becky Witt [00:52:46]:
Sometimes it's not for me.
Jeff Compton [00:52:48]:
No. But from everybody else in the industry. Sometimes I, I got to remember that like it's like 5% that listen to that come to these kind of conferences and listen to this chatter that we have right here. And so when I go back sometimes and I talk to people that are not, they know about the, the, the, the network but they're not in the network. You know what I mean?
Becky Witt [00:53:12]:
Yeah.
Jeff Compton [00:53:13]:
That's tough then because they look at me side eyed, like I must have hit my head.
Becky Witt [00:53:17]:
Okay, So I need to cover this.
Jeff Compton [00:53:19]:
Okay?
Becky Witt [00:53:20]:
Saving the industry. Screw the industry. Save yourself.
Jeff Compton [00:53:26]:
That sounds like a typical flat rate tech at a dealership's ideal.
Becky Witt [00:53:30]:
Well, what I mean by that is your shop make it better than everybody else. Worry about yourself. Quit worrying about trying to raise the standard. We gotta raise the standard. These people are ruining the industry now. They're ruining themselves. How does that affect you? It's just like at my shop, okay? I am who I am. I do what I do.
Becky Witt [00:53:56]:
I'm better than everybody else. I am.
Jeff Compton [00:53:59]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:54:00]:
So what do I care about the guy down the street that's doing breaks for 69 bucks? My customers are never going to see them because they want their car done a certain way.
Jeff Compton [00:54:10]:
Right?
Becky Witt [00:54:10]:
This is no different than a cheap hotel opening up right next to a Marriott. Whoa.
Jeff Compton [00:54:19]:
What is he going to do?
Becky Witt [00:54:20]:
Well, you got to stay at the Marriott.
Jeff Compton [00:54:22]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:54:23]:
And as Bill Haas, one of my favorite trainers, he said, if you're just dying for Chick Fil A and you won't take any other substitutions and you want a Chick Fil A on Sunday, what do you do? You wait till Monday. So when I tell people that when we went from doing business four days a week to only being open three days a week, what happened? We wrote more tickets. We literally wrote more tickets.
Jeff Compton [00:54:56]:
You had a bigger pile to look at next Monday.
Becky Witt [00:55:00]:
Yeah.
Jeff Compton [00:55:00]:
Yeah.
Jeff Compton [00:55:01]:
That's awesome. It, it comes down to confidence. All right. Because it's like. And this is it. It sounds so simple when I say that. Oh, yeah, of course. Sales is all about confidence.
Jeff Compton [00:55:12]:
But it's. It's confidence that past the point of sales, it's confidence in the fact that, like, I don't need that customer that will not accept that I'm not here Friday, will not be there Thursday, Wednesday afternoon, I'm kind of there, but I'm running around trying like, it's the confidence in that. Why, why do we not have that? So many of us don't. Why? On the front counter side of things.
Becky Witt [00:55:44]:
Beliefs, false beliefs.
Jeff Compton [00:55:49]:
Go on.
Becky Witt [00:55:52]:
We, we believe that we have to do things a certain way. That we can't deviate from that. We believe that the customer is always right. We believe that we have to have to offer convenience. We believe that we have to do an oil change while you wait. Because everybody wants things fast. So my marketing has been, you say you want things fast, but you really don't want things fast. What you really want is to not have to come back.
Becky Witt [00:56:21]:
What you really want is for your car to last and you want your car to not break. That's what you really want. You can say you want it fast, but if you get it fast and you have to give, give up all these other things and then you really don't want it fast.
Jeff Compton [00:56:34]:
Right.
Becky Witt [00:56:34]:
Okay. You want to go. You want to have a chef prepared meal. And I showed a photograph of Nebraska hamburger. Nebraska is the number one beef producing state in the United States.
Jeff Compton [00:56:49]:
Higher than Oklahoma.
Becky Witt [00:56:50]:
Yes.
Jeff Compton [00:56:51]:
I did not know that.
Becky Witt [00:56:52]:
The western part, northern and western part of Nebraska is sandhills. That grows. The grass that grows there is the most nutritious grass in the world. I don't know how or why it came to be, but. But you go through the sand hills and it's just. It's rolling sand dunes that are left over from an inland sea and they grow this grass and the air is so pure, you can smell water. You can smell water. You can tell when you're coming up on a lake.
Becky Witt [00:57:27]:
And the ranches are huge, and the farmers are stewards of the land and they know how many cattle it takes to be sure that all of this is taken care of. And these cows produce the finest beef in the world. It is called I Interstate 80 beef in Japan. It's the most prized stuff. If you have ever had a filet that you literally can cut with a fork, you take a knife, table knife, Jeff. And you hold the meat and you put your fork in and you pull off a piece. You don't tug, you don't yank, you don't twist the fork.
Jeff Compton [00:58:10]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:58:11]:
Pull off a bite and there's more juice on the plate when you're done than you can sop up.
Jeff Compton [00:58:16]:
Right.
Becky Witt [00:58:17]:
That's Nebraska beef. So I showed a hamburger that is leaking juice that I cooked over a smoker was an Applewood smoked Nebraska beef burger. And it is oozing juice on a plate. That's China. That's 108 years old. Noritake china. That's a burger. You go through a drive through.
Jeff Compton [00:58:50]:
Yeah.
Becky Witt [00:58:52]:
You ain't getting that burger.
Jeff Compton [00:58:53]:
No. Or the china.
Becky Witt [00:58:56]:
Or the china. Yeah. The strategy, if you want to really be successful, is to be that burger for your shop to be so uniquely different. There are people who want quality and there are people who will pay for it if they know they're going to get it half. Well, my customers are over 100,000 miles on their vehicles, and I keep them going. And I got eight loaner cars. We give you a loaner car. We don't have any promise times.
Becky Witt [00:59:43]:
When you say, I need my car by three, I say, well, Jeff, I hope you get it. Here's a key. Here's a car to drive. We'll be done today. Beats me. I don't know. Yeah, I take in what I think I could do in a day, but I don't know what I'm going to find. I don't know who's going to say yes.
Becky Witt [00:59:58]:
I have no idea where the part's coming from. Don't make me lie to you. We're all about ethics and credibility here. And it's a trust thing. Once you have a trust with somebody, now you got a customer for life. It isn't about price anymore. Now it's all about value. What do I get? I get to drive my car that I love for another year and not have trouble.
Becky Witt [01:00:23]:
And I know that if it goes down to 20 below, my car will start. I'm good. And I know that if it snows a foot, my car will get through it because I got good tires on because Becky made sure I did. Boom.
Jeff Compton [01:00:35]:
That's amazing. I. This has been awesome. I've been wanting. Since I followed the donut thing, I've been wanting to sit down with you, and I've reached out to before, and we've had some conversations, and, I mean, I can't thank you enough for how refreshing and your confidence is. Just. It's. I wish everybody had it.
Jeff Compton [01:00:57]:
And that's why I wanted to have you on here, is just to share it. You're a gift. And, I mean, I love the fact that you're here having this conversation with me.
Becky Witt [01:01:05]:
I love you. You really do a great job of presenting the technician. And, you know, I don't think that the general public understands how physically demanding it is to be a technician. What you have to go through, the heat, the heat that you have to endure, the cold you have to endure. The toe ends when it's 20 below that, you got to get pushed in. And the differential is so cold, it doesn't want to turn. And you guys make it look easy because technicians are inherently lazy. They find out the easiest way to do something.
Becky Witt [01:01:47]:
And no tech ever pushes in a toe in when you can fire it up and drive it in.
Jeff Compton [01:01:52]:
That's right. That was my. That was my life forever. If I could diagnose the car out in the parking lot, I didn't even want to push it in.
Becky Witt [01:01:59]:
Sure.
Jeff Compton [01:01:59]:
Because. Because I worked at that lifestyle where it was like, that guy next to you, he didn't want to talk to you. He'd throw a wrench at your head if he could get away with it. Right. So he wasn't going to help you push that car. So I had to learn how to. What can I do out in the parking lot that I can get this thing mobile and get it into my bay or do the diag out there and then not have to tie it. My bay.
Jeff Compton [01:02:18]:
I could be doing something easy on my bay.
Becky Witt [01:02:20]:
Exactly.
Jeff Compton [01:02:21]:
I want to thank you for coming on. This has been amazing.
Becky Witt [01:02:24]:
I'd like to thank you for having me on your interview. You're doing wonderful things. You're achieving fabulous things.
Jeff Compton [01:02:32]:
I'm trying to.
Becky Witt [01:02:33]:
I'm honored to be your guest here.
Jeff Compton [01:02:35]:
I really am. And that's the thing. Anytime. If you want to come on again or I will reach out to you again at some point, I'd love to have it, because I think it's something that we should need to continue to share. So with that, everybody, thank you very much. Becky, thank you for being here.
Becky Witt [01:02:50]:
Thank you.
Jeff Compton [01:02:50]:
Dude, I adore you. Evadon and everybody.