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Shop Talk Her Way is where former shop owner and coach JeanAnn Saint Grace opens up the books on what it really takes to run a profitable, sustainable, and well-balanced auto repair business.
With decades of experience in bookkeeping, operations, and leadership, JeanAnn brings an honest, no-fluff approach to shop management — all from a woman’s perspective. From financial systems and staffing to communication and culture, she shares insights that help shop owners (and especially women in the industry) take control, build better businesses, and enjoy the ride.
Whether you’re turning wrenches, balancing the books, or scaling to your next location, you’ll find encouragement, strategy, and a healthy dose of “you’ve got this” in every episode.
Shop Talk Her Way is an AutoFix Auto Shop Coaching production — helping shops thrive, her way.
Thanks to WorldPac and the WorldPac Training Institute (WTI) for sponsoring Shop Talk Her Way. Visit worldpac.com for the latest in auto parts distribution and wtitraining.com to explore training programs that can take your career to the next level.
[00:00:00] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And that takes doggedness on the part of a technician to stick their head under there and go, right? That takes a special talent who doesn't get frustrated, who just wants to throw a part at it, who, who wants to go ahead and get the problem fixed, not just start throwing parts and spending the customer's money without a good feel for what is going on.
[00:00:24] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And I think that truly is the difference between a technician, a good technician, and a great technician, is that ability to doggedly follow the trail until they come up with the right answer
[00:00:46] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Cool linear shop with diag in it. Hi, this is JeanAnn SaintGrace with Shop Talk Her Way, and today's episode is all about selling diagnostics. And as a coach, of course, I see a lot of different shops, and oftentimes where they're struggling is to properly sell and charge for diagnostic time. And I'm on the fence whether we should even be calling it diagnostics anymore.
[00:01:12] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We need to come up with like a test and evaluate, um, something to get away from that diagnostic, um, label because what, what the technician's actually doing is investigating, right? They're actually going through processes to find the, the malfunction in the vehicle. So is it truly diagnostics or is it more of a investigation or an evaluation or something of that nature?
[00:01:42] JeanAnn SaintGrace: If we use the term evaluation, then our courtesy checks and DBIs kind of flow right in that because that becomes part of the evaluation, right? We're evaluating the vehicle not just for the malfunction, but also for other things. So there might be some wordplay there that we can play with. And of course, words mean things, so we have to be very consistent.
[00:02:05] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We also need to be very clear in, in what exactly we're charging for, what we're doing, and what we expect the outcome to be. And as most of you know, you know, I helped run a shop with my husband for 15 years. Um, I'd been around him when he was working in other shops and in the, in the, in the time since I've been, I've been a customer in shops.
[00:02:29] JeanAnn SaintGrace: I have been, uh, a coach watching other shops, and so I've kind of been able to see this from different angles. And we're also living in a barrage of diagnose it for free things like the, um, major aftermarket, um, part sellers will do a scan, quote unquote, and give you, uh, a diagnosis, quote unquote, for free.
[00:02:56] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Um, which unfortunately is simply reading codes, looking at maybe the top five causes of that code, and then trying to sell customers parts based on that information That's not diagnostics. That is a wish and a prayer, right? So, so that's not what we do, right? Our goal in, in doing an evaluation or doing an investigation is to pinpoint the source of the error, if possible fix it, or at least then recommend the repairs that are necessary with an estimate of how much that is going to cost the customer.
[00:03:32] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So, so we have to be very clear of what we're offering. Um, when I was on the counter, there were oftentimes where people would say, "Well, you know, so and so will, will diagnose it for free," insert favorite auto parts store. Um, and I would say, "Well, this is actually what they do, and I'll be happy to do that for you if you'd like to come by.
[00:03:54] JeanAnn SaintGrace: I'll be happy to pull the code for you. I'll be happy to plug in the scan tool, see what codes come up, and then we can go from there." But 99.9% of the time, that's not gonna give us a course of repair. That's just gonna give us a starting point to continue or to begin our investigation. So, so this is also an important part of our customer, uh, education, right?
[00:04:19] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Is that we're informing them of the process. We're walking them step through step what this is gonna look like. We're also not implying that we're giving-- you know, that we have an open ticket or an open wallet or an open checkbook. We're gonna try to give them points of reference of how much we think something is g- how much the evaluation or investigation is going to cost, with the possibility that either we can check it and fix it and find the pr- find...
[00:04:48] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Check it, find the problem, and fix it for that much or cheaper, say, if there's a damaged wire, or that we might have to continue our investigation once we've exhausted the time that we've allotted And for, for me, when, when I had my shop, my husband was adamant, he was the tech, and he was adamant that we sell two hours of diagnostic time for a check engine light.
[00:05:14] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And his thinking was that he didn't wanna be an hour into that diag, be hot on the trail, and then all of a sudden be out of time and have to stop, pull back, lose the scent, so to speak, go call the customer, get authorization if we could get ahold of them, go back and continue on. Um, that is not an efficient waste of time.
[00:05:38] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So our goal was to sell two hours of diagnostic time upfront with the understanding with the customer that if we can diagnose it, investigate it, however you wanna put that, either fix it for that much or cheaper or verify the cause, then we would stop and call them, let them know, "Hey, it's gonna be this much more," or, "We got it for this much," then proceed from there.
[00:06:03] JeanAnn SaintGrace: This was a lot of conversation with the customer, of course, but it was important to lay the groundwork, to give them a field of expectations where they feel comf- comfortable and confident for signing on the dotted line for two hours worth of, of checkout time. And I had a epiphany, for lack of a better term, last week talking to, uh, one of my coaching clients, thinking, you know, why is it so hard to sell the, the time, the inspection time?
[00:06:39] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And part of it, I think, is because our advisors like to live more in surety, and of course we do. Wouldn't we much rather tell the, the customer, "Hey, it's gonna cost this much," $500, $700, $1,100? It would be much more comfortable for all of us if we could give them a solid number, but we can't until we get into it, right?
[00:07:03] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And so we have to lay all this groundwork. It takes time. It takes effort. And the epiphany that I had is this is time and materials work. If someone calls for an oil change and we've, you know, we run into a problem with the oil change, it's an estimated job, so nine times out of 10 we're just gonna charge them for what we've got in it, especially if there was a problem, or not what we've got in it, but what we estimated that for.
[00:07:34] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Um, same for a bigger job. If we quote a 60,000-mile service and some part of that service takes longer because, say, our equipment went down or, uh, we have a parts delay or we got the wrong parts, we're still only charging them for the estimated time that we started with. But like any other trade, like an air conditioning, um, contractor or a plumbing contractor or an electrical contractor, they have two different kinds of jobs.
[00:08:05] JeanAnn SaintGrace: They have the time and materials jobs, where the customer pays however much time, however much materials, plus their markup. Or we have estimated jobs, where if they're building a house, the price per square foot is X amount of money. That's what they're gonna pay unless there's a change order, right?
[00:08:23] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Change orders happen. Unexpected things happen. Customer decides they wanna move something after it's framed up, or they wanna move electrical outlets or add electrical outlets. The estimate changes based on the change order, quote unquote. So my, my idea, my recommendation, or something to try on in your, um, advisor scripts for selling evaluation of electrical issues is to talk about time and materials work So, um, time and materials is exactly what it sounds like.
[00:08:58] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You know, we're gonna do just like you would with a plumber. You know, the, you call the plumber and say, "Hey, my, um, bath- my bathroom drain is plugged or clogged." They're gonna say, "Okay, the first hour is this much, and then e- every hour after that is this much more, and then we're gonna charge you accordingly for whatever supplies, parts, whatever you might need."
[00:09:24] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So this is how I think we need to start talking about evaluations or diagnostics, is this step-by-step process of the, the... It's a charge by the hour. Um, and I do recommend that you have a diagnostic rate over your regular door rate s- because you have so much more invested with tooling, information, best technician, all of those things.
[00:09:48] JeanAnn SaintGrace: It takes your top resources. So on the side note, recommend you have a door rate, or I mean, sorry, a diagnostic rate that's 20 to 25, even $30 higher than your door rate because it's, it takes that. Plus the shop should be running on a parts and labor profit model, and if we're sell- only selling hours and we're not selling any parts, then we've m- lost part of our profit margin.
[00:10:15] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So this is where we may need to increase our, our diagnostic rate in order to compensate for that lack of parts profit. So think about all these things as you're, as you're figuring that out. Um, and then you're selling this as we're going to charge you accordingly for the time we have invested in it. If we find small repairs that we can do along the way, like electrical connectors, fuses, relays, s- small things that we have on hand that may be five, 10, $15, we're going to go ahead and add those things to the cost.
[00:10:53] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Um, if you're, if you're in, and depending on what state you're in, you might start with your evaluation time plus a slush fund of 50 to $60 for any incidental wiring, supplies, connectors, um, you know, fuses, relays, those kinds of things that you might need as part of your testing. So, so these are all the things we've gotta think about that go into these jobs, but this way the customer can understand there's no set time because we don't know what's wrong.
[00:11:29] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We could have anything from a rodent chewed a wire to a primary module being out or, um, a connector being bad or, um, some other fail- parts failure somewhere in the circuit, and we cannot tell them the cost of that repair until we do this evaluation. So- We, we wanna like think about this time and materials model that the trades use to help people understand.
[00:11:58] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You know, recently I had to have an air conditioning tech come out to our house. Um, the air conditioning wasn't working, and he said, you know, "I'm gonna start here." And they did that, and then they found the next thing, and then they found the next thing. So, you know, overall, we started with an hour's time, and we slowly added on as he found the things that were wrong, time and materials additions, and, you know, it led up to about a 900 to $1,000 bill.
[00:12:30] JeanAnn SaintGrace: But he kept with me every step of the way. "The first step is this much. Okay, we've done the first step. This is where we're at. Now we need to add more, and then we have to add more after that." So, so this is kind of how we want to explain this to our customers. We want them to understand that this is just like having a plumber come out or just like having the AC guy come out.
[00:12:53] JeanAnn SaintGrace: They won't know what the problem is until it gets there, till they get their hands on it, until they do this investigation. And I think there is also a misperception in the general public that there's this magic box that we plug into the com- into the computer system of the vehicle, and it just tells us everything that's wrong, down to the nitty-gritty, right?
[00:13:18] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And that's a misperception or a misconception that a lot of the public is under because they've seen the commercials on TV that say, "We'll diagnose your car for free." And they don't understand that, yes, they're showing a scan tool in the parts person's hands, but they're not showing the process, so they have this huge misconception.
[00:13:40] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And unfortunately also, you know, auto shops are not out there putting up 30 and o- 30-second to 60-second ads on TV explaining the diagnostic process. Could there be something on YouTube? Yes, there could, and maybe we should have that. Maybe before we bring somebody in for one of these, you know, evaluations, we send them a link to a video.
[00:14:03] JeanAnn SaintGrace: "Here, this is our d- our evaluation process. I'd appreciate if you spend three to five minutes." You know, that way they understand it, they can back it up, they can run it forward, they can watch it however many times they need to, but then they've got a clear understanding of what the process is gonna look like and how they're going to be affected by it.
[00:14:23] JeanAnn SaintGrace: The most important thing I think though, is that the customer understands the clock doesn't start ticking when they drop the vehicle off. Um, a lot of customers are afraid that, you know, they drop their car off at 8:00 o'clock and the clock starts to tick right then. And so they haven't heard from you by noon and they're freaking out because, oh my gosh, we're spending four hours working on their vehicle, and that's not the case, right?
[00:14:48] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We wanna be very clear. We have X amount of jobs in the shop this today. As soon as we've got certain things lined up, we're gonna pull your vehicle in, and that's when the clock starts ticking, the minute the tech touches the vehicle and gets started. Um, I also recommend or encourage that you create a DVI or some kind of a diagnostic checklist so that as your technician is working, they're documenting their process.
[00:15:15] JeanAnn SaintGrace: They're taking screenshots or pictures of their scan data, and they're putting it into this DVI so that they can share this with the customers. I even know shops that go so far as to print out the wiring diagrams that they're using or the trouble trees or any other TSPs or diagnostic information that they're pulling down so that the customer sees, you know, what they've paid for.
[00:15:42] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And so when you go to do your presentation or when your, the job is complete, they've got this stack of information that your technician used to go step by step through the process to get to a final destination and a repair. We need to have this kind of clarity or transparency because we're living in a land of people who don't have a clue how their vehicles work.
[00:16:09] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Maybe they've had stuff, you know, they've always had new cars, and every time they've taken it in, it's gone in under warranty and it's come out for free. So those are the things that we're coming up against in the aftermarket that we have to really take a hold of and find a way to effectively communicate.
[00:16:28] JeanAnn SaintGrace: When a customer calls and your advisor's floundering around trying to explain why does diagnostic or evaluative time take so long or why is it so expensive, they need to have a script. They need to have a list of values that are, that are leading us down this path. Why is it so important that we spend $400 or $500 up front on diagnostics before we, we start replacing parts?
[00:16:59] JeanAnn SaintGrace: This is the information that they need to have and that they need to share. So I recommend working with your sales team or working with your advisors, I don't like calling them salespeople anymore. Work with your advisor team to really dial in their script. If the customer objects, how do you overcome that?
[00:17:18] JeanAnn SaintGrace: If they say, "I can get so and so to diagnose it for free," then the, the conversation about, "Yes, that's just merely pulling trouble codes." If we have a, a drivability problem that doesn't have any codes thrown, that's e- even more tumultuous because then the tech is truly moving in on following a symptom rather than at least having a code to begin with.
[00:17:45] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So... And, and the other thing is that customers need to understand how complex these vehicles are now. It is not, it's not your father's Oldsmobile, right? It is not 1975 when it was purely chase electrical wires, figure out what's going on, fix the wiring, and keep going or replace parts. Those days are so far gone, it's, it's scary the amount of electronics and interplay between modules and how this over here's gotta work so this thing over here works.
[00:18:19] JeanAnn SaintGrace: It's, it's ludicrous in some ways how these vehicles are designed to be so complicated, right? It, it feels sometimes like there are people out there really just making our lives in the aftermarket more difficult than it needs to be. So, so this transparency, this scripting, the ability to overcome these objections, and And that's gonna give your customer a feel that they're in the right hands.
[00:18:50] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Um, if you've got an advisor who's like, "Yeah, it's gonna cost 20-- you know, $250 to do a diagnostic." "Well, what are they gonna do?" "I don't know. I'm not a technician." Okay, that's not a good answer. You know, the, the, the good script is, "Okay, well, we're gonna first, you know, test drive the vehicle if that's what's needed, evaluate and check and verify your symptoms.
[00:19:12] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We're going to then search our databases for information to see if there's pattern failures, TSBs, any of those things that, that might give us an, a clue of which direction to go and maybe save some of this, this, you know, valuable time that we're asking them to pay for. Then we're going to go to the vehicle with all the information that we've gathered and, and pursue a, a process of evaluation to determine what is the cause of this."
[00:19:43] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You know, I, I have a, a friend/colleague, uh, who's a shop owner, and he spent eight hours diagnosing a problem, and he, um... It turned out to be a, a wire that was damaged, and he had to r- fix the connection. But it took the time, it took all that time and effort to go through to find out, you know, this, this wire was damaged at this one place, and that was what was causing the whole problem.
[00:20:13] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And that takes doggedness on the part of a technician to stick their head under there and go, right? That takes a special talent who doesn't get frustrated, who just wants to throw a part at it, who, who wants to go ahead and get the problem fixed, not just start throwing parts and spending the customer's money without a good feel for what is going on.
[00:20:39] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And I think that truly is the difference between a technician, a good technician, and a great technician, is that ability to doggedly follow the trail until they come up with the right answer. Are there times when we have to make a, a, a SWOT, a sophisticated wild ass guess? Yes. Sometimes that's what we have to do.
[00:21:02] JeanAnn SaintGrace: But at the same time... I'm sorry, it's a SWAG, not a SWOT. Um, but at the same time, we want to know that if we've gotten to that point, we're gonna tell the customer, "Okay, our technician is at this juncture, and this, this component is testing bad, but there might be another component after this deeper in the system that isn't working right, but we've gotta replace this one first."
[00:21:24] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So again, step by step, we're talking our customer through the process. Yes, we've spent our initial two hours of evaluation. Now we need X amount of money to, to do this repair, and then I'm going to call and update you, and we may need more money/time after that in order to continue or to verify that we don't have anything farther downstream in the system with a problem.
[00:21:49] JeanAnn SaintGrace: It's all about the languaging. It's all about the bedside manner. It's all about your advisors knowing at least as much as your technicians, or at least being able to have a really solid conversation with the customer about the process, the lingo, and how are we gonna get them where they need to go, which is a vehicle that is running properly and doing everything that it should without a light on or without a drivability symptom.
[00:22:18] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So is this easy? It's not easy. I, I hate, I hate to say this because I don't want to discourage anybody in this industry. This is not the easiest industry to live in, right? There's all these ways that things can go sideways and, and unfortunately, we just have to somehow learn to live with that risk and to accept that sometimes this is gonna go as smooth as silk.
[00:22:44] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We're gonna find it within an hour or two, uh, with our initial diagnosis. It's gonna be easy and effective and an, an inexpensive repair. And sometimes it's gonna be a long slog through the mud, over the hill, through the dale to get to the correct answer And that's gonna cost, cost your customer a fair amount of money.
[00:23:04] JeanAnn SaintGrace: But the goal ultimately is that it's fixed right, that we're not guessing, that we're not just throwing parts at a vehicle. And my hope would be my, my Pollyanna view of our industry would be that that stuff is not happening. But the truth is it is, and you know there's shop out, shops out there doing that.
[00:23:25] JeanAnn SaintGrace: You know there's, there's technicians who run out of talent and instead of sh- standing up and saying, "I don't know, either this needs to go to another shop or I need another tech to come in and work on this," they wanna throw a part at it and see, quote unquote, "if that fixes it." And as a shop owner, I'm gonna tell you We need to encourage our people to not do that.
[00:23:46] JeanAnn SaintGrace: We need to encourage our techs, if they get to a point of I don't know, then they call a friend, then they th- you know, ask for a lifeline. Whatever that is, it's okay for them to say, "I don't know," and then see what the next step is. And there's gonna be a bunch of people saying, "Well, if I don't find the problem, how do I charge the customer for that?"
[00:24:09] JeanAnn SaintGrace: That's where your stack of information comes in. That's where your diagnostic checklist comes in. We've checked this, this, this, this, this, this, this. This is the wiring diagram we used. This is the diagnostic information that we had. We did all of these things that are according to the powers that be the right things to do, and we've hit a wall with this.
[00:24:29] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So the customer has paid for that much information, which now they take to the next person if that's what's necessary and say this is everything that they did. Now, as a shop receiving that pile of paperwork, am I gonna be like, "Oh yeah, I'm just gonna pick up where they left off"? No. I'm gonna go back. My tech's gonna start at the beginning.
[00:24:51] JeanAnn SaintGrace: They're-- they might give this a once-over and say, "Okay, I can kind of see where they were going, but maybe they got off in the weeds." And so we're gonna give a nod to that information. We're gonna take it on. We're gonna allow it to be part of our, our process, but it might not be our roadmap. We probably have a different roadmap.
[00:25:11] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So it's not a pick up where they left off in many cases. It's a recheck everything that they did to make sure they didn't miss something and then move forward from there. But we have to, we have to really explain this to the customer. We got as far as we could. This is something that needs to go to a specialist or to the dealer.
[00:25:31] JeanAnn SaintGrace: This is past the limit of the information that we have and we can't, we can't go any farther, but this is how far we got. And, and that information is still valuable. That information is still good for the customer to have and take forward with them and maybe at some point they sit down with both sets of diagnostic information and can see, you know, everything fel- followed until they got to this one point in this juncture and the other shop had to take over from there So, so I'm not meaning for this to be a hot button subject.
[00:26:05] JeanAnn SaintGrace: I'm not meant trying to fluff any feathers, but there's a point where we as owners have to give our people the ability to say, "I don't know," and either have somebody else in the shop take over or send it out. We have to take our egos out of this and not send a technician down a merry trail that we have no way of recouping the time on.
[00:26:30] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Um, are there times when we should just know that there's jobs that are over our heads? Sometimes we know that going in, other times we don't. And so there's no shame, there's no judgment, there's no nothing in saying, "This is beyond me. I don't wanna get into this. I'm gonna ship it to the next person down the road who has better equipped, uh, who is better equipped to handle this than me."
[00:26:54] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And, and I think that honesty, that level of honesty, that humility, that ability to say, "I've done my best and now I need to hand this off to a specialist," there's, there's no harm or judgment in that. And so, you know, I w- I would recommend my, my goal would be to work with your service advisors to, to get them knowledgeable on how these systems work, to make sure that they're getting the technical training that your technicians are getting, so that when it comes down to all of this, they can either look at what the technician's telling them and say, "Hey, I think there's a misstep here," or, um, "Hey, did you double-check this?
[00:27:40] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Because it feels like there might be a hole here." Our advisors are that stopgap measure. If you don't have a shop foreman who's an experienced technician, then a lot of time the advisor is the stopgap. So our advisors need to continue to train. They can't just be sitting idle in their technical abilities because even though they might not be the guy working on the vehicle, they need to understand how the system works so that when it turns around to explain it to the customer, they have the knowledge to do...
[00:28:13] JeanAnn SaintGrace: to give them the explanation and the understanding that they need. So it's, it's, again, the shop is a, is a whole being, right? Every piece in the, in the puzzle has to be doing their job. And our advisors, I think, are sometimes neglected because we don't spend the time or invest in them the time needed for technical training that they need to have.
[00:28:39] JeanAnn SaintGrace: They need to be able to have a logical conversation with the technician, and then they need to be able to interpret all of that tech speak to the customer. They're the middle, the middleman, and we're doing them a disservice by not, um, not, not giving them that. So, you know, if your, if your team, if your tech team's going to training, your advisor should be going with you.
[00:29:04] JeanAnn SaintGrace: If th- y- they're doing online training, the advisor should be doing the same, the same training because they have to be able to, to be the translator from the technician to the customer and then back to how, how this information flows, and that's gonna make your shop a lot more, um, profitable, efficient, effective in, in their work.
[00:29:29] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And why- Why am I so worried about this? Because what I see in shops is there's so much time lost in diagnostics. There's so much time lost in a technician who maybe has an hour and needs more time, but they're either embarrassed or they feel like there's judgment, or they don't wanna let go of it because now they're invested.
[00:29:53] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And we can't afford for them to be on a, on a job for three, four hours that only pays us one or two. That's not, that's not fair to them, depending on how their pay rate is, and it's not fair to, um, the shop either because you're losing the benefit of that income and, and the opportunity cost of other work they could be doing.
[00:30:18] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So, you know, not only are we not getting paid for what we're doing on the diag, we're also not getting paid for the work that they could be doing if they weren't chasing this down. Also, caveat is this. If we have a technician who's learning and we can give them the benefit of some extra time knowing, you know, Joe's new to this and this would really be a great project for him, and he's gonna have supervision, and he's going to check in with his supervisor or the technician who is watching over him in this process and give us a blow-by-blow of how he's doing, where he's going.
[00:30:56] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Is it okay in that case for the, for the shop to absorb an hour's worth of time, which we can consider training to make them a better technician? We can do that. But what I don't want is technicians just running wild with time that they-- we don't have billed out. It hurts your effective labor rate. It hurts your profitability.
[00:31:16] JeanAnn SaintGrace: It hurts their efficiency. It hurts a lot of things in the shop. And a lot of times when people are saying, "Well, my product- productivity is not where it needs to be," it's because we're not capturing that diagnostic or evaluation time. So please think about this. Hopefully there's some tips in here that can give you some idea of, of where we can plug some of the profit holes in the shop.
[00:31:43] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Um, and, and also this is a culture thing. You know, this isn't your technician comes to you and says, "Hey, I'm-- I've run out of talent on this. I don't know what to do next." Well, we're not calling names. We're not giving them judgment. We're saying, "Okay, walk me through this. Show me where, where you hit the wall."
[00:32:02] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And then let's step back with them and maybe point them in the right direction if that's possible. Or if the whole brain trust of your shop is, is like stymied and they're like, "I don't know what to do," then it's time maybe for a specialist. But, you know, f- to, to shortchange your team, to shortchange the shop, to, to not get the full value of the work that we've done, that's not fair to anybody.
[00:32:29] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And unfortunately, this stuff is expensive, just like it's expensive to call out an air conditioning tech to your house or a plumber or an electrician. And I mean, let's face it, I'm not taking any way from plumbers. They absolutely do dirty work, right? The, the, the, the king of all dirty jobs is being a plumber.
[00:32:49] JeanAnn SaintGrace: But plumbing hasn't changed. Plumbing doesn't have new technology coming out every m-m year, make and model, right? Water runs downhill. Toilets work a specific way. We might have some new fancy add-ons, but at when it comes right down to it, water runs downhill, and you just gotta find out where it's plugged up So, so it's dirty work.
[00:33:10] JeanAnn SaintGrace: I'm, again, I, I love my trades. I've, you know, I've been saved by plumbers, like, so I'm not taking anything away from them. But the work that we do in the aftermarket has a degree of difficulty that is beyond anything else, probably in most of the trades. So, so be cognizant of that. Help your customers to understand that.
[00:33:33] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Um, don't be afraid to have a favorite metaphor or a favorite analogy to help them understand. Have a couple of them in case you need to go deeper into your, into your storehouse of information and share some more stories. You know, uh, similar to my air conditioning job, it's the same thing. And I think sometimes the disconnect for, for the consumer is that a lot of times a check engine light comes on and there's a malfunction, but their car doesn't run any different.
[00:34:03] JeanAnn SaintGrace: It doesn't work any different. They don't see any benefit in spending $1,000 because it ran fine when it came in, it's gonna run fine when it goes out, and in the meantime, the only thing that they see is that the check engine light's off So making them feel good about the work that they've done. You know, if we've got a, a random misfire code or we've got a, a misfire on cylinder number three and it's time for a tune-up and it's gonna cost $1,000 to do a tune-up, that's...
[00:34:32] JeanAnn SaintGrace: I mean, those are the numbers sometimes, right? We have to make them feel good. We have to help them to understand that by fixing the problem now could possibly keep that engine running longer. It's gonna improve their fuel mileage. It could also avoid damaging the catalytic converter down the road, which is even more money.
[00:34:50] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So we have to encourage the customer and help them to understand they're making a wise investment in their vehicle, and that this happens to everybody. They didn't do anything wrong. Um, you know, this stuff happens. Spark plugs are a wear item, so have really good information for your customer about why we're doing this and what the benefits and v- and value is in it.
[00:35:13] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So, and once again, hopefully you guys have some tips and tricks that you can pull out of this. You can share it with your advisors. You can even share it with your techs, you know, and, and let them know, "Hey, it's okay for you guys to say I don't know," but, but you, you can't just give up somewhere. We have to make sure that we've done everything that we can within our power for this to have worked, and we've truly legitimately hit the end of our expertise and we need to run this up to a specialist or something of that nature.
[00:35:45] JeanAnn SaintGrace: And I think that's just doing a good service to your... not only to your team and not frustrating them, but also doing it for the customer where their best money is spent going to somebody at the next level of, of specialty. So with all that being said, I wanna thank AutoFix Auto Shop Coaching for being the sponsor of the, uh, this episode.
[00:36:06] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Um, the company is a small but mighty, um, coaching company. We focus on coaching a shop exactly where they're at, whether you're a brand new shop wanting to build, you know, proper p- processes and procedures from the get-go, structure, workflow, all of those things, on through to, um, a seasoned shop who is maybe planning succession or is now done the game of feet and inches and now we're in those quarter inches where we're fine-tuning their machine to make it a well-run, profitable, easeful shop and, and the owner gets to have the, the life and experience that they want in the shop.
[00:36:49] JeanAnn SaintGrace: Um, our, our coaches have, have experience in the industry. Um, speaking for myself, you know, I, I had run a shop from inception to sale, so f- everywhere from the beginning through the succession plan And, um, on top of that, I have bookkeeping expertise, accounting expertise, all, all of the things, right? I've seen this industry from multiple sides, and so we bring that level of perspective to the work that we do.
[00:37:21] JeanAnn SaintGrace: So if you're interested in coaching, please don't hesitate to reach out. Our, um, our contact information is, um, in the show notes, so please don't hesitate to reach out for a discovery call if you're interested in coaching or if you need that little extra bit of help to get you the shop your way. So thank you once again.
[00:37:40] JeanAnn SaintGrace: This is JeanAnn SaintGrace with Shop Talk Her Way, and I'm here to help you get your shop your way. Have a great day.