ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Show Summary:
Strong repair order documentation protects the customer the technician and the shop while improving efficiency and profitability. Cecil Bullard and Lucas Underwood explain the Five Cs of repair documentation and why every repair order should tell a complete story from the customer's concern to the final verification. They share real court cases shop experiences and practical examples that show how better documentation reduces liability improves communication and builds customer trust. They also discuss accountability shop culture and why consistent processes create better teams and better results.
Host(s):
Lucas Underwood, Shop Owner of L&N Performance Auto Repair and Changing the Industry Podcast
Cecil Bullard, Founder of The Institute
Show Highlights:
[00:00:00] – Repair orders protect the customer the shop and the technician.
[00:03:00] – Ask better questions to fully understand every customer concern.
[00:07:12] – Confirm every complaint before diagnosis begins to prevent wasted time.
[00:12:05] – Complete documentation can protect your shop during legal disputes.
[00:18:28] – Use a two arrow diagnostic process to prove the true cause.
[00:22:10] – Technicians should document the repair plan and final verification.
[00:31:02] – Accountability and quality control keep repair order standards consistent.
[00:36:08] – Leaders must follow shop processes before expecting employees to.
[00:42:18] – Strong culture grows from systems training and customer focused communication.
[00:53:05] – The Five Cs create better documentation stronger shops and happier customers.
In every business journey, there are defining moments or challenges that build resilience and milestones that fuel growth. We’d love to hear about yours! What lessons, breakthroughs, or pivotal experiences have shaped your path in the automotive industry? Share your story with us at info@wearetheinstitute.com, and you might be featured in an upcoming episode.
👉 Unlock the full experience - watch the full webinar on YouTube: https://youtu.be/cIbTInGm09Q
Don’t miss exclusive insights, expert takeaways, and real talk you won’t hear anywhere else. Hit Subscribe, drop a comment, and share it with someone who needs to hear this!
Links & Resources:
- Want to learn more? Click Here
- Want a complimentary business health report? Click Here
- See The Institute's events list: Click Here
- Want access to our online classes? Click Here
________________________________________
Episode Transcript Disclaimer
This transcript was generated using artificial intelligence and may contain errors. If you notice any inaccuracies, please contact us at marketing@wearetheinstitute.com.
Episode Transcript:
Lucas Underwood: Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Lucas Underwood with the Changing the Industry podcast. I own an auto repair shop here in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, called L&M Performance Auto Repair. And today I am joined with one of the elite of the industry, Mr. Cecil Bullard. Cecil is the founder and chairman of the Institute in GEAR Group.
And one of my very first classes on writing repair orders was with Cecil. And I'm just gonna tell you right here and right now, I know that we just think that fixing the car is about fixing the car, but when I took that class with Cecil, I really understood the importance of writing a repair order.
Because not only is it a repair order that tells you what to fix and tells the consumer what's wrong with the car, but it's a repair order that it's a legally binding document, and it helps us explain and convey information to the client, but it also protects us. So Cecil, how you doing today, buddy?
Cecil Bullard: I'm great, Lucas, as always. I'm doing fantastic.
Lucas Underwood: Very good. Very good. So we're talking repair orders today. The s- the idea of it is the five Cs, but I think that we need to talk through the process of writing a repair order. So many of us show up at work every single day, and we jump in and we start working on cars, and we focus on fixing the car.
But who writes the repair order, who does what part of the repair order, and what information is on the repair order is mission critical to the success of the shop. Because it impacts the close ratio, it impacts liability, right? So if you've ever had to go to court you know how important it is to have some information on there.
But it impacts the effectiveness of the shop. So I have seen a difference in productivity and efficiency all the way around by getting the correct information on the repair order at the right time. And so Cecil, I'd like you to kick it off and tell us, guys ask me all the time, "What are the five Cs?"
You wanna jump in and tell us what they are?
Cecil Bullard: So the five Cs so let me get there in a sec. I wanna- Yeah ... step maybe two steps backward. The repair order starts with the conversation with the service advisor and the consumer-
Lucas Underwood: Yeah ...
Cecil Bullard: the client. And if I have good canned jobs good descriptions of what I'm doing.
For instance, if I'm gonna do a mill light, a diagnostic, or a a electrical diagnostic, I wanna have a really good description of all of that builds value for the client and gets information for the technician. So let, let's think about this- it really starts there. Yeah. I've seen techs spend hours and hours go- because they didn't get the good information in the front.
Lucas Underwood: For
Cecil Bullard: sure. Going after, going after-
Lucas Underwood: It's one of the primary complaints, Cecil. One of the primary complaints- Yeah ... is I just spent four hours looking for this-
Cecil Bullard: Yeah ...
Lucas Underwood: and you didn't give me the information. And then
Cecil Bullard: y- yeah, and then they go up to the service advisor after th- all that frustration, and the service advisor says, "Oh, no.
That's n- that's not really what I meant," right? Yeah. And so creating really good CAN jobs to start, which gives us a good heads-up on creating value for our client and give- giving the technician the information that the technician needs to move forward is kinda where this starts. And that really is in a way, that's the first C.
What is the complaint from the consumer, right? Yeah. The client. So the first C is the complaint, and we need to document that complaint fully and completely. A- so I can't have a car runs rough. That's not enough for my technician, because my rough, and the consumer's rough, and the technician's rough could be three different things.
So I really wanna ask the questions as a service advisor, how often, when, is the car cold? Is the car hot? Is it going uphill? Is it going downhill? Is this only on Tuesdays on a certain road at a certain time- Yeah ... of day? I need to be asking questions of the consumer so that I can get my technician the information that will help them create a problem.
So I'll give you an example. Consumer comes in. I'm- I happen to be the service advisor, and I used to be the tech, and says, "I've got a rattle." I happen to jump in the car, and, I write it up, and I'm gonna end up giving it to a tech. But I jump in the car to pull it in the back, and there is just the most ungodly rattle in the trunk.
And I- I open the trunk as a service advisor, and there's a bowling ball rolling around.
Lucas Underwood: That'll
Cecil Bullard: do the trick- And seriously ...
Lucas Underwood: won't it? Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah, seriously. And so I take the bowling ball. There's a towel in the trunk. I wrap it in this towel, and I put it in the backseat, where it's gonna be secure, and I test drive the car, and there's no rattle.
There's no noise, right? And so I basically finish the work order, and the tech never sees the car.
And I figure I got her whooped. And so I write the customer up. It was, I don't know, it was probably at the time it was an hour diag. I think I charged him half of the time and said, "Oh, yeah, we got her found, and, isn't this kind of funny?
You have a bowling ball." There's actually dents on the inside of the trunk from this bowling ball rolling around. And the consumer pays the bill, drives out, the client, and not three minutes later, he's back in my- ... in the bay in my face. And, you
Lucas Underwood: know- This sounds so
Cecil Bullard: familiar. And he goes you didn't get the r- you didn't get the rattle."
Yeah. And I'm like, "Oh, really?" Could you-
Lucas Underwood: How could that not be the rattle?
Cecil Bullard: Yeah, how could that... You- you ignored that completely, and now there's some minuscule... So I go for a ride with the guy, and it's actually a squeak coming out of one of the struts. Going over a bump, right? I didn't ask enough questions.
I didn't, as the service advisor. And so now, the customer's already paid. They didn't pay enough 'cause I discounted it because it was so easy to, you know- Yeah ... fix, and I felt bad. And now I've gotta give it to a tech and track, put ears on it and track the noise down, and we end up replacing struts.
But that's an example of not really understanding the customer's complaint, and that's- For sure ... that's the first, that's the first C. For sure.
Lucas Underwood: And look, I'm gonna tell you, this is something that, that I have been through with my team over and over again. We're not just talking about understanding the complaint alone.
We're trying to understand their desired outcome. Yeah. We're trying to understand what it is they're trying to accomplish. Yeah. Because if you knew the number of times that I have been working with a client, and they're like, "Hey, I have this noise." And we're talking, and we go all the way through it, and I fix the noise, right?
I call them and say this. And I found out later that here I am, I'm on the telephone with them, and I'm talking through, "Oh, the noise. Yep, absolutely. Got this taken care of." Oh, you got this. But I wasn't active listening.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: They were saying, "Hey, I'm not worried about the noise, but there's this thing."
Yeah. And so i- if we're not active listening and paying attention to what they actually want to accomplish... and Susan just came back from the advisor intensive. Yeah. And she said one of the things that she brought up is that, hey, I've been on to her. "Hey, convey to the technicians what it is the consumer's trying to achieve."
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: Like- Yeah ... let's talk about what this is. So
Cecil Bullard: maybe we need to, we n- maybe we need to create a sixth C, or maybe it's five Cs and an, a- an A- Yeah ... or something because- ... what is it the customer wants? When they walk away at the end of the, at the end of the interaction, what are they really what are they really searching for?
Yeah. And I hope that through the five Cs we actually- Find it, we get it, we confirm it, et cetera. So first C is the customer's complaint. The second is the confirmation of the complaint. Yeah. I need somebody in my business to have felt, experienced heard whatever it is the customer is complaining about.
Because, I had a guy who worked for me love... One of my best employees ever, do anything for you. Deaf as a post, yeah. And so if you sent him out on any kind of a noise complaint i- with a car, he'd come back and say, "Not a thing. All this... I can't... There's nothing." And I go drive that thing, and sure enough the, there's a noise.
And so somehow I want a confirmation. Whether it's the service advisor that, that drives with the customer and hears the noise. One of my questions as a service advisor was, "Can you duplicate the noise?" Yes. "Can you make it happen-" Yes ... at will? And if the customer said, "Yeah," I'm like, "Let's go for a ride," right?
Yeah. I wanna hear the noise, right? Because when it's all done, the, I'm the guy who's responsible as the service advisor for making sure that the customer gets what they expected, and that's no noise, right? The, a solution- ... to their problem. How do we create a list of the right questions to ask?
Yeah, that's
Lucas Underwood: a...
Cecil Bullard: Yeah, that's a great question. And ensure we capture it properly. I think that number one, there's an experience. I think at one point there's somewhere I have a list of questions that would be asked. Yeah. Some of my- A
Lucas Underwood: diagnostic questionnaire or something ...
Cecil Bullard: some of my shops have a diagnostic questionnaire that they use with the client to help make sure some of that doesn't get missed, right?
And I think that as a... I need to be, I don't know, I need to be an investigator as a service advisor and I need to ask probably five more questions than I probably would ask anyway, right? Yeah. I would really like the consumer to say, "Wow, that's a lot of questions." Because I tell my service advisors, I, or I used to "I don't wanna know that it's got a noise.
That's simple. What I wanna know is how often can it be recreated? When does it happen? Under what circumstances? At what temperature? Driving on what roads?" Yeah. I'd like to pinpoint it so much so that you could say it only happens on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 1:00 and 2:00, going uphill- Come- On X road.
I want
Lucas Underwood: every bit of
Cecil Bullard: detail
Lucas Underwood: you can get me. Yeah. I, you know how many complaints that I get from technicians who say, "These advisors are lazy. These advisors aren't getting me what I need. These advisors are frustrating me. These advisors are causing me extra work. These advisors are running me around like crazy"?
Well- And, and- There's a
Cecil Bullard: natural tension, right? I mean-
Lucas Underwood: There is. Yeah. But just good questions can make all the difference in the world. It can. Getting this information, asking better questions. Because look, it only makes the technician more efficient, and when the technician's more efficient, guess what?
You're gonna sell more work, Mr. Advisor.
Cecil Bullard: More productivity equals- Yeah ... more money in the bank. And also less frustration, and that's- Exactly ... for me, that's kinda the point. I don't want anyone in my business to be frustrated. Yeah. Frustration you don't work at your best when you're frustrated.
Yeah. I don't care what, which job you're doing you just don't work at your best. Yeah. And I want a confirmation. I want in the write-up Someone to say, "I took the car, I drove the car, I heard the noise, I experienced the problem and I need that in the write-up." Yeah. Not just the car has a noise.
We replaced the upper control arms, and now it doesn't have a noise. Yeah. I need to... that customer could have another problem six months from now, two years from now. Yeah. Most shops now are y- are probably at least three year, 36,000-mile warranty on most of what they do.
And so if that customer comes in two years from now and there's a different service advisor or even myself, I'm not necessarily gonna remember everything that happened. Yeah ... I wanna be able to read that work order and understand not the process, what we went through, what we experienced, why we did what we did.
Yes. And I wanna be able to really clarify that for the for my client. I, hey- and it has little to do with court, but I gotta tell you, even yesterday I'm talking to a client and they're like- ... "Oh, I'm in trouble. This customer wants $1,700 back for X, Y, and Z." And I'm like, "Okay. Did you take pictures of the service and the repair that the car was fixed when you did what you did?"
"No the tech always forgets to take pictures. They won't take pictures." Yeah. Whatever. And looking at the write-up, there's no clear why we did what we did and what the outcome was. For sure.
Lucas Underwood: Absolutely.
Cecil Bullard: It's just we replaced the upper control arm bushings. Okay. And if you go to court with that, you're dead.
You-
Lucas Underwood: Exactly ...
Cecil Bullard: don't go.
Lucas Underwood: I'm gonna tell you a little story, okay? Years ago, and it was when I first started kinda learning how to run the business, I'd hired my first coach at the time, and a guy came in, and he came from a local rental place, and he was tearing a building down. He was loading the building up, and he was taking it back, and he's kinda like one of these hotshot truck drivers, except he was doing work while he was on site.
And if I remember, I'll go post pictures of this at some point. I gotta be careful about it 'cause I don't wanna alert anybody, but so long story short, this gentleman has a brake problem, and I get done with the c- with the truck, and I did the things he wanted done, and I said, "I'm gonna tell you something.
I don't trust this thing. It's not stopping right. I couldn't tell you why." And I need to do more testing to determine what that is. You're telling me you need to leave right now, but something does not feel right. Something is not right here. And so I'd driven it, and this was right when I first started learning to write repair orders, and so I put all over that ticket, the brakes are not right, the client declined additional testing, we offered to do the testing for free, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
We don't know what the results might be of this. And so few days later, the guy who referred him out here and he said, "Hey man," he said, "Is this that truck that you were telling me about that I sent over?" And it's this picture, and this thing, Cecil, there's nothing left of it. Yeah. It's in pieces.
The cab's ripped off of it. The axles are out from underneath it. The bed's ripped off of it. Now, the highway patrol shows up out here at the shop. Yeah. And he walks in and he's asking all these questions about the truck, and I said, "Here..." "Here's what I have, and here's the signed repair order where they signed off picking the truck up, and here's all the information that I had about the truck."
He said, "I've never seen anything like this." He said, "I've never seen this written up." He said, "You were in the clear anyway." And I said, "Why?" He said, "Because he went off the top of that mountain with 42,000 pounds on a truck that was rated for 12."
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. He said, "There was-" you know why it wouldn't stop, right?
He said- I don't know why. Maybe it's 42,000 pounds in the back- ... when it's only supposed to have 12.
Lucas Underwood: Exactly. And so he was- Wow ... he was super cool about it, but he said, "Man," he said, "I'm telling you," he said, "That just..." He said, "That's all I need. What you put on there is enough for me-" Yeah ... "to know that the driver was at fault for this accident."
He said, "Because you told him as a professional something was wrong." Which, yeah, and- The number of tickets we see that have nothing on it- Yeah ... fixed brakes. I probably see 10 to 15 of those that come into my shop, dealers, independent shops, the whole nine yards, and they bring me their service history and I'm like Fixed brakes
Cecil Bullard: So think about this, 'cause I don't think any shop owner understands the liability that they have.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: So I put a fixed brakes on the work order- Yeah ... and I don't write anything else. I don't write what I found, I don't write why I fixed them, I don't write what happened when they were fixed and how it rode. Yeah. I do nothing but fixed brakes, right?
Lucas Underwood: Yep.
Cecil Bullard: And that guy goes out and drives it off a mountain and all of a sudden I'm in the middle of a lawsuit that could cost me everything I have.
And you think, you would think that wait a minute. I'm a corporation, I'm an LLC or a, an S corp or whatever, so I'm protected as the owner." If there's- Yeah ... anything illegal that goes on, your protection is wiped away. Gone. And so- Yeah,
Lucas Underwood: buddy. If you've ever- And- ... pierced the corporate veil-
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: And then- ... they can find out anything.
Cecil Bullard: And then I have the excuses of it takes too long to write the work order." Okay. Charge the customer for it. Yeah. I mean- Yeah ... if I have to document and I have to do a good job of documenting what happened and it takes an extra 20 minutes, then raise your labor rate.
Or I don't know- Yeah ... add another 20 minutes to the work order to, so that you can document properly, because it's too important, right?
Lucas Underwood: It is.
Cecil Bullard: So I- It's too
Lucas Underwood: important ... I've got a question though because it- Okay ... this is something that comes up. I've got a lot of shop owners that I talk to about this and they say no, you're better off putting less information on there, because then if you put more information, they could say you touched something.
You did something. You took something apart.'" From my experiences, that's not the case. I-
Cecil Bullard: I have never gone to court. I've gone to court personally for myself like four times. Yeah. I've gone to court 13 times for clients. I've been asked to go to court probably 50. All right?
The 47 times I did not go to court- Were because the paperwork wasn't done right.
Yeah. There wasn't enough information. Okay?
The 13 times I went to court, I won.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Because the paperwork was done properly, because everything- Yeah ... was spelled out correctly. Because the signatures were in the right places. Because the mileage when it came in was on, and the mileage when it left was on.
I had a lady with a Chrysler. It's one of my favorite stories. Really nice older lady. Came in, we did, I don't know, $3,500 worth of work to it. Struts, suspension work, tires, brakes, blah, blah, blah. And as part of what we did, we documented the fluids. We documented that the transmission fluid was good.
We documented that the transmission was shifting properly. We documented that the engine was running well, that there were no oil leaks at the time that we were driving the car. We drove the car, I don't know, 22 miles as part of what we did. And 800 miles later, about three and a half weeks later, the transmission crapped itself.
Okay?
123,000 mile, 140,000 mile Chrysler. Old Chrysler, yeah. Yeah. And so she came in hot. And I brought out the work order. I looked at what we did. I looked at why we did it. I told her, I said, "Look, see here? We checked the fluid. Here's a picture of the fluid. It looked good. There was no metal in it.
See here? We drove the vehicle. We drove the vehicle, 22 miles. It was shifting perfectly. There were no problems with the way it shifted. So let me ask you a question. I just wanna ask you one question." She said, "Okay, fine." "Should we have sold you a transmission At, 800 miles ago when it was, when the fluid was good and the transmission was shifting perfectly as a precaution just because you had 123,000 miles on your car.
And she looked at me and she went, "No, probably not." Okay, great. And but if you don't have the story, you can't back up what you did and why you did it. Yeah. Yeah. You have to have the story. And it, I don't know. For me if you're a service advisor in my shop, which okay, I don't have one today but I certainly ran a lot of shops for many years.
And you're a service advisor in my shop, and you're not gonna write the story out, and you're not gonna create the right documentation, you're not gonna work for me. Yeah. And if I have to take over for you at 3:00 'cause you got a dentist appointment or you gotta go to your daughter's dance recital or whatever, and there's no information for me, the next day's gonna be a hard day for you,
Lucas Underwood: right?
Yeah. Absolutely, man. We- Absolutely ...
Cecil Bullard: we should get in the pattern. So let's talk C number three, right? Okay. We talked about two. Number three is what's the cause? What is causing the vehicle? And I can tell you in my shops we use what we call a two arrow approach.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Okay? So you can't tell me that the code was whatever and it means that the number five spark plug wasn't firing properly.
That's ... Okay, that's, that is not necessarily the cause. That's the out- an outcome, right? And you can't say we need to replace the number five spark plug because the code was here." I want testing done that tracks it to say, "This is what we're replacing, and this is why we're replacing it." Yeah. I want a second arrow.
And so- For sure ... all of my guys knew if they didn't have a two arrow approach we, w- I wasn't selling it. Okay?
Yeah. Or I might call the customer and say, "Look, we need to do some additional testing." I didn't have a problem with a guy coming to me and saying, "Hey, Cecil- ... I gotta run three more tests and then I need two more hours to, to really figure out what this is."
Lucas Underwood: Exactly. Does not bother me a bit.
Cecil Bullard: Not even- I'll do it
Lucas Underwood: all day long.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. But I do have a problem with the computer basically told me number five cylinder."
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And- Absolutely.
Lucas Underwood: 100%
Cecil Bullard: Because I know having done this for a million years, right? Look at me, I look like I'm a million and
a half. But that's a problem waiting to happen- It is ... if we don't have a clear what the cause is.
Lucas Underwood: And I'm gonna tell you something. So there's this new and it relates to this question that's coming up right now, so leave the question up. There's apps now, like WhisperFlow, right?
And so I can open this app on my phone, and I can dictate directly to it. Does an- ... excellent job of dictating what I'm saying, and even if I wanted to drop it into AI and have AI clean it up and make it more presentable, and I copy and paste it in, you're talking about 15, 20, 30 seconds of me describing- Yes
through voice transcription what's going on with this car. So we're not talking about adding a lot of time. We're talking about converting the expertise of the technician To text on the repair order that the consumer could understand and that if, God forbid, you ever had to go to court the judge could read it and understand it.
There are a ton of videos of court cases where- Yeah ... a technician is in court explaining what happened, right? And listen, I'm gonna tell you something, because this says, "Isn't it the technician's job to document all these things on the repair order?" A lot of it is, right? The initial stuff, in other words, where we're talking to the client, trying to understand what's happening, that is the service
Cecil Bullard: advisor.
Service advisor. St- begins the
Lucas Underwood: story. But everything else... Exactly. The beginning of the story- Everything else does come to the tech ...
Cecil Bullard: the beginning of the story and the end of the story are the service advisor.
Lucas Underwood: Yes.
Cecil Bullard: Okay?
Lucas Underwood: 100%.
Cecil Bullard: The middle is the tech. Today. Now, 20 years ago, that wasn't true. All right?
Yeah. We didn't have systems where the techs could go in and put the story, and we still have a lot of shops where there's communication issues with the technician that they don't speak, English as a second language or a third language and they just- Yeah ... don't communicate very well. Yes, I want my technician documenting the tests they ran, what the outcomes were.
And by, by the way, if, i- again, if you're working for me, let's say that we got an air conditioning system. I want documentation a problem with the air conditioning. Air conditioning doesn't cool. Blows hot air, right? Okay. When? All the time. All right, great. Now I wanna put the gauges on it.
I wanna document the pressures. I wanna document- Vent temps ... the vent temps, et cetera, and I want someone to test drive it to verify that it's got hot air, right? Yeah. And under what conditions. All right? 100%, yeah. And a- and that's the tech is, that, that's going to do that for me. Now, we're gonna recommend we're gonna point to a cause.
The compressor's bad, right? And we're gonna point to a cure, the fourth C. What's the cure? We're gonna replace the compressor. We're going to replace the condenser. We're gonna replace the I don't know what they have in POA valves- Orphus tubes ... or Orphus tubes or whatever we got today. And then we're gonna evac and recharge the system, right?
That's the repair plan.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And in my opinion, the technician's the one that has to create the repair plan, okay? Yeah. And once we've done that- I want a retest of the system.
Lucas Underwood: Yes.
Cecil Bullard: I wanna know what's different. What were the pressures today- Yep ... when we drove it? And I wanna show by mileage that we actually drove the car.
I don't- Yeah ... I want an in and out mileage on everything. Yeah. I don't care if you drove it just a mile test drive, so it came in at, I don't know, 143,000 miles and it left at 143,001. Yeah. But I want the finish of the story. Here's what happened after we fixed it. Yeah. Here's what it looks like.
Here's what it feels like- You're exactly right ... today, right?
Lucas Underwood: Yes.
Cecil Bullard: And because I'm, what I'm doing is I'm also creating a story for the customer so they understand that I didn't just fix the air conditioning, right? Yeah. And I do that in quotes on purpose, right? Because if all I did was fix the air conditioning, what is that, right?
Yeah. Oh, you put a little Freon in it. What does that take? Five minutes? Yeah. They make those little cans that you can go down to Pep Boys and buy, and you just put 'em on and turn 'em upside down- The bane of my existence ... and in five minutes the Freon's in the thing and you're done, right?
No. We did all of this testing. We did this. We pulled these parts off. We put these parts on. The cleaner and the clearer the story- Yeah ... the less liability I have. If I have to go to court- The more value in the ticket ... or if I have to defend my... Yeah. If I have to defend myself- Yeah ... the more able I am to.
And I, don't get me wrong, I don't wanna create a four-page story if there should be a half a page story.
Yeah. I used to tell my techs, if you can tell me the service advisor. So when you're writing the work order, a- as a service advisor I always felt like I needed four pieces of information from my tech.
One, tell me what's wrong. Okay? Tell me why it's wrong, right? Brakes are worn and need to be replaced. Okay? They're at two 30 seconds, one 30 second, metal to metal. Te- tell me that. Tell me the parts you need to do the job correctly. So is it pads? Yeah. Is it pads and rotors? Is it pads and rotors and a hardware kit?
Is it pads, rotors, and a hardware kit, and calipers and hoses? What is it?
And then tell me how much time you think it's gonna take. Yeah, for sure. I get that we have a book, and I understand- ... that the book is write X-tra Mile. But you're the one looking
Lucas Underwood: at the car, not me. Yeah. I can't tell you how long it's gonna
Cecil Bullard: take.
You s- you see the fact that somebody has, you know- Yeah ... narfed up the bolts and et cetera, or there's rust or whatever. Tell me what you think and- Yeah ... and then I can create an estimate. And if I get those four pieces of information, they're clear enough, then I can create an estimate and sell that work to a customer.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: I have an... Here, so you gotta bring me back, man, 'cause I'll go, you know me, I'll go- Down the rabbit hole ...
Lucas Underwood: way with
Cecil Bullard: it. But I ha- I have customers that just they don't get that from the techs, and then the service advisor can't do their job properly. And what they want is for the service advisor to go out and look at the car.
Yeah. I don't wanna go out and look at the car. In fact, there's a whole coaching company that's service advisors should be the ones looking at the car because then they can see..." Service advisor, if you're not a good- They're not the professional ... it's not their job and they're not the person.
That's the job of the inspection of the car and the repair- Yeah ... plan for the car is the technician's job,
Lucas Underwood: right? Exactly. And look, if you know how many times that I have worked with shops and somehow that advisor ends up walking out to the car, making a recommendation, saying, "We should do this, we should do that," used to be a technician.
And it's this desire, it's like a curse of knowledge. I wanna fix this thing. I wanna help. I wanna show them I know what I'm talking about. And they get so overzealous that they end up making a mess. And so I think, somebody just dropped in the comments and said, "Hey, that's the responsibility of the shop to train the tech."
Stop the
Cecil Bullard: technician. Absolutely. I thought it was a- I got a comment I have to make. Matt Allen, go screw yourself, buddy.
Lucas Underwood: I
Cecil Bullard: thought that you were saying- I was in business for 27 years, and that whole time I ended up in court four times.
All right? I went 13 times for different clients, and I've had thousands of clients.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: So buddy, you know- ... stop trying to yank my crank.
Lucas Underwood: Diesel's, diesel does not
Cecil Bullard: put up with any of that. And go screw yourself. Have a nice day. Oh,
Lucas Underwood: that's awesome. Now,
Cecil Bullard: where were we?
Lucas Underwood: That's awesome. Okay.
Cecil Bullard: Look- you wanted some fire, there's some fire, Matt.
Lucas Underwood: You got the fire.
Cecil Bullard: You can add that to your- This is gonna
Lucas Underwood: be a real,
Cecil Bullard: we're gonna chop this up
to your internet and get some hits Cecil's a mean guy.
Lucas Underwood: He's
Cecil Bullard: an
Lucas Underwood: idiot That's it. That's it Thank you very much. I, look I'm just gonna say that I think that overall when we look at this process, 'cause I just had a good talk with a friend of mine just I guess two nights ago, and he said, "Man," he said, "My technicians came to me and they said, 'Hey, we don't feel it's our responsibility to put all this information down.
That's the front's responsibility.'" And I'm gonna tell you something, I, one of the biggest things that I've learned, and we... You remember Jeremy Hoyum? He's from Phoenix.
And Jeremy is just such a phenomenal human being. And he was talking about this a while back, and he was talking about accountability, and he said...
A- and let me explain. So he coaches 15, 16, 17, 18-year-olds into leaders, right? Because he was in the military, he came out of the military, and he went into the family entertainment space. And here he is, he's saying all this stuff, and he's trying to teach these kids how to work in a business and how to talk to people.
And in today's world, I'm gonna tell you, that's a whole different ball game, right? It's a whole different ball game. Yeah. And he said, the failure..." And listen, he's worked for some massive organizations, right? Like- Yeah ... thousands and thousands of employees. Yeah. And this guy's in charge of training them.
And he said, "The problem is that we don't have the conversation when it happens." And he said, "So listen-" Wait, well- Go ahead.
Cecil Bullard: We are so great at- At picking up the pieces at the end. We're not really great at fixing the process- Definitely ... in the middle.
Lucas Underwood: Exactly. Okay. So he tells this story. It's about taking the trash out, right?
And he says so Tim is a new employee." And he said, "So Tim comes in and I trained Tim on how to do all the things." And he said, "At the end of the training, I talked to Tim about taking the trash out. 'Tim, you take all the other cans and you put them in this bag. You tie this bag up, you take it out, and you put it in the dumpster.'"
And he said, "So Tim comes to work for me," and he said, "Here we are, it's four days in, Tim's taking out the trash every day, and I come in, and Tim didn't take the trash out." And I said but Tim's a nice guy. I really like Tim, and I don't wanna pick on him. I'll just take the trash out." And he said, so it goes on a little bit, and he said, "Three weeks later, Tim doesn't take out the trash again."
He said, "Man, what is up with this kid? I've told him about this, and I need to go talk to him. I open the door and the place is full of people." He said, "I can't talk to Tim right now." He said, "So I forget about it. A few more weeks pass, and Tim forgets the trash again." He said, "Now I'm really upset. I'm frustrated.
Why is this kid not taking the trash out? I've, Because I've had this experience, I'm thinking about it like Tim should be able to read my mind and know I'm frustrated, right?" And he said, "So what happens is here's Tim, and we're not taking the trash out, and I'm raging, and I sling my door open.
Tim's not at work today. And so now the next time Tim doesn't take out the trash, I go and pull him aside and I rip him apart." And- "What were you thinking? You didn't take the trash out."
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And what I should have done is the first time the trash wasn't taken, I said, "Hey, Tim, what's the process?
How do you do this?"
Lucas Underwood: Exactly. "How often do you do this?" Exactly. He said there's only three answers.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: There's the right answer, a partial right answer, and there's the wrong answer. Yeah. And he said the partial right and the wrong answer are my fault, not Tim's, right? And
Cecil Bullard: If you're if you're paying attention-
Lucas Underwood: Yeah
Cecil Bullard: and you're doing the right things, then your employees are gonna understand you're paying attention. They're much more likely to go ahead and do what needs to be done.
Lucas Underwood: Exactly.
Cecil Bullard: If you'd handled it in the beginning, you didn't have to get mad, right? Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: And we, we- I talk a lot about-
Cecil Bullard: Yeah
Tim Kite. We struggle.
Lucas Underwood: You remember Tim Kite? And I talk a lot about him. I've sent you a couple of his videos, and one of the things that Tim Kite said is, "You promote what you permit." Yeah. And so Tanner is in the comments. Tanner is the shop owner that I'm talking about. Yeah. And it's like Tanner gets distracted, and he goes and he wants to do all these new great big things.
Now I'm over here doing this, now I'm over here doing this, now I'm over here doing this. But you weren't holding your team accountable. Yeah. And so if I'm not holding my team accountable, and if I'm not policing the work orders, and I'm not reviewing the work orders, and I'm not doing an audit, and I'm not checking in with my team and saying, "Hey, this didn't meet my expectation"- and if I continue to let it slide-
Cecil Bullard: Yeah, and do you have it documented how the work order's sp- supposed to be written up?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: I don't know. I think mine is like seven pages with pictures of the order, why it's in that order how it's written up, whose responsibility is each piece of it, right? Yeah. And so that, and, is it the technician's job to do all of that? Eh, maybe s- maybe not. You might have a different process in your shop.
Yeah. It's management's job to make sure everybody that's involved in the process understands clearly their part of the process- For sure ... and how to communicate clearly.
Lucas Underwood: And that the process is efficient, right? Yeah. Like I, that's what I hear from so many technicians and so many advisors is, "Hey, our process does not flow.
Our process does not work in our shop." And so nobody's looking at it. It's just we've always done it this way." Yeah. Okay. Let's work together to figure out how the process needs to work. And one of the greatest piece of visi- pieces of advice I've ever gotten was that repair order comes up and it's not right, it goes back, right?
Cecil Bullard: Yes.
Lucas Underwood: Yes. I'm not moving forward until it's fixed.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: I'm stopping right here right now. You're not going on to another car- Well- ... until you correct this repair order ...
Cecil Bullard: you put quality control in place as part of your process. Yeah. So in our shop we had a parts guy. We felt like that was a value to us, and so we had a parts guy, so he was the first one to see the work order from the tech.
If the inspection sheet, w- again, we're talking a few years ago, we didn't have DBIs, but if the sheet wasn't filled out properly and the estimate wasn't filled out properly, the tech got called in to redo it. Yeah. The work order didn't move. Yeah. And if that means the customer didn't get their car today- Oh right?
Yeah. I know I've disappointed a lot of people about getting their car today. Sometimes because of parts, sometimes for other issues. Sometimes it's because my tech wasn't playing the game right, and we had to, send it back two or three times. Yeah. But the other thing is i- if you're willing to put that effort in and make sure that the job is done as efficiently and correctly as possible, and then you have quality control.
When I first got to the last shop that I ran, I, for probably three months, I QC'd every work order- ... because it was so messed up. Yeah. At the end of three months, 95% of the work orders were going through fine. Yeah. The stories were good. The stuff was in the right order. The estimates were done.
The inspection sheets matched the estimates. The service advisor had written everything up and presented everything, and the work order had the customer did not buy these things, here's why we recommended them- Yeah. Declined repairs ... at this time, right? Yeah. Declined repairs- Yeah ... et cetera. We had a very specific way all that was done.
It was documented in a process. It was taught to everybody. It was retaught to everybody. It was quality controlled throughout. So the parts guy's the first guy to look, the second guy's the service advisor, the third guy's the manager, right? Yeah. And as a manager, after three months, I started pulling one day a week.
Yeah. I didn't need to look at every work order because I had the other things in play. I only had to pull one day a week and look at them to make sure that we were still on target, right? Yeah. I'm l- I'm looking for pattern failure. I'm not looking for, oops, somebody made a mistake and missed one piece, right?
Lucas Underwood: Exactly.
Cecil Bullard: And- Exactly ... and so I'm trying, I'm always trying to identify pattern failure because pattern fails then get you in trouble, right?
Lucas Underwood: I've got a question for you and see if this resonates with you, because this is something that when I first started really working on my shop and learning about how a shop should run and what a shop was supposed to do, that this was the biggest issue that I had, and I just wanna see if this resonates.
When I put these processes, policies, and procedures in place, and I made a video about this just the other day, I oftentimes said, "Yeah Mrs. Smith's in a hurry, so I'm not gonna do that today," or, "This happened, so I'm not gonna do that today," or, "Oh, they can bring their own parts this time because I don't want to upset them And so I put processes, policies, and procedures in place, and as the business owner, I gave myself permission to override them because I- it was my name on the door, right?
And I'll never forget, I had an employee come to me one time and "This is asinine. Why are we even, why do we even have rules if we're not gonna follow them?" I'm like I'm, but I'm the owner." And they were like but you put the rules in place, and that they're the, they're making the mess.
Like, why are we doing this?" I
Cecil Bullard: think, I think- And that made
Lucas Underwood: so much sense ...
Cecil Bullard: I think we need to be smart about exceptions, and I think there are exceptions. Yeah ... I have a rule that no owner supplied parts. None.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: But I have Mrs. Jones that's been a customer for 35 years. Her husband died five years ago.
They brought their oil because, 25 years ago we let people bring their own oil. Yeah. And so she's just used to bringing her oil. I'm not gonna beat Mrs. Smith up about bringing her oil. I'm, you know- ... d- I'm paying back 35 years of a great customer- Of
Lucas Underwood: loyalty, yeah ...
Cecil Bullard: yeah, et cetera. And I think my staff would understand, yeah, we do have a rule.
It is, the only exception is Mrs. Smith. So number one, few exceptions. Yeah. Number two, if you are the owner You have to abide by the rules better and more- Yes ... than anyone else in the business. If you're a manager, if you're a leader in that company, you abide by the rules better than anyone else. Yes.
Because they're looking at you and they're saying that's a stupid rule. I don't know if I wanna do that. And wait, Lucas didn't do it." Yep. "If he doesn't have to do it, I don't have to do it." Yep. And pretty soon- Or every
Lucas Underwood: staff ...
Cecil Bullard: pretty soon there's no process.
Lucas Underwood: Yep.
Cecil Bullard: And pretty soon- It's not a rule anymore
your average repair order's dropped- A suggestion ... your productivity's dropped. Yeah, and you're just not making money the way that you should. You're not profitable the way that you should.
Lucas Underwood: And it's chaos, right? Yeah. It's pure chaos because now the standard that we're supposed to be operating by is no longer functioning.
And if we continue to break that and we continue to say, "Yeah, but. Yeah, but. Yeah, but." And look I have exceptions too. Yeah. But we've gotten really good about "Hey, let's have a discussion about this exception and make sure we all agree that this exception is reasonable and rational," right?
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: I love the- Let's not just jump at it ...
Cecil Bullard: yeah, I love the, I'll tell someone, "No waiters." Waiters are not... It's not in your favor to have a waiter in your shop. They're not thinking right, they're not in the right place. But again, I have Mrs. Jones, who's always waited for her car. Yeah.
She's got nowhere else to be. Being at the shop is an exciting thing for her. Yeah. Because otherwise she's sitting at home, staring at the walls. And- Yeah ... and so yeah, I'm gonna let Mrs. Jones come in and wait. And that's... And I've also got somebody who, their car broke down on the road and they're with the car, and they don't have an option.
They've got a car, they've gotta be somewhere, we're fixing the car, they're gonna sit around and wait. They're... Yeah, I'm gonna let them wait. They... We need to have common sense.
Lucas Underwood: Yes.
Cecil Bullard: But we also need to have policies and processes that are followed 99% of the time, right? By everybody.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And that's what, that's what creates efficiencies in your business.
If it, if done right- It's a ballet, right? Yes. Yeah. The call is answered right, the customer feels good about coming to, they feel like you care about 'em, they feel like you've listened to them et cetera. They show up, you're there to greet 'em, shake their hand, say hi, pump up the shop and why, talk about your unique selling proposition.
Ask them questions so that you are sure that you understood what the situation is, what their out- desired outcome is, what their problem is. Document that properly so the technician can pick it up. If necessary, and I can't... If I have to write a five-page story for the tech I'm probably not writing that five-page story.
That's the one that I'm gonna write a one-page story, and then I'm gonna go out and talk to the tech about.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Yeah. "
Cecil Bullard: Hey, I just wanted you to know, here's some strange things or different things," or whatever. And then the tech gets the work order and knows what to do and documents the stuff properly, beginning, middle, and end.
And then it goes to the, in our shop, the parts guy, who then verified that we made our profit and that we stayed within the estimates that we talked to our customer about, and et cetera. And then the service advisor gets it and verifies again that the parts are done right, the margins are there, the stories are correct, the spelling is 99% good, the grammar is 99% good.
Yeah. That two years from now, somebody picks this up, they know what happened. If a w- a, a a wife takes that home to her husband and hands it to her husband, he could read it and understand- Yes. Yeah ... not just what was done, but why it was done, and create value there, or vice versa. If a husband takes it home to his wife, right?
I'm not being misogynist here. I'm literally saying there are often- Yeah ... other people involved. That work order could go- Yeah ... in any one of a number of people's hands, and
Lucas Underwood: my- And they need to be able to understand it.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. Yeah, my story.
Lucas Underwood: And same for me, right? That's a major thing for me, because there's nothing more embarrassing than that car coming back a year later.
Yeah. And me standing here saying, "I wish I could tell you why we did what we did or why I thought we needed to do that," or whatever it may be, but I can't.
Cecil Bullard: You know what I r- ... what I really hate? I've got a customer standing in front of me, and the customer says "Hey how are my tire pressures?"
And I look down And there's no tire pressure recorded
Lucas Underwood: So embarrassing.
Cecil Bullard: Or, how are my bra- I thought my front brakes might be bad. Oh, no, it says here your front brakes are good. Well- They're green ... how much is l- how much is left, right? The I don't have the information I need, even right at my counter.
I took my truck in the local Goodyear, and I said, "Align it. ... You're putting tires on it, align it. The tires are worn." We put I put brakes with what it drilled and slotted rotors. Yeah. I spent big money and put tires on it at the same time, said, "Align it and check it out w- when you do the service," right?
When I come back and the guy says I said, "There, there's nothing here on the inspection. Nothing." And he goes you only have 43,000 miles. It's probably fine."
Lucas Underwood: It's probably fine.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. And I said, "And you didn't align it." It was close enough." I'm not a close enough guy.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And-
Lucas Underwood: Close enough counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
And I ended up taking my truck somewhere else, and they did the alignment, and they bought, for the rear part of it, they had to buy whatever to make the alignment work and, the- Yeah ... I don't know, I spent another $1,200 on this thing that... And at the same time, I'm at the Goodyear, they're complaining about how bad business is, right?
You could've got another 1,200 bucks out of me- Yeah ... if you'd have done it right.
Lucas Underwood: How much of that, though, okay, so let's go back to Michael Smith for a minute. How much of that is culture? How mu- Well- ... like if in your shop, because in my shop I walk out here and I talk to these guys.
Their focus is taking care of the client. Their focus is being an advocate for the client, because that's what we talk about. That's what we do. Yeah, and- That's what we believe
Cecil Bullard: in ... and do they understand what that really means in the day-to-day operation- Yeah ... have I- ... it's one thing for me to say we're here to take care of the client."
It's another thing for me to have the systems and processes in play that get taught and that my people really understand what that means.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
E- exactly, and my thing is, "Hey, if you don't understand this and you don't know why we're doing what we're doing, let's talk about it as a team," right?
But you look at some of these other shops, and I've talked to a lot of guys from those other shops, and what do they say? It's the only thing they talk to us about is money and production. Yeah. That's all they talk about. And the advisor's over here saying, "I'm not gonna get my bonus if you don't get this done," and the technician's saying I'm not gonna get a bonus anyway.
I get paid flat rate, and you're not giving me enough work," and it becomes this dog-eat-dog thing. There's a whole- As opposed to the focus being taking care of the client ...
Cecil Bullard: there's a whole methodology for running an automotive business and making it as efficient and creating the best culture that you can in the business.
And then there's, it, there's a lot involved, but there really isn't, right? Yeah. You could say geez, I have to think about hiring and my hiring message, and I need to have, a employee requisition form because I need to know what the skillsets and the traits are that I need from the new employee so they fit into my culture.
And I need to have a good interview process and then I need to have a good training process, and I need to have the processes to train on," right? "And then I need this and I need this and I need this." And I think for a lot of guys, they're just trying to get the job done so they can get the money so they can pay the bills.
And a- as you said in the beginning of this or in, in early parts of this, we're- We miss the, like we don't fix the problem when the problem should be fixed.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. We- we're really good at saying, "I can't do that I can't have that conversation right now because there's people." Okay.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Then let's go for a walk, right? Yeah ... I'll go for a walk 100 yards away from everybody else. I'll have the conversation about the trash cans and taking the trash out. Yeah. I don't... Or I'll put it on my calendar for tomorrow and say, "Can you meet me in my office at 10:00 so that we can have a-" Yeah.
"I need to speak to you for 10 minutes," right? Yeah. We, w- we are so often, overwhelmed with making the money and just trying to make sure that the bills are paid that we miss some of the really important pieces. And it is, once you have the team on track and you have the culture, it makes it a lot easier.
Yeah. When you have the processes, it makes it a lot easier. If you create consistent communication, company meetings at the right times well-defined it makes it easier, right? Yeah. And with every little thing that you are able to put in place, everything that you're able to fix, every time you do that, it makes it easier, and you're also more likely to get the outcome that you want.
Yeah. Which frankly it isn't all about money. It has to be somewhat about money because if I can't- Yeah ... pay my bills, then I'm working all the time- ... and I'm not home, and my head's not in the game a- at home, and I need that too.
Lucas Underwood: I'm gonna tell you something.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: I talk to a lot of shop owners.
I talk to a lot of- ... technicians, and I talk to a lot of service advisors And they all believe that one of those others is looking at what they can get from them, right? Yeah. The shop owner's looking at how much money you can make me. The advisor's looking at how many hours you can turn and what I can get out of the deal, and the technician's looking at how many hours he's gonna get on his ticket.
And you know the interesting thing about it, Cecil, is when I talk to them individually, none of them actually want that. None of them actually believe that. They just want to come to work. They wanna earn a good living. Sure. They don't want it to be stressful. They don't want it to be aggravating. They don't want it to be a mess.
They don't wanna get yelled at by a client. They don't wanna get yelled at by a coworker. They just want to live a good life, right?
Cecil Bullard: The point i- in a way is first of all, I always say this: automotive service and repair is a team sport.
Lucas Underwood: Yes. Yes.
Cecil Bullard: The service advisor is not more important than the tech, and the owner is not more important than the service advisor or the tech.
Yeah. And the kid that cleans the floors and takes the trash out, whoever that is- ... or the old per- old guy that does. Who knows- Yeah ... I, my next career. That, that person is just as important. I- if we all- Yeah ... play our roles and do our thing, we're all gonna be fine.
Lucas Underwood: You're exactly right.
Remember what Zig Ziglar said? He said years ago, and he said the CEO could leave for a month and nobody would notice."
Cecil Bullard: Yeah. "
Lucas Underwood: But if the lady who answers the phone were to leave for a month, the place would fall apart."
Cecil Bullard: Fall apart.
Lucas Underwood: Because the director of first impressions was no longer present, right?
And you need- And we just miss it. We
Cecil Bullard: just- Yeah ...
Lucas Underwood: don't see
Cecil Bullard: it. And you also need to cross-train because you are gonna have people that are gonna be out, and so- Yeah ... it, the- Like I said, to me, running a shop and a successful shop is really fairly easy. Yeah. There's, th- there's always gonna be some issue.
"Hey, our car count's down. Hey, our average repair order's dropped." Okay. If you have the methodologies in place to measure and the methodologies in place to manage, then you're gonna be okay, right?
Lucas Underwood: That's it. You'll make it through the- As long as you'll learn, right? Yeah. As long as you're willing to open your mind, do a little bit of research, learn from people who have been there before because, there's way smarter people out there than me, and I don't need to- See-
reinvent the wheel.
Cecil Bullard: You see this flat spot on my head?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: So that's from banging it against the wall way too many times.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: So we haven't covered all five Cs.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah, we got one more. One
Cecil Bullard: more. So we have the cause and the correction. I need a confirmation of the correction in my write-up.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: Test drove the car 23 miles, verified that it's running properly, the temperatures are at X degrees. The, the gauges are fine. The light's not on. Yeah. Yada, yada, yada. Because when that customer leaves, if they have another problem, they come back, I want it well-defined what we did, and I wanna know, is that my problem, or is that not my problem?
Yeah. Because cars break, thank God, right? They break- Yeah ... and otherwise I wouldn't have a job. I wouldn't have a place to be. Yeah. So I think you're reading- Sure ... the comments. There's a pretty long one that came in.
Lucas Underwood: I like that because that is my belief as well, and I know it's yours as well, is I feel like- Yeah
Personally feel like flat rate for technicians and commission for advisors are the worst things that can be implemented. And I understand there's gives and takes of that, right? I- Yeah ... I know. But a lot of these guys, and so I posted this in some groups that have a lot of dealer technicians in it- I'm gonna tell you something, Cecil.
The only answer I have at this point is leave the dealer, right? Yeah. That's the only answer I have for you. Because a- as I'm talking to these dealer guys, it's not fair. Okay?
Cecil Bullard: No.
Lucas Underwood: The way they're treated is not fair, there's no doubt about it.
Cecil Bullard: I'm sure there's a dealership or two out there- Yeah
that do a really good job and treat their people very fairly. There's not enough. And there just aren't enough.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah ...
Cecil Bullard: every time I teach a service advisor class or a management class, I'll have somebody come up to me and they'll say, "Yeah, Cecil, I know that all sounds good, but my owner won't let me do X, Y, and Z."
Yeah. "My owner won't. My owner won't won't follow the rules," et cetera. And I have a comment. Your owner sent you to me. I can't badmouth your owner. On the other hand, you have to decide what you're willing to work with and what you're not willing to work with.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And so if you're...
what's the minimum level of, Acceptable ... of incompetence I'm willing- Yeah ... acceptable level of incompetence I'm willing to put up with? And if you are good at what you do, if you're a good service advisor, if you're a good tech, oh, my God- Get a job ... the sky's the limit right now, right?
You can go to... I could send you to th- three different recruiting companies that would get you a fantastic job with great pay tomorrow, right? Yeah. And, Pay how
Lucas Underwood: you wanna get paid.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: In the environment-
Cecil Bullard: Et cetera ... you
Lucas Underwood: wanna be in.
Cecil Bullard: And I would say, you know- The problem with flat rate and the problem with hourly there's problems on both sides of that.
There is no pay plan that is perfect except a blended pay plan that allows for as they produce, as they do what they, you want them to, they can make more money. But the base- Yeah ... has got to be a substantial base. We know that from Maslow. If we're not able to- Yeah ... take care of our people and have them feel comfortable working for us, like they're gonna be able to pay the bills and once, maybe once a week get a steak or something then we're not taking care of our people properly.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And we're not charging what we need to charge to do that. Whatever that is, it has to be fixed, right?
Lucas Underwood: Exactly.
Cecil Bullard: You're- or we're gonna, or we're gonna not attract and keep good people in our industry.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah. And, here's what I keep hearing is that, "Oh we've got these warranty times," and, "Hey, I don't get paid for going out.
'Hey, can you go out and check the tire pressure in this? Can you go out and read the codes in this? Can you go do this and go do that?' And it's not on the ticket anywhere, and I'm not... and like I'm compensated by flat rate, so you're basically stealing my time." And
Cecil Bullard: that's not right. I would agree 100%.
That's why you need- Yeah ... a good base, because if I ask you to, if you need to go help one of your fellow workers, I want you to be able to do that and not feel like you're getting punished, right? Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: Yes.
Cecil Bullard: And, a- and so pay plans is a whole nother it's another meeting, right?
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: It's another podcast.
Lucas Underwood: It's a... I think that we all believe that we have to change this industry.
Cecil Bullard: Yeah.
Lucas Underwood: We have to make this industry different than what it's been. Your whole belief system is I have to make a change because I want this to be different when I leave it because of the efforts that I made, right?
And I think we all feel that way. We want this industry to be better. And here's the thing that frustrates me the most, is that we've got to pull these people along with us. Yeah. So many of them are jaded. So many of them are aggravated. So many of them are frustrated. And so I'm saying, "Hey, we've got to work together and share a message that resonates with everybody, and we've got to move the industry."
Because when David and I started the podcast, one of the discussions was is like, we weren't... "How are you guys gonna make a difference? You're not gonna reach that many people." And we said but if we reach one person and we made their life better and they got a little bit better, and maybe they could impact somebody else."
If somebody doesn't take action, nothing ever changes. And I think that's where our industry has been stuck for so many years. And so I commend you for what you're doing with everything you're doing right now to genuinely make the change, not just talk about making the change, but genuinely make the change.
Cecil Bullard: I got a limited time. I don't know what it is, the older I get, the shorter that window seems to be, and we're not there yet. We got a lot to do.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah. And like-
Cecil Bullard: And Andrew Andrews, you- if you wanna reach out to me I'd be more than happy to spend an hour and go through pay plans and systems because we have 'em, I have thousands of shops using them.
They're fantastic. They're great. Yeah. Technicians make good money. Get the desired result. Yeah. Techs make great money, service advisors, the shop, et cetera. It's not the end of the world. So I... We got the five Cs, right? Yep. The the customer's concern, the confirmation of the concern, the cause, the cure, and the confirmation of the cure.
So we- Yeah ... we did what we promised here. And if you guys need to You know, like I said the institute, we're here to help, and sometimes that's... We've got stuff online, we've got stuff on YouTube- Yep ... that you don't have to pay big money. We have we have gear4shops.com. We have, Yep
Auto Academy. It's not always, "I gotta pay." Yeah. 100%. A lot of the stuff we do is let's help you, and maybe at some point you say, "Wow, they did a good job helping us, and so now we wanna- Yeah ... sign up for coaching," or whatever.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah. And look, I'm gonna tell you, this data is good data for technicians too, okay?
Yep. I see a lot of these guys going out and starting their own shops and they don't have any knowledge or any experience. Their dream's to start their own shop, and do this thing on their own, and show the world how to fix the industry by doing it themselves. And so I just wanna say hey, if you're a technician, go consume this data now, right?
Even if you don't wanna- Yeah ... start a shop. Go-
Cecil Bullard: yeah.
Lucas Underwood: Well- Go learn about this right now ...
Cecil Bullard: but understand how you're paid, and why you're paid, and how that works, and how what the shop charges, and how what you do makes a difference on that. Yeah. Because i- if you can't understand, then it's gonna be difficult for you, and you're never gonna make the kinda money that you wanna make.
You're j- it's not gonna happen for
Lucas Underwood: you. Amen.
Cecil Bullard: So the more you know, the better prepared you'll be.
Lucas Underwood: Amen. Amen.
Cecil Bullard: I made a decision 1,000 years ago, when I started to be as, to get as much information and to just know much about this business as I could.
Lucas Underwood: Yeah.
Cecil Bullard: And it has paid off in spades for me.
Lucas Underwood: Amen.
Cecil Bullard: Just as a tech, as a service advisor, as an owner, as a consultant. That effort, that choice that I made, 35, 45 years ago-
Lucas Underwood: Paid big dividends, didn't it? ...
Cecil Bullard: changed everything, so-
Lucas Underwood: Yep ...
Cecil Bullard: do the same.
Lucas Underwood: See- Thank you for being here. Yes, sir.
Cecil Bullard: Love you, brother. You know that, right?
Lucas Underwood: Love you, brother.
Y'all be good- Yes, sir ... and we can't wait to see you at the next AMA.
Cecil Bullard: Yes, sir.
