Let's Talk Employees - Chris Cotton Weekly Blitz [E031]
Let's Talk Employees - Chris Cotton Weekly Blitz 031
Chris explains his 20-60-20 Rule as it relates to your team.
Transcript
Hey, everyone.
Speaker:I hope the world's finding you.
Speaker:Well this morning, you're having a great day.
Speaker:Chris cotton here from auto fix auto shop coaching, where we work hard
Speaker:to support your financial success.
Speaker:If you have an idea for a show topic, or just wanting to talk shop, please
Speaker:get with me@chrisatautofixsos.com.
Speaker:Now let's talk employees.
Speaker:so I've got some notes here.
Speaker:about some thoughts that I've had.
Speaker:And I wanted to share, I've gone back and forth about doing individual episodes
Speaker:I've thought about doing this one.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:I'm going to talk about this and then I've got some follow-up I've
Speaker:already wrote out some notes.
Speaker:We'll talk about some episodes that are coming up or, or one episode in particular
Speaker:that's coming up, for you to look forward to typically we look back at episodes,
Speaker:but this one we're going to, we're going to look forward and I want you to be
Speaker:on the, on the lookout for this one.
Speaker:First of all, I want to talk about my 20, 60, 20 rule.
Speaker:Now, this is a rule.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I, I think I may have, stayed up one night and popped in.
Speaker:It doesn't really come from anywhere other than me and my beliefs.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So the 20, 60, 20 rule was this 20% of the employees you have are
Speaker:underperforming and you don't need, right?
Speaker:Like, like there, there are people in your business that you just tolerate
Speaker:because you're waiting for somebody else.
Speaker:One thing I would say is let's not suffer fools.
Speaker:If you've got 20% of your, your employees, let's get rid of them.
Speaker:You're better off without them than you are with them.
Speaker:That's a reason, there's a reason why Amazon pays people to leave.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:They've got to figure it out.
Speaker:You're better off somewhere else than you are.
Speaker:The 60% of the 20, 60, 20 is 60% of your employees are right where they need to be.
Speaker:They're right.
Speaker:Where they should be pay wise and everything else.
Speaker:And they're, they're getting along.
Speaker:This is like the middle, right?
Speaker:The last 20 of the 20, 60, 20 is.
Speaker:You probably have 20% of your employees that are the top of the top.
Speaker:If they left your business, you would really, really suffer in
Speaker:some way for having them being gone.
Speaker:And all the time I take phone calls from shop owners and they're like,
Speaker:oh, well, this person's leaving or this person's out leaving.
Speaker:I'm like, why?
Speaker:You know, if it's a money issue.
Speaker:Why wouldn't you pay him two, three more dollars an hour to keep them if
Speaker:they're that important in your business?
Speaker:for us in the auto repair industry, if it's a technician,
Speaker:you raise your labor rate.
Speaker:We're all too cheap on our labor rates.
Speaker:Anyway, like, like every one of you out there could go add $30 to your
Speaker:labor rate, hire better people and your, your customers would be fine.
Speaker:Because it's the value it's the experiences is what you provide.
Speaker:People are way more parts, price conscious than they are labor price colleges.
Speaker:Anyway.
Speaker:So if you need to do something different your business to keep those
Speaker:20%, then, then you need to do that.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So that's the first bullet point today, the 20, 60, 20 rule.
Speaker:I want you to think about your business and probably every, every one of you
Speaker:shake your head and be like, yeah, I could probably do without those two employees,
Speaker:those six employees are doing good.
Speaker:And these, these other two employees are doing, you know, great things and
Speaker:I need to do what I can to keep them.
Speaker:So that takes us into the next one.
Speaker:If you've owned your business for five years, 10 years, 20 years, I don't care.
Speaker:I want you to stop right now.
Speaker:And I want you to think about you waking up tomorrow and
Speaker:having to rebuy your business.
Speaker:And if you had to rebuy your business and make everybody that's working
Speaker:there today, reapply, who would you rehire and who would you not rehire?
Speaker:What'd you think about that for a minute?
Speaker:And this takes us back into the first book.
Speaker:You know, if you have people in your business that you would not
Speaker:rehire, why the hell are they there it's time for them to go.
Speaker:And I don't want to hear, the whining about finding
Speaker:employees and everything else.
Speaker:I've got shops all across the country that were hiring left and right.
Speaker:Technicians, service advisors, support people.
Speaker:You have to set your business up so that you're available to hire those people.
Speaker:And two, you have to be a place people want to go.
Speaker:And so I need you to think about that for a minute.
Speaker:If you have people holding you back, holding the business
Speaker:back than you need to.
Speaker:To move forward.
Speaker:and that takes us to the, to the next bullet point I've got here.
Speaker:Don't let your employees hold you hostage.
Speaker:You know, you know what you wanted when you started your business,
Speaker:you know what you want to continue.
Speaker:And I want you to think about this for a minute.
Speaker:What you allow what you allow is what will connect.
Speaker:So I get a lot of people all the time and they're their clients.
Speaker:And they're like, oh, but Chris, this is happening.
Speaker:And oh, but Chris, this is happening.
Speaker:And I just sit back and I'm like, you know why that's happening?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And they're like, no, I don't know why.
Speaker:And I'm like, because you're continuing to let it happen again.
Speaker:No excuses on the employee front be a great place to be in great.
Speaker:People want to be a part of what you have do not let employees hold you hostage.
Speaker:If, if you get comfortable in your business and you have people that
Speaker:you've hired to clean the toilets and they're doing it wrong and
Speaker:they're holding you back, guess what?
Speaker:It's time to fire those people and get back in there and get
Speaker:your knuckles dirty on the tour.
Speaker:You know, we get, we get to an, to a level is as business owners to where
Speaker:we're comfortable and we're fat and happy.
Speaker:And we think it's beneath us to step back and step back into
Speaker:our business and do something.
Speaker:Sometimes you got to step back into your business, show
Speaker:everybody else how it's done.
Speaker:Show everybody some hard work and kick ass and take names,
Speaker:repeat and do it all over again.
Speaker:You guys need to remember that.
Speaker:You need to remember that sometimes you got to get back into
Speaker:your business and make things.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So that brings us to my last bullet point for today.
Speaker:It's it's called limiting behaviors, and I'm going to do a whole episode on this.
Speaker:It's going to be episode number 34.
Speaker:So, so look to the future for that.
Speaker:It's going to be episode number 34 limiting behaviors, and we're going
Speaker:to list those limiting behaviors out.
Speaker:I'm a firm believer in that.
Speaker:You have employees in your business that can only take you so far.
Speaker:And it's really proven out this this year.
Speaker:I mean, I've had several shops.
Speaker:I'm going to give you a couple of a couple of examples.
Speaker:one shop owner had a service rider.
Speaker:She was good getting us to, $20,000 a week and sales a hundred grand a month.
Speaker:And she could hold a $400 average repair order really well.
Speaker:And her, her GP was okay.
Speaker:It wasn't spectacular, but it was okay.
Speaker:And no matter what she did, that's all she could do.
Speaker:there was always some excuse why she couldn't move forward,
Speaker:why she couldn't do better?
Speaker:Why, why, why, why, why?
Speaker:And so I talked to the owner and was like, look, she either needs
Speaker:another support person above her.
Speaker:She can't be the manager cause she can't manage us to the $150,000 a month level.
Speaker:She can't manage this to the 30, 40, $50,000 a week level.
Speaker:So she needs a better manager.
Speaker:And if she can't step back and accept that, then she needs to go.
Speaker:And we had this talk like weekly for six months.
Speaker:And finally it got to the point to where we had a great person apply.
Speaker:He came in as the number two person, but it was pretty clear from day one
Speaker:that he was, a number one rider, stormy.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And so, you know, everything happened, we let her go.
Speaker:And now this guy's cranking out 30, 40, 40 $5,000 weeks in a business
Speaker:that's doing 150 grand a month.
Speaker:Now everything's way more consistent.
Speaker:The leadership stare her limiting behavior was that she had.
Speaker:She couldn't do any more than what she was already doing.
Speaker:She couldn't get any better.
Speaker:So she was not open to learning from anything else.
Speaker:And if we're talking about technicians, this would be somebody that we call as Mr.
Speaker:Greatest.
Speaker:Like, oh, you can't teach me a thing already know it.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:There's nobody out there.
Speaker:There's nobody out there including me.
Speaker:There's always somebody better than you.
Speaker:And if you're standing around going, Hey, I'm the best there is.
Speaker:I'm sorry, bud.
Speaker:You're not the best areas.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:There's always somebody better than you.
Speaker:Another example is that we've got another shop.
Speaker:I did a shop visit here recently, and I have a great relationship with these
Speaker:people, but again, we'd be talking quite a while about a service advisor
Speaker:that needed to, go down the road because of his limiting behaviors.
Speaker:And I'm always the, the guy or the coach that will push you to the next level.
Speaker:Like if you tell me you want, see, I'll tell you what, why
Speaker:aren't we getting X let's shoot for X and end up on P somewhere?
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So I walk in.
Speaker:Just getting some work done on my truck.
Speaker:Cause they're pretty close to where I'm at now in the country.
Speaker:And they had a goal of 130,000 for the month on the board.
Speaker:And I was like, no, no.
Speaker:And so I reached up there, I wiped it off and put one 50, I go, you
Speaker:guys are capable of doing 200.
Speaker:Why are we settling for one 30?
Speaker:Let's go for one 50 and see where we're at.
Speaker:and to say, I wanted to spit bullets and I got a little red under the color,
Speaker:the service advisor that saw that he's he just laughed and looked at me like
Speaker:I was an idiot and said, we can't, there's nothing we can do to get there.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:You know, I'm a big guy.
Speaker:I can be violent if I need to be like, I'll say my family I'll save your family.
Speaker:but emotionally pretty, even keeled.
Speaker:And I just looked at him and I said, I'm sorry that, you know,
Speaker:I'm sorry that you think that's the case, but that is not the case.
Speaker:This, this business can do more, either with you or without you.
Speaker:It's, it's your choice.
Speaker:And if you, if you choose not to do what we need you to do, then your replacement.
Speaker:So needless to say, within a week he was gone and.
Speaker:This is the first month that we've been there and the shop's going
Speaker:to break 150,000 for the month.
Speaker:Their gross profit also jumped 8% and it's all because of the limiting
Speaker:behaviors that this guy had and the attitude that he brought to the business.
Speaker:And if you're surrounded by people with limiting behaviors in your business,
Speaker:they're holding your business back.
Speaker:Don't let, don't let them hold your business hostage.
Speaker:And sometimes it's you.
Speaker:Sometimes the hardest person that I have to crack through is the actual shop owner.
Speaker:And once I, once I can get you to believe.
Speaker:What I know you're capable of, then the sky's the limit.
Speaker:That's also a future episode I'm going to do, it's called hitting your five
Speaker:iron and I've got it here on the board.
Speaker:That's going to be episode 33.
Speaker:So we got some really, really cool stuff coming up and I hope you
Speaker:guys are listening and I hope this is resonating with you and you're
Speaker:getting something great out of it.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Hey, thanks for taking time out of your busy day to listen to everybody.
Speaker:This has been Chris cotton from auto fix auto shop coaching.
Speaker:If you find yourself struggling in your auto repair business or have feeling
Speaker:like you don't know what you don't know, but you're eager to learn and
Speaker:grow your business, then please feel free to reach out to me, Chris, at auto
Speaker:fix sos.com or give me a call at nine four oh four hundred one zero eight.
Speaker:Have a great day, everybody.
Speaker:I love you.
