A shop owner just got a $125/day sponsorship recommendation from Indeed. That's $3,750 a month. Here's what that money is actually doing — and why the conversation Indeed wants you having is the wrong one. Three things to take away: - The number isn't a fee. It's a bid in an auction against your panicked neighbors. - You're paying premium prices to fish in a puddle while the ocean is ten feet away. - Indeed is the world's best applicant tracking system. It's not a recruiter. Most owners are paying for the wrong job. The right question isn't "how much should I bid?" It's "where do my techs actually live?" Read time 4 minutes. Short on time? Listen to or watch the video explainer below. ________________________________________________________________________________ A shop owner forwarded me an email from Indeed. Subject line: Increase your sponsorship to stay competitive. The recommendation? $125 a day. That's $3,750 a month. To do what, exactly? If you read that and your stomach tightened, you're not alone. More of these quotes are landing in shop owners' inboxes every week. The numbers are climbing. The applications aren't. THAT $125 ISN'T A FEE. IT'S A BID. You're not paying Indeed to find you a tech. You're paying to outbid every other shop in your zip code. All of you fighting over the same small group of techs who are on the platform actively looking for work. It's an auction. The price goes up because more shops are bidding, not because more techs are arriving. When Indeed quotes you $125, that number is a thermometer for how panicked the other shops in your market are. That number going up isn't good news about the platform. It's bad news about your market. YOU'RE FISHING IN A PUDDLE A small slice of working technicians are on Indeed. Some are out of work. Some are job-hopping. Some are actively looking. That slice is who Indeed shows your ad to. Everyone else — the employed techs, the satisfied techs, the ones who haven't updated a resume in six years — they're never going to see your ad. They're not on Indeed. They're on their phones scrolling Facebook between brake jobs.

Can $5K in pizza outwork $60K in turnover? A $5K weekly lunch habit beats a $60K bad hire — if you ask the right question and shut up after. In this post: - The question that turns "fine" into a fix. - Why monthly meetings fail where weekly ones win. - The ten-second discipline that makes or breaks the meeting (and it's not the lunch). - The math: $29,500 per bay × 50% gross profit, and why $5K starts looking cheap. - The six-step Monday version — including the week most owners quit before it works. 4 min read. Short on time? Watch or listen to the video walkthrough below while you're on the go. ___ Five thousand dollars a year. That's what a shop in the Midwest spends on Thursday lunch for the team. They've been doing it for ten years. They've fired exactly two people in that time. Most of the team has been there since the day they were hired. It's not the lunch. Same day, every week. That's the cadence. One question with a specific shape: "If we tweaked one process around here, what would you tweak?" Then the owners shut up. Three things, working together. None of them work alone. WHY WEEKLY Most shops run feedback as an event. Annual reviews. Quarterly check-ins. Maybe a monthly meeting if the owner is ambitious. Each one fails for a different reason. Annual reviews show up too late. By the time you hear about the broken process, the tech has either worked around it or left. Quarterly check-ins turn into HR theater. Everyone shows up with rehearsed answers because they've had three months to forget what was actually irritating them in March. Monthly meetings get closer. But the average tech has already swallowed three or four small complaints by the time the meeting comes around. Most won't bother resurfacing them. Weekly is different. The irritation is fresh. The tech remembers the exact thing that broke yesterday. The fix is still cheap. Frequency is what converts feedback into a culture. Without it, feedback decays into compliance — and compliance is what techs do right before they update their resume.

This is Kevin the iguana. He's our new buddy. He hangs out in the cabana here in Cancun. He loves carne asada tacos and corn chips. We tried to catch him but he's too fast. @Brian Nerger no he doesn't drink tequila... Even on Cinco De Mayo. Smart lizzard!

In the world of automotive service, we often treat hiring like a "check engine" light. We wait for a vacancy to glow yellow on the dashboard, scramble to scan for a fix (a job posting), and hope the first part we throw at it—the first applicant—clears the code. But here’s the reality: Hiring isn't a repair job; it’s preventative maintenance. If you’re only looking for talent when you have an empty bay, you’ve already lost. Building a high-performing shop—from your C- & B-techs and General Service pros to your lead A-techs and Service Advisors—is a carefully built long-distance relationship, not a sprint. Part 1: Recruiting is Relationship Management The best technicians and advisors usually aren't looking for a job today. They’re working. But they are watching. They are observing how you treat your team, how your shop looks, and what your reputation is in the community. The "Why" Behind the Move People leave shops for reasons that are sometimes tangible and sometimes entirely "perceived." As an employer, it doesn't matter if the grass is actually greener or if they just think it is—the result is the same. They move for: - The Big Three: Money, Benefits, and Seniority. - The Emotional Drivers: Respect, feeling heard, and work-life balance. - The Future: Career advancement, training opportunities, and modern equipment. - The Reputation: They want to work for a shop that customers trust. Your Google reviews aren't just for clients; they are a recruiting brochure for top-tier talent. The Strategy: Always Be Planting Seeds You need to be building a "bench" of talent long before you need them. This means maintaining casual professional relationships with Techs and Advisors at other shops, vendors, and even students at local trade schools. - Listen to the "Secret Agents": Your parts drivers see the internal weather of every shop in the zip code. If a shop down the street is melting down, they know first. Treat your vendors well, and they’ll tell you whose "check engine light" just came on. - Have a System: Treat recruiting like a CRM. Have a central place that all managers use to reach out monthly via a short text check-in (texting is usually more effective). Keep a record of their name, phone number, specific talents, where they work, and a log of every touchpoint.

Is your last great candidate ghosting you? Ghosting after a great phone call is a freeze response — his brain treats leaving a job the same way it treated leaving the tribe 50,000 years ago. In this post: - The Tuesday-to-Friday sequence inside his head between "saw the ad" and "didn't show up" - Why a 14-day ad loses to a 200,000-year-old brain every time - The three threat reducers that separate shops who hire from shops who keep advertising - The shop owner (not you) who's been telling himself the wrong story about why kids don't show up - The single sentence rewrite that turns "we're hiring" into an ad an employed tech actually answers 4 min read. Short on time? Watch the video walkthrough below. ______________________________________________________________ Your last great candidate didn't ghost you because they're flaky. Their brain decided your job could get them killed. I'm not exaggerating. The human brain didn't evolve to make us happy. It evolved to keep us alive. It runs on one rule: conserve energy, avoid threats, repeat what worked yesterday. Familiar means safe. Unfamiliar means potentially deadly. Your tech's brain treats "I might leave my shop" the same way it treated "I might leave the tribe" 50,000 years ago. And 50,000 years ago, leaving the tribe meant you starved. You're not wrong about how frustrating ghosting is. You're wrong about why it's happening. Here's what's actually going on inside the head of a tech who saw your ad on Tuesday and didn't show up for the interview on Friday. Tuesday, scrolling Facebook. Your ad shows up. His brain notices. Doesn't engage. Familiar pattern — keep scrolling. Wednesday, second exposure. The pattern softens. A small door opens. Thursday, application. His conscious mind takes the wheel. He's a little excited. Something in him wants this. His subconscious starts logging objections in the background. Thursday night, phone call. Goes great. You like him. He likes you. His conscious mind is sold.