Apr 5 • 📣General discussion📣
His team said they didn't know any techs. Then he put a card in their hands.
A shop in Colorado Springs had been looking for a tech for over a year.
The owner had done the usual. Asked his team in a meeting. "Hey guys, know anybody who might be looking?" Everyone shook their heads. Nope. Don't know anyone.
So he moved on to Indeed, social media, the whole routine.
A year later, still looking. We met and I said let's try something different. Let's create a referral postcard — something physical, tangible, with a $500 referral bonus printed on it — and hand it out in the next team meeting.
He pushed back. "We already asked them. They don't know anybody."
I said try it anyway.
He handed out the cards. Within a few weeks, he hired two techs off of those postcards.
Two.
He went back to the next team meeting and said: "You guys have known for a year we've been looking for a tech. Why didn't you tell me?"
The answer was simple and a little maddening: "I just didn't think about it. When I had the postcard in my hand, it was fresh in my mind. And then I knew you were going to pay me some money. And all of a sudden I jogged my memory and thought — yeah, I've worked with some guys in the past."
That gap — between "I don't know anyone" and "actually, now that I'm holding this card and thinking about it, I know two people" — is the entire difference between asking for referrals and building a referral system.
Every shop owner has done some version of "Hey, know anybody?" at a team meeting.
That's not a referral system. That's a vaporware request.
It's verbal — so it's forgotten before lunch. There's no incentive attached — so there's no urgency. And "know anybody?" is the vaguest question you can ask. It's easy to say no to, even when the real answer is yes.
A referral system has three things most "asks" don't: something physical that stays in their hand or on their toolbox, something financial that makes it worth a phone call, and something consistent — it's not a one-time ask when you're desperate, it's a standing offer that runs all the time.
Now here's the part most shops miss. Your employees aren't the only people who know techs.
Your customers do.
Think about your regulars. Some of them have a brother-in-law who wrenches. A neighbor who's been at the same shop for ten years and complains about it every time they're over for a cookout. A buddy from their bowling league who mentioned he's thinking about making a move.
Those people would never think to tell you about it. Why would they? You fix their cars. They don't think of you as someone who's hiring.
Unless you put something in their hand that says you are.
A referral card on the counter at checkout. A simple line from the service advisor: "Hey — we're always looking for great techs. If you know someone who turns a wrench for a living and might be interested, there's $500 in it for you if we hire them."
That takes ten seconds. Most shops have never tried it.
Your parts store reps know more about your local tech market than almost anyone.
Think about it. They're in every shop in your area. They see which shops are struggling with staffing. They hear techs complaining in the back. They know who's unhappy, who's thinking about leaving, and who just got passed over for a raise.
Give them a referral card. Put their name on it. If they make an introduction and it turns into a hire, they get $500.
Same with tool truck drivers. Same with any vendor who walks through your shop. These people visit dozens of shops a week. They're the most connected people in the local automotive ecosystem.
They are probably getting hit up from all directions for referrals but nobody has taken the time to make it formal and print out postcards with a solid offer and a QR code.
One shop I work with takes referral cards to every community event they attend. Founders Day parade? Service advisors out front, handing them to people walking by. County fair? They set up a tent for an entire week — 30,000 people walking through. Christmas parade? More cards.
You'd be surprised how many people know a technician who's looking. A wife sees the card and thinks of her husband who's been miserable at his shop for six months. A neighbor remembers the kid down the street who just finished vo-tech and is looking for his first real shop job.
These aren't targeted recruiting plays. They're seeds. You plant a hundred, and three or four grow into conversations. One of those conversations becomes a hire. And that hire came from a $500 postcard, not a $5,000 recruiting campaign.
Want to make it automatic? Make it a game at the front counter.
Have your service advisors hand out five referral cards a day. Not to specific people they think might know a tech. To everyone. Because you genuinely don't know who knows someone.
The barista at the coffee shop might have a roommate who's a tech. The fleet manager dropping off a box truck might know three. The retired guy who brings his truck in every six weeks might play poker with a master tech every Thursday night.
Five cards a day. Every day. It becomes automatic. And when a referral comes in, the advisor who handed out the card gets credit alongside the person who made the introduction.
Here's how the money works, and it's simpler than most people think.
$500 total. Split into two payments.
$250 when the tech is hired and starts work. $250 at the end of your probationary period — 30, 60, or 90 days, whatever you run.
The split protects you. You're not paying the full amount for someone who shows up for two weeks and disappears. And the person who made the referral has a reason to care about the hire sticking — they want that second payment.
Cash works best. Especially for referrals from outside your shop — customers, vendors, community contacts. Store credit sounds creative but limits who can participate. Cash is universal. Everybody understands $500.
One more thing. Put a QR code on the postcard that takes the tech directly to the application page. Removes all friction. One scan, they're applying.
If you read the earlier post from last week about applicant quality, you'll remember the yellow-light referral strategy — the script where you ask underqualified applicants for the names of two good techs they've worked with.
That's the reactive version. Triggered by an incoming application.
This is the proactive version. You're going out into the world — to your team, your customers, your vendors, your community — and planting referral cards before you ever get a single application. You're building a machine that produces candidates on its own schedule.
The reactive version turns one application into three leads. The proactive version turns every person your shop touches into a potential recruiter.
Both work. The shops that do both consistently almost always have a bench.
An empty bay costs roughly $175,000 a year in lost gross profit dollars. A referral card costs a few cents to print and $500 if it actually produces a hire.
That math should make every shop owner in the country print a stack of postcards this week.
But most won't. Because asking "know anybody?" in a team meeting feels like they've already done the referral thing. They haven't. They've made a request. They haven't built a system.
The difference between a request and a system is the difference between silence and two hires in Colorado Springs.
Have you ever made a hire from a referral? How did it happen? Drop it in the comments.👇
Btw...
We professionally design and print a box of referral postcards for each new shop we work with to help find techs faster.
If your bays are empty and what you've tried isn't working, I take 4 strategy calls per week. You can apply here: [Talk to Chris]
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His team said they didn't know any techs. Then he put a card in their hands.
skool.com/technicianfind
Proven templates, strategies, training and top-level networking to help independent auto repair shops hire quality staff faster.
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