Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/165243
Product Support maintenance are not very high. For maintenance work the estimate is that at best we get 5 percent of the available market. For repairs we do slightly better but only on the basis that we get the work that no one else is trained to do. Grow Your Own If we want to grow our workforce of technicians we will need to develop them ourselves. This where we have an opportunity; we need to start developing our own technicians in the same manner we did when I first entered the industry. In those days, we had aggressive programs to attract potential employees and put them into specifically designed training programs. We operated three different programs. 1.An apprentice program 2.A mentorship program 3.A program that partnered with technical schools Today I want to add a fourth program. A program whereby we give selected employees sabbaticals to go and further their skills with targeted education programs. This is similar to what many companies do when sending executives to "experienced MBA" programs or larger corporations sending people back to school for a year or two for continuing education. Technicians at the dealership generate between $400,000 and $600,000 revenue dollars per year. That is the total revenue of each technician in parts and service. Yet, from the attention given to the service department by management you wouldn't know it. The gross profit generated by each technician is in excess of 95 percent of all other employees in the dealership. Who knew? An apprentice program costs money and that is the main reason dealers give me as to why they do not operate one. I can't give you an amount of money it costs to develop a technician coming to you out of high school. But think of the money lost to your business by not having sufficient capacity to satisfy the needs of your customers. If I suggest you have a 25 percent market capture rate for service and that you can double it with the right number and skills of your technicians, you can do your own calculation of the monies lost. You can also determine what the number of technicians is that you have to develop. If you double the service volume I will assume you will need to double the number of technicians. So there are the numbers. Now it is time to develop a plan. First of all, you will need to assign someone the responsibility to develop a training program for technical employees – an apprentice program. You need to contact Steve Johnson at The AED Foundation, as well as your local technical schools and your state government. I have helped dealerships in several states become assigned as part of the state education system. This allowed the state to pay a portion of the apprentices' wages, as well as pay the salary for the trainer. There are many opportunities available here, but it will require someone at the dealership assigned to employee development full time. Come Alongside Them Mentoring is another tool that I have found to be very effective. In the service department, we used to assign an apprentice, between class assignments, to work full time with two of our journeymen technicians. They did odd jobs for the journeyman, which leveraged their skills and helped them learn on the job. This allowed the apprentice to be absorbed by the culture and the department. It was extremely successful. We also partnered with the local technical schools and junior colleges. We provided equipment and components for their use. We provided training materials from our OEM. We provided instructors at times to teach the classes. This also allowed us to have a clear view of the talented people in the room and offer employment to them. Again, Steve at The AED Foundation lives and breathes this stuff and is a great resource to help you begin. I am fully aware that all these activities cost money in one form or another. In some cases it will cost a lot of money. But I will suggest to you that the more it costs the greater the opportunity you have as a business to improve your customer satisfaction. With increased customer satisfaction you will increase your sales and profits. When you identify your talented people, let's create exceptional opportunities for them in a special way! Here's a creative idea: Make arrangements with other dealers within your brand networks, and do a kind of employee swap – send them your up-and-coming employees and take some of theirs into your dealership. Cross-training like that will expose the employee to other styles and cultures that will broaden their perspectives, and you will reap the rewards for years to come. This is the beginning of aggressively growing your parts and service business profitably. This is the start of a program that will allow you to grow your market capture rates. This will improve customer satisfaction and slow the defection of your customers, who do not have their needs for responsiveness met by you today. This is something that is long overdue. The time is now. n Ron Slee (ron@rjslee. com) is the founder of R.J. Slee & Associates, Rancho Mirage, Calif., celebrating more than 30 years in business in the United States, a consulting firm that specializes in dealership operations. Ron also operates Quest Learning Centers, a company that provides training services specializing in product support, and Insight (M&R) Institute, a company that operates and facilitates "Dealer Twenty" Groups. Follow Ron on Twitter: @RonSlee; and read his blog at learningwithoutscars.com. September 2013 | Construction Equipment Distribution | www.cedmag.com | 37 34_Slee_Feature_KP.indd 37 8/28/13 12:32 PM