Please feel free to post your comments or questions here:

Comment from Technician: I should make more money and have benefits. I have been "turning wrenches" for over 20 years and I only make $18 an hour and no benefits. I need more than that to be sure I can take care of my children and have any chance at retirement. Health insurance is expensive and I have to pay it myself. Comment from long time owner: The term "turning wrenches" came right off the resume. In 2019, I believe that this industry is about a lot more than just turning wrenches. Yes, we still have to turn wrenches for the bulk of our work, but that's not all we do nor should we sell ourselves short. We are technicians, and the more we think and project ourselves as technicians, and not "wrenches", the quicker we can get this industry turned around. From a pay perspective, he may be right. He may deserve more money. Unfortunately, like most technicians, he can not substantiate this statement, because he has no idea on how efficient he really is or is not, at the job of automotive service. Most techs do not want to be involved in the business side of automotive service. Unfortunately, that is exactly what automotive service is, a business. Technician pay is a math formula. In a well run shop, with the tools, equipment and resources to do the job of automotive service, plus be able to pay for benefits for their staff, shops can afford to pay somewhere around 30% of the labor dollars a technician produces. Every business, in every industry, has a similar "cost of labor" factor that they must live by, to be successful. I personally did not pick this number(30%). It comes from analyzing thousands of successful repair shops. To know if you are worth more, you have to know how much you produce in labor hours and labor sales. I am going to capitalize this final statement, not because I am screaming at you, but because I believe it is the single most important thing you can do for your career in automotive service. YOU SHOULD PERSONALLY KEEP TRACK OF EVERY VEHICLE YOU HAVE TIME ON, INCLUDING HOW MANY LABOR HOURS AND LABOR DOLLARS YOU PRODUCE FOR THE SHOP YOU WORK AT, REGARDLESS OF THE TYPE OF PAY PLAN YOU ARE ON.  EVERY VEHICLE, WHETHER AN INVOICE WAS CREATED OR NOT, EVERY DAY. You can do this tracking on a simple notebook. More advanced shops, like ours, will have an electronic method of allowing you to track your production and your hours worked. Don't sell yourself short either. If you are asked to do warranty work(that is no fault of yours) or "free" work, where there are no labor sales for the shop, track those especially close and make sure to record the hours and "labor sales equivalent". You will have no more powerful tool at your disposal, when it comes to being paid what your worth, and especially when looking for a new job. By not doing this basic level of tracking, you have made a decision to leave the future of your career in the hands of others. I believe it is unrealistic to expect others to care more about your career than you do.

Question from Technician: Your website is autoprosupnorth.com but you are actually a Midas shop. What gives? Comment: The answer to this is two fold. First, because we are a Midas Franchisee, we do not control our "brand", as we would if we were Kalkaska Auto Repair(or something like that). Midas International controls the Midas brand and they will not approve any "digital property" (website) that uses the Midas brand unless they have direct control of that website. They basically have their attorneys call us and strongly advise us to take any offending website down, or face the consequences. If we were "Kalkaska Auto Repair", and you were from a different town, other than Kalkaska, you probably wouldn't know anything about us. You would likely not have any preconceived notions of who or what we are, from a professional automotive service facility aspect. Because we fly a national brand, many technicians may believe they already know who we are and what kind of shop we would be to work at. Sometimes this has to do with the power of the brand, and it's long standing reputation as a "muffler shop". I can assure, all Midas "muffler shops" went out of business a decade or more ago. Exhaust is less than 5% of our business. Like many independent auto repairers, we are a full service facility including servicing the latest vehicle control systems. Others looking at our help wanted ad, may have actual experience working at a Midas shop, or known other techs that have worked at a Midas shop. That experience may be either positive or negative. If your preconceived notions of "Midas" are negative, then their is a chance you might blow right past a classified ad, advertising a position at Midas. Maybe, you would have at least read the ad from "Kalkaska Auto Repair". Like every dealer or independent automotive service facility our there, Midas is owned by individual owners. Many Midas stores, like ours, have a single location in the town we have lived all of our adult life. Just like an all owners of a local shops, we are committed to our staff and our community. So we use AutoProsUpNorth as our introduction, to appease Midas and in hopes of getting the same initial consideration as if we were something like Kalkaska Auto Repair.

We wanted to have a safe place for automotive technicians to ask questions from an automotive service shop owner and receive straight answers. It may not always be the answer you want, and it will not always be the answer we want to give, but it will be a straight, honest, truthful answer, given with Integrity in mind. Integrity is a key to long term relationships. You may learn some things about Integrity, that will surprise you, at this link:   https://vimeo.com/64381958 If you are willing to invest in yourself, information provided in this video presentation, can make a difference in your life. Courage and Integrity (as defined in the video)  may be the two most lacking qualities in the automotive service industry today. They may well be what holds us all back from reaching our fullest potential. I will anonymously be posting questions asked verbally by technicians, on this blog, along with additional information and answers/comments to those questions. Please feel free to ask your own questions or comment to any of the information provided here.