A shop owner friend told me last week, "I've got cars everywhere… I just need people." And then he said the sentence I hear in every single room full of shop owners: "Where are all the good ones?" Here's the twist most people won't see coming. They might not be at another shop. They might be sitting on a college degree, sending out 200 resumes, and getting absolutely nowhere. Wait — college grads? In MY shop? Stay with me. This is about to flip your entire hiring strategy. The Cleveland Fed just published research showing something wild: the job-finding advantage that college grads used to have over high school grads has been shrinking since the year 2000 — and in recent years, it's nearly disappeared. Read that again. For decades, a 4-year degree was a fast pass to employment. Not anymore. The unemployment gap between college grads and everyone else has narrowed to levels we haven't seen since the late 1970s. And it's not a post-pandemic fluke. It's a long-run trend. So what does this have to do with your shop? Everything. Here's the problem lots of shop owners are stuck in right now: You're spending $500–$1,500 a month on Indeed. You're getting oil change applicants applying for A-tech roles. People ghost you before day one. Dealers keep circling your best guys like vultures. And if one tech calls in sick, the whole schedule goes sideways. You know the feeling. You open your bay doors Monday morning and your stomach is already in knots wondering who's going to show up. But here's what makes it worse — you're fighting the same fight as every other shop owner in America. Everyone is hunting for the same A-tech unicorn. The same master tech who can diagnose, repair, and handle customers while juggling flaming torches. And while you're locked in that cage match with every dealer and indie shop in your zip code… There's an entire talent pool sitting right in front of you that nobody in our industry is even looking at. The talent pool most shops are ignoring:

Accurate Motorwerks just landed an experienced Euro Tech for their Vancouver, WA shop. 👏 If you’ve ever tried to hire in the Euro world, you know why this is a big deal. “Experienced” doesn’t just mean years in the industry, it means someone who can step in, diagnose, and keep the work moving without a long ramp-up. Big win for Accurate Motorwerks!

Quick post this morning. Two things. First — thank you. I know this past week has been heavy on EasyBench content. You've been patient with me, and I don't take that for granted. I want to tell you why this launch matters to me so much. Not the business side. The personal side. In late 2017, a small group of shop owners took a chance on me. I didn't come from the automotive industry. I didn't grow up turning wrenches. I didn't know the difference between an A tech and a C tech. But those owners — they let me in. They taught me how shops actually work. They shared with me what keeps them up at night. They explained why hiring was the thing that could make or break everything they'd built. They didn't have to do that. But they did. And over the past eight years, that small group turned into hundreds of conversations. Hundreds of shop owners who trusted me enough to tell me the truth about what they were going through. The owner who said "maybe it's time for me to sell" — because one tech left. The owner who told me "staffing is the main reason we aren't meeting our stretch goals." The owner who watched 18 shops close in her area — most of them owner-operators with nobody to replace them. Every one of those conversations shaped what I do. And every one of them pointed to the same gap: There was nothing for the shop that wasn't in crisis yet — but knew they should be building a bench while things were good. EasyBench is my answer to that gap. It's the thing I wish I could've given every shop owner who called me before it was too late. So thank you — for bearing with me this week, and for being the kind of community where something like this can exist. Second — here's where we stand. The EasyBench Founders cart closes tonight at 5:00pm Pacific. If you're in at $149/month, that rate is locked for life. At 5:01 PM Pacific tonight, the price goes to $249/month. Permanently. The first 20 Founding members also get the private 60-minute Bench Board Jumpstart call with me — where we build your first Bench Board together, mapped to your shop, your market, your ideal tech. That bonus goes away tonight too (there are a few spots left).

EasyBench has been live since Friday. Some of you joined immediately. Some of you are still thinking about it. This post is for the ones still thinking. I've gotten a lot of questions — in emails, in DMs, on the phone. So let me just lay it all out. No fluff. No spin. 👉"I'm fully staffed. I don't need this right now." You're exactly who I built this for. Every single shop owner who's ever called me in a panic was fully staffed six months before the crisis. Fully staffed doesn't mean safe. It means you're one resignation, one injury, one no-show away from starting over on Indeed. The best time to build a bench is when you don't need one. You know this. You've probably said it yourself. EasyBench is cheapest and easiest to use when things are calm. By the time you need it, you'll wish you'd started months ago. 👉"I don't have time for one more thing." The system takes about 20 minutes a week to manage. That's it. The weekly clinic with me is optional — 60 minutes, live, every week. Show up when you can. Skip it when you're slammed. The recordings are there if you need them. Smart shop owners and GM's will double dip by showing up to the call so they can get their weekly work done with me live at the same time where they can ask questions and see what's new inside of the EasyBench command center. Compare that to 60 days of scrambling on Indeed the next time someone quits. That's dozens of hours sorting junk applications, interviewing no-shows, and losing revenue on an empty bay. 20 minutes a week now. Or 60 days of chaos later. Pick one. 👉"What's the difference between this and Technician Find?" Simple. Technician Find is for shops in crisis. You've got an open bay. You need a hire. We run the ads, generate the applications, and help you get someone across the finish line. Done-for-you. Month to month. EasyBench is for shops NOT in crisis. You're staffed. Things are stable. But you want to make sure you're never starting from zero again. Done-with-you. I give you the system, the tools, the scripts, and the coaching to keep your own bench growing and keep it warm.