Its probably about time to share a little of the world I see for Autonerdz.
I see a community of people that took up the use of the most powerful tool in their industry for the benefit of all. This community believes in lifelong learning and passing knowledge from those that have learned more to those that want to learn.
I had planned to bring back Group therapy at some point in the future. I wanted to trim down some of the things I needed to learn immediately upon reopening Autonerdz. I thought it best to leave group therapy on hiatus until I had some time to get my feet under me. I want to make sure that when I do start it back up again, I do it right.
In regards to training. I have wanted to become a trainer for a while. Initially my plan is to offer training locally here in West Michigan. If that works out well, I think it would be awesome to train at events like VisionKC. I am open to taking advice on becoming a trainer from those that have done it at any level.
A little more history about me. 8 years ago I joined an organization called BNI. (
https://www.bni.com/) My employer at the time paid for my BNI membership so that I could build relationships to bring in more work for the shop to do. As I grew my personal network and began to make connections and friendships I learned that these people genuinely wanted to support me, not just the business I worked for. 4 years ago I volunteered to be the President for my chapter for a year. Here I was a 31 year old auto technician the president of my chapter of 38 members with professionals from many other professions. We had attorneys , accountants, realtors, bankers, chiropractors and more. That year I began working on creating and opening my first Business Automotive Consultants of Michigan. I wanted to help people who were buying cars by doing onsite used vehicle inspections. It was at this time I took my first shot at teaching. I put on a class for people to learn about their cars and why they needed to have a relationship with a shop and not just rely on the DriveThroughMcFastLubes. It went fairly well. It went well because I had learned how to teach people what I do and why they needed me to do it for them to my BNI group.
Why does this history and learning matter to you? One of the most powerful things I learned was how to promote myself as a technician. I realized that this is training that no technical school will teach. This is something I want to help this community with. I want to help our industry by connecting technicians with the coaches and books and brand building and learning opportunities that most don't even realize they need. I want to build up the intangible benefits of being a member of this community.
I believe that if we as an industry can learn to teach non-technicals how much we can help them, they in turn will want to help us.
That’s enough for now I think.