Mark Spader of NCM Associates shares how disciplined tech training drives shop profitability.
In most trailer dealerships these days, the real bottleneck isn’t demand – it’s the shop. Trailers are getting heavier, more complex, and more regulated, but technician development hasn’t kept pace. The result is predictable: comebacks, slow cycle time, and frustrated customers who expected you to be the expert. The answer isn’t just “hire better techs”; it’s a simple, disciplined training approach.
- Your first step in disciplined training is learning to track tech time correctly. If you don’t measure how a tech’s hours are being spent – sold work, waiting on parts, internal jobs – you can’t know whether training is working. Make sure every repair order is clocked on and off, and that someone reviews those reports weekly for efficiency.
- Next, your techs must be brilliant at the basics. You don’t need every tech to be a fabrication wizard; you need them to install brakes, wire lights, pack bearings, adjust axles, and perform safety inspections quickly and accurately. Your training plan should cover certification of the “non-negotiable basics” before they rachet up to more complex tasks.
- Scheduling is the next lever. Too many trailer shops run on chaos – techs standing around waiting for approvals, parts, or direction. Good training is useless if the tech doesn’t have work lined up. Build a simple scheduling system that protects your tech’s time, batches similar jobs, and keeps a visible backlog so no bay ever goes idle by accident.
- From there, an effective upsell process turns training into revenue. When a well-trained tech performs a safety inspection, they should consistently identify legitimate needs – tires, wiring repairs, brake work, corrosion protection, accessories – and communicate them clearly to the advisor.
- Finally, your labor rate has to support the caliber of tech you say you want. You can’t pay top-tier wages on a bargain-basement door rate. Trailer dealers often shy away from necessary increases because they’re comparing themselves to general repair shops instead of the value and liability they offer. A properly trained tech, producing at a high efficiency, more than earns a rate that lets you recruit and keep them.
Service training for technicians then, isn’t a perk – it’s the engine of a profitable, trustworthy trailer service department. Track tech time, master the basics, schedule with intention, upsell ethically, and charge appropriately. You’ll discover something important: the shop you already have can produce more, at higher margins, without burning people out.
Want help building a training plan that sticks? Visit NCM Associates: ncmassociates.com
Catch Mark’s TOW TALK: Driving Profit: Understanding Dealership Revenue Flow and Developing Service Leaders, and expose your whole service team to two full days of trailer training and certification at Trailer Tech Expo Powered by NATDA™ February 17-19 at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center in Reno, NV. Learn more and register at natda.org.