Leading with Confidence, Powered by Volie

Foreign. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another Volley Rally. Today I'm joined by Savannah Murphy from Parent Automotive. Savannah, welcome to Volley Rally.

Thank you. It's a pleasure being. Being here.

It's a pleasure to have you today. Savannah's here with us today to talk about her experience in the manager certification course. If any of you caught last week's episode, then you got to see Katie Miller, the creator of the course. Talk about some insights that we have gained at the dealer level and how we're using material from the course to apply to our company as well. Savannah is someone who has gone through and completed the course and she's going to talk with us a little bit today about some of the changes she has made and how it's impacted her service bdc. So, Savannah, let's go ahead and get into it, shall we?

Yeah, let's do it.

So what initially drew you to the idea of signing up for the course? What were you maybe hoping to get out of it or some current challenges you might have been facing?

Yeah, the reason why I wanted to take more certification is because just see more of an outcome of other managers and see more of a bigger picture of what I can apply to my BDC team.

Yeah, absolutely. I feel like, especially in automotive, there's like this disconnect between, like, you and, you know, like your colleagues, people who are in the same positions as you. You don't really get many opportunities to collaborate with, with people in your position and see how they do things.

Right.

What was something that maybe surprised you that you gained out of the course or maybe like your favorite module, eye opening moment for you?

Yeah, my favorite module with Katie was building high performance with culture because I'm a true believer of culture will drive your numbers. So that was my bigger, big one.

Yeah, absolutely. I think culture is so important. It's one of the only controllables, you know, attitude and effort. You know, you might not be able to control how many people call you back. You might not be able to control how many no shows you have at your service department, but you can control how people are answering the phones and, you know, the kind of attitude that they have doing it. So. Yeah, I agree. What are some of the results that you got out of the course? Well, what was your. What was your disc assessment? What were your results of your disc assessment?

One of those. I was a. I.

Okay, me too.

Yeah, Coming through me. But I can see why I can be an eye.

Um, yeah.

And I believe I was an S on another one as well.

So what did you take from the disc assessment and some of the other things that you guys learned. What are some of those things that you learned and now how you're applying them in real time to your agents?

Yeah, I was able to more learn about the disc assessments and apply them with the actual agent. So when I do sit down for coaching, I know how I can approach them.

Yeah. What's maybe like an example that you can give of how your coaching used to be before having this insight versus how it is now? Yeah.

Prior before the actual management courses, I would sit down the agent and just pull calls and I was the one speaking now with actually completing the courses, still pulling calls, showing them the outcome of numbers and trying to give, you know, get the general feedback from the agent. Let them talk.

Yeah, I love that. Give them, give them their power back, you know? Yeah, that's awesome. What about maybe some like improvements that you see that you've been able to see? Like do you think that maybe it's improved morale overall or like you were talking about culture? How do you think, has there been a shift or do you think it's just maybe reinforcing things that you were already were hoping to stick?

Yeah, I see more of a culture shift. A lot of agents will open up and speak about what is working and what is not. More of a team player within the department.

That's awesome. What are like your favorite habits that you have picked up that you learned either from the material or from the collaborative part of the course?

Yeah, so I have a weekly one on ones with my agents and then I do have an end of month follow up as well.

Yeah. Awesome. And how do you feel like that's going for you? Do you feel like you're more connected with your people now?

I'm more connected since I know how to approach them with disc.

Yeah. Awesome. Okay, what is maybe a mindset shift that you have undergone during this whole process?

I would say different KPIs. What's my highest and lowest important numbers? Yeah, I know my capture rate before starting this was at my lowest. Now it's at my highest.

Wow, that's huge. Yeah, stuff like that is awesome. Do you know exactly what the, what the numbers were by any chance?

Yeah, so my capture rate was between 10 to 20%. Now it's averaging 25 to 30%.

That's awesome. That's huge. Savannah. Yeah, that's really great. We love to hear about stuff like that. Um, what is maybe a tool or a tip that you still use weekly that you pulled directly out of the material?

Yeah, I would say probably the heat report.

Okay. Very cool.

The tool for that one.

That's awesome. How has this changed in terms of your confidence in your capabilities to lead and manage your team?

I would say my confident level is pretty high. Now I know how to read the numbers. Prior, before coming to Bali, we didn't have as many reports. Was very vague and very limited. And Bali actually provides a breakdown of how students are doing. So I would say it's confident I'm able to use the reports to actually coach my team members.

Yeah. So you're saying that from the course, not only did you learn, you know, different management tools from a personality perspective. Right. Understanding your people, but you also learned a little bit more about the tools that Volley itself has to offer and how to apply that to your coaching as well.

That's correct.

Yeah. That's awesome. What is maybe a piece of advice that you would give to other managers that are thinking about taking this course?

I would say I would take the course and listen for outputs and apply them and see if it works for them.

Yeah.

Even though it may, if another manager gives their outputs, at least try it, because it could work out and you might have a bigger outcome than you thought.

And, Savannah, you've been doing this for three years now. You have three years of experience as a service BDC manager. So that kind of negates the idea that there's nothing to gain from this course if you've been doing it a long time. I feel like this is not just for newbies in their role. This is something that everybody gets the opportunity to get something out of. And like you said, Savannah, like, it's really largely about peer collaboration and just another way that Volley is providing an opportunity for people in the automotive industry to be connected with each other. What is one thing that you wish you had known maybe before going into this, you know, something that you wish you had learned sooner, that you're like, wow, I can't believe I was never doing this before.

I would say knowing your agents, their personality, because once you know your agent, you can better track their performance.

Yeah, for sure. Savannah, thank you so much for being here today. For those of you watching at home, like we said last week, if you are interested in the course, the link to sign up for current Volley customers will be in the caption below on this video. Savannah, it has been a pleasure. Thank you so, so much for doing this.

Yeah, of course.

Thank you, Summer, and to everybody else, we hope you have a fantastic day by.