The Culture of Hustle at Toyota & Subaru of Morristown

Good afternoon everyone. Again back for another volley rally. I feel like Jake should lose his title as, as the volley rally guy for, because he, he's not done like the last four. I've been doing them. So today I've got a great show today. Tom Rin from Toyota and Subaru of Morristown. I think you guys are going to like it this, I'm telling you, you guys get anywhere close, you got to go visit Tom. It's one of the most impressive things you're ever going to, ever going to see. Tom, how you doing today?

Good, how are you?

Good, good. So I was there last month at the dealership. They run a great BDC by the way. Their inbound drop rate is far above what we consider top tier. They make a lot of outbound appointments. They're good at conversions. Really. We're not here to talk about the bdc. It's just, I'm not surprised they have good results because of everything else we're talking about today. If you've ever been to this dealership, this isn't the case where they have 20 spare acres and everything sprawled out. This is multiple buildings, multiple levels and it's just a, it's just a, a culture of hustle. Would you say that, Tom?

Yeah.

So what we're going to talk about today is, is how, how he's grown his business over these years. So when, when I was, when I was there to visit Tom, Tom's office is, is above the shop and we start walking up it and Tom's running up the stairs and so I start running up the stairs and, and then we look down at the text. I thought it was really interesting how you have, you, you get your, your express text, you get them trained, you get them coached, you get them working with other people and they move really quickly. Can you talk about, you know, how that hustle brings to the dealership results?

Yeah. We started, we started express teams in October, I think it was October of 21. And the reason why we did that is because it takes too long to get an oil change through any dealership, whether it's Toyota Subaru. We have Toyota Subaru dealership. So we decided to go to a two man team and they each have a task. You know, there's an A and B technician, one takes off tires and one does a video multipoint and stuff like that. But the reason why we did that is in a dealership, typically it's an oil change in an hour and a half. It's been an hour and a half for years. I mean, and that's the low number so we needed to get away from that. And putting the two men teams and having a good process does two things. One is it speeds up the time. Our average time is about 45 minutes. And it also reduces the amount of comebacks. They are moving fast but you know, they're only doing the same procedure that's written out. So they learn that procedure every single time on every single car, which helps reduce problems. So we, we set up lifts. Just recently I took my regular, regular lifts and added drive up pads. So instead of having them to put the arms in underneath the cars, now they just drive up and then pick the car up, use the body to pick it up to speed up that process. So I mean it's been great.

Well, if you just watch it from above, it, it's, it's poetry. It's a symphony. And they were, they were working quite, quite briskly. It was, it was just impressive as heck when the other thing that really struck me is that your guys adoption of technology is, is, is really impressive. You know, not only Volley, but I saw four or five other things that you put in place. How do you get such good buy in and good technology adoption?

You know, it's do a lot of background. I mean the reason why we adopted Volley was the same thing. We do a lot of research and look at stuff and you know my biggest thing and one of the things about Express is I adopted a company called Sky Vision. And, and what that does is I can track that car using the license plate from the time that comes into the dealership to the time it leaves. So I can look at every aspect of that, of that travel of the vehicle. So I can look at that time and say okay, I've got an issue with how long it takes cars to get on the lift or how long does it take it to get repaired or how long does it take the service rider do it. But that, that reduces the amount of time. So when you're looking at okay, yeah, it costs, you know, whatever amount a month. But time is what we're trying to eliminate. And so how many more oil changes can I get in a day if I can reduce the amount of time those cars are here we have an oil change leaving the dealership every 11 minutes. So I mean take it from 44, from an hour and a half minimum down to 45 minutes, my average. And now I'm whipping cars through there really fast. It does a couple things. One is if I'm a customer and, and I've had my car for a long period of time and now I'm still going to the dealership because of warranty and stuff. After warranty is up, why am I going to spend an hour and a half in the dealership to get an oil change? I'm not going to do it. So then we get, we lose those customers to the independence. Well, now I have my average age or mileage age of the vehicles is 66,000 miles. That was for the month of August. So, you know, to have those older vehicles coming in to the dealership to continue to get service, that's great for me that just. The other thing it does is that those customers are happy in our service department. Now they're going to buy another, another vehicle. So it's just a circle. So the adoption of. We brought in UVI not too long ago. That increased my tire sales the first month. It doubled my tire sales the first month double, which is incredible. So, yes, UVI is really expensive. But the, the customers love the fact that they get sent a video of their, of their vehicle as it's coming in the dealership. All the damage that might happen or might have happened. RIM damaged tire, reads the, the DOT number on the tire. I mean, just all that technology, it's just. That's worth its weight and goal. Keep driving.

Customers that get pushback from the employees on all the tech on the process changes.

Yeah, I mean, they don't like to be videoed. But you know, when it comes right down to it, I'm helping make it easier for them to get cars in and out of the dealership. You know, I mean, we have an air conditioning shop, we have a heated shop. We try to keep everything easy as possible, keep it clean. You know, there's not oil on the ground. I have somebody clean in the shop every single day. But all of that hopefully keeps people happy and keeps them here. And one of the hardest things to do and I think in every business is keep people. So we try our best to keep people. My tenure for my technicians is 27 years. So they don't win.

So the, the culture of hustle is really something. Even the lot guy running cars back and forth, he was running. I mean, how do you, how do you get that to happen?

No. So my lot guys don't rate customers. Their sole job is to move cars. That's all they do is move cars. So we pay them well and we take care of them when they need vacations or need days off. We just figure it out and make it happen. I mean, it's hard to make everybody happy, but you do with the best you can. We have barbecues here, provide them lunch every once in a while. You know, that's. You know, taking care of your employees is. Is so. So important. You know it. If you look at taking care of your employees, how much money you can save in hiring. I mean, we. In every dealership or every business, we're always hiring people. You can't save everybody, but if you can keep five or ten really good people in each. In each department, it's. It's. It helps.

Well, and. And just to remind everyone, these are nice stores, but they are multiple buildings, multiple levels. A hustle is required. The results have been great for you over the years, too. It sounds like you've really grown the business and kept transactions steady and up.

Yeah, we've done. We've actually done very, very well.

So this was great today. I appreciate you taking the time. And really, if anyone gets out to. I don't want to. I don't want to volunteer Tom to spend his time there, but go in there, she's just got to see it, to believe it. The. The efficiency and the hustle they have is incredible. Great job, Tom, and thanks for hopping on today.

Yeah. Thank you. All right.

Yep. See you later.