3 Mistakes You're Making With Video Inspections

Hey, it's hump day. It's Wednesday here on Service Drive Revolution. I hope everybody has had a great week so far. I know that I have. Adam has for sure. We are going to talk about the 3 mistakes you're making with video inspections. That's what we have for for you today. It's a great topic. Video inspections are still being adopted all over the place. Some people are doing really good with it, and other people don't even know what we're talking about. It's probably that dramatic of a difference. Good morning, gentlemen. How are you doing? Good, good, good.

How are you?

I'm great. You look good, Adam. You're a little formal.

Yeah, and I've got my, uh, my patriotic gear on. Hoagie Night would be a little— try to—

Hoagie Night didn't get the memo.

Yeah, I'm all for it though. I like—

what's patriotic about it?

The stars?

Yeah, come on, man.

Oh, the stars.

It's got a flag shirt.

I am so excited for the Fourth of July. 250 years.

250 years.

Proud to be an American. Love this country. Love, uh, spending time with my family up at the lake house even more, and all the crazy people that'll blow stuff up.

So I was gonna say, I'm gonna blow some stuff up.

I'm too— I'm way too old to light something and run. Those days are over. When I first took Missy up there for Fourth of July, because she grew up in Los Angeles and in Washington State where my people are from, like there's Indian reservations everywhere. And the move is you go to the Indian reservation and you make friends, and then you're like, okay, where's the good stuff? And then they take you in the back and you get the good stuff. So I took Missy because I just wanted her to experience the Indian reservation fireworks and the whole thing. And I think that the stuff on the Indian reservation isn't regulated the same because they, they sell like everything. You could do anything.

Like, they probably hand-make it.

Yeah, it's real gunpowder for sure. So I bought some stuff and then I put a mat on the dock and the very first thing, because she's like, well, what do you do? Like, how does this work? And I'm like, well, you got to stand back and you got to be careful. And I'm giving her all the, you know, disclaimers and rules. And then I lit something and ran and I was like, this is dumb.

Like, what am I doing?

I'm lighting something and running? Like, Why don't I just watch everybody else? Like, I got neighbors that compete with each other. And then there's two big fireworks shows on that lake. One is this Boeing executive that literally has a metal, like, float that comes out and it's all computerized and it's beautiful. It lasts like 20 minutes. And then there's this real estate agent on the lake that has everybody contribute So you can go to like a GoFundMe and give a little money. Like I always give like $100 or $200 and then he has a big fireworks show. So that's enough. Like, I don't know, what do I need to light and run? It's funny, but you're going to do it, huh, Adam? You're going to light something and run?

Oh, oh yeah. It's been— I'll be honest with you, it's been some time, but I think it's about that time. It's 250 years, man. And you're trying to teach the next generation that it's still fun. I don't know. I got it to a period growing up that we used to do that a lot. We try to go to the neighboring states to go find the good stuff. And then there's definitely a lull period, but now having the little ones, we started last year with sparklers. I feel like sparklers are way more unsafe because it's literally burning in their hands and they're trying to inch to the pieces, not to get burned. I'm like, oh, we should totally here, light the wick and then run. I think, I think we can do that.

I was, I was talking to my stepdad this morning and I called and he picked up my mom's phone and I was like, hey, what are you doing? And he's like, I'm filling out this thing. They invited him to Washington, D.C. because he's a vet. He's a Vietnam vet. And they do these cool tours like he was telling me about it and I was like, wow, let me know, like, if I can go watch. Like, it's really cool what they do. But it made me think too about how grateful I am for the vets and the people that sacrificed for us to be able to be clowns on a show like this once a week. Like, we take it for granted, but it's, it's incredible. We're very lucky.

I would agree.

Very lucky.

I think a lot of people share that same sentiment, Chris. I was just telling Adam, uh, I think yesterday or sometime recently, how many people, uh, have special plans for this year because it's the 250th. Like, uh, there's just a lot of people. We're, we're pretty much as a coaching team, um, you know, staying home even though the 4th is on the weekend because just so many clients, so many people have vacation plans and special, uh, special plans for this particular 4th. And yeah, I was telling Adam like how refreshing that was to hear all that. And yeah, it's going to be great. Now I'm still with you. Like I have the app, we have a big show here and have, you know, a bunch of people over, but it's the app on my phone. You hit the button and it triggers the thing.

Oh, you're at that point.

Yeah, Lightning Runnin's not my—

Yeah, so I don't think they're selling that at the Indian Reservation.

I'm sorry, when you talk, when you talk, Chris, about the Indian Reservation, I can't help but think about that one, that one, uh, spot in Joe Dirt when they're asking about—

tell me, you don't have any—

what is it, like whistling bug bombs or whatever the heck it is? Like, I just feel like that's our Chris.

Yeah, without them.

Have you seen, uh, the stuff that Trump has done in Washington, D.C. with all the fountains and, and memorials? I know they, they're making fun of him because of the reflecting pool, but when we were in Indiana looking at that one, um, what would you call it? It's not a sculpture. Memorial. It's an art piece.

Yeah, memorial monument.

Yeah, it made me think of that, and I really want to go. I really want to go see that. But just so everybody knows, this is the first week now that I'm going to start teaching leadership in the Service Driver Revolution Academy. So Hoagie has been teaching financial statements every other week. And as a bonus right now for anybody that's in the academy, I'm going to do leadership on the off week. So this is going to be the first one that I'm doing. I'm not sure how well we promoted it. So I don't know how many people will be in there, but it doesn't matter because we'll record it. You're in the Service Drive Academy, you'll be able to watch it at any time, but I'm going to be talking about the magic of leadership. Leadership is magic. And I'm going to unpack that. I have a really fun outline that I'm excited to go through and yeah, teach leadership, something that I'm very passionate about, something that I think is very misunderstood. The whole reason why I wrote the I Am Leaner book was because there wasn't leadership training out there that I thought was real leadership training. Most training out there that has the title leadership is management training. It's a completely different thing. And I've, you know, been in thousands of businesses in my career and worked with thousands of people that think that they're leaders or aren't, and I can count on one hand how many true leaders I've, you know, worked with. Now, I've met a bunch of leaders in my life, but just worked with as clients, it's very few and far between. Most of them are managers. And, um, yeah, so that's happening today. If you're not in the Service Drive Academy, which I know a lot of you aren't, it is, uh, easy to sign up. You just go to chriscollinsinc.com and it's the on-demand training. There's a page there that'll kind of walk you through it. You can click buy. We've priced it so anybody can afford it. Also, we priced it so service managers can invest in themselves, because a lot of you work for dealers that just— they'll, they'll do sales training, but they don't think about fix ops training. It's not on the radar. And so if you don't get the financial and you don't have access to that, we are going to provide you with that stuff. So anything that you don't have, like we had a couple people last week that don't get the financial. And so they were a little lost when we started talking about it. So we sent them a financial that's like a, you know, a made-up one that we've done, but it is hot, you know, mirrors exactly what a financial is for them to be able to go through the exercises and understand. So we got you. If you, if you want to learn and you, you want to understand what's really going on, and you work for somebody who says, get me more gross, get me more gross, and then you understand why you're always in trouble. It's because what they mean is get me more net, but you don't understand how to get net because you're just, you're spending your way into gross, which is the worst mistake that anybody can make. So, uh, we'd love to see you in there if you're not in there. It is going to be a fun community and kind of already is. I've got a couple emails from there, hoagie, from a couple people. It's been good.

Yeah, for sure.

I've been thinking about getting a phone that you and I have that they can text us.

Oh yeah, that's a great idea.

So they're working on that, but I would love to have a phone that if they get stuck or they have a question, you know, just in normal hours— but I don't know, I'd probably answer it on a Sunday night if I saw it just because I got nothing going on. But, um, so they can have access that way because I think some, you know, sometimes people need a little one-on-one attention. So that'd be a way for us to do it that we could do it on our own time.

Yeah, yeah, I love it like that.

But back to, uh, America, 250, blowing stuff up. This is how we celebrate in America. We blow stuff up and eat bad food. You guys would not believe the garbage that's going to be served at my parents' house for Fourth of July. Like, stuff that isn't even real food. Cheez Whiz— there's no, there's no real cheese in that. Hot dogs— I don't think there's any real beef in a hot dog.

I think— I, I still— it's hard to find it, but I do believe so. I don't know. I, I still like— there's gonna be a good old hot dog with mustard.

Yeah, I don't know. I'm pretty sure like hot dogs, like there's an acceptable amount of rat hair in hot dogs.

What?

Come on, it's true. There's a threshold. There's a—

you will not see me eating a hot dog. It's so gross.

Ah, hoagie, do not ruin hot dogs for me. This, this is blasphemy right now.

So what you're saying, Adam, is that, uh, not knowing is better than knowing? You'd rather not know?

No, because now ignorance falls.

No.

Yeah, maybe, maybe I'm going to find out now. I'm just going to spend more money to buy the real hot dogs.

I would advise you not to Google that.

Yeah, just don't ruin it. Gross.

Fake news. Fake news.

I was vegetarian for a year once when I found out what they do to some of the meat.

That's fake news. I don't believe that.

I could never get— I can also— I could never get full because you just eat carbs all the time when you're vegetarian. And I remember going to my doctor, so I'd have this yearly visit with, with the doctor, and he— I was like 300 pounds, and he's like, what is— what are you doing? And I go, I'm, I'm vegetarian. He goes, why the F are you doing that? He goes, you're, you know, you're a type O negative, your blood type. You need protein. I'm like, yeah, I can't get enough protein. They say spirulina and all this stuff, and none of it works. Like, I'm always hungry. He's like, yeah, you're gonna kill yourself. And I started eating— you know, you can't— when you're vegan, you can't just start eating meat. You have to slowly wean yourself back on because you get, you get sick.

I kind of feel like that's any way that you go on that spectrum of your whatever diet is, you can't just go back into it. Or even when you're going a transition into it, like whether you're fasting or carnivore or paleo or any of those, definitely I think, uh, going like a— it's not a switch. You can't just snip snap snip snap.

Yeah, so ignorance is bliss because that's where I live when it comes to meat. But I'm not— hot dogs is a stretch too far for me. That's too much. But we'll have steaks and chicken and, you know, there will be a lot of food because that's just how it is in America. We eat a lot. We blow stuff up. We're not quiet.

Well, you have— will you at least have deer jerky?

Oh, I, I wanted to talk about that. So when we were in Indiana last week, Adam brought some of his deer jerky, and we need to get Adam's father-in-law in here because, yeah, I feel like Adam takes a lot of credit, but I— this, this, this jerky is sliced so thin, and I guarantee you that Adam does not have a deli slicer. Somebody is slicing this so thin. But the funny thing is, is Hoagie had ate most of it before I got there. My My flight was delayed. I— my flight was canceled on Sunday, so I didn't get there until Monday. And I'm— I get in the, uh, the stupid car Adam rented, the Ford whatever. What is it, an Excursion or whatever? The big one.

Expedition.

Expedition. And, uh, in the center console is an empty bag that Hoagie had completely killed. A whole bag of this jerky. It's so good. It's so good. You guys had 2 more bags.

We did have 2 more bags.

The thing I like about it too is when you eat normal jerky, it's so salty, like you're— you, you feel weird and it, it makes you really thirsty. Yeah, this jerky doesn't do that. It looks like just tastes homemade.

Yeah, I think that's, uh, like one of the things. It's sliced really good too. The meat's, you know, I'm always Every time I have a deer, um, you know, just it's more lean. It's just there's a lot. But, um, however that's marinated or, or whatever and, uh, and dehydrated, like somebody's, uh, somebody's done a lot of trial and error to figure that out. And I think Adam's taking credit for it, but we got to get a hold of Bob somehow and get to the bottom of this.

You can get a hold of Bob, but let's get from the record, I'm not taking Now, the one thing, Hoagie, that Adam is good at is he's, he's a great host because he had snacks for us. He, he, he took really good care of us. Adam, can you kind of walk me through how Hoagie killed that whole bag of jerky before I got there? Was he just hungry? Like, you picked him up and he hadn't eaten all day. What happened?

Well, we always talk about don't let the truth get in the way of a good story, but I would say that, uh, I kind of just offered it. I said, hey, I got 2 more bags. We've got enough for when Chris Collins Collins and then Hunter comes in as well. I've already opened this, but it's the hot stuff and it's the most recent. Let's take it. And he's, he's not afraid of hot stuff. Well, the good thing on this is that it's not like, uh, Bob hates spice, by the way. Like, he hates—

you can kind of tell because it's not super spicy.

No, it's got— but it kind of— it's got a little bit of a heat on the end, but that's what I feel like makes you want to eat more of it. And just enough, uh, heat on it to where you just eat the whole bag.

I did, man. Well, it was funny too because I was like, no, I already ate, I'm really not that hungry.

Just try it, just try one, let me know how this one is. And then all of a sudden later I look over and Hoagie's like Yeah, it's good.

You are a great host though. Like, you, you took really good care of us. That was fun for sure. Yeah, it was good. And there was another bag there, so I did get some of the jerky, just not, you know, not as much as I could have, but I, I still—

we need to ship it out. That's the first thing that goes though, I'm telling you. It's the first thing that goes. We, we fight about it every year, how much is left, how fast it goes, how much should be more made, but it's a, it's a process. It's definitely a process for sure.

Yeah, you're rationing it out, right? Like, we're special that you're bringing it to us, I would imagine, because there is— I don't think there's a locker somewhere full of that, is there?

Yeah, it's called, it's called the, the farm deep freezer. It's whoever gets there first after everything's done, especially the hot sticks. Once those are done, we kill those hot sticks.

That one time Yeah, we killed them. Yeah, it's fun. Yeah, let's get Bob on here. I want to, I want to hear some, uh, some stories. I bet Bob's got great Adam stories, don't you think?

Oh, he's got some. Yeah, if we ever— hey, on our next episode of Hunting with Adam, there'd be more with that for sure.

How is, how is Bob with the grandkids? Like, awesome. So you're in just because you gave him grandkids. I would imagine those two cute girls you have, like, he's got to be pretty excited about that.

Oh, for sure. Like, uh, we were washing the, the truck on Sunday and they pull up, uh, my mother-in-law and my father-in-law, and instantly the kids— really hot over here— so the kids just run out of the garage, Papa, Papa, and just run right there. And then Clamah running around. It's like, wow, I've, I've only been hanging out with you guys all weekend. I don't get that response at all, ever.

Yeah, that's his job is to spoil, spoil his grandkids. That's what—

oh, it's the candy. He secretly gives them candy too. Like, when we're visiting their house and Peyton comes over and she goes, I'm not supposed to tell you, but I had a piece of candy. I'm like, Bob? He's like, what? It's my house. I'm like, all right. And then they're sneaking the other more, and it's funny. He's got the leverage, that's for sure.

Wow, the—

it's my house worked. I, I instantly in my head had a, had an answer to that. It's my kid. Your house, my kid. I won't bring him over anymore if you just keep— ultimately, it's always funny. This is like Iran in the Strait of Hormuz. Like, you control the— you control the flow of the kid. So Bob, they help out a lot.

I let it roll.

I'm quick with that stuff, Adam. I got an answer for that stuff instantly. Like, it's my kid. Don't get them all high on sugar and then give them back to me.

Hey, come on, man. I think that's the role of the grandparents, right? As long as it's not too late at night, I think we're okay. But they love it. It's okay.

If I had kids, I wouldn't let them eat processed foods like that. What's your take on that, Hogan? Do you let your kids eat anything?

No.

Yeah, I wouldn't let my kids eat a lot of processed food.

Yeah, no. Yeah, we grill a lot, so sugar—

the candy would be out. I don't know how I would keep it from them though. I'd have to lock them on a farm.

Very limited.

They'd have no friends.

No, it's— yeah, it's very limited.

It'd be like, Dad, can I spend the night over at Jenny's? I'll be like, no, they have—

what do they serve?

Yeah, what do they serve?

You just want to go over there? Can you can get sugar back. Where— tell Bob though, Hogan, I'll— we'll, we'll send any sort of— if he wants check, I don't know, does he have Venmo and Zillow or whatever all those are— for any jerky?

Yeah.

Uh, no, Bob would say no on the Venmo and the, uh, whatever.

What is it?

Gizmos?

Zesmos?

Zillow's for houses.

That always catches me off guard when somebody's like, zell me.

Yeah, that's what it is.

Yeah, that's the Bank of America talking about.

Nobody uses cash.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Next time you go to the farm deep freeze, uh, there's gonna be a lock on it.

Yeah, for sure. Thank God he's not—

Bob will have monetized the—

we gotta, we gotta get Adam out of the way, Hoagie. We gotta get right to Bob.

We'll figure it out.

Right to the top.

Adam's worried about his relationship with Bob. We just want jerky. Well, it's a different type of relationship. Like, hey Bob, when Adam comes, he only has 2 bags of jerky and Hoagie ate all of one in one sitting. Did you eat that whole bag before the car was parked?

Oh, it was a 2-hour trip.

Oh my God, were you— let's talk about American Airlines. Again.

Oh no, no, we don't. We'll talk about American Airlines next time.

American Airlines literally made me cry. I wanted to come home so bad.

I've never had an experience traveling with somebody out of the, I don't know, hundreds and hundreds of times I've traveled with co-workers. Your, your plane is backing away and I'm getting ready to board Yeah, so let's give them, let's give them context really quick, Kogi.

So we were flying out in the morning at, uh, our flights were at 6:30, or I was like 6:30, near 6:50 or something like that in the morning. The, our idea, our way to try to hedge our bets against how terrible American Airlines is, is to get the first flight out because you're not waiting for a connecting flight. That's the strategy. So we get up at 4 in the morning, we get our butts to the airport. We go through security. It was actually oddly busy and crowded. And then I'm boarding first, so Hoagie and I hang out, we're talking, and then I'm like, okay, I'm gonna board. I get on my plane, and then you— so go ahead, then take it from there. My plane pushes back.

Yeah, so yours pushes back, and as I'm boarding, I see you're texting me. And, uh, um, and so anyway, I scan, I board, and then you're like, we have a man— a mechanical issue or whatever. And then I'm looking out window of my plane and I see, I see yours coming back to the gate and I'm like, oh no. And then he's— and then you're like, it's canceled, I'm not going anywhere, I'm already booking another flight, like on and on and on. And then, uh, oh, my heart just like sank. And then I knew you saw my plane, uh, backing out to take off because you're like, have a nice flight, period. I was like, bro, I'm so sorry. It's awful.

They're the worst.

Oh, it's just gut-wrenching.

The worst. American Airlines.

I don't know.

It's not American. We should call it Communist Airlines or something. They got to change the name. We got to make them change the name.

Un-American.

Yeah.

American Airlines.

It's funny. So the guy, the guy I was sitting next to, so I get on there and also like I had packed for, you know, I was gone. What, 10 days. So I'd packed everything in a carry-on, but the clothes I wore to fly there and to fly back were kind of like my not-work clothes. But I had worn those clothes the night before. Hoagie and I walked to dinner in the, you know, 100% humidity and heat of Indiana. So I was sweating, the clothes were kind of gross, and I'm just like, okay, I'm— I'll wear these. I'm gonna be home by 8 in the morning. I'll be back in LA by 8 in the morning. I'll take a shower. Like, everything will be fine. So I'm in these gross clothes. I'm sitting in my seat, and then the guy next to me gets there and he sits. And he was kind of like— you could kind of tell he wasn't all there. So the stewardess comes up, she goes, 'Can I get you guys something to drink?' And I'm like, 'Yeah, I'll have a coffee.' And he goes, 'I'll have a Bloody Mary.' And I was like, 'Oh, okay, we're having that kind of morning.' And so he gets his Bloody Mary and just slams it. Well, anyways, when they announced that the flight is canceled, he slams stuff around. He's hitting the— he's like having a tantrum, like 3-year-old. And I was kind of like, well, there's no use of me yelling at anybody. This guy's doing my work. Like, he's doing a way better job than I would do throwing a tantrum. Like, he's— and he had a Bloody Mary. He was, he was ready. Like, he was pissed. It was— and I said, whatever that guy is, I said in the— and so all the first class could hear me say, um, I said it to him I said, yeah, this is the second time I've had an American Airlines flight canceled in a week or— yeah. And then the guy that was sitting behind me goes, well, I had a United flight canceled yesterday. And I just looked at him like, dude, shut up. Like, I don't care about your United flight. United's not here. This is, this is my experience with American Airlines every time. It's late or canceled, and the people that work there are miserable. It's like they're, they're like forced labor kind of a thing. Nobody likes their job.

Just, they're just cogs in the machine, Chris. That's all they are.

Well, crazy. So just a, a little automotive news before we get to the 3 mistakes you're making with video inspections is The— a lot of these foreign car lines I've seen are doing crazy leases. Have you guys seen that? Like, I got a thing for a lease on an MX-6, zero down. Like, then the lease is pretty good because they got so many cars sitting on the ground. They're getting very, very aggressive.

Yeah, yeah, they are. Uh, you can get the Volkswagen, uh, uh, whatever they call their, uh, electric You can get that on a lease if you're an employee. I forget what the employee lease—

like $100, right?

Crazy. Yeah, it was nuts. But yeah, there's a bunch of those. There's a bunch of those out there right now.

If you just think like you add 25% to a Volkswagen or to a BMW or to a Mercedes and also in service. So that's the thing I was thinking about is if it— if you're buying parts, like I had to buy a mirror for my Land Rover. Every $1,000 is another $250 that then they're marking up. The, the price of parts gets out of hand really, really quick. None of that stuff is made here, it's all made somewhere else. No, I wish they'd make an exception for that stuff. Maybe, I don't know, it's— or maybe a better transition, something. It's, it's, I Uh, yeah, I had a different opinion about seeing what it's doing to car dealers. It's killing some of our clients, especially the non-American-made ones, are really— the volume is just not brutal. It's brutal. I get the Buy American, but we might have moved a little too fast.

It took— part of me is, uh when I think about that, it, it, it didn't take us overnight to get to this point though either, right? Took decades for sure to get here. So it's not going to take, you know, it's not going to be overnight where it's fixed. I kind of, I try to look at personally both ends, but it's like, yeah, I agree with you. Like there needs to be a little bit different of a transition in how we get to that.

I think I don't disagree with the, with the theory. Yeah, I don't disagree. Yeah, with that, but it's just, it's, it's, uh, it's going to be interesting because a lot of these, you know, Volkswagen dealers, BMW dealers, they're, they're built to make money. And when you, when you lose 25% of your volume, that's the, that's more than what you were making in profit. You know, it just, it's kind of like we talk about in service when we show like when you discount 10% of the sale amount of an hour of labor, your net just went away because your whole, you know, maybe you're 20 or 30% net to gross, but if you take it off the top, it comes, it, it's, it's brutal on the, on the bottom. And so when you lose the volume, if you were selling 200 BMWs and now you're, you're selling 150, you're built for 200. They're, you know, they're losing money. And then some of these dealers are going to have to recapitalize. I think we're going to see a lot of buy-sells. Now, on the other side of that, clients aren't— consumers aren't buying cars, so they're driving their cars. So for us in fixed ops, this is the time to thrive. Like, we're, we're set up for success.

Double down. Yeah, double down.

We just need more techs. But beyond that, like, if people are keeping— if the average car was 13 years and then it goes to 15 years, It, it works for us. Like, we're, we're busy for sure, for sure.

Yeah, yeah. The— and getting texts is the key, right? Like, um, so many people are focused on— this may be a— should be another topic of another episode all by itself— but are focused on our O account. And I can't tell you how often we're running into right now, they say, hey, we need help driving traffic, and then Cliff and I were just talking about this the other day, and then you go check their appointments and they're booked out 2 weeks on appointments or a week on appointments. And like, in what other world, like, you know, if I want to go to somewhere to eat tonight and I get on OpenTable and that restaurant's booked out, I don't not go to eat that night. I go somewhere else. Like, we all experience in our life in different ways. And if you're booked out a week,, to get somebody's car in, like people don't wait a week, they go somewhere else. Like, um, and, uh, yeah. And then it's back to a capacity, you know, capacity problem in the shop. They need more techs, um, to be able to handle, you know, their, their backlog.

But, um, should we get to, uh, our, uh, 3 mistakes you're making with video inspections?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do it.

Number 3, from our, from the 17 Laws of Leadership, we have a piece in there, a section called not practicing during a live game. So I have number 3, basically is not training is, is, is one of the things we see with video inspection that we kind of roll it out and the only training the tech sees on the is like how to use the app and stuff like that.. And then most people aren't spot checking their videos. And if they are spot checking their videos, they're usually not very happy with what they see. Like, you know, some of these tech videos we've joked about before, it feels like Blair Witch Project, you know, you're like the camera's bouncing around so much, you get sick trying to watch it. And then You know, the other thing with that is like when people bring up video inspections, I don't know what makes them think if they're not getting the more senior techs to do inspections, they're like, yeah, we do a pretty good job inspections. There's some senior guys that don't like to do them because they don't think they get any benefit from them. And then somehow we think that as bad as our old process is, that when we get the video inspection software, that it's somehow going to fix all of that. So, yeah, there's— this one could go a lot of different directions. There's kind of a lot to cover here. I think the first lesson in training is You know, Chris, you said for years with any process, if you can't do it on paper, you know, there's no sense in automating it. And so I think that's kind of the first step is getting a really good foundation with your inspection process, consistency and quality of the inspection before you try to kind of move on. And then you add another layer of,, to it when you add video inspections because like, you know, you have younger techs that are comfortable on camera and they'll say anything on camera, right? Like they grew up in front of the camera. And then you have, older techs that like, you know, I don't know if you guys seen some of these TikToks going around, but it, it, it's like an older salesman and, and he's like saying, he's like, I gotta retire. I've been in the business so long. I never thought I'd see. Salesman dancing on camera to sell a car or whatever. And I think it's the same thing with senior techs, right? They're like, bro, I never thought I would last in this industry long enough. Like we used to joke about not having to fix cars over the phone, even though customers would call in and ask us to fix cars over the phone. And now we're literally fixing cars over the phone. And like they're in front of the camera and So, so you just have this gap between your younger techs and older techs. And so, uh, you have to train really rigid on this to have a quality inspection. Like you got to come up with, with intros and outros and define how they're going to go around the car and it can't be too detailed. And then you got to get them together and practice and do re-racks, re-rack a car that's already been inspected. And have 5 guys make a video on, on that. There's a great analogy.

There's a great analogy for this that I think really tells the story. So, you know, the reason why we achieve the sales we achieve in the service drive is usually not advisor training. And I know everybody wants us to do advisor training and everybody thinks it's training. But what it is, is we have a process that takes away decision-making for the client and ends up building trust. And what the sale is about in service is trust. Because if you think about it, if I go into a car dealership or I go into Neiman Marcus to buy a suit, do I have to buy a suit? No. No. Do I have to buy a new car? No. Do I have to buy brakes? Yeah. And so we're talking, we're selling something that eventually has to be done. Now you, you could make the case, well, you don't have to maintain a car. No, but everybody understands that it saves you money in the long run and it's a good idea. Right. And so, you know, for the most part, what we're selling, you have to buy. You're going to buy it eventually, whether, you know, whether you replace the power steering fluid as maintenance or you replace the rack, eventually you're doing one of the two. And so what we're selling is trust because they're saying is I don't want to do it with you, but I know I have to go somewhere else and do it. That's really the, you know, the basis of, of the emotional journey that we're dealing with. And we design systems, you know, thinking about people as emotional cocktails. When they, when they feel like they're ignored, when they feel like they don't matter and they're not validated, they lose trust. Nobody wants to be in a situation where it feels chaotic. You feel ignored and you don't feel like they— the, the people that you're going to give money to are paying attention to your needs and wants. Just as a human, it's a, it's a pretty low bar if you think about it. Right. So we're in the business of trust. Now, politics in America is the same thing, right? These guys go on TV or on the radio and they tell us like, hey, free cars for everybody if you elect me. And now you got to trust like, hey, if this guy gets elected, is he really going to lower my taxes and fix all this stuff he says he's going to or she says they're going to do? And it's trust like we, we base— we're voting on whether we trust this person to do the thing they, they say they're going to do. And a great example of this in American history is when Nixon was running against Kennedy, and TV was new, and Nixon went on TV looking like himself, and Kennedy had makeup. He practiced, like, they, they, uh, thought about lighting, they thought about angles, they like— and what came out of those debates, which revolutionized politics at the time. And Kennedy, Kennedy, you know, completely got elected. And the idea before that was, oh, you're a, you're a guy, you show up and you're on TV as you know who you are, because previous to that it was the radio and nobody saw what you look like and your mannerisms, that sort of thing. Right. And so in our business, there's a new evolution. Where the trust now is on how you look. So if you look like you've never done this before, why would I want to have you do my brakes? If you look like you don't know what you're doing and you're not likable and you have no charisma, why would I want you to do my brakes? I don't, I don't like you and I don't trust you in that sense. And so we're missing the psychology in a lot of ways of that. What we're selling at the end of the day is trust. Like, do you trust me? And video is one of the easiest ways to lose trust because people are very judgmental. And so if you have a messy stall, if you have bad angles, if you aren't confident when you're talking, if it seems like you're making it up as you go along, who wants to pay you to do a safety item on their vehicle that is making it up when they go along? And a lot of these, uh, decisions are made unconsciously. Like, it isn't necessarily that the people are consciously saying, hey, I don't trust this guy or this gal. They're just not trusting you and then going, well, if I can wait, I'm gonna wait, right? And so we're missing the thing that we don't understand, that we're selling trust more than anything else. And how you look, how you appear, your tone, right? The angle, the lighting, everything matters. And so when, you know, when people say like, I never thought I'd see this day that salespeople are dancing to sell a car, I never thought I would see the day where techs were dancing, getting makeup to sell a brake job, or having like, I need, you know, I mean, my head too shiny today. Yeah, I need a, I need, I gotta do a video inspection. Where's my makeup?

Puff it up.

For sure.

I mean, I'm being funny, but there's some truth in that. It's like, if you're not likable and this is just a transaction and you're looking at this as just a transaction and you're doing it so you don't get in trouble with your boss, it's— you're not going to sell more doing video inspections. You were better off doing paper. And so what Hoagie's saying about practicing is you don't practice on live customers. This is, this is something that you, you have to roleplay over and over again. How long does it take somebody to get comfortable to being in front of the camera? Like 3 months? I don't know. How long did it take you, Hoagie?

3 years? No, I don't know. Um, it's, uh, it takes a while. It's a thing for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so that's what you're dealing with. And, and if you're not practicing and you're not starting a dialogue and everybody isn't involved, and you know, you got to, you got to acknowledge the awkwardness Like you got to make it okay to fail. You got to make it a safe place. There's a lot of things you got to do. And then, and then those old technicians that don't want to do it are the ones that are touching the cars that have the most opportunity.

Mm-hmm.

So once again, you are better off with paper if you're not going to do it with video because you're missing all that opportunity. You, you have more trust calling somebody and telling them over the phone that they need breaks than you do, you know, some guy that doesn't want to be on video pointing the camera the other way in a messy stall talking like he hates, you know, he hates what he's doing. The customers sense that. We're— it's human nature. Like, you get the energy from that and then you're like, well, this is uncomfortable to watch. And I certainly am not, you know, I'm certainly not in the mood to spend money on something that's so uncomfortable. You just don't do it. You lose sales.

When you can tell the technician's uncomfortable too, and there's not really, uh, like an insecurity in the sense which they could probably be the best technician in the shop.

Again, so let's say that I, I had a shop full of veteran technicians that are really good at fixing cars that don't want to be on video. I would do paper. I would care. I would sell Like it's the same thing that we run into with alignment check machines. Our clients that sell the most alignments don't have an alignment check machine. We don't need, you know, people like to say, oh, Chris is against video inspections. Chris is again. And it's like, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying I'm for whatever gets us to sell the most. I'm not locked into one thing or the other. I'm objective enough to pay attention to What is making the customer feel a certain way? And I've too many times I've toured a dealership where they're super excited about their alignment check machine and tell me all about it and what the service manager says and what actually is happening in the drive are two different things. And here's the question that always kills the moment, you know, well, how many are you selling?

Yeah.

Well, have you, have your hours per hour gone up? Are you making more? Well, no, but we got video inspection. Okay, here we go. I, I'm, I, we get hired to increase your sales, not to sell you a bunch of software. And I think that video inspections could be super effective with a young crew and practicing and, you know, making it a thing. But I also think you could be just as effective sticking to a system with paper and just telling people, you know, or you could do instant inspection, which is a whole nother thing that outsells both of those combined.

Yeah.

So we're selling trust and you're, you're missing the fact that we're selling trust and you're practicing with live— you're, you're going, you're sending a bunch of people to war that have never shot a gun and you're putting them in a life and death situation when you got to spend hours and hours learning how to shoot the gun, clean the gun, load the gun. Video is way harder than shooting a gun. It's tone, it's look, it's lighting. It's, you know, I mean, you guys think that I look this good by accident? We got a whole team in there working on that project this morning for 20 minutes. I'm blow drying my beard really, really slow so it's straight. It doesn't look like I got electrocuted.

I had the girls do me today, so I think they did all right. My 6 and 2-year-old.

Oh, I would expect—

Daddy, we're going to get the brush up if your kids are doing it. But we're not there yet, right?

So I don't know. Does that resonate?

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. No, that's great. And I think most people would agree too, as they look out at video inspections and we're getting now where there's manufacturers requiring them and all those things. And so, uh, but to Chris's point, like if you're gonna do 'em, like it's a lot of work. Um, at the beginning of almost every bootcamp, as we start kind of talking about the system and stuff like that, this is always one thing that is, has some of the biggest takeaways from that first day is that, uh, it's the key is to have a great system that gets the outcome that you want. And, um. Uh, there is like, there's no, uh, I don't have the Ozempic of service. Like it doesn't exist. There's not a magic, uh, thing. What, what I have is a lot of hard work, like building a system out and training on it. And, and, uh, and when most people look at their video inspection process, I think you'd agree that most people have kind of thrown the, the techs, uh, to the wolves, so to speak. And they're just kind of winging it. We're definitely practicing during a live game.

And I guarantee you, because we've, we've experienced this, that the person at the manufacturer that's making the decision to force video inspections has never worked a day in a service drive. Guaranteed.

Oh, for sure.

Guaranteed.

No doubt.

They have no idea what they're talking about. They went to college, they got a job at the factory, and they're trying, they're trying to create a uniform system that everybody's doing, whether it gets results or not, because they will be moved in a year from now. They will be in a different position because that's what happens at the manufacturers. They just move people around and it'll be all forgotten. And the next person will be like, we got to do video inspection. And, you know, some guy's selling them the software and they're paying for it. So they're like, let's force everybody to do it. Nobody's talking about how do we sell more? No, nobody's really worried about how do we sell more, because if you wanted to sell more, you'd come talk to us. We'll help you. It's way easier to sell than, than what you're doing, and cheaper. Like, paper's for sure pretty cheap.

It was funny, we were talking about this a couple years ago when, when they've— when video inspections first kind of started getting really popular, and, uh, and your, uh, Land Rover was in the shop and they sent you a video inspection for a Jaguar?

Yeah.

Wasn't that you?

I still have it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Did you?

Completely different car. And I okayed all the work, all the repairs on this old Jaguar.

So, like, sorry. And I mean, it's just— it's funny because I think everybody has those. Everybody has those stories.

I didn't okay the work, by the way. I'm being funny. I would never do that. To the poor service managers.

Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Yeah, but, you know, that's one thing that affects us in our relationships with manufacturers. Manufacturers come to us and they're like, we want you guys to train on this thing or whatever. And I'm like, well, do you want to sell more? You want us to train on this thing? We want you to train on this thing. And I'm like, well, we don't— we don't want to— I'm not going to create training with a straight face and tell all these poor service managers and dealers they got to do this thing that isn't going to work. In 6 months from now. Like, it just, it doesn't make any sense.

It becomes a flavor of the day.

I mean, that was one of the things, Adam, that was so great when you were with International, and you and Jeremy, is you guys genuinely wanted to make, you wanted to create a better customer experience. And, um, you were really concerned about the, the people in the dealership as much as an agenda. And it was very much like however International had it when you guys were there in the dealer council and how serious you took that and how involved you were created this. Because you would call me all the time and talk about, well, I was in this dealer council and this is what they're saying and we got to fix our thing or we got to promote what we're doing better. It was very much built around collaboration.

Very fine line.

Yeah. And how do, how is this going to work long-term? It wasn't this short-term, hey, we're just buying software, you know, sort of thing. And I remember in the beginning of our relationship, actually before you came in, um, I told them, I said, if we do advisor training first and we don't train the managers, the advisors are going to get stuck and they're going to, the feedback will be, yeah, this is all great, but we can't do it because the managers haven't set up the systems. And then as soon as you came in, we flipped that and we started training the managers and then it started to work. And, you know, that's one of very few relationships that we've ever had with a manufacturer where it was built on actual results for the dealers in a, in a—

for customers.

Well, yeah, for the customers ideally. Right. But for, um, you know, coming from the point of view that we've worked in a service drive. So we understand that you can't, you can't, it's not top down. It's, it's bottoms up. Top down. Uh, historically that's how the, the automotive industry works is like Ford says, you got to have 2 techs doing quick lubes in a stall and it doesn't work. It's hard to execute. You lose more money. Like it,, you know, it's a mess, but you got to do it and we're going to come certify you and you don't get this if you don't do that. And it, you know, they, they play all these games with the dealers in that way. And then they wonder why the dealers just ignore them after a while. And it's because it's, it's top down. It's got to be bottom up. You got to listen to what the customers actually want. And so video inspections are a perfect example of that. They can work. It can work, but it takes a lot of practice and What we're, what we're doing essentially, if we're, if we're being, you know, completely honest, is we're saying, hey, paper didn't work, but this is a magic pill and now videos will work. Well, it ends up videos are harder because it, it, you're opening up people that don't look good on camera, don't want to be on camera, and you're making them do something they don't want to do that then gets handed off to a customer that, that senses that. Like, and then we don't sell more, but we're doing it. And constantly in these situations where we're talking about 80% penetration of video inspections, and I'm always like, how much have our sales gone up? And every time it's nothing. Nothing hasn't gone up at all. Well, that isn't the— that isn't— I mean, I don't know, maybe I'm confused, but I didn't think we were just doing stuff to do stuff. I thought we actually wanted to create an outcome. Let's focus on the outcome and then see what's the best way to get there with who we have. There's shops of, of techs that would be great on video, but there's other ones where it's just not going to work. They don't want to do it. It is, you know, and you could do paper and sell, sell a ton, but you got to stick to a system. There's no magic pill. You got to practice that too. You got to re-rack. You got to, you got to have a formal, like, this is what an inspection is. You got to constantly check and make sure we're not just pencil whipping stuff. Like, it— you got to be intentional and active either way. You can't automate it. And we just think we're going to automate this video thing and it's going to work, and it's not. We already see it. I mean, we've been seeing it.

I want to do, uh, number, number 2 and number 1, uh, on the following, uh, deal really quick. Okay, so number, number 2 is, um, You know, maybe part of this conversation too, I think, could be, Chris, is, uh, like you, you just mentioned, um, doing it on paper, you know, takes training and effort and, and all of that thing. Whether you're doing it on paper or doing in video, the prescription's really the same. And so whether you're doing paper or video, part of your process should be to tell the customer about it up front. So, you know, uh, if you're doing it on paper, show the, show the customer a copy of a blank multi-point inspection. Hey, Mr. Customer, every time you come in, our goal is to keep you in a safe and dependable vehicle. One thing we do completely complimentary for you every time is, uh, uh, a quick inspection of your vehicle. Um, when my certified tech gets those results back to me, is it okay that I share these with you? Here's what they'll look like. Okay, I'll be sending this to you, or whatever. Um, it's the same thing with video inspections. Like, people are really struggling with their open rates and, uh, and view rates and time to response and all that stuff on video inspections. And the straight line to that is to tell them about it at write-up. You're sending customers these text messages without them knowing where they're coming from. And I think everybody receives a bunch of junk text messages and you're sending them one from a weird 5-digit number and then wondering why you don't have any open rates or view rates and like things like that. So number 2, don't leave it to chance. Like, commit to it up front. Number one, uh, is, uh, paying for the inspection. Um, I mean, we could probably have a whole episode on this, but, um, when you're— just a basic rule of gamification is if you're going to gamify it, gamify the outcome that you want. Don't gamify the, you know— so I see a lot of people paying for inspections in hopes that it's going to make the outcome, um, you know. And again, whether you're doing paper or video, uh, however you're doing your inspections, um, you know, have, have games for the, the techs based on items that have been upsold off of an inspection. Gamify it that way. But if you're just gamifying paying for the, the inspections, um, We've seen that go seriously sideways many, many times. Good.

We got to leave it there, everybody. So if you're in the SDR Academy, I will see you in there. We're going to be talking about leadership. Otherwise, we hope everybody has a great Fourth of July. Very grateful to all of our veterans and we love America. We'll see you guys next time.

America.

Thank you.

Happy Fourth.

Thanks so much for watching this episode of Service Drive Revolution. We're uploading new stuff every day, so make sure you subscribe and click the bell icon so you don't miss out. If you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show, call 833-ASK-SDR and we'll answer your question on the show. That's 833-ASK-SDR. For special deals on our books and training, head over to offers.chriscollinsinc.com. That's offers.chriscollinsinc.com. I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video.