3 Workshops You Won’t be Seeing at NADA

Welcome, everybody, to Service Drive Revolution. I'm Chris Collins, and this is Christian Lafferty. How are you doing, Christian?

Thank you very much. Happy, happy day.

We today are gonna do.

Really just one thing. We're going to answer your questions. They're good questions.

They usually are.

And I want to tell you from the bottom of my heart off the top here, that if you have a question, just write down this number. It's the hotline to the questions. 8 3, 3, 3, ask SDR. Ask SDR. 8333, ask SDR. And it doesn't have to be related to.

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Cryptocurrency.

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How many friends I don't know how many friends I have that are losing their minds about their crypto.

I just let it sit.

One friend that was up so much, and now he's down.

Yeah.

So funny. That's the thing. When I used to gamble in Vegas. Gotta walk away. The key to winning in Vegas is walking away when you're up.

Yeah.

Because you will give it all back. Gotta time it.

Yeah. I'm still pretty hopeful it might come.

Back before we get to the questions.

Yeah.

I got an interesting letter in the mail.

You did?

Very interesting. So clearly they don't listen to the show. That was your first comment, right? They're not listening to the show. So I got a letter from Nada. And for those of you who don't know what nada, It's a national auto dealers association, and they have this annual convention. I've talked about it on the show. I've talked about what a nightmare it is.

They told me not to talk about Tesla, bunch of stuff. I. The last time I did workshops there, I led in attendance three of the four days that I did it.

They are the worst. The rooms weren't set up. They don't say thank you. They treat you like you're. I don't know. What do they treat you like? Not even a thank you.

Yeah.

And I spent close to $100,000 on a booth getting all the people there. When you do their convention, you got to go through the unions, you know, which is a part of it, but it's. It's a lot of work. And basically, the last couple times I attended Nada, the best way to describe it was not that you got a lot of business out of it. It was vendor on vendor crime.

Yeah, for sure.

It's just other vendors pitching other vendors. Really, the bulk of it is that there isn't a lot of decision Makers in automotive. There. There's some. But it's. We could get to those decision makers on a Facebook ad.

That is not for 20 cents for us.

Yeah, yeah. So, you know.

Speaking. Whatever. So this is the first time I've ever been asked to speak at Nada, because the other times I had to submit an application and then it goes in front of a jury or whatever, then they choose who they want, etc. So I'm going to decline the. The invitation.

No, no. No way. But I would like to discuss. Because in here, basically what this letter says is, hey, on behalf of, you know, nada, it's a great pleasure and I'm extending a formal invitation for you to speak at our show in Vegas, March 2022. Just tell us. Basically, this whole thing just says, just tell us what you want to talk about. Give us three options. We'll pick one, and you can speak. So let's. Let's go through what I would speak about if I was gonna speak, but I'm not. I'm not. Right.

The three topics you'll never hear at nada.

Yeah, maybe somebody will listen to this and they'll copy it, but it won't be fine.

It's okay.

Steal the idea. Go for it. So the first one I was thinking of is Home Field Advantage. Dealerships have Home Field Advantage, but they lose 80% of their customers to Aftermarket Independent. And they. They have a monopoly on cars, on the sale of new cars. They have a monopoly on it. But they. It's like if Amazon had all these customers coming to their. Their website, but then they bought the second time from somebody else.

Right. They went to ebay.

Yeah. Like it. It's just crazy. So we. We talk about it a lot. Home Field Advantage would be a big one. Another one that, you know, we have, that is been very successful lately is leadership. I could do a thing on leadership that would blow their minds.

I don't know, what would the third one be?

Oh, you don't remember what we discussed? Tech recruiting.

Oh, yeah. How to recruit techs. That'd be relevant because, you know, you can't hire techs.

Not in my market.

I had the sweet kid and, you know, to. To defend him yesterday on a strategy session. He's running a good department and he's. He's doing a good job. So I'm not in any way diminishing his expertise as a. As a leader or a manager, but always does.

How do you say this? It always makes me super curious about psychology and why. I just want to Understand why people do the things that they do. I'm not at all trying to say that.

There'S anything wrong with them or I'm not trying to punch down in any way. What I'm trying to understand is why do we think the way we think? So in the conversation.

I.

You know, looking at the numbers, I said, you know, you need. You need probably two, but three techs. I think he said he was losing one. So, you know, he said, okay, so we need. We need to hire three techs. And then he says, you can't hire techs. I don't remember. Whatever. Then he goes on for a while about how you can't hire techs. And then I said, no, you can hire techs. And we've yet to experience a scenario where we can't hire techs. It's not always easy, but we figure it out, you know, but we can. And that's something we can do. And then he goes on again for. For a while, saying that where he is and in that area of the country, he can't hire techs. In the whole time, I'm thinking, you have a huge advantage where you are in your area of the country. A huge advantage. But he sees it as a disadvantage. And then once again reiterates to me for quite a while how he can't hire tax. And then I eventually stopped, and I go, like, we're in hundreds of stores, and I told you that we've never been in a scenario where we can't hire techs. I'm just curious. Why aren't you asking me how to hire techs? Oh, the other thing, too. I said, what have you done to hire techs? Because I was just trying to break the monotony.

Yes.

Yeah, you can guess.

You ran an ad, but the ad wasn't up. No, he ran it out for a little while, but then pull it down.

At one point, there was an ad. The ad was never changed or adjusted, but an ad was put up. But the only thing that we did is we ran an ad and we can't hire Right text. And so what is that psychologically that somebody is so convinced? Like, it's like. It's almost like.

Like somebody who I would imagine is, like, in Scientology or whatever, and they're, like, convincing you that L. Ron Hubbard or whatever is the answer and that that's the path. Like, they're. They're so convinced that that narrative is true when that narrative is your destruction. Because if you can't hire techs, you might as well close up Shovel. Because we can't increase our sales, our quality's gonna be hurt. We're gonna. It's gonna hurt our retention. Like, everything depends on us having good text.

What is it that makes us hold onto this thing that is our demise?

Well, I think that really what it would be is, like, it's really, really easy for a manager to say that. And I've heard this before. We can't hire techs. Nobody can hire techs. And if nobody can do it, then it's not my fault. I'm not bad at it. You know what I mean? So they get to kind of dismiss it a little bit. But here's my favorite thing, is that when I'll talk to somebody and let's say they had 25 techs, and now they're down to 18, and they'll be like, nobody can hire techs.

I ran an ad, and nobody can hire techs. And I'll be like, where did the eight texts go that you used to have? Oh, they went to go work at other stores. And all I'm thinking in my head is like, well, somebody can hire techs. Like, there. There are people that are figuring out the formula. And I think that that's the big thing is, is that in order for us to first get better at hiring techs, maybe we have to admit that what we're doing isn't the right thing and be willing to change. But I think that's where it all starts. It's up here, and it's saying, you know what? We suck at hiring techs, but we'll get better at it and figure it out.

And he is not unique. A lot of people listening to this, you do the same thing, and you gotta stop saying that you can't do something and start saying, I'm gonna figure it out. Like, your conscious mind is in conflict with your subconscious. When you're telling yourself you can't do something, your subconscious is gonna make that reality. You're confusing yourself. And your subconscious is way stronger than your conscious mind. So when you're saying you can't do something, you are literally just putting the brick on the gas, heading off the cliff. Like, you have to say things like, I'm gonna figure it out. I haven't yet. It's coming. Like, that's always due to what I always do to myself. When I'm in a situation where it's not going the way I want, I just say, it's coming. You got to figure it out. You got to work harder. You got to be smarter. It's coming. It's coming. It's like, so I'm training my subconscious, like, it's coming, and then I'll write it 50 times too. Like, it works because your subconscious is like, oh, we're serious about this. Okay. Then things start to line up. But to say that we can't or, you know, anything that is is, like, finite. Like, it's, like, definitive.

Yeah, it's over.

It's a statement is really dangerous when the thing we need to be good at is that thing. It's like you're running an In N Out burger and you say, we can't make hamburgers. It's like, well, the name of the place is Burger.

Right?

Right. Like, we don't exist without tech, so we gotta get better at all of it. And it needs to be a passion. It needs to be something that we're excited about instead of dismissing it as just an absolute. Yeah.

You know who needs to hear this?

Who?

The people at Nada.

Oh, man. Do you know the thing about. One of our clients invited me to speak at a 20 group.

So I've heard bits and pieces of the end of it, and I like where you ended with it. But I do want to make the connection because I think everyone's gonna agree with this. Nada asking you to speak at their place after you saying, I'll never speak at Nada is the same as Chevron asking Elon Musk to go to the National Stockholders meeting and be the guest speaker.

1. First of all, I'm not saying I never will. There may be a point where Nada pays me to be the keynote speaker in the main room. And I. I would probably do that because then somebody would call me. I would be treated like a citizen. I wouldn't just be a schmuck doing a workshop that they don't care about.

Like, yeah, there's a level.

There's a level. So I will. At that level. I would. I would do it because I love the industry. I love the people. But Nada is.

Is a monopoly that nobody's been able to break. I know they make a ton of money off their convention, but for the most part, they're not doing that much for the industry. In fact, I think they're hurting the industry.

In a lot of ways. They're way behind on the Tesla thing. Sideswiped them, and they. And to the point that they didn't want me to talk about Tesla is hilarious because your job at Nada is to guard the dealer body against that. Like, it's Just crazy.

Yeah.

I mean, the failures that we could talk about and that's okay. Like it's a changing industry and there'll be failures and successes, but the humility and the, the ability to create a culture of collaboration is not there whatsoever.

Green.

No, they treat, they treat you like, you know, like you're lucky to have them. Which I'm. You're lucky to have me, honestly.

Well, there's a lot of speakers I think they're lucky to have.

They, they, they say to me in the office, they're like, hey, one of our clients wants you to speak at his 20. And I'm like, okay, well, could you come fill out the form? Because I wanted to avoid what happens. Right. So we have a speaker form. If somebody wants me to speak. It's something they fill out the form, it goes to, where is it, the date, what their budget is, all this stuff. Right. So I don't get the form. They asked me again. I said, I'm not talking about it until I get the form. Then I get the form and it's not filled out. Then our coach, who really wanted me to do this because it's one of his favorite clients and a great client of ours.

Like says, we'll help with the whatever. And then they, they want to pay way less than what I would want to go all the way across the country to a place that you got to fly to.

Remote location. Yeah.

So I got a. It's going to be all day going and all day coming back. So it's a three day thing for me. And I always in my head have a number what I. This is how I think about speaking gigs. Do you know how I think about this? Have I ever told you I have.

An idea, but I'd love to hear what you said.

What do you think the idea is?

I think that what you do is you do a. You do a dollar amount versus the pain of doing it thing. And if the dollar amount exceeds your.

Pain, because I've been doing this so long. And.

This actually comes off of something that Dave Anderson told me once, which I thought was really good advice about speaking at 20 groups and all that is. He said, I don't need practice speaking. Yeah, I don't need practice. Right.

And you know, Dave Anderson runs a great business. Like he's really smart. He. He adds a ton of value.

But what I think about is what would I pay not to do it?

Oh, that's great. That's better than what I thought.

So I definitely would have paid twice as Much as what they were offering me to do it. To go all the way to the east coast, then fly to another place, be stuck in this remote place, then have to go all the way to another air. Like, it's two flights, the whole thing, right? And they're not easy flights. Like, those are. Those are hard flights. So I would have paid twice as much. And also, I got to tell everybody I've been working on a book. So I'm writing a book. And.

I basically, like, for the most part, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I've been writing. And it's incredible. Like, I'm so excited about this book, and for. For so many reasons, I'm having so much fun doing it. This. This is totally a flaw in my system is I do have my phone there. So if somebody texts me, I do look, which I need to just turn my phone.

Shouldn't do that.

For sure, for sure. Now I'm turning it off. But.

In. In the.

In a text, I get. Somebody from Nada has sent the. Whoever the moderator is of that group that I'm supposed to go speak. And maybe I didn't say this. I agreed to go because it's our client and he's one of our favorite clients. And so I said, I'll do it for that amount, but make him look like a hero and just say it's because of our relationship with him. I'll do it. You know, and then once. Once I said that I was done. Then I get a text on a Thursday, I'm writing. I'm literally in the middle of a chapter, which it's really hard to write a book. I'm telling everybody it's hard to write a book. And I'm in my head, and I get this text, which is a thing from somebody that they said to them from Nada that myself and Jeff Cowan never get paid to speak at 20 groups, and that Jeff Cowan's polished and I'm rough or something to that effect, that I'm really rough.

And first of all, don't. I don't understand. Like, you don't need to compare me to Jeff Cowan. I don't think we're really competition, in a sense. We're doing something completely different. He's doing advisor training. We have advisor training. But our thing really is not that you could compare us more to, like, one of the other companies. And honestly, Jeff has always been nice to us. I don't have, like, I have nothing to. To say about jet, but this mo. This guy, whatever from Nada says that I'M rough. So literally in the book that I'm writing, I put, remember the guy from Nada in the rough comment.

That you interrupted me with your stupidity saying that I'd never been paid. When I have, I have been paid. Like, I don't, I don't, I don't think that I've spoken in a 20 group and not got paid for a long time. But maybe they're NCM groups. I don't know. Maybe I don't speak a lot at nada. And if I'm rough, I don't know what you're talking about. I know it's always a battle to go into a 20 group and everybody's talking about everything that doesn't matter. And when I come in and I talk about profit and actual results, they, they're a little confused because they sit in those meetings most of the time and NADA is a teaching on profitability. And if anything, they're confusing them. How many times we get a service manager at an NADA academy and they're just confused. You, like, you make the financial statement into calculus. You're selling an hour of labor, you pay a technician to perform it. You have gross profit left over and then expenses and then you have profit. That's it. You don't need to make it any more complicated than that.

Like it's a plus minus thing.

Yeah. So no, like. And in my book, this book is going to be open to the general world, not just automotive. So I will take that out. But every time I edit and go back through it, it's going to see me and it's going to drive me. This is the fire that I need.

I don't know for what, but I.

Feel like you're pretty committed before that. But it's all right if you need.

A little extra adding to it. I, you know, I didn't turn off my phone and Nada.

Forget it.

Was that a hard no?

Well, I mean, they could flirt with me. They won't though. They don't even listen to the show. They're just going through websites, probably. I don't know why, why do they send us an invitation and nobody calls?

Or because they googled advisor training.

Yeah, they googled advice. There's probably 20 other people that got the same letter and it's not special. I think I, I want them to flirt with me. I don't know. I certainly want to meet that guy that said I'm rough. I'll show you rough. I'll show you rough, son.

Oh, that's great.

I actually looked him up on social media and I sent a picture of him. Yeah, I did. I don't know. I get that sort of stuff. I know it's not right, but it's. I don't know, it's fun to me.

Yeah, you turn it into positive for sure.

I, hey, great. If, honestly, the truth is, if somebody thinks I'm rough, it's my fault. Like I, I'm allowing them to think I'm rough. I don't, I don't blame them for thinking that I am kind of rough. And I could be more charismatic. I could, I could, you know, do it in a different way. But for the most part, the clients that we want out of 20 group meetings are the clients that respond to results. And so if I went to 20 group meetings and it was all fluff, I can't hand a client over to a coach.

That doesn't actually want to get results. Right. And another thing that happens is the more popular we are, the more people want us because we're popular, not because they want results. And that's the thing we have to navigate because we only are going to have longevity as a company if we're getting clients results. So we work really, really hard it focusing on customer retention and profitability. And that isn't always, you know, when, when, especially in dealerships, when the service departments the afterthought and you have a dealer or general manager that came up through sales and doesn't understand the service department. Just a natural thing. They aren't always that committed to fixed absorption and profitability. So part of why I go in that way is because I am trying to qualify. Like there's a story in the Bible, right, with Gideon or whatever, where God says, go down to the river. And he had 10,000 soldiers. And he said, only pick the ones that cup the water out of the river and drink. And the ones that stick their head in the river don't. And there were only 300 of them. But that's how he, he qualified. That's how I look is I'm not, I'm. I don't need all 20 in a 20 group. We're looking for the two or three that want to be on the left side of the page that actually want to get results and want to, to do stuff.

So say it all the time. We're not for everyone.

Yeah.

And we don't, we don't want to be.

So I in no way blame anybody for thinking what they think of me. It's my fault if somebody thinks that I'm mean or rough or whatever. I'm, you know, I can certainly have more charisma. I certainly can change up my speaking style. I certainly could go there and just do a motivational thing. But that isn't the business model we're in.

Right. You know, and it's funny because people thought Jeffrey Dahmer was mean.

Is there a punchline?

Yeah. But it just turns out he was actually really nice. He just liked to eat new people.

That's a great segue.

Thank you.

Do you want to get to the question?

Why not?

Okay, remember, write this down, 8333 ask SDR and we'll go to the first question.

Hey, Chris. I am currently a service technician, a field service technician for a large forklift company. I'm actually looking forward in looking to possibly switching to being a service advisor at a local GM dealer. Time currently getting paid about 50,000 a year. It varies just because I'm actually paid non flat rate hourly. And I am wanting to do this just because currently I'm working usually about two to two and a half hours away from home, whereas the GM dealer is about 20 minutes from home. They said they can start me out at a very low hourly with a 4% gross commission and that includes internal warranty and customer pay. I'm just wondering if that would be approximately what I'm doing, you know, what I'm getting now. And also they're.