5 Mistakes New Service Managers Make | SDR #273

Welcome, everybody, to the big show. Today we're going to talk about the five mistakes service managers make. New service managers or old service managers. It applies to both sides. Christian, say hello to everybody. Christian.

Hello, everyone.

He's going to talk to you about a medical thing. It's pretty interesting. Condom, medical and the news. And much, much more. Coming up on this edition of Service Drive Revolution.

I want to wit you a merry Christmas I want to wit you a merry Christmas I want to wish you.

A merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart.

Felis Navid.

This is going out on Christmas.

Merry Christmas.

Santa got you what you wanted.

How did your Santa antics go this year?

It's rough. It's rough out there.

Christian, I believe that.

You had to. We had plans to. To do something crazy, and we didn't because you had to go shopping.

It's the worst. So do you get your blood work done?

Not as often as I should.

When's the last time you had your blood work done?

20. 15, maybe.

Oh, you're getting old. You should. You should see what's going on. It's like you're. It's like your motor oil in there.

Yeah, I gotta change the motor oil.

You can tell a lot of stuff. One thing that happens to you as you get older and you have your blood work done is there's a thing called psa. Have you heard of that?

You've told me about it, but I have no idea what it is.

So it's like your.

It's an indicator of inflammation, but also like an indicator of prostate cancer.

Oh, okay. That sounds pretty important.

And so you can. You can prevent a lot of things if you get ahead of it. You're kind of more like, I don't want to know. Right. You'd rather not know.

You know what? I should put that stuff on my radar. Yeah. I want to fix it if it's wrong.

Well, you haven't done a blood test since 1908 or whatever.

Yeah, but it's not because of a denial situation.

Subconsciously, it is, maybe. Well, you're denying it. You're not doing. You don't want to look at it.

Yeah.

You know it's there.

Do you. Do you want to know the real truth behind it? Why I haven't done blood work in the last five years?

Sure.

Because I don't understand. Let's get to the truth. Yeah. I don't understand my insurance. I don't know who to call, and I don't have the energy or desire to figure it out.

Obamacare isn't working for you?

No, I. I have nice insurance, but it's confusing. I don't. I don't understand.

Well, here's. Here's one thing. The. All the stuff that I do isn't covered under insurance.

Yeah. So I may be just better off making calls. As a matter of fact, anything that I've done medicinal over the last two years, I've done it without going through insurance. Okay.

So to. To bring this full circle, and I apologize, everybody, that's taken so long to get to this point. But what are. So if you're talking about inflammation in your blood, there's kind of two things that I've been doing because my PSA levels were climbing a little bit. Not. And I had that body scan, so I know I don't have.

I don't have a mass or anything because I had a.

You know that thing where the PSA assume is markers for future issues, not current.

But it started to climb. Right. So.

There'S this one kind of thing that I take that made it go down. And I'm not a doctor, so I'm not gonna say what that thing is because it's.

Cutting edge and questionable whether people should be diving into my weirdness.

Yeah.

But I took it, and it went down. The numbers went down. You know what another thing that makes your. Or supposedly makes your PSA levels go down. Something you can do.

Cardio. Cardio.

No. Cold dunk. So the reason why I went to do the cold dunk was not because of Joe Rogan and all that, because frankly.

The idea that I'm gonna wake up and jump in a bucket of ice every morning is.

I don't know what I'm proving by doing that. Except for that.

That you can do it cold. Yeah.

But what's funny is I went.

To try doing cold dunks right before my blood test.

Yeah.

And there's this place where you can. Before I buy the cold dunk and do the whole thing, I thought, okay, I'll just go to a place that has a cold dunk. Told you about it.

Yes.

So.

The listeners would think, probably listening, that I was better at the cold dunk.

I think they would just assume.

They would assume.

Yeah.

But, boy, would they be wrong.

Yeah.

So the. The cold dunk is. So it's. It's 40 degrees. This one is the water circulating.

Yes. Makes it worse, I think.

Way worse. And the guy told me that. He said most cold dunks, you have the ability to create a little bit of.

What do you call that between you and the Water, I don't know.

Separation.

But the circulation, the pump circulating the water makes it so you can't.

Like, you basically sit there and it does the moving.

So I go. And this place has a sauna and a cold dunk in the same room. You rent it by the hour. So you go in the cold dunk, then you go in the sauna, then you go in the cold dunk, and you go in the sauna. And so the first time, I think I lasted 20 seconds, and I felt like I wasn't going to be able to walk. And when I say 20 seconds, I was only to my hips. I wasn't in the water. Then I went in the sauna. The guy said to dry off.

Yeah, I said, because you get. Because it's hard to get warm when you have the cold water.

Then I come back out, and I think I did 30 seconds. By the end of it, I got up to a minute, which was my fourth time. I got up to a minute, but I still felt like I was gonna die.

You went yesterday.

Yeah. And.

What'S funny is you went with your girlfriend, which is hilarious. There's a video of it if anybody wants to text. Christian, I'll send you a. You. It's pretty impressive. Not only did you go all the way in, like, up to your ears, he went. What was the longest you went?

Three minutes.

Three minutes. I couldn't go a minute to save my life. I thought my. I literally felt like my legs weren't going to work anymore.

Yeah, I understand that.

You. You are.

You're either a sadist or you just have a stronger mind than me. I don't know.

I was just really committed that I needed to make that work.

Yeah. Well, you did good.

Thanks. You know what? The. I also had an advantage that you didn't because there was a helper vid. There was a helper audio that you weren't doing. So I had someone kind of.

You don't have to make excuses for me.

The.

The truth is in the. In the pudding. I was trying to get my. I took a blood test last week. I'm trying to get the results, but for some reason now, something has changed. I have to beg my doctor for the results. It takes forever. Last time, it took two weeks. I used to get him, like, literally two days.

I was gonna say he's normally Dr. Johnny on the spot. Right.

Something's changed over there.

It's harder for him to get the.

He has too many clients. I think he's too busy.

Oh, that could do it. The other thing that I was thinking of that helped me with. So the first dunk I did, I was borderline hyperventilating. Like, it was, oh, my God, this is so ridiculously cold. And then the thing that kind of gave me the calming thing, that there's no way they built this business with all these rooms. If there was anything really dangerous about the cold dunk. So I thought that my chances of death were slim.

But not zero.

That's what goes through your mind.

Yeah.

You're going all the way to death.

Yeah. Like, they're. They wouldn't put me in there if. If it wasn't really something that was going to be good for me. That's what I. That's what I thought of you.

You signed the waiver, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. They don't care you signed a waiver.

That's not good publicity for me to be dead.

They don't. They stole cautious car, and they wouldn't even write a police report. Here in California, people don't care if you die here. They don't care if somebody breaks into your house.

We did hear.

They don't care if you get in a car wreck. They don't. You know why crime is only up a little bit? Because they're not reporting it.

Right. We did, ironically. We heard a gunshot as we went to park. I couldn't wait to tell you that part. I totally forgot.

Yeah.

And this is not that far from your house.

Yeah, no.

Yeah. Interesting.

But I have the guy. This is no joke. I have the guy that does the training for the sheriff's department coming over to my house to teach me and Missy what to do if somebody like the whole. The whole layout.

Has he helped you to reinforce the house too?

First of all, he hasn't come yet.

Okay, but when he does that part of it too.

No, the house is pretty reinforced.

Okay.

I was just seeing cameras everywhere, and there's alarms and all that. But.

The thing that. That I think is, like, if somebody's breaking in, usually when they're breaking in here, it's a gang of like, five of them. It's not one.

Right.

And the first thing they want to do is get to your bedroom and incapacitate you. You hear the alarm go off. Right. But you got, what, five seconds to. To make a decision what you're gonna do.

You might. And you're asleep because they got to go upstairs to get to you.

Yeah. But if they're moving fast and they know where it is. So the. The one guy was telling me that most of the time they've paid off your housekeeper or your landscaper or somebody. And they know. But it's happened to two houses on my street.

Yeah. One was, like, two doors down. It was way too close for comfort.

Yeah. And so.

I'm just. I'm. You know, if it happens, it's not going to be a good day for those people.

I don't want it to happen, but if it does, I'm not.

If there were more bad days for those people, it wouldn't happen as often.

Yeah, but you can talk. You can. You know, it's a. Too many things to get.

I'd much rather you not have to worry about it.

It's a broken system. I.

I propose we move the office to Wyoming.

Really?

Jackson Hole.

Okay.

I don't know what we do with this building, but it's pretty cool.

Somebody would like it.

So what we've learned is you need to get your blood test, but that you have a stronger mental discipline than me. That I really want to have nothing to do with that cold water. I don't like it.

So you're done? You won't do it again? No.

No, I think I have to.

Yeah.

Well, that's why I want to get my blood test, because I want to see. But people say that it makes your.

It.

It gets rid of inflammation, especially if you do it first thing in the morning. So I do have the ability to teach myself how to do it first thing in the morning. If it makes a difference in my. In my psa, I will do it. I won't. I don't like it, though.

The other thing that I thought was pretty interesting is that depending on how much, like, if you're gonna do it daily, I could see you getting a thing, but I was talking to the guy last night. It's like some people just come every couple of weeks and do it just to get.

But the stuff that I've read, it doesn't do you any good. Every couple weeks, you got to do it.

Oh, so maybe he was wrong.

A minimum of, like, I think through. I don't. I'm not Wynn Hoff. But you got to do it more often.

Okay.

Same thing with the sauna. You got to do 20 minutes a week of 180 degrees or something.

Yeah, that sauna was hot.

The other thing about that is that jacks up your hgh, your human growth hormone, which helps you recover quickly.

It's going to help me with my bodybuilding thing. Yeah.

What if that's my New year's resolution for 2024.

I don't. You.

You.

Your New Year's resolution last year didn't happen, so.

Yeah, I did the opposite.

Yeah.

I drank less, not more.

It's all a joke to you.

Not this. This is a little more interesting.

Okay. This. I sent you a news article, couple of them.

So it's interesting to me that.

This seems like it's happening more and more now that all the. The car companies are spending a lot of money on PR and they're trying to spin their own narratives.

Right.

And so this is a Toyota. Clearly a paid. Has to be paid. Is it paid?

It. It seems like not paid.

It's not good journalism because he's not telling the whole story.

Right.

What's the article called?

Can Toyota See into the Future of Electric Cars?

And it's track and road and track, road and track.

Yep. Says what looks like foot dragging on going fully electric. Might actually be the smartest and greenest hedge in the business. And then here's the. Here's the part where just first paragraph. Toyota is perhaps the greatest car company the world has ever known. Is a.

Okay, just stop right there.

Yep.

Is Toyota the greatest car company the world has ever known?

Oh, I don't know.

Like, is it a. Is it a done deal? Like.

By far and away, Toyota is the greatest car company ever?

No, I think there are many car companies that have their own things they can hang banners on.

Okay. So right when I read that, I was like, oh, this is a paid.

Advertisement.

It was a second sentence.

Yeah.

And then it talks a little bit about the history. Like, it looks like he went on to the website and the history of Toyota. At first, a maker of weaving machinery in Japan, the family run. Toyota turned to building cars in the 30s. And then again, like, though a cautious innovator, we have.

We have nothing against Toyota. I just think it's interesting that all these car companies are doing this.

Backdoor journalism stuff.

Yeah. So then they go on to talk about how the Prius was released in Japan in 1997, came to the US in 2000, which. That was probably one of the funniest parts of this thing that I read because, like, the way that they're talking about it, very romanticized in the history, but that Prius didn't. It wasn't hot out of the gate. I don't know if you remember that thing, but people made a lot of fun of it. They didn't sell a ton of the car.

The truth get in the way of a good story.

Yeah, but. But they do make sure. To talk about how they've sold 23 million Priuses.

Heaven only knows they're everywhere.

So. Yeah, through 2022. But there's a lot of them, that's for sure.

But and, and it's, you know, it's a, it's a niche. Like they created their own niche.

Yeah. Very smart, fleet wise. Like the cabs, all that stuff. They did a lot of things right.

People that want to use a carpool lane.

Yeah. But they're basically saying that, you know, this article is saying that Toyota purposely stayed out of EV because they, they saw that it was gonna be a mess. Although they do have a, they have an ev, that utility vehicle. But the thing that's really interesting, one.

Thing that he leaves out of there that I think is interesting is how Toyota's double down on hydrogen a couple times.

Yeah, you, you can't left that out. Yeah. You can't give away mri basically. That hydrogen car he doesn't talk about. There's a, the most recent one I saw was like a $15,000 credit to buy one of those hydro hydrogen cars. And then it says, you know, like a little quote. Of course we admit Tesla has wonderful technology, but that just motivates us to work harder to catch up. Which to me sounds like they're going to get into the EV thing.

The greatest car company in the world's ever seen is catching up.

But that is way more consistent with Toyota, don't you think? Over history?

I mean, I don't think Toyota's ever really led that much.

They copy, they're great copiers. I think that that is actually the thing that Toyota's brilliant at, is that they're mimickers and they take something, they try to make it better. Right. I think they took a lot of European technology from BMW and Mercedes and tried to make it better. They took things from the, from the American car companies and tried to make it better. Like the truck is one of the things that, that made me think about what they've done with the US but they've never been like the brand new product thing for the most part. The Prius was really probably the most innovative thing that Toyota has ever done.

We haven't talked about this in a while, but he leaves out all the stuff about how Toyota gave Elon the advice. Dealers bailout. They gave him a bailout. They helped them and they. The factory that they're in was half Toyota, half gm.

That's right. And then they also say any of that. Weren't they one of the first manufacturers to, to buddy up with their charging system too for the future. All right, so the, the thing I really like but essentially it was just a puzzle as a puff piece about how awesome Toyota is. I thought this piece was pretty cool. I thought I wanted to share this with everybody. And the, the pledges from the car industry is about EV. So BMW expects 50% of its global sales to be electric by 2030. Ford expects 40 to 50% to be electric by 2030.

GM aspires to be zero emission by 2035. Honda 40% electric by 2030.

One third for Hyundai. Jaguar all electric by 2025. They're definitely pushing that. Lucid was already electric. Mazda.

EVs will be 25 to 40%. Mercedes.

They expect to be fully electric by the end of the decade. Mitsubishi, nobody cares.

There's a couple Mitzu dealers out there that care.

I'm so sorry. I'm sorry to our clients that are Mitsubishi dealers. That wasn't very nice of me to say that.

50% electric by 2030.

Polestar Rivian Stellantis.

Oh, this is interesting. 100 EV in Europe and 50% in the US by 2030. Subaru.

50 by 2030. That's kind of the thing. Toyota, the one that is resistant, is still committed to being a third electric by 2030. And 80 for VW Group, which is VW. Audi, Porsche, there's other ones I'm probably forgetting. Volvo is going to be fully electric too. So it lets you know like 2030 is kind of that time that everybody's committing to be electric. Maybe it won't happen. I don't know.

You want to Talk about the 5 mistakes service managers make? The 5 mistakes new service managers make.

And I think this applies to brand new first time service manager or service manager coming into a new thing.

Your point was this is the end of the year. You can start next year with a fresh set of eyes. I just watched. Did you see Jeff Bezos on Lex Friedman?

No.

He's talking about first, what does he call it? First day mindset or something like where you start every day. Like it's the first day. Kind of like Jack Welsh talk to. But he has this funny thing like how you know basically you're playing not to lose pretty quick if you don't pretend like every day is the first day.

Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. I don't hate that.

Maybe. But. But in the next 30 to 45 days, just a mild prediction that there will be a lot of service manager positions opening up or people be replaced.

No, it always Happens every year. Okay. So number one.

Okay.

Is that they perpetuate a negative feedback loop. What do you think I mean by that?

That they've already got bad information coming in and they keep that coming towards them.

No. If you take over a new gig and you. You allow things to stay the way they were.

How would you get better? Right.

One, the guy before you was let go. So you're perpetuating a negative feedback loop. So either you're a manager there that isn't getting great results, so that's a negative feedback loop, or you're coming in as the new manager, which means unless that guy got promoted or gal got promoted to being the general manager, but for the most part, they're probably let go or they quit.

Yeah.

You're assuming a negative feedback loop, and you're. If you're not changing it very quickly, it's going to be the same outcome.

Yeah. Yeah. You have a. The timer is running from the day that you start. Okay. I like that.

Number two, this one is one you came up with, which was you're constantly putting out fires. You're playing defense, not offense.

I can tell you that. I did that once. I took a job at a Chrysler store. And the first 20 days was just handling angry customers. And it was really hard to. It was hard to make changes because I was just talking to angry customers the whole time.

You know, my.

Strategy is in that situation.

No, I'd love to hear it.

I kind of let the angry customers go for a minute.

Put them on ice so you can figure out what it is that's causing the angry customers. That makes a lot of sense.

Doesn't take you long to figure that out.

No, it probably takes a quarter of.

A day, but you got to get in. You got to get in some texts, you got to get in some new people, and it's hard to do.

Yeah.

So.

Well, if you're nine hours a day handling angry customers in one hour a day building the system, of course that's going to happen.

You got to kind of stop for a second and reset.

Yeah.

Number three, you start making excuses, you externalize the blame to, oh, the guy before me, the market. This place is crazy. These people are crazy. These customers are crazy. It's everything but what you can control.

Right.

You externalize responsibility very, very quick.

It is really interesting to me how often, even not just 30 days in or 60 days in. Like, I've had times where I've talked to clients and they were blaming stuff on people that worked there a year or two. Years or five years ago.

Yeah. You know what else is, is crazy is when people go, oh, you know, how do I get my advisors to do a walk around? Or how do I. Or, you know, they're talking about their people like they're not their people.

Yeah. The other manager didn't make them do walk arounds. Now I can never make them do a walk around.

Yeah.

So the other manager's fault.

So they externalize the responsibility.

That's great.

Number four is you. You called this death by a thousand paper cuts. I kind of call it reinvention. Like, you got to reinvent yourself. And especially when you start a new job or you come into a new year, all of those are opportunities that it just makes sense that you would reinvent yourself. You have new goals for 2024. You got a new job in 2024. Whatever it is, you're reinventing yourself, you have a new chance. Like I remember, this is going to be an abstract example, but I think it'll make sense. I remember one year.

I went to four schools. It was eighth grade. I went to four schools in one year.

Oh, that's terrible.

How good do you think I got at being the new kid? By the fourth one. And by the way, I went to a fifth one the next year. So the coming out of summer, I started a fifth one. So I went to five schools in basically a school year.

Yeah. And you probably were class president by the fifth one.

You get pretty good at it.

Yeah, that's a good skill, actually.

Well, it's awkward, but you get a chance to reinvent yourself every time. Right. Like the first time I went in there, I would. It was what I was in Washington state and I just come from Mexico. And so the clothes I wore, like what I said, everything, you know, as a missionary's kid.

Right.

But by the second one, I realized that wasn't working.

Right. And then what was Persona 2? Would you. What'd you try after the missionary kid thing?

What was interesting thinking back about that is I had two things going for me. Do you want to guess what those two things were?

Soccer player would be my first thought.

Okay.

Sports and then music. Yeah, two for two.

So depending on where I was in the crowd, I could lean into one more than the other.

Yeah, but you are good enough to recognize which crowds in front of you.

And also I was unique in the sense that I did both, for the most part, in both. Like the rockers in, like, that edgier crowd liked me and the. The jocks liked me. I was. I Fit into both, which was, I don't know that anybody else could do. Like, I had long hair and the.

Jock still liked you.

Yeah, that's pretty cool. But I played sports.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's great. I love it.

So, yeah, I leaned into one or the other.

That was my saving grace. Not telling my story about coming from Mexico. Nobody cared. It made me fit in less.

How do you think we do it again? Like, if you and I went on the Newly award game, how do you think we'd do?

Newlywood game?

Yeah.

Oh, there would just be a point where I would. You're too. You're not super transparent about a lot of stuff.

Oh, really? So I bet I'd be better at knowing you than you would be.

Be at a point, probably. Oh, I think I don't hide a lot.

I think we'd hold up all right against newlyweds.

You think so?

I do. We should try that next year.

Okay. So number four is reinvention. Like, completely reinvent yourself. I would completely reinvent myself. When I went in, how I dressed, what was important, what classes. Like, all of it. Right.

Yeah. So don't adopt the dealership polo on day one.

Like, maybe it's not soccer season, but I signed up for track and baseball. Like, I could play sports. I wasn't going to be the last kid picked.

Yeah.

And I. I even joined band in one of them, which was a mistake, but it worked. Like, I didn't really want to learn how to read music, but I learned a little something. But I made friends with those kids, you know?

Right.

I was meeting them on their terms.

Well, it's just another tool for the next school at the end of the day. Right. That's pretty good.

Number five.

Is.

Liked over being effective.

You're more concerned with being liked than being effective. And a lot of times what we see is the manager is trying to be liked by people who. There's that old saying, those dogs don't hunt. So you got a pack of dogs that don't hunt, but they like you versus finding hunters.

Like, if you find the right hunters, you don't have to.

Get them to like you.

No, they just will. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say is kindred spirits. Probably the only way you want to be liked is by being effective.

Maybe. Maybe it's respected. Not like that you want, and I.

Think respected over likes better. But as humans, a lot of us want to be liked.

And then the one thing that you don't see in our industry is mentor. Like, a lot of People don't have a mentor.

I agree with that.

I mean, it's, it's, it's great. The role we play in the industry where we're, you know, a safe place for managers to get help and advice and an objective opinion on things. Right. Yeah, but that doesn't exist really, because service in service and parts, they're usually afraid of the general manager. The general manager usually doesn't understand fixed stops. It's a weird picture.

Yeah. So they're both going that way. And I would say that I hear that from the coaches all the time, that they wish they had. What our clients get from us, that makes sense. Like, we all went through the hard.

Way because some of the coaches were clients.

Yeah. But even so, when they. Like when coach Vicki got into the industry, you weren't there yet, but when I was. Yeah.

She doesn't bring that up.

No. She holds you in the highest regard from a mentor, which they felt alone from in 1985 when she was the second BMW service manager that was a female. Yeah, I would say she felt pretty.

She was the second.

I thought she was a second.

Who was first?

I don't know her name.

Okay. Yeah, that's our list. Let's go back through it.

Okay.

They perpetuate a negative feedback loop. They keep doing things the way they were always done, expecting a different result.

Number two, they are playing defense or just putting out fires. Number three, they externalize responsibility. Lots of excuses. Number four, they don't reinvent themselves. Death by a thousand paper cuts. Number five, they want to be liked over being effective. And then extra credit is finding a mentor.

Yeah.

Well, thanks.

That's our Christmas gift. Right? Like that's a Christmas gift to a brand new manager. Pay attention to these five things. The do's, don'ts. That's the best gift we could give you.

And if you're listening to this on Christmas, Merry Christmas, Happy holidays from our family to yours. I hope you enjoy yourself. And let's make 2024 something fun and special. Let's get some momentum.

Let's do this thing.

We'll see you next time on Service Drive Revolution. Thanks so much for watching this episode of Service Job 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 8333, ask SDR and we'll answer your question on the show. That's 8333 ask SDR for special deals on our books and training. Head over to offers.chris collinsinc.com now that's offers.chris collins inc.com I'm Chris Collins and I'll see you in the next video sa.