Chris Collins and Christian share five summer events for dealerships: service clinics, car shows, wine-and-art nights, and family events with bounce houses. They also recommend a seasonal "Pit Stop" inspection campaign and coordinating staff vacations to keep service running smoothly.
And once again, let's remind everybody that you're planning this in January or February is events you should be doing a car doctor service clinic.
I don't, you know.
Archery contest. I don't know, something. But you should be doing events to get your customers in and have them see you and interact with the technicians in a more personal way. Not just a, hey, you're a number. This is Southwest Airlines party time.
Yeah, I think the one, one I saw, I think it was last year or something like that. But dealership partner partnered with Farmer's Market, which was really cool.
Genius.
So I thought that was really good. I've seen a couple ideas. Car shows, really relaxing.
Anything with a bounce house or anything like that where it looks like it's a party from the street. That's always good stuff too. But yeah, there's. I don't think there's any limit to it. Didn't you do used to do wine tastings?
That's a funny. That's a funny story. Yeah, I remember, I think I met somebody who had a wine store and they're like, hey, you know, it'd be great to do something together. And.
There was an art gallery too, or something. So we wanted to do wine and art in the showroom. And I called my insurance guy to go, hey, can we get people to drink and drive?
Just kind of joking around and he's like, yeah, no, you could do it. You just can't serve them more than.
Yeah, one drinker limit.
Yeah. So you can taste one, but just don't, don't serve them like you're a bar. Yeah, we then we started doing that all the time because if you think about, you know, high end customers, the dealership I was running, and wine and art, and it goes hand in hand and those, you know, the thing that we had is we had a list of customers that were very enthusiastic about us as a company. And so when you take another company and share lists, it, you know, it's just, it's very, very effective.
Well, that's another really good point too, is just remembering that with all these events that you do in the summer, trying to attract business for service is that they should always be a co op with sales because everybody wins. All we need is traffic and for people to see the dealership as a cool place to come to.
The. The other one that I had on my list is to do the Pit Stop campaign. And if you're in our on demand, this sequence is in there for. You could literally just copy and paste it into Your CRM. But doing some sort of thing like get ready for summer as a campaign. We'll do a complimentary pit stop inspection and then do, hey, you know, before 4th of July. Get ready for your 4th of July weekend before, you know, there's always a thing. Yeah. And then back to school. Like, it goes all the way through summer. You have a bunch of different reasons to say, hey, bring it in. Let us check it out. And you pick your database for the customers that haven't been in in a while.
Yeah. And that way, what you can do different events for different people within the database. And then it feels like you're always stretching out, reaching out to new folks.
Yeah.
That's great.
And it's not, hey, 10% off on brakes when you don't need brakes or get a free tire if you buy three when you don't need tires. This applies to everybody. Let us top off your fluids. Check your air pressure, like, you know, all of that. Make sure you're okay. Nobody wants a surprise.
Yeah. That's one of my favorite things to do for service managers. I've done this a few times in our quarterly meetings. Is the, the math on. Out of a database of 10,000 people, how many actually a break coupon would apply to.
Yeah.
Which means. Right. One, they need to need breaks. But then they need to know they need breaks.
How many people are going somewhere for 4th of July?
4 billion.
4 billion. Christian. How many people are in America?
300.
Don't let the math get in the way of a good story.
Isn't it like 300 million?
I think the world celebrates the Fourth of July.
No, they are not celebrating Fourth of July in Russia. Certainly not in England.
Yeah.
I just want to. I was thinking about that story when I was over in London and I paid that. That lady to show me through the art galleries, and we were just sitting there in the. In the coffin. She was a delightful person. Had, no joke, had a, I think a master's in history.
Yeah. She said she was really smart.
Masters in history. And we're sitting there and she's like, so how is it over there in America, like, with the guns? And like, you know, like, we're all shooting each other or something. Yeah.
It's tough.
Like, so she was kind of insinuating that we're going to have to take everybody's guns away. And I was like, you know why we have guns, Right? Like, you know, it's built into the DNA of America because of you.
If you have a history major, you don't have to look back far, but I don't think they're celebrating.
Fourth of July is not a big deal there.
And then there's a lot of Middle Eastern countries that are celebrating. There's a lot of countries that aren't celebrating that. But there's 300 million people here and maybe, I don't know, a few of them are. But more than need breaks.
Yes, Way more than need breaks.
And that's the, that's the long way around the cul de sac to the. To that point.
Yeah.
So fun.
Oh, and I had a little thing on there you were talking about making sure that you have staff. But I think that more than anything, this is a little bit of a, like, administrative task. But the, the pre. Plan your vacation with your team.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Never having too many people off in any one given slot. That's probably where I see stores that'll get really messed up for months. It's when they let four people off during that July 4th week. Like you just kind of have to have so many slots and maybe you have to alternate it or whatever it is, or give somebody the week before off or whatever it is. But don't, don't put yourself in that trip bag where you.
With advisors and with tax, you have to limit how many people can be off at a time and then have some sort of policy about seniority.
That's right.
So let's say two texts in the shop can be off at the same time and it's based on seniority and you have to ask for it 90 days ahead of time or whatever.
The best way in. This is something that I did when I was a service manager is, is that I always open up the camera, the calendar on July 2, and everybody was waiting in the office to fill out their time for the year.
Thanks so much for watching this clip of Service Driver 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.chriscollinsinc.com now that's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins and I'll see you in the next video.
