5 Ways To Tell You if Your Business is Running You | SDR #224

Welcome, everybody, to the big show. We have an exciting, exciting topic for you today. 5 Ways to Tell if the tail is wagging the dog. How can you tell if the business is running you or you're running the business? We have a lot of experience in this department, and we're going to share how we can instantly tell all five of these. You can instantly tell right away what's going on. Some exciting stuff in the news, and we're going to talk about how Christian almost died and much, much more. Coming up on this edition of Service Drive Revolution.

Let's start this off with a funny story. Kind of knew things were going south, but this happened last Monday. And how I knew they were going south was that I beat you here.

It doesn't happen very often, does it?

No. Because I think you come in and work out in the morning.

No, I just come in and work. I do evening workouts.

But you're working, like, the east coast or something. Because you're always here. No matter how early I get here, you're. Unless you're out of town, you're here before me.

Yeah, that's true.

I even wondered if you were out of town. I was like, am I wrong? Is he, like, out of town somewhere? So I'm here. I'm getting set up in my office, and I hear you come in.

Like a bull in a china shop.

We do this weird husband and wife thing because our walls, Christian's office and my temporary office.

Don'T have anything in between. Up where the wall touches the ceiling. So you could. I'm sure a cat could get through there.

Yeah, probably. We're standing next to each other.

Sound can definitely get through. That's right. So I hear him come in, and I'm like, hey, good morning, Christian. And then I hear this.

And I go. I jump up out of my seat and I go, are you sick? And he says something, but I don't know. I'm coming down the hall hard and fast, and then I poke my head in your office. I go, are you sick? And you're like, well, kinda, or something. You wouldn't admit you were sick.

I wanted to work, and I go.

Get out of here. Go home. You're gonna get me sick. Somebody here in the office, not to name any names. Patricia got me sick, like, the month before sick. Didn't wear a mask, nothing. Just sick around everybody, like. And I went down for the. For the count, although my count is a lot shorter than everybody else's, because I have a. I have a system for this. When I. When I get sick, I was probably down for two days, I would say.

But it was the. It was the first time I'd ever had you text me and say, I'm not coming in because I feel good.

You. I don't know if you hesitated or what you did, but you left. I was never in contact with you except for poking my head in, which could have got me sick.

We were quite a ways away from each other.

We were quite a while. And you went home, and then we had our meeting, and you. You worked all day from home, but you did Zooms. And every meeting that we had, we just did it on Zoom so you could be in on it.

And then.

So I said.

Do the system, because I don't. I told you about the system. You kind of tried the system, but there's the. There's this lady, I think. What is her name?

Judy.

Judy, at this place in Hollywood that does this drip like an iv, that no matter how sick you are, it.

Fixes you super crazy.

You sit there for an hour. How long did yours take?

45 minutes. My veins suck that stuff in fast.

My veins are weird, so it usually takes me about an hour and 15. We get the. There's like a good, better best. We get the best. And then if I'm really sick, I call my doctor and get some sort of antibiotics where most doctors say, oh, no, you gotta. You gotta let it go. Antibiotics don't work. Antibiotics work for me. I don't know what they're talking about. I get a Z pack, whatever. So when I got. When. When I was given the. The heebie jeebies or whatever, I did the drip and I got a Z pack, and then I was good the next day, which, when we were talking about benefits and everything here this year, like our compensation as a company, all that, I wanted everybody to have basic health insurance because, like, when they get sick, I want them to be able to go and get, like. I don't think it should take a week to get over a cold.

Yeah, go. Come back and don't get everybody else sick all at the same time.

Yeah. And so that. That was part of my motivation, amongst other things. But that was. That was part of it. So you. You go home, you had tested negative for Covid in the morning.

That's right.

And by the afternoon, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. You. You won the. What do they call it in the prices, Right. When you win the grand prize prize.

Or the big prize.

The big prize called the prize of the over. So you had Covid Showcase showdown. Showcase. You won the showcase showdown?

I came within $100 without going over.

And so it probably took you two days to feel better.

Yeah. So I remember Tuesday, Wednesday were rough. And I really appreciate you checking in on.

You got the. You got the drip on Tuesday.

Yep. And then Tuesday I. I felt good right after I left, but I felt like maybe I was too far into it. Like Sunday would have been the day to get the drip if to kind of do the Chris Collins system. But I think I was a little too far into it. But Thursday I turned around, and by the following Monday, I was ready to work again. I was so excited to come back.

She has like the Chris Collins disclosure.

I swear I was at a bank or a drug deal.

Yeah.

Like, literally, it's this drawer that nobody else talks about or knows about. There's double locks on there, and one person can't have both keys. Like, it's crazy. And then they pull out this thing and it's. It's the.

Do you remember during the pandemic that I had somebody coming and giving drips in the office?

I did a TikTok video once of you, me, I think Missy and Kosh just kind of sitting around. I said lunchtime at the office.

The problem is, is I think she started dating a friend of mine and then they broke up and then she didn't want to come do it anymore because she didn't like my friend, I guess, or something.

But your friend was never in the room. She missed out. Yeah.

Weren't we doing it like bi weekly?

Yeah, it was every two weeks. And they'll do it here, too. Judy was telling me about it.

Yeah. I just don't know if everybody participate now because it's not Covid.

We should do a poll. It's freaking good for you.

It's the greatest. I do it every other week.

Yeah, for sure. Super smart.

Anyways, so Christian was down for the count, but not as long as most people.

Nope, I'm down. I'm back. And I worked through the whole thing. I still did 10 hour days, but.

So we were on a call together. Did you notice I had freaking mute every two seconds? No. So we were on a call with all of our coaches and I'd start to say something and then I'd mute and cough and then I'd come back and I'd talk again. But after that, the coaches kind of took over. It was really nice because we were doing a book report so they recognized I wasn't going to be talking for long.

On Our coaching call.

Yeah, but it was cool. They did good.

That was an interesting book report in the sense that we did. The book was the person and the situation and everybody, surprisingly, to me, the feedback from our coaches was that the book was very dense, which was not my impression with the book at all.

I agree with coaches on that. But the other thing that not only was it dense, but like, they went above and beyond with the research that they did and everything like that. So they rose and they rose to the challenge and went above it. That was my favorite part is that like, oh, my gosh, this is hard. It's way over my head. And then they just killed it anyway and they made all these connections and.

You know, there's a book that is. Is dense. There's another level to that, which is genetics and how your genetics play into situations.

Oh, crazy.

So, like, say somebody is born predisposed to being argumentative or fighting, like, would have made a great Roman soldier or whatever, and that person is put in a situation where they are challenged. So your genetics and the situation. There's another level to it, but I think I'll keep the coaches from that since they thought this one was dense.

Let's do that next time.

No, we're going to do year. What was the book you liked that was. I got to read it first, but.

Yeah, it was essentially about how to mindset. It's a mindset book.

What is it called?

Oh, I have to look it up. It's in my phone.

It must have been really good.

Well, no. So what happened is that I'm actually also trying to turn a new leaf, but I stopped listening to that, which is not what I normally do, and I listened to the Zen of archery.

Oh, that's like an hour and a half.

It's an hour and a half.

Did you finish it?

Yeah. What did you think it reminded me a lot of? It was like listening to Belichick talk about punters. Does that make sense to you? Like, it was the in depth and like how the whole thing has to kind of come together. It was pretty interesting. I actually liked it and it was such a fast read. So then I went back.

It's called the Expectation effect. Is the one you wanted us to read?

That's right. So I do.

Looking back at our text, the Expectation effect.

I see. That's a yellow and red book by David Robson.

R O B S O N. So.

You'D think I'd go back to that book, but no. I got caught up in the new David Goggins Book.

Oh, my God.

Yeah. I'm in a rabbit hole.

Remember when we were at that Raiders game and David Goggins was there?

Was he at that? Oh, they showed him on the Jumbotron and everything. That's right.

So is this. Is this book just the same thing?

Like, it's not as dense? It's a little Goggins.

I never thought Goggins first.

Oh, no, no. I talked about the expectation effect purifier. Yeah. So this is not near. It's way more sedate. So it opens up. It's actually kind of interesting. Who does? The prequel or pro pre log or whatever it is. The thing, the forward, what they call it. Bless you. The forward was done by his mom, Joe Rogan, in the Rock.

They set it up for him. And then he didn't come in on fire like he did in Can't Hurt Me. So it was actually kind of an interesting thing. And then he's got that on the audible side of it. He doesn't talk near as much in this one as he did in the last one because he has a guy that kind of subred because he was a dual reader. The other guy talks more than David does.

So basically he's doing this second book because he's obligated to from the publisher. But it's not that good.

I wouldn't say it's not that good yet. I'm not that far into it.

But basically.

I see what you're trying to get at.

It's more of an obligation than it is that he had something that the world needed to hear.

Yeah.

Because the first book, he definitely had a lot of pain he wanted to share.

Oh, for sure. But.

But now he's over all that. So now what? Has he got.

Tips on what?

I mean, he's that crazy 100 mile race ride.

He's not doing that anymore.

I wouldn't. I don't think humans should.

His body's falling apart. Like, it's interesting to me that, I mean, a lot of the stuff he says about mindset and that you could do more than you think and all that's true, but he has basically ruined his body.

Yeah.

I wouldn't. I wouldn't suggest running 100 mile. Like you can do it.

It's great for him to do. Yeah. Why? I feel like if you did it once to prove to yourself, I'm in. But to do it multiple times, it's crazy.

He's trying New Year's resolution of drinking more. How's that going?

I haven't drank Yet, But I know it's coming.

It's. We're running out of time. Remember how fast last year went by?

Yeah, it was nuts. We're gonna be.

We gotta. We gotta hurry up.

I'm in another room.

We're gonna have a listening party on Monday.

Maybe then you could start drinking. What kind of drinks would you like me to have for you?

What's the tone of the music?

It's everything.

Okay. So I would like to have the following laid out. Just because if we're gonna do this, we're gonna do it right. Okay. So if we're listening to like Euro trash edm, I'd like vodka. If we're gonna listen to maybe like a little bit of salsa, I'd like some tequila. And then if we're listening to country music, Budweiser.

What about rap?

Rap is going to be Henny.

We have no Henny.

Okay.

I don't even know that we have vodka.

I know a Henny guy.

The only reason why I think I have scotch or whiskey is cause people have given it to me. I think probably unopened scotch.

I feel like with the.

I feel like some people have given me some really nice bottles of scotch that are there in the cabinet. But I've never.

So scotch I've had a couple of times. Like it's a bite, but kind of like wine. I really like the stories.

The last, last fist fight I got into was after drinking scotch.

I can't even imagine what it takes for you to get into a fistfight.

Right, the scotch. Blame it on the scotch.

Okay.

Blame it on the.

Yeah, another. As you can kind of tell, another. One of my New Year's resolutions was to read more because I have like, I've read a lot of books.

Listen more is what you mean.

Yeah, but I also turned on the subtitles on my tv.

I hate that.

That's funny. Okay, let's get to the news.

So this topic is something I'm not really into, but I think Chris might like it a little bit. Toyota unveils hydrogen powered pickup and SUV. The 2022 Toyota Hindenburg.

Tundra. I meant Tundra. So the thing that I want to talk about is that. So they put a big 5 liter V8 hydrogen charged thing into a truck. And the quote, everyone who came to test drive the prototype car would start off somewhat skeptical, but emerge from the car with a big smile on their face. At the end, team member Takeshi Yamada said, say that five times really fast. As I watched this, I started to believe that there's actually enormous potential in the characteristics unique to hydrogen engines instead of simply treating it as a substitute for gasoline. So the people liked it when they drove it. That's pretty interesting because I don't like it, but I've never tried it, so that's probably a failure.

I find it interesting that.

Even when Tesla emerged, BMW and Toyota for some reason keep doubling down on hydrogen.

They're all in for sure.

The downside to hydrogen to me is not that they can't make it go, it's that there isn't the infrastructure. People are struggling to charge electric cars. Now you're going to have gas, diesel, hydrogen and electric.

Yeah. What's crazy out here like with the Mirai, the Toyota, you buy Mirai, you get like $10,000 in hydrogen credit. And I think that that's probably because it's a point in the budget to find it. Bingo. So if you have, if it's free, maybe you don't worry about it as much, but you still got to find somewhere. So I don't completely understand.

Well, the thing with the Tesla is you can just hang one of those things on the side of your house.

That's right.

Can you buy a hydrogen making machine? Isn't it, isn't it pressurized?

I have to assume. To me it reminds me of like.

Those tanks look like.

Yeah, like propane gas is what it would remind me of. So I don't know. It's interesting. I definitely don't know enough about it to. To speak intelligently. But moving on, I can speak intelligently about this. So I have a list of the most recalled automakers of 2022.

Oh, the most recalled.

So I've got this, I've got the nine most.

So right off the top of my head I think Tesla because they've had a bunch. Okay, I'm going to guess they're not the top.

They are not the top. Good job. So they are. Out of the nine manufacturers I have listed, they're number eight. They had 20 recalls. 3.7 vehicle. 3.7 million vehicles potential.

Number eight for the year.

Yep.

Okay, go through the list. I don't want to guess.

You don't want to guess anymore? I want you to guess number one. Is that okay? Thank you. BMW number nine. Tesla number eight. Hyundai I, number seven. Right behind that, it's Buddy Kia, Hyundai's number seven.

Yeah, I have a lot of engine. That's weird. I think they'd be higher.

Engine, engine, engine. Yeah. I bet dollar wise there was like a trillion dollars in warranty. Claims from Hyundai, Hyundai, Kia, Benz, GM was number four.

FCA, Chrysler was number three, VW number two. And number one, if you've watched any episodes of SDR in 2022, you know, the answ, the number one recalled manufacturer is.

Ford. Gift that keeps on giving.

Yeah.

So Ford was the most recalled car. So, putting it into perspective, BMW had 19 recalls. Ford had 67 recalls. 8.6 million vehicles affected. Pretty impressive.

For those listening to this, Christian try to do a Dave Letterman and throw his sheet. And it just came back on him.

It was like throwing a paper airplane that doesn't go anywhere. All right, two more chunks of news here. Never thought I would say this sentence before. The newly cool Toyota Prius starts at $28,545. The newly cool Toyota Prius. So in Toyota's defense, I've got a picture of this that Kevin's gonna put on. I think they call that an inlay where it'll be right next to my head right here.

Thing looks pretty cool compared to the old Priuses. Now, I was talking about how awesome I thought this car looked. And then Chris might have asked me a question.

Which then proved how well.

Everybody'S sitting around talking about how great the new Prius is. And then I asked simple question. Not a difficult question.

No, not really.

Certainly a question in the spirit of the conversation. Would you own a Prius? And renowningly, nobody would.

No. Oh, I think that Kevin would, but Kash and I were out big time, so. So it didn't take me long.

I don't understand all the fanfare.

I.

It looks good.

Uber drivers everywhere are excited.

Yeah, they're gonna be pumped. But. But 2023 Prius coming out. 28, 545, including destination.

Sign me up for the Tundra.

Maybe it's got CarPlay Android Auto. Oh, I think you'd be much happier with a hydrogen car.

I think that they would consider just putting the Uber app into the dashboard.

Pretty funny.

I like that.

The 2023 Prius Uber Edition.

Maybe people in parts of America don't get that, but here in la, most. Most Ubers are a Prius.

Yeah, well, before Ubers. I mean, it's worth going back a few years. Like 2014, 2015. I always joke that I knew I was in LA because all of the taxis were Priuses at that point in time. But now. But I'm pretty impressed. That little thing is going to have a 194 horsepower engine. That's pretty impressive.

Why are you impressed with that?

For a little tiny Car like that compared to what it was, I think it was like 9 or 10 horsepower before. Like a lawnmower.

Aren't there motorcycles with 194 horsepower?

Yeah, like a badass Ducati kind of thing. Yeah. All right. And last but not least, I feel like this is a late announcement, but not surprised. Dodge to reveal final last call car on March 20th in Las Vegas for the Challenger and the Charger are to going bye bye. So for those of you scoring at home, Dodgers killing off the Challenger and the Charger, which I think they killed it off a long time ago because the Challenger and the Charger have looked the same since 2005.

It's literally an 18 year run without a redesign. The longest I ever remember seeing. It's pretty impressive. But they're getting rid of.

Doesn't the Charger have four doors, chargers.

Four doors, Challengers too? Yeah.

So that's the difference.

No, but those two cars have looked the same for 20 years.

When we used to.

When we used to want a Charger when we were kids because of what show?

Dukes of Hazard.

Yeah. That was a two door.

Twice. Oh, and the Challenger was a totally different car. It was.

Charger's been more like a mom car. Really.

Yeah. It's a four door grocery getter with a.

Here's the thing, Christian.

I know.

I know you're upset about this. Even though you're not buying a Challenger or a Charger, but you're upset about it a little bit.

You know that the Charger and the Challenger went away before.

Yeah.

That's kind of like John retiring.

They'll be back for the Rolling Stones or. Oh, that's funny.

Motley cruelty.

It doesn't mean they can't come back.

They might. Oh, no. They're gonna do an electric version like the Corvette.

Like 2025. I think they're coming out.

Do you ever think about buying that Corvette before it's gone? Don't you want to have a combustion engine in your garage?

Yes.

Me too. There's something about it.

It's in the back.

The only problem is I'm too big for that Corvette.

You did you sit in it?

Yeah.

Okay.

It's not super comfortable for me.

I think it. They do not make sports cars for people over 6ft tall. I want.

People in the south would say a big boy.

Yeah.

You want to talk about the five ways to tell if the tail is wagging the dog?

I do.

How can you tell if the monkeys have the keys to the zoo?

Nice.

It reminded me of what happens when.

The monkeys have the key to the zoo.

Chaos, chaos. Total chaos.

Complete chaos.

There's another thing you say about monkeys. It's kind of funny, but we can't say it.

What's that?

Monkeys and footballs.

Oh, yeah. Well, just because we can't swear, but five ways to tell if the tail is wagging the dog. So my, my first one, and these are not in any order of importance, but my first one is whenever I go into a parts or service department.

Sit in the manager's office and I watch how often the phone rings and how many people come in and lob stuff that they should be doing. And what's always interesting is the manager never stops and thinks, why am I doing this?

They just catch it.

Why are you getting a paycheck and I'm doing your job? Example. Hey boss, I got this customer.

And that's all they say. They don't even give you the backstory.

This customer, he was in.

This guy wants to talk to you.

Yeah, whatever. Whatever it is. Your job is to handle customers. Why would I? I mean, me being the manager should be able to sit here all day and talk on Facebook or LinkedIn or.

Whatever to do sudoku, wordle, wordle, wordle. Is the new thing now. Is that like Scrabble?

I've never tried it. I just see that people are excited about it.

Yeah. So I had that same one, but I called it taking shrapnel. Yeah.

What else you got on your list?

The next one is, then what you do is you say, hey, tomorrow morning let's have a little meeting with everybody. 20 minutes before we open, let's have like a little get together and then watch how many people are late.

Or.

Just watch how many people are late.

Even without the meeting. You'll see it either way. Right. So I call that one in late, out early.

Yeah.

So literally, you know, I was kind of joking, is that it starts. That. Let's say we open at 8. It starts. They get there at 8, then they get there at 8 5, then 8 10, then at 815 they get in and then they just go right to the parts counter and hang out with parts guys for a while and then we're there. And then on the advisor side on the service drive, the customers and the advisors walk in arm in arm because they're getting there at exactly the same time. The only problem is the customer is way more awake when the advisor is. Yeah, that's inlaid out early. And they always have a thing that they have to go to at the end of the day like the dentist appointment, that can only happen at 2 o' clock on a Thursday when maybe someone has a Wednesday off, but they couldn't possibly go to the dentist on Wednesday when they're off. That stuff happens when the tail is wagging the dog or the. Was it monkeys have keys?

The zoo.

Yeah.

Yeah, Good.

Next one I have is most of the day is spent in reactionary mode. You're reacting to upset customers. You're reacting to things.

Instead of being proactive. You're not planning anything for the future. Cause you're too busy. There's that old analogy came in. You grabbed the cat by the tail, it dragged you around all day. And then you let go at the end of the day and you have no idea if you won or lost.

Yeah. Oh, it was kind of funny. So I was gonna say that, that it's fight or flight, but I was talking to this with Judy whilst I was getting my iv. She's like, well, there's more than just fight or flight. I'm like, what? What do you mean? There's fight, flight or freeze?

Have you heard that before?

Yeah.

And I think that that's what happens, is that the managers get to a point where they just freeze and they don't do anything. So. Yeah, that's a good one. I like that.

The next one is most of the conversation. So if you go sit in the lunchroom or you go hang out in a huddle or just pay attention to the conversations going on, most of them are about either the people working there, the news, the drama, who's sleeping with who. And very few conversations or narratives or stories are about making the customer experience.