7 Steps to Go from Service Manager to General Manager

Seven steps to go from a parts manager, service manager to a general manager and they're good ones. Then we're going to talk about the news. Christian makes fun of me and my jet ski a little bit and much, much more. Coming up on this edition of Service Drive Revolution.

Just want to remind everybody right off the top that our annual Top Dog event where all the best looking, most talented parts service managers come here to Los Angeles.

For an event October 23rd and 24th. One of our speakers is Chris Voss. We got a bunch of other great speakers. It's going to be really fun. We also give out managers of the Year, advisors of the year, all that like the Oscars. I know we have one manager that has won our comp nine times in a row. Nine Pete.

Not a one piece or a two Pete? Well, I think one is just called Pete and then you got two Pete and then three Pete. But this guy has nine Pete and.

He'S nickname is Al Capone.

He might get 10, who knows?

Yeah. Also his general manager is a pretty, pretty great guy. Pretty great operator.

He knows who he is.

Somebody who's fun to talk to about the business. He knows a lot of stuff and has been around a while. But what would his nickname be?

I don't know if it's too contrarian, but like, could he be J. Edgar Hoover? Like if.

By the way, in our. So in our software people get nicknames and they usually choose their nickname. So the advisors and the managers get nicknames. We're talking about a manager, Al Capone.

Yep. He's a service manager. And then his general manager is J. Edgar Hoover, which Christian gave him. Yeah, but I, we, we love and adore that man. He's a true leader of men, I think. And I've never seen anyone more a fan of their service manager than that man. It's so cool to watch.

Yeah, they're like family. It's great. But if you've never been to a Top Dog event, it's something to behold. Every year we say it's the best one ever, but I'm pretty sure this will be the best one ever. Just with the speakers and what we have on the agenda and who's coming, it's going to be pretty great.

We're also on a 10 Pete of like making the Top Dog the best ever. Also bring your advisor if you want to get him a little bit of ammo. And.

They see the world a little bit differently when they come to Top Dog. We've had a lot of advisors come to Top Dog and become just organically over the next couple of years, they're your next manager. So that's also another avenue of just kind of spreading the magic.

It's great fun.

Are you ready for a joke or no?

Sure.

Okay.

What's the difference between a teacher and a train?

What's the difference between a teacher and a train?

I don't know.

A teacher tells you to spit out your gum. A train says, chew, chew.

It's not very good.

No.

That'S just the warmup.

Oh, man, that's funny. Summer is ending for us, so.

Okay. All right. So what does that mean that you have to go do soon?

Pull the Jet Skis out.

Yeah, so I was thinking about that the other day, like. And you know how I like math.

Yeah, you're really good at math. You're one of those weird guys that can do math in your head.

And. And I've done a little math in my head on the Jet Skis. I was just curious. How many times have you gone up to Washington and rode those this summ since you bought them brand new?

That's so funny, because I'm supposed to go this weekend, and I don't think I'm gonna go because the weather isn't that good and I got too much work to do, so I've only been twice. The answer is I've canceled a bunch of my trips.

Okay. So I would suggest that you've canceled more trips than you went. And I know that you just bought those two gorgeous 325s because the 320 wasn't enough or whatever the numbers are. But. But I was thinking about it like this. So we use them two times this year, and if we took what you paid divided by the exactly two times that you did it, I'm pretty sure that you could have. You could have rented, like, a, like, yacht. A yacht on Puget Sound, like, Bill Gates style. But. But yeah. So I just wanted to throw that out there, that maybe. Maybe that didn't pay off as much as you thought it was going to for sure.

You know what's funny is this summer I thought would be the summer that I would go up there a lot, and it just hasn't worked out.

I'm not. And honestly, like, I. I'm not really even that concerned because the things that I'm doing, I'd rather be doing.

There's been. I don't know, like, you tell me all the time that, like, hard work is assumed, but I don't know if there has just been a thing this Year. Like maybe, maybe it's cuz we got a lot of stuff going on and there's a lot of things. But I don't know that from where you're at or. I feel like we've worked so hard this year.

But it's been pretty cool stuff. Like everything is a new adventure and we've learned a lot and everything like that. But there's no. Like if you said, oh, I'm going to wake up at 3 o' clock tomorrow morning and try to get some extra stuff done. You could also wake up at 3 o' clock the next day and there's also extra stuff to get done. The list is just seem. It seems huge of stuff that you want to accomplish.

Do you think that we've worked harder this year than we did last year?

Yeah, I do. Really. And I get that last year was also the launch of the I Am Leader book and there was a lot of things that went on with that. This year has felt like.

I feel like last year was more.

Work in the sense that I feel like things are going good for us. We're just working hard. But last year it felt like we stepped on a bunch of landmines.

Yeah, we had some.

Do you think people listening to this care?

No, but I care. It's a great. We haven't had that conversation, so. But what I would call 2025 for us is the year of intention.

It's good. I like that. So I think the work this year is more fun.

Yeah. There's been some really cool stuff that's happened this year and I'm not a. I actually would.

That's what I mean is I. I would pick that over the jet skis.

Yeah. I prefer hard work too. Like I want to leave and be.

Like, I have some videos I need to finish for Justin.

Some.

Some visual stuff.

Yeah, there's just. And I mean just think about the guests we're starting to get to. I don't know if. If you're listening to SDR and you don't subscribe to Books that Change my Life. Well, the channel is called Syndicate x library on YouTube. Check it out. Like the guests we've been getting and the conversations are nuts.

I am addicted to the country guy that you interviewed, Jordan.

Jordan was great.

He's amazing.

Can you believe he came. He came to the library on the day his album came out.

Yeah, I think he left right here and went and did Kimmel. He was wearing the same clothes.

Did he wear his books to Change My Life Socks.

We gave him not that I saw. He had on the. It's funny that he's such a nice guy. We're going all the way down now, but he. He has the same boat boots or had the same boots that Hoagie has. And I was going to pick on Hoagie for stealing that guy's boots, but. Yeah.

Okay, so for. For our audience, I think this is an important thing. Do you think to 2026 is going to be harder or easier?

Because, like, when you said the. The thing about, oh, we've worked harder this year, my first reaction was, well, next year might be harder in, in the sense of. The key to happiness is controlling your expectations.

And I feel like with all of the stuff going on, I feel like it's going to get harder. I feel like business is getting harder.

Yeah. For now, we're starting to get into, like, not just for us, but for clients.

And how many. How many businesses do you see going under?

So many.

And we're growing.

Yeah.

So I'm, I mean, to maintain that and to protect ourselves, we might work harder next year. I don't know.

I'm here for it.

Like, yeah, no, we're both here. We both like to work. But I'm just saying that for our audience, I think things might get harder, especially with what's going on with new car sales and everything. Like, there's always this drop in RO count. I, I really think, and I think I told you this the other day, we should start doing a marketing summit. I think a lot of general managers and service managers and parts managers, too, need to learn marketing. Like you, The. The reason why you're losing to the independence is because they market and you're way better. If we're just sitting there waiting for the sales department to sell the cars and those are the only cars that we're getting, that could be suicide.

Yeah. I think that the, the one tragedy of the industry is that what GMs parts managers and service manager think is marketing is so far from marketing.

And I live right down the street from the new Tesla Cafe, which is what we should be doing. Like when, when. When we have clients that are arguing with the manufacturer about how many chargers to put in. Like, I would be going the other way. I would be creating a place where people want to hang out.

And we talked about that years ago. The.

I was doing. I was doing that at the dealership I ran in 20 or 2002 and three.

You're having events, you're having wine tastings. We haven't had a coffee Stuff. It was so. It was so smart. It was really ahead of its time.

But like, the thing is there to like Elon's doing it. That thing has a line constantly. When I go to the gym at five o' clock in the morning, that thing has a line. I drive by it to go to the gym and there's a line. I've thought many times about taking Missy's Tesla there and I'm just like, I'm not waiting in that line.

And it's a line of Teslas. Like if you don't have a Tesla, you probably don't get in because it's. That's the whole thing, right?

Yeah. He's kind of building a cult a little bit.

Yeah. But I mean there's a. I. I think that the, the marketing in understanding how to increase RO account is going to be a thing.

Yeah. There's no doubt about that. I think that that's a.

The problem is a lot of people come on to our program and there's so much meat on the bone that they're not getting with their current RO count.

Yeah. RO count is never the first discussion.

No. But it can eventually become that. If you're running everything really, really well, then it comes down to that.

Yeah. I think the RO count improvement is a sign of success. If that's. If you're truly looking at that because you've kind of maxed out other opportunities that exist within.

Yeah, yeah.

Super fun.

But we got to start thinking that way.

So to answer your question. Yep. I think we're work harder in 2026 and we all should be willing to do that.

So much to think about. Oh, I was going to do a flashback for you. Do you remember the first joke that I told you that you got right away.

Where you got the punchline before I.

No, it wasn't.

Okay, so this is five years ago, but the joke that I told, I said, what gets wet the more it dries.

I don't remember a towel, I guess that you did. Oh, wow.

Like in a second. So we're getting old. Just to let everybody know.

Yeah, no kidding.

More on that later.

Any Ford recalls in the news?

So I haven't looked yet, but let's just assume that there's a Ford recall. There was something interesting. I was kind of.

I think it's more just kind of put us all on notice a little bit. And this is pretty recent. Hertz is now selling their used vehicle inventory on Amazon Autos, so they're skipping that whole resale back to the dealer Thing and going right to Amazon. I thought that was interesting for us to kind of note. And then they've got like, there's a picture of them. Like it's a really easy, clearly easy to use app with 360 views and stuff like that. But they're selling pre owned vehicles on Amazon Auto and the customers can browse a nationwide inventory of thousands of used Hertz rental fleet vehicles, apply for financing and finalize our purchase right on Amazon Autos. So be aware like that's, that's what the competition's doing. Who you think your competition is might be a little different than who it really is. But I thought that was something that was really interesting in the news. That was one that came up. Now let's look at all the other stuff. Where's Ford at?

It's there. There's no story, but. Sorry. Ford had a recall.

So then I've seen this a couple of times too. Subaru forecasting a 50% profit decline for FI 2026. Yeah, so I think that that's kind of a reality and that kind of feeds into things like, you know, RO count and volatility and sales and stuff like that.

Let's see.

California launches a 55 million dollar state program to expand EV charging. So they're doubling down on EV. Oh, there it is.

Ford did have another recall. It's great. 312,000 cars.

Let's see.

Rivian's moving. I don't know if that's really news, but yeah. So there's a lot of stuff going on in the, in the world. But I think the Hertz thing and the Subaru thing are the most, the most telling of what's going on right now. So that's in the news. No printout needed.

When did we, when did we decide to start really promoting the idea that service managers could become general managers? I remember in a coaching, at two coaching meetings in a row, I asked that question and nobody raised their hand.

Yep. So the first time I remember you asking it was Top Dog 2019. We were at that.

Nobody raised their hand.

And nobody raised their hand at that one.

Yeah.

And then I think you did it at a meeting after that and you had a couple of people hop, which.

Is odd for me because I'm a service guy that became a general manager.

Yeah.

And I.

Experienced it in a way. I mean really I went from advisor to fixing stores to general manager, but I was a fixed ops guy.

And.

And they saw you as that, didn't they?

But I always felt like I had an unfair Advantage over everybody else. Like, I mean, I remember a guy from the manufacturer saying, you are the best general manager I've ever seen. Like, people were always kind of blown away by how young I was and what I did, but I felt like a lot of that came from the fact that I was from fixed ops. But most people in fixed ops see it as a disadvantage.

Why did I see it as an advantage? This is a question, I guess.

Well, I think that's kind of how you look at life, just in general, is that you might have a different mindset.

You think so?

I really do.

Do you find yourself in situations where I say the opposite of what everybody else is thinking?

So. Well, not just what everybody else, but what I say, it's like. Like I've known you for a decade, and I'll be like, I know Chris is thinking this, and I'll say. And you'll be like, yeah. No, I think the exact opposite.

What do you think it feels like to be the guy that says the thing that nobody will say?

Probably a little bit.

You would feel free, I would guess.

Oh, yeah. Maybe I feel an obligation. I don't know.

Well, I think that that. That whole, like, defy authority runs pretty deep in you, and it has for a long time since.

Since I was seven.

Yeah. So. So I think that that's just you being true to yourself. I really. I've. I've always respected that part. I think that you tell people the truth when they. Not only how they need to hear it, but in a way that shows that you care what you're saying. Because, like, there's probably a world where that person that just tells everybody the truth would be construed as an a hole, but you don't do that at all. You do it with compassion. So I think that's the combo. Like, you're defiant and then an empath at the same time. That's the blend. I don't think that exists very often.

Yeah, I'm a huge empath. Like, I feel things very deeply. People think I don't, but I do. I'm very sensitive inside. I'm yelling.

Yeah.

Just can't. You just can't verbalize what you're feeling.

Yeah, I do. You put on a pretty good poker face, but I know that there's. That. There's definitely that empath part of it, because you wouldn't deliver stuff the way that you do without it.

So. But we did make a conscious effort. Like, we were like, hey, we need to turn more service managers into general managers. So we started talking about it, and.

Whenever there was an opportunity, we promoted it. That sort of thing. And so we have a list here that we went through of like, what are the seven steps to go from a parts manager or service manager to. To a general manager? Like, what are those steps?

Parts or service? Same roadmap, don't you think?

Exactly the same.

Same roadmap.

Roadmap.

And I. I would just say before we kind of go through this list that.

Most people are waiting for permission to do something. And the truth of the matter is, is you don't need permission. You. You could just set the goal for yourself and start working towards it.

You know, most people that are successful aren't knighted by the queen. Like, in a sense, like, you have to create your own permission.

Well, even in that case, with going to be a manager, like, you're granting permission, not waiting for it. So the whole encompassing part of being a great general manager would be that you are.

And they're doing that.

There kind of has to be this feeling of.

If.

If things are equal, I would rather be the one calling the shots.

In a sense. Right. Like.

Especially a lot of times when you're. When you're a service manager and you see the turnover in the sales department, the lack of organization, the. The ups and downs and the constant chaos. Like, for me, I'm like, oh, no, I want to fix that. Like, how many times have you seen a sales department? You're like, I just want to fix that. Like, it just. It's too inconsistent.

Yeah, it. And there were sometimes when I was in the field coaching, where it would distract me. I wanted to fix it so bad.

Yeah. And some of these sales managers come in with this crazy plan or whatever, and it, like, it makes it worse, and they, you know, it's just very inconsistent.

Yeah.

Or you got the guys that just, like, beat everybody up. Like, that thing still exists. It's just, what, they fire them on Monday, hire them back on Tuesday kind of a thing. But it's hard to watch that sort of stuff. So seven steps from. From going from a service manager, parts manager, to a general manager, number one is you have to get over the idea that it's different. It's not different. It's just systems and people. And the one thing that I've always kind of like, thought about in situations where maybe I'm not an expert, like, let's say.

I get asked to fix a doctor's practice. So I'm not a doctor. I don't really know anything about that business in A sense. But I have one advantage over everybody else. And that one advantage actually is where most of the money is made. Right. Because if you, if you think about it, I'm a customer that goes to a doctor. Like, if I'm a customer, then I can reverse engineer how to make the thing more profitable. Because if you just think about what we do with service departments, it's all based on the customer experience. Like, more important than our advisor training, more important than a lot of the things that we do that people perceive to be the fix. The actual advantage is the system we put in place that takes away decision fatigue for the customer, that builds trust with the customer, that forces relationships with the customer. Like, that really is the magic at the end of the day. And so the idea that, oh, sales is this scary thing that I don't understand or whatever. You're a customer. If you just think about things from the point of view of what would be good for the consumer and you understand, you know, general business, that's all you need. Like, you don't. And I've had this conversation with a couple of people in our coaching group that, you know, were a little apprehensive in taking the jump. The position had been offered to them and they were just a little scared of it. And now that they're doing it, they're like, oh, yeah, no, this is easier. Yeah, it literally is easier than what you think.

Yeah. My favorite part about that is when it comes to the customer experience, if you're in service or parts, like your dealings with the customer are at the most inopportune, like the customer is walking in at a negative five. Right. And then when you're selling a car, they're coming in on high. Like they've, they've like mentally imagined owning this vehicle that they're coming in. Yeah, the ether. So they're in the ether when they walk in. Like, your job is to manage someone that's already happy. Continuing to make them happy. Like there's a world where you can really, really do that. And I think that if you've. If you've taken them from a negative to a positive, taking them from a positive to a higher positive feels like the. It feels like a cheat code.

So just getting over the idea that it's different. Number two is you want to start thinking globally versus individual departments or silos. And so, you know, going in on a Saturday and watching the sales department. One thing that I used to do is I would go fix Internet sales departments. I would set up BDCs for clients never charging them more, only to learn about it. So by the time I became a general manager, I understood how to sell cars on the Internet at least. Like, I kind of, you know, had a deep understanding of the process because I started looking at the dealership is a global opportunity, not, not a silo or an individual department inside of a bigger business. And so, you know, start going in and watching on the weekends, spend some time in sales, start asking questions, pay attention to the inventory, to the grosses. You know, all of that stuff matters in a sense. And you know, maybe the one difference is that you have to get good at marketing, something we were talking about earlier. So start paying attention to the marketing, but think about the, the business as a circle of life.

Yeah.

More than just, oh, it's service. And we fix, we fix stuff or maintain stuff.

I do think that in a lot of cases, like the difference between 100 used cars and 300 is all about execution and marketing. Like, it's so funny to hear, like, if you know somebody, if you want to be a GM and like you are at a store, that's not necessarily like knocking the socks off. I would guess that if you went and kind of watched what the operation was at another place, you'd also kind of make your world a little bit bigger. But I would, if I was going to go from SM to gm, like, I would want to at least understand, like, I'd watch and you need to know what the flow is and then what it should be. And then there's also the third thing, is what would you do if it, if it was yours? So I think that all three of those things, because I think the service manager and parts manager bring in that beautiful, fresh, fresh perspective. Just like if you're looking at a doctor's office, what you aren't is a doctor.

Yeah. But it, yeah, it ends up that the doctors are the worst at business.

Yeah, we could, we've had a conversation with people about that, how like that should be part of medical school.

But they don't teach them that.

They don't teach them that.

Number three is systems first. That's just like the one thing. If you go from parts or service to, to running the dealership and you're looking at F and I and sales, the thing that, that makes them go quicker than anything else is systems. Like, you gotta lead with systems. You have to have a general sense on how to create systems that put the customers at ease, build trust and converge. And so systems are everything, like I know, because we're people we're biased, but.

Just, you know, fixing stuff over and over again. The system's first, people second. Right. And then number four is be a people collector. Like, the same managers that are really good at collecting people when they're in service are the same when they're in sales. Like, people want to follow people collectors. And if you think of yourself as a people collector.

You'Ll, you know, you'll be very, very successful.

And that's both sides of the ball. That's employees and customers both. Yeah, they're vitally important.

Number five is find a mentor. Like, find a mentor that is a general manager and owner that's done it at a high level. I had a few mentors.

And.

You know, it always just helps to have somebody you can run something by or ask a question because you will come up against stuff that you're not quite sure what to do, and it really helps to have that person to bounce it off of. But finding a mentor. Number six is just understanding the financials. You really got to spend your time understanding the financials.

I'd also say, too, like, that misnomer is that if you can understand the service side or part side of the financial, you can understand the sales side of the financial.

The sales side is way easier.

It's, you know, probably learning page one takes a little bit in terms of understanding all the things that go into that. I won't go into full details on it, but understanding page one is a thing. But, like, the thing that you would go into that is if you already know the service side of the financial, again, you've got an advantage. But that is 100% is a general manager. It is your report card. And Chris says this, that it's very rare that he has a conversation with a general manager. And the financials not within two feet.

Oh, yeah, financials, financials, financials. Just start asking, you know, having a mentor that you. You can lean on.

But Christian said it, if you understand the service and part side, the sales side is. Is easier. And then number seven is reinvention. Like, you have to have the.

Capacity to reinvent yourself and let go of your ego, let go of whatever, you know, identity you've created for yourself that's holding you back. You have to be able to reinvent yourself.

And reinvent your identity in a way. I think you should reinvent yourself every five years. That's my thought.

Are you coming due?

That's really funny that you say that, because I think I just did reinvent myself.

And you didn't notice.

How Did I miss that? I didn't cut deep enough into the, into the meat. I feel like I've kind of got recently gone through one.

Oh, we should talk more about that on another episode.

But reinvention, you gotta re. Reinvent yourself, which means thinking about your outcomes and goals in a different way and, you know, putting yourself in a situation where you're taking on a challenge that you don't know how you're going to succeed at. It is probably the highest form of living.

Oh, I like that. I also think the thing about. In case you didn't notice or if you're listening, Chris, just Mr. Miyagi to bug. But more importantly, I think that the one thing that I hear a lot from the service managers, parts managers going to gm, is they tell me this thing. Well, I've got imposter syndrome. Reinvention fixes that you're not an imposter if you reinvent yourself.

Yeah, I'm not a believer in faking it until you make it. I'm a believer in figuring it out and asking lots of questions. Yeah, I'm not afraid to be the one that asked the dumb question.

And the, the funny thing is, is that imposter syndrome is a weird, like inaccurate self analysis from the outside looking in. A lot of these people, when they tell me they've got imposter syndrome, they're way closer than they think. They're just kind of. They're in their feels or whatever it is. But it's the reinvention, I like that that fixes that because it rules that out as a possibility. If you're reinventing like, I'm Christian the gm. Well, I'm Christian the gm.

The thing that I think most people need to reinvent themselves as, and I'll be specific to parts and service managers, but also a lot of dealers and general managers need this too, is reinventing their view of creativity.

Most of the time, we're not very creative in our industry.

Like, we do a lot of things just because it's comfortable and that's how we've always done them, even though they're really inefficient and create more problems for us.

Our industry has one of the oldest playbooks in business.

Mm. And it doesn't always serve us anymore. And we, we have to be more creative. We have to find solutions that are good for the customer and good for the business hand in hand. So let's recap the list. Number one in the seven steps to going from a service or parts manager to general manager is get over that. It's different. Number two is you got to think globally versus the individual department or the silo. Number three is systems first. Number four is you got to be a people collector. Number five is find a mentor. Number six is understand the financials. And number seven is reinvention.

And we've seen it happen. How many? How many are we up to? 7. From our coaching, I think I'm.

You might be missing one or two.

Like it, but we know seven.

Yeah, for sure. I can name five or six off the top of my head.

Yeah. And we're shooting for more. Blake fix stops is the future.

You know what's cool is sometimes we're having people come into master class and they're saying that like they already know that that's a thing.

It really is.

Yeah.

Well, thank you for hanging out with us. Remember, Top Dog October 23rd and 24th. Chris Voss, Christian lafferty is going to be there.

I will.

Big deal. Bears fan.

You guys want to talk bears? You want to get down to the nitty gritty? They just find somebody. 53 man roster. Please only ask me for two. I know two people on the bears.

We'll see you next time on service driver volution. 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 8333 asksDr 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 sa.