A short conversational transcript between Chris Collins and Christian about the relative value dealerships place on sales training versus service training. Christian recounts his start in auto sales—responding to a blind newspaper ad, joining a Nissan dealership training class of eight where only two lasted, and observing disciplined, intentional sales training contrasted with minimal investment in service staff training.
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Is service training as valuable as sales training? And so the, the idea here came up from, I get hit up on Instagram all the time, and I always feel bad too. Like, sometimes I'll be like, hey, give me your address. We'll send you a book or something. But they, they say, hey, I just got a job as a service advisor and I'm wondering what to do.
Frightening that. That we have to ask the outside source.
Yeah. And so now.
I'm supposed to.
Tell you through DMs on Instagram how to be a service advisor. It's kind of nuts, isn't it?
It's a telling story for sure.
Why did, why do you think that happens? Why, why do dealerships value sales training but not service training when clearly the service department is.
Very important to the success. Overall health.
Yeah. Like, like if you didn't tell people it was the car business and you said, okay, I've got a. I've got a business that's got two departments. One department, the employees talk to between one and four customers a day physically. And, and then maybe make 15 to 20 phone calls. And then the other one, the people talk to 12 to 20 a day and make another 80 phone calls. Which one would you think would get the most training?
The one that touches the most customers every day.
Yeah. And on top of that, the one that has the biggest potential for profitability. Yeah. At the end of the day.
So sales is. And I think you said this is intentional service is reactionary.
Yeah. Have I ever told you about my start in the business?
No. Okay, so started in sales. Right.
I did start in sales. So I remember. Did I tell you how I got the job?
No.
So there was this ad in the newspaper. Anyone remember that they used to get jobs pre demo. Newspaper? No, it was a blind ad. It said, guaranteed $4,000 per month. Call this number.
That was it.
And then didn't say what it was. No. And in the 90s, when you drop out of college with 10 credit hours left to go 4 grand a month looks really good because enterprise was paying 30 grand a year at that time. So I'm like, okay, 30 or 50 grand, I'm down. I also thought that whatever, whatever the guaranteed part, I would always make more. So I go and I call the number and I go and I sit down and it's a Nissan dealership. And the way that I got the job.
Told a couple of jokes and literally the guy looks at me and says, you're funny. When can you start?
And so, yeah, your personality gets you quite A ways.
So my first day I walk in to the training center and the gm, his name was Dean, was the teacher for the class. So we had a training manual that was put in front of us. There was eight of us in the class. We. Which I didn't understand all this till later, but I'm trying to go really fast through the story. So the first thing that Dean does, and I wish that I was a little more mature and understanding because I could have learned way more from this guy if I was really paying close attention. But the first thing he does is he looks at everybody. There's eight of us in the class. And he looks at me, looks at everybody and says, follow me. And he just walks out of the training room. So we all like scurry up and we're following him out. So he walks out in the showroom.
Well, great way to get compliance.
And then he, he walks around like three or four cars, then walks out the front door and then he walks us to the front lot. Hasn't said a word, by the way, we're at the front lot. He hasn't said anything except follow me from when he said when he's in the room. Walks us all the way to the back of the lot where the trade ins are, you know, like those wholesale ones they get parked where nobody can see them and then all the way to the back fence and then walks us right back in through the service department, through the parts department and then back into the training room. And he says, sit down.
And then he said what I thought was one of the most genius things I've ever heard at that point in time. It's like that's how you establish control.
Yeah, yeah. See, I said that's a great way to get control.
So I thought that was amazing compliance. So. So it was very, it was very laid out. How to.
Was that in house sales training?
Was the GM of the dealership. Oh, wow. He was a great trainer. At the end of the day it was way above his pay grade or it was way below his pay grade, but I really think it's awesome that he did it. So the other thing that I didn't know, and I don't know if this happens now, but when they hire the eight people in, how many are going to make it at the end of two weeks? Two. Yeah, there were two of us that made it through and I. Yeah, but it was later on I found out that that's what happens during that class. But I thought that it was interesting that they would invest that much time and energy into six people that didn't even get the job. And on the service side, we won't invest any of that time into somebody that actually works for us. That's kind of the lesson that I was thinking, is that, like, it's worth it to them to train somebody from the outside world.
Thanks so much for watching this clip of Service Driver Revolution. We're uploading new stuff every day, so 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.
