Drive Sales And Retention With Events - Service Drive Revolution #28 Full Episode
Chris Collins and Gary Daniel break down how to run service clinics and events that drive sales and retention. They use targeted handwritten mailers, partner with local businesses for sponsorships, and create experiences like tech demos and gift bags that put customers in a buying mood. One dealership sold dozens of cars from a single campaign.
Chapters
Welcome to the Service Drive Revolution podcast with your hosts, Chris the Bulldog Collins and Gary Daniel. The Gmail.
Just a small town girl.
Living in a lonely world she took out the.
Midnight train Going anywhere.
So fun. Welcome, everybody, to Service Drive Revolution, the podcast for anybody with a service drive. If you have customers, technicians, advisors, oil, if you get your hands dirty.
If.
You work at a shell refinery, don't call us.
Why? Or not.
That's not our business. It's not, no.
Yeah. But if anything to do with driving, sales, retention, taking care of customers, the customer experience, and, you know, have little fun, this is the podcast for you. And just a side note, we have the best service advisor and service manager training, I would say, in the world. Quote me. In the world, right?
Yeah.
Very trumpesque of me. I'm the best.
It's already happened. He hasn't even hit his first 100 days yet.
It's already doing G, man.
I'm great.
That Journey was for you, bro.
I like the Journey.
Can't be all Journey and Nickelback, but today it was all Journey.
I laugh every time I'll be in everybody.
Years ago, I don't know, when Gary and I are in the car or something together, I'm like, bro, it can't be all Journey.
You sent me a text. You sent me a text.
What are you listening to? Or something. I'm like, no, I was.
I was. It was so random. I was. You sent me a. Like a Rick Ross song or something like that in a text and I was, I. I listened to it. I was like, bro, what does that mean? I don't understand. You go, it can't all be Journey and Nickelback.
Right? Right now everybody should go. Should pause the podcast and go listen to Sanctified by Rick Ross. Oh, it's great. That was probably the song, I think it was to me, Rick Ross songs I like was Sanctified. It's great.
Yeah.
So today's topic is we're going to. This is going to be hard to keep in like 40 minutes, honestly. But we're going to talk about how to drive sales and retention with events, which is something that we are masters at. And you're going to learn some stu that you probably never thought about, but how to use events to drive sales. So I don't know. We've had. I've lost count of how many times we've had service departments do 140 grand in parts and labor sales in one day and then get another 140 grand back in the next, like four or five months.
Yeah. Which.
So there's a recipe to it. We're going to talk about that. How to do it through events and what we do.
Yeah, we used to kill it with those things. I'd love to throw those events.
We want to give a shout out to Eva Krug when we say Krug.
Krug.
Krug.
Krug.
What's funny? On her Facebook, she's the original Barbie.
I know. She's not blonde, though, which is interesting.
Yeah. Like, that's fun.
Yeah.
So even we're really sorry she did this.
She.
She put a really nice message for us on Facebook or to us. A direct message. A month ago.
A month ago. Yeah.
So we have two Facebooks, and it just so happens we never look at that one.
Yeah.
We're a mess with social media.
Yeah.
Like, someday we're gonna tweet. I'm sure of it.
Someday the tweeter's coming.
Yeah, we're gonna tweet out. We're gonna do the Instagram thing. Is he gonna be like, you're gonna be on Instagram, Gary. Just, like, shaking your butt. Like. But not today. We're still disorganized with social media, but really good with our YouTube channel.
Yeah, no, the YouTube's kicking butt. It's.
Yeah, but all the kids are doing the Instagram and the Facebook. They love it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've got a. Just.
Just FYI, Facebook. If you get a message, it's probably not from me.
I'm probably not replying to much on Facebook. Even LinkedIn. I'll go on LinkedIn and they'll be like, you know, a zillion people, and we barely post on there. We should. Yeah, we should do better with that, right?
Yeah, no, it's definitely. It's on the list. You know, there. We have our. We have our Achilles heels.
2017, we're gonna be social media gurus.
That's what we said. This is the year of marketing. So.
Yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna take a lot of pictures. We're gonna do a selfie.
Right.
You need to get better at the selfie area, I think.
I'm not greatest.
Ask your kids.
I'm not good at kids. My daughter's amazing at selfies.
Have her teach you before she goes back to school.
I know. No kidding. Yeah, they. She's always doing selfies with me. She's funny, but she's. She's really good at it. There's definitely a thing, like, you gotta have the right side, the angle, the height of it. Like, there's a whole system to it.
Yeah.
She was telling me about it one day, but I just like, I got too many things on my mind.
We have a, we have a big problem here at Chris Collins Inc. With our Top Dog event. So that's coming up in. Is it August?
Yeah. So just, just a little right around eight months from now.
So we're trying to figure out our keynote speaker. Last year we had Jocko.
Yeah.
We wanted to up our game this year. And so your idea was Hulk Hogan.
Hulk Hogan, baby.
Hulkamania, actually, like I thought for like honestly thought like, oh, wow, that would be cool. Like that. That's crazy. Like if people could have their picture taken with Hawkins. So if you don't know, our Top Dog event is where we give away the $50,000 service manager challenge winner. So that's the manager in our coaching or done for you program that has the biggest increase in effective labor rate, net profit and customer satisfaction. And then we have speakers and it's like, it's basically a two day networking workshop. The best advisors, best managers in the country kind of a thing. And so we asked it at the, in our last coaching meeting and everybody's.
Like, no, I know, I was shocked. I was shocked. And I mean, I don't know.
We would love your feedback if you're listening. Yeah, give us your feedback.
He was big when I was a kid and like I, you know, he's had some rough times and granted he's not what he used to be, but it'd be fun to see him come up and rip off the shirt and throw out the 24 inch pythons.
So who are the guys on our list that have been talking about. We, we're trying to get a hold of Gene Simmons.
Yeah, Gene Simmons.
He says you can call him direct, but you can't. There's a big layer of people between us and him.
Yeah.
But there's probably some things we can do to get to him. And he's right here. So Gene Simmons and I've heard Gene Simmons talk at a business thing. He's, I mean, he's an amazing marketer. He's. He's no joke. Yet he owns an, an ad agency. Like, he's no joke. I learned a lot.
He's all business. Condoms and caskets.
Yeah. And so I think that one of the lessons definitely everybody would walk away with is how you, how you kind of do it all. He's good at that. And then so we were talking about Dungy. Tony Dungeon.
Yeah, Tony Dungey.
So that's one we're gonna try for the Giants guy. You thought Gruden, but I don't think.
I like Gruden, but, yeah, that'd be tough.
I wonder where Gruden lives.
Who's the guy that Mike was talking about with the Giants when we were in New York?
He's. He's done, dude. He's the coach for the Jaguars.
Oh, yeah? Yeah. That's Tom Coughlin. He's got his work cut out from. He's. He'll be. He'll be busy for a little while.
Every time I read something, it's like Coughlin has control of everything. Like he. He's.
Yeah.
I don't know.
That's a tough challenge, man. Yeah. They got some work to do out there.
I. I would love if we could get Gus back because, you know, Gus was our defensive coordinator and then he got the job there. First time I went to the Super Bowl a few years ago.
I do want to say sorry to have him back to our friends out in Florida. We have a few. What do you mean?
Sorry?
They're all Jacksonville fans, so, you know, they.
They're rebuilding, bro. It's all good.
They're going through some rough times.
I wonder if the original Barbie here, Eva, is a Texans fan or a Cowboys fan.
She's in Houston, so I think that's Texans country.
But you're in LA and you're a Cowboys fan.
What's America?
You could live in everywhere.
There are more Cowboy fans at the Cardinals game.
Living in a lonely world. Yeah. So let us know. Anybody, what. What you think for the Top Dog speaker? I'd love your feedback.
Yeah, we can get some comments.
Somebody. That's a big deal. But leadership and business lessons and, you know, so many people want to have their picture taken with.
Yeah. So I think it's gonna be fun this year because I want to do somebody that's going to run like a workshop, you know, like somebody that has a leadership, you know, business type product that they put out. And so they'll be like a, you know, workshop type speaker will do two or three hours. And then we want to have a big keynote speaker. Speaker that's, you know, somebody relatively famous that's done something with their life. And so I think it'll be. It'll be really fun. It'll be really. This is going to be our best event ever. For sure.
Every year it's our best friend. We top it every.
Oh, I know the. But the stakes are pretty high.
No open bar at the reception.
You had to Bring it up.
Yeah. There's no open bar.
Everybody drink tickets.
I get. I didn't know. I did not know.
Well, now we know.
We did that.
So we had.
That was brutal.
We had an open bar. So we had this check in. It was just a simple check in.
Yep.
People came and they got their gift bags at the top dog event. Right.
We had hors d'. Oeuvres.
Yeah.
No food, just hors d'. Oeuvres.
Yeah. It's like. I don't know, it's like six to eight or something, Right. Wasn't even that long. And how much was the bill for alcohol?
It was like ten grand. Yeah.
We thought, would it be 1500?
Yeah. I was worried because it was a twelve hundred dollar minimum. I was worried. Yeah.
And then they couldn't show us proof of anything. We argued with the hotel for months, Met with them.
Yeah.
What did they cut it down to?
They took a couple of grand off. We walked away with a still. Ouch.
So when you come to talk dog at the reception this year, just know you're getting a drink ticket or two. Two, right?
Two at least. Yeah. I mean, I would even do more than that, but I think I want to have some sort of.
Yeah. The way they did their math, our. Our group like drank 22 each. Oh, no.
Everybody should have been. There was seven drinks a piece is how it worked out.
And there's the people that. There's no way.
There's no way. No.
So the next night it was a couple. It was a couple thousand. And they drank way more.
Oh, yeah. And we had open bar, food, everything. It was. It was less crazy. Yeah. That was a weird deal.
We're gonna keep be keeping track of your drinking this year.
I mean, they did a great job. I. I want to say, I want to give a shout out and props to the bottom engine, because I can. They did an amazing job.
Nobody cares about the phone adventure. No.
But if we're gonna have it there again, I don't want people to think it's a bad hotel. I think we should do it there again. Yeah.
It was a great spot. They screwed us for eight grand on drinks.
I would. I. I thought that that was all these. Turn around.
Look at all these big. The only hotels going up. What about this one right here down the block? I don't have to walk that far.
Yeah, but that's not until next year. They're not gonna be open till the.
Thought was opening here pretty soon.
Yeah. Spring.
The tallest fake spring.
So there's this building like A block from us here, downtown. And they're the tallest building on the West Coast. But, like, I don't know, a fourth of the building is just a spike in the air. It's a big spear, it's not a floor. Yeah, they're measuring the tallest building by a spear. It's fake. It's like the, like, 45th tallest building on the West Coast. If you get rid of their spear.
Yeah.
So funny.
Well, you know what's funny too, is when you're coming to LA and you're driving up on the freeway, you see the U S Bank building first because it's on the top of Bunker Hill, right?
Yeah, it looks way bigger. It looks way bigger.
Like, it's funny.
It doesn't even make sense.
By the way, people need to stop moving to la. It's too crowded.
Yes, thank you for that.
Please don't.
The weather here is terrible. And that's a lie right now.
Okay, so I wanna. I wanna talk about our topic, but I want to give perspective and then we'll talk about how we do it, if that makes sense.
So. Shoot.
When I was a service advisor, I remember.
You know, we were miserable. We were miserable in the cold in Washington. So take that, you know, consider that in this. But. And I was in a band, first.
Of all, I just want to point out that there's people in the middle of the country that are going, come on, bro, seriously, the weather. The weather in Seattle has got to be significantly better than Chicago. Buffalo.
Well, no, the thing. It's not Wisconsin. You don't know. Well, unless you lived in Seattle. You don't understand, Gary.
I'm sorry, I'm a California boy.
Yeah. So let me explain this. Nobody cares when I'm going to explain it to you, okay? It is always gray and dark in Chicago. It's the middle of winter, it's 5 below. But it's bright in the sky, is blue.
You don't, from about September until March, see a break in the clouds in Seattle.
Wow.
You don't. You don't read reports that the highest suicide rate is in Chicago. It's in Alaska and Washington. It's always gray and cloudy. But isn't the rain that gets you. It isn't the cold that gets you. It's that you never see sun. It's depressing.
It's dreary all the time.
Yeah. I'd have to remind myself, like, February, just like, why am I in such a funk? And it's like, oh, because I live here. Because it's just Gray. So, you know, when we've been in Chicago in the winter, it's cold. It's brutal cold. But it's bright. Yeah. And sunny.
Yeah.
Outside the skies are blue. Yeah. Does that make sense?
No, that makes sense. I get it. So it's gloomy.
Gloomy.
I'll give you a pass.
Grunge rock didn't come from Chicago. The music in Chicago is like jazz and like, upbeat hip hop. People in Seattle are, like, doing heroin, going, I'm the man in a box.
I never thought about that.
It's the saddest music you've ever heard. Oh, my God, no.
Spirit.
That's hilarious.
Smells like teen spirit. That's a depressing song.
It is like, all of them are.
They're very.
They're very dark.
You are as you were. As you want me to be. That's about as happy as it gets. As you want me to be.
Right?
It's all miserable. Name one act that came out of Seattle besides Chris Pratt that's happy.
Yeah. That Jeremy I was.
They all died of heroin. Think about it.
We've been listening to a lot of Pearl Jam next door.
And they.
They. And the Pearl Jam store songs too, are. Are very dark. The Jeremy song, like, yeah. Or black.
That song is.
Yeah.
Like, I remember Eddie wouldn't even play that song for a while because it make him cry. He was depressing himself. So funny.
I never thought, though. Sorry. It is dreary up there. That's.
So back to our story.
All right, so we digress.
At the same time, I'm in a band, right? So what do you do when you're in a band? Like, Saturdays, we were. So we had a deal with our. Our manager wouldn't. Would only let us play in Seattle once a month. But we would play Spokane, we would play Portland. We'd play everybody everywhere else. So every weekend we were playing somewhere, but we would only play in Seattle. And when we play there once a month, that had to be like a sold out show. So we're opening for somebody big. Or we were playing somewhere that we could, you know, sell out 500, 600 people. So, you know, manager comes to us, like we have a little huddle. We never had meetings. But hey, by the way, everyone, everybody write down this date. This Saturday, we're having a service clinic and it's mandatory. Everybody has to work first thing. I'm like, whoa.
What?
I gotta what? Let me check my calendar. I gotta be. Ends up. I didn't have. I. We were in Seattle or something. I wasn't going anywhere. So it all worked out. So. And honestly, he probably would have let me off if I needed to be off because I was kind of.
You were the top dog.
It was gonna be okay. Yeah. It was gonna work out for me one way or the other.
He wasn't doing anything to stop that freight train.
No.
So.
So we all show up on the Saturday and so now we're riding Subaru, Volkswagen and Audi.
And the way that it worked was. And this is how I learned this.
Is the three rough brands back in the 90s, right? That 90s almost.
Really, bro. At that point they were not the. The Audi and Volkswagen were almost non existent. So you're talking about 90, 91.
Yeah.
They didn't come out with the new jettas until like 92. So literally they'd have like five cars. Like the van again was done. It was. The Euro van was done.
Mm.
Like they were in a weird spot.
Yeah.
And Audi, it's a rough spot.
Audi had all those. That was when they had the vacuum.
It was after that. So they were suffering from that. There were still a lot of them. So the one thing with Audi is in the Northwest, they sell because they're four wheel drive. They had the Quattro. Oh, yeah. And BMW. Nobody else had caught up on Quattro, which they have, I think now. I mean, the BMW four wheel drive is pretty good. So we come in on this Saturday and the deal is you go out in the drive, you greet a customer, you write an ro. RO goes back to dispatch, and then the technician comes up, they get the customer and you go back with the technician and they look at the car together or whatever. And so on Subarus, I remember this like, you know, I'm 20, 21 on Subarus, the head gaskets leaked on every Subaru Loyale. There was everyone like, you could replace the head gasket. Six months later it was leaking. And I would call customers and would say.
Technician saw that your head gasket starting to leak and be like, okay, thanks. You know, like, well, let me tell you, it's 1200 bucks, right.
Not really concerned about that.
Unless. Unless it was like. Unless a customer came in and they're like, oh, I smell something burning or smell something sweet burning, which was the coolant.
Yep.
You weren't selling a lot of head gaskets or. I wasn't. I hadn't figured it out yet, but tribute to me. I'm always thinking like, I don't know, it's a gift I have because I'm a Typo, negative blood type, maybe that.
Certified genius.
Certified genius. And I, I, I'm more in touch with the five dimensions. Is that what you call it?
Yeah. I don't know. I don't know.
I'm virtually psychic, Carrie.
I don't know.
Not really.
But yeah, there's this whole Capricorn thing going on too.
But I'm always thinking about, like, how can I, can I improve? How do I improve my closing ratios?
Right?
What's the system? Right? So I, for some reason that day, Subaru, people liked events. So we had more Subaru than anything. And I sold, I think I sold nine head caskets that day.
Dang.
And so, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. When they see it, they buy it. Which has become something that we've learned over time. But they, there was no debate about whether they trusted me or not. There was no debate on whether they need it or not. They're just like, oh, yeah, no, fix that. Yeah, it's running down the side of my engine that looks bad because, you know, it gets all crusty.
Yeah. And you know. Yeah.
And so.
So I learned that and, and that helped myself because then later on what I would do when I had a super loyal leaking is I would tell the customer, hey, there's something I want to show you when you come in. What time are you coming in? Be like, I'm going to be there after work at 5. I'm like, okay, well, I'm going to have your car still in the shop because I want to show you. And they're like, oh, is it bad? I'm like, well, I mean, you should know. They would come in and I learned, technicians taught me, I learned how to put the cars up and then. Which wasn't pretty at first.
Like, you didn't take a door off.
Oh, yeah, right. And so I learned from that that when people see it, they buy it, right?
Oh, yeah.
So jump ahead. I'm 34.
And we'd done a ton of service clinics before, but I'm 34 and I am, I own a Chrysler dealership, Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge. And we just bought it. So we, we buy this dealership. It's, they sell like 40 cars a month.
Number one in the state of California. So we want to be number one in the country. But start with the state of California. Number one in the state of California, I think was selling 200 and something new at the time. So this is like the worst time, 2008.
And so my partner Rob and I, I'm like, hey, we, you know, we need to blow this up, we need to sell some cars. And he goes, I got this friend that does direct mail, James Kennedy.
Oh.
And so he goes, we're going to do a.
We're going to do a J. A J letter. I'm like, what's a J letter? But it's. It's basically a newspaper folded up that looks like it's a newspaper article. And then on the front is a. Like a yellow sticky that says, hey, Gary, you should really check out this event, Jay. Because I guess Jay's the most common.
Oh, really? Right.
I don't. They tested and it pulls the best. I don't know what the. I don't know what the science is behind that, but there's science behind it. So James Kennedy.
That's hilarious. I didn't know that.
And we're like, okay, so let me. Let me give you more perspective. We probably have 10 salespeople, maybe 10 salespeople at this little place we just bought. We're just building it. Right?
Right.
So. So James Kennedy mails 5,000 of those dudes, I think, out. And he says, you know, if you really want this to be a success, put this newspaper. Addie wrote in the LA Times in the Orange county section so you could buy, you know, you could buy Orange County. You didn't have to be in la, right? Like, you could buy different sections. Yeah, so we did that, bro. I am not joking. We sold. The number that I remember is 45 cars in a couple days. The phones never stopped ringing from. From these letters. And it was like a buyback J Letter type thing that he did. And, like, literally my mom was answering the phone, like, we didn't have enough salespeople to. It was crazy.
That's nuts.
Like, we were just overwhelmed. Now, I've never. In a car dealership, I've never felt, you know, that you that overwhelmed with business. Like you just couldn't do. We couldn't do it. Like, we shot way too big for what we were ready for. Right.
Everybody wants that problem.
Years later, we're trying to figure out how to drive traffic in service departments. And I'm like, well, hey, these events, these, you know, car doctor service events. That's what we call them.
Yeah, right.
Clinics, Right. Where you invite customers in. Work. Good, but how do we get a lot of people there?
Right?
And so.
My Irish brother from another mother, James Kennedy, I called him, I said, james, can I tell you about this little thing? And so we came up with this system where we did. He said, what? We're going to do is we're going to do hand address. So it's handwritten. So there's a bunch of housewives somewhere, like fill these things out. So it's handwritten invitation. We call it the car doctor clinic. And we. So I don't know what we get like 5, 6% most of the time on sometimes 8. Yeah. It's crazy.
It's nuts.
And so he does a sequence where he does the, the hand address piece. It's like, it just looks like you're getting like a wedding invitation. It's all handwritten. And then you open it up and then like three days later they get a postcard reminding them and then there's an email sequence, but it's an event. And so then the thing we learned over time was to feed them, to give them gift bags and make it into a real event. And so not only are they getting, they're getting to see the technician in the underside of their car, which is something they never see.
Right.
But the trust is crazy with, with these car doctor service clinics, because they're coming in, you're. You're using the law of reprocessity.
Reciprocity, reciprocity, reciprocity.
You're using that because you're giving them a gift bag.
Right.
Do like a raffle for some big prize, the whole thing. But there are, there. You put them in a buying mindset, by the way. You set it up ahead of time. And then they get to go behind the curtain, they get to go in the kitchen and meet the chef, you know.
Yeah.
And so there's. I don't think that there's anything that you can do in any service drive, whether you're a dealership or independent, that will endear your customers, build more trust and make you the expert. What it really does is, is it makes you the expert because they're coming in and saying, yeah, like show me. And you're showing them, you're showing them what an expert you are. And then the trust you can't buy.
Yeah.
At that point, I don't think any.
Independents are doing that at all. I mean, I, I spent seven, six or seven years in the, in that space and they don't do anything like that. We used to do. We used to do like a little swap meet thing. We had a kind of a big lot next to this industry independent shop I worked at in Emmerville and we'd do a little swap meet and we'd have some old cars out and they do that, but it didn't really sell Anything for us, you know, it wasn't. It wasn't about us, it was about them. But that event. Yeah. Would turn that place upside down. Like, it would be crazy getting people in the shop, letting them look under their car. They. They would just go nuts for that.
Yeah. I mean, you know, in a lot of other industries, they do it. So, like, restaurants will do it.
Yep.
So they'll. They'll have like a night where you can come in and get free sliders or whatever it is just to kind of show off their place or drinks. And so kind of what we figured out over time is you can get restaurants to sponsor it, you can get wine, and then you can share lists. Right. So if you had a service center or if you were at a dealership and you wanted. I mean, we've done this many times, but you can go get the people that have your demographic and swap lists with them.
Yeah.
So you can say, hey, we're having this big event. We want to invite your customers because you're a men's shop and you have the same demographic. Or we've gone to Nordstrom's, Bloomingdale's, and they'll give you stuff for the gift bag. They'll put it in all of their stuff and email their list, and then you can do it to yours. And just the cross promotion, the friends that you make, you know, so events are a great excuse to borrow somebody else's list or lend them yours. And then what you're doing is they're seeing you, your name with that wine shop or with that restaurant. And so it's cross branding.
Yeah.
It gives you authenticity.
Yeah, we did that a couple of times when I was at up north. And then.
Did you feel that earthquake?
No. It's just an earthquake.
No. Lucas Knees. Bless you, Lucas.
Yeah. So up north, we did. We did that a couple times. We did an art show. So we had some local artists bring art, and we put them in the cars on the. We lifted the trunks and we kind of positioned them like easels.
Didn't I donate a bullnug painting to that?
I think you did. Yeah. So we did a little art show, and then we did wine. So we had a local winery come in and donate wine. And then we had Saks Fifth Avenue, who had just opened up a store down there, and they brought merchandise. And so we had all that going, plus the clinic. It was a. It was an amazing success. And we got to share lists and we had prospects come along with clients. So clients come and brought their car or came and brought their car for the clinic. But we also had prospects come for the sales department. So they were doing. It was. It was extremely successful.
You make a lot of friends. And then. Oh, yeah, the other thing. That's huge. When you do this nowadays, people are tweeting that stuff out. You can tweet it and Facebook and Instagram. So, like, your art one. I remember seeing my art piece that I donated painted the bulldog painting all over Facebook because the. It was there at the event. And then whoever got it or bought it or whatever happened, because it wasn't in an auction for charity or something, too.
Yeah, we did.
Somebody bought my painting. I remember I donated, and somebody bought it.
Yeah. So we had some art pieces for sale, and then we had a few pieces donated that we auctioned off. And I think we gave the money.
Maybe you gave it as a prize.
Children's Hospital is what.
Yeah, that's what it was.
Yeah. Because we. Every event, Rob, the owner, had a big following with Children's Hospital, so we were always donating money to them, but.
People were sharing that, and then the people that bought it were sharing it, and it was all tied back to. To the. To the event and to the business. Yeah.
Yeah. So for me, I felt like. It's funny because, you know, you. I mean, you brought that to us, and I had never seen it before.
Oh, I remember sitting.
Never done it before.
You're with the girl who does events. And I said, well, let's go to Walnut Creek and get one of these big department stores.
Yeah.
Just looking at me like, what?
You could do that?
I'm like, trust me. They want your list.
Yeah.
They want your clients. If that opened up a whole new.
We did that. We duplicated that so many times. I stole that. And we use that everywhere.
Restaurants, department stores, they love to do stuff.
We used to go to the art and wine festival. We'd use it there. Like, we use that everywhere. We create partnerships. It was unbelievable. It's just so funny. You're like, you. You're. You're like, we're a car dealership, and this is what we do. And we're, you know, we were a repair shop, and. And you. You're a business. You're a local business in the community.
They are, too.
And they are too. Exactly.
They have the same problem, like in Chicago, like, wine shop, the whole thing. And they're like, oh, yeah. And, you know, the thing that blows me away every time is like, I've looked at these gift bags before for. And I'm like, Bloomingdale's donated 200 of these, right? You're like, how much are they? Like, 80 bucks a piece. Wine shops will give, like, bottles of wine for a couple hundred people. And they just want. They want the contact.
Yep.
They want that.
Yeah. They're looking for what everybody's looking for, right? They're looking for notoriety. They want to get their name out. They want clients to come to see them. They want to. They want people to sample whatever their wares are, whether it's food or merchandise or, you know, for us in the service business, at service, it's like everybody's trying to do the same thing. You just got to share it. You got to reach out to them and ask the question. You know, it's funny, we talked about that book last, on the last podcast, which was that rejection proof. And the one thing that I took from that book is that is just by asking, you're more likely to get a yes than a no. Like, more times than not. He's trying to get rejected and he can't because he's asking the question. People are saying yes. And I mean, it's just a great lesson. Just go ask, and somebody's gonna say yes. They're gonna donate to your event, or they're gonna show up there and donate their time, and you're gonna have a successful event and they're gonna grow their business, too. It's good partnerships.
And it doesn't matter what brand, independent dealership, they want that cross promotion. And so the key is when you call them is to say, like, hey, this is my client base. I got thousands of customers, my client base. They're raving fans of ours. And I love your business. I love your. I love Nordstrom's, I love your wine shop, I love your restaurant. And so I want to share that with my clients. And I'm having an event and I would love to have some of your stuff in my gift bag. And that's how you start it. And they can't say no, right? If you word it like that and you tell them how many customers you have in your, you know, in your database, and just a couple thousand is enough. Like, that's huge to people.
Yeah, it's huge.
And so any business, like whatever your demographic is, whether you're in a blue collar neighborhood or high end or whatever it is, it doesn't matter, right? There's somebody, right? I mean, if you got a lot and you're doing buy here, pay here, there's a payday loan place that would sponsor it. Like, you can find a connection anywhere. It doesn't matter.
Yeah.
And so let's talk about some of the things like that. I've heard about doing events just.
Okay.
Get them out of the freaking way.
So.
So insurance won't cover. Yeah, I'm going in the shop.
Yeah.
Geez. And so I'm always. Yeah. And so I'm always like, oh, have you checked with your insurance company? Well, no, I just. It's like the urban myth that never exists. So first of all, usually when they sign any kind of repair order, it releases any damage. Like, but so check with, like, we're. We're not lawyers.
Right.
Check. So I always say check, and they always come back and it's fine.
Let's say you can't have wine, but check with the right insurance. But you.
Yeah, we can't serve. It's funny because we were on this thing where we, we couldn't serve alcohol. And so we throw these events and you. Oh, no, we can't serve alcohol. We can't serve alcohol. And then we checked and we found out from an attorney that you could and that there was a way to do it. And we hired somebody who's licensed to do that. Yeah, they get a bar. Yeah. There's a whole way around it.
It's like, don't serve them 10.
Well, yeah, you don't overdo.
Just give them one.
Chili's is not going to over serve you. We're not going to over serve you. But you have. I mean, there are people out there that handle that for you. So it's funny to. Just because we, I think a lot of times we make decisions on emotion and we feel a certain way about something, but the truth is, when you look into it, it's something else, you know?
Yeah. And so then, same thing, like, oh, Nordstrom's would never do that. We're a Toyota dealership.
Right.
You're exactly what Nordstrom's want.
Right.
Is the Toyota demographic.
A lot of rich guys driving Prius. Yeah.
And so there just isn't none of those, none of those barriers ever exist. And then all the technicians won't want to work.
Yep.
The technicians end up being the star of the show. It does a crazy thing for morale with the technicians.
Yeah.
They get to meet the customers. They understand what the advisors are doing now, so they have more appreciation for what's going on. And they, they get all dolled up and they get to be on stage and they feel good about it. It helps their, you know, their self esteem in a way.
Yeah. Somebody told me one time, they were like, you know, well, you don't want those. You don't want those technicians interacting with your customers. And I remember I was like, we started doing it anyways because we didn't have a choice, because the. In, like, in your circumstance, we had. We were doing it. We were doing the instant inspection during the day, and it just got overwhelming. And the, the shop foreman and the team leaders got overwhelmed, so we had to filter it out to the rest of the text. And they. They did a great job. They did an amazing job, and they stepped up to the plate. And so it's like making that assumption that they can't communicate with people. It's. Especially if they're talking about cars. Like, I'm telling you, the one thing that they love to talk about is cars because it's what we're good at. And so it. Yeah, I. I think it's those kind of preconceived notions. It's just. It's just gonna hold you back, you know?
Yeah, it's what they're good at. And also, it's black and white.
Yeah, it is that.
That's.
That.
Yeah. You're not, it's not a hypothetical thing or you're not trying to interpret CIA information for somebody like. No, it's like. Yeah, that's a nail. And it's in your entire.
Yeah, right.
Like, that's it. Like, you know, but the trust level and the, you know, the. Actually what happens is the customers want to come in and they want to say hi to the tag. Like, it builds this. This loyalty and bond, and they'll be like, I only want Gary working on my car because you, you know, you showed him a little. A little empathy and you talk to him.
I think you and I have talked about this before, but when I was in. When I was working at the independent in. In Oakland, we had a really close relationship with our clientele. So the owner of that shop used to do a lot of gray market imports from Europe back when, before the cars were coming into the States.
What's that mean?
Gray market was they would take car, they go by, they go to Europe, and they'd buy cars that weren't. Weren't officially being imported to the States yet. And then they would put them through the DOT process, and so they'd have to put in, like, door supports, all kinds of stuff. And they would. They would create a car that's sort of, you know, certified for the United States. And then they'd sell them and they'd sell them on the gray market. So, you know, so it wasn't black market, but it was. Wasn't officially, you know, an imported product. Right. They'd have to modify it, but they did a bunch of that. Like, a lot of the early, early cars, early European cars that came in the States came in through the gray market process. And so he was big in that and honestly could have been a dealer, I would imagine, but he decided not to. But he had a very, very large following. Like, people trusted him, and they. And as a result of that, we. You know, me, I was a technician at the time. I had a really close relationship with the clients. They felt very close to our business. And so they would just walk back there. I'd be in the shop, you know, working on a car, and all of a sudden I'd have some guy looking over my shoulder, and I'd have a conversation with them. But they felt very connected to us. They used to take us to lunch, and they'd come and hang out and they'd want to talk all the time. And. But as a result of that, like, we had this trust with this clientele that you. I've never seen anywhere else, to be honest with you. I mean, it was really, really deep. But again, they got to come back and chat with us. There was a. There was a face behind the curtain, and they knew who it was. They knew who was working on their car.
It's more and more important nowadays, too, because people don't want there to be a secret world.
Right.
They want full disclosure. So take them in the kitchen.
Yeah. They want to see what's on the other side of the wall.
I want to meet the chef.
Yep.
It's all about that.
I mean, we did that restaurant experience where they're prepping and cooking the food right in front of you. Like, right there, they're doing the whole thing. And so the walls are coming down. People just want to. You want to have transparency.
What kind of cars Was he importing?
BMW.
Gray Market. BMW.
Gray Market BMW.
So like, a model you couldn't get here?
Yeah, like 323s. And what else were they doing? They were doing these 735s. 745s. They were doing 745 eyes before.
So we had 740s here at the time.
Before the set? No, we had 735s here at the time, and they were pulling in 745s.
Wow.
745I turbos back in the. Like, geez. Back in the late 70s, doing 745i turbos. Wow. Yeah, all kinds of crazy stuff. The used to do these, what do.
You buy them like a year old or how would he buy them?
No, he buy them, buy them new in most cases and then bring them over.
How much is he making a pop on each car?
Oh my God.
Six, five, six grand a pop.
Wow. After shipping and everything?
Yeah, the whole thing. Yeah, after that he was making five, six grand a pop. Cuz you couldn't get them like there, there was very rare models.
I never even heard of it.
Yeah, at the time BMWs were really, really rare in the United States.
What's cooler in the Bay Area than having a BMW that nobody else can get?
They used to go get those status Alpenas. So there was all that. That big thing in Germany at the time was they were converting all the BMWs to Alpena. So they bring all over all the Alpena cars. B6S.
What a business.
Yeah, yeah.
Would you ever get in trouble?
No, no.
How many was he doing a month?
Oh, they were doing, I don't know, you know, half a dozen, maybe a month. But not too many because you had to do. I mean it was a lot of work. A lot of work because they bring them over like I said. I mean the thing I remember the most was the door supports. So there was a bar went right through the middle of the door so that you had the door skin on the outside. You take the door panel off the inside and it was like a, an open cavity between the passenger and you're.
Finding like weird stuff.
Door skin. You put something in there. Oh yeah, we found a beer bottle in there one time.
I know the Audi techs once found in a new car porn magazines. Oh yeah, it's funny, German porn.
But they would put weird stuff in the door. Like. Yeah, I think back then at the factory, like, oh, this is going to America, let's mess with them.
Yeah, they didn't care.
Yeah, it's funny, they want cup holders.
Yeah, well the guy that owned the store that I was at was an old German guy and he would tell me they would drink beer on the line, they'd throw in the car like they didn't care. Like there was. No, it wasn't. It's not like it is today, you know, I mean they built great cars.
But still they were taking their time. Yeah, it was funny.
There's no rush.
Wow.
Yeah, but it was pretty cool. I mean but like I said, you know, that, you know that to him, that Created that bond, that whole network of. Of clientele out there. They all knew who he was and like it create. There was a big movement up in like Berkeley, San Francisco, Amberville, Oakland, kind of that whole zone was kind of the hotbed for BMW activity back in the day because they were bringing those cars in and then selling them out. So there was more cars in that zone than probably genius.
Is that guy still around?
No, he passed away a while back.
So I remember when I was an advisor at a Cadillac store, we were bringing them over from Canada. So when you couldn't get Escalades and all we had to recommend place was the odometers.
Really. Oh, kilometer. You had to go to kilometers to miles. That was it.
So I think it paid the tech like two hours. And I would write them all up and like he would buy him a dozen at a time. Jeez. Because you couldn't get them. And I guess in Canada they couldn't sell them.
I don't know.
But they were Canadian. I know now it's different, but.
But the one thing is at a different warranty. So I don't know if it was weird.
Oh, yeah, that definitely.
They disclosed it. They disclosed it. But I think they'd. They would pack in a warranty or something too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He brought in a couple cars towards the end of it, when I was leaving there, he brought in a couple cars from Canada and he had that issue where the warranty wasn't the same because it's 12. It was like 12. 12 out there or something like that. Really short.
Nothing, no maintenance.
Nothing, Nothing. Yeah, so he was.
Yeah. So the ones in Canada were like 224 and the American ones were like 450. Yeah, something like that. It's interesting. Yeah. So that's good. That's great stuff. So just to kind of recap, what's the best part about just a small town girl.
Living in a lonely world? What's the best part of that song?
What's the best part of that song?
Yeah.
I don't know. I don't know. The whole thing.
The last song in the last Sopranos episode, in the very last part. That scene in the restroom. The greatest.
I watched it again. I still. I still don't get it. I still.
I'm not supposed to get it.
I want to know.
And then what else? It can't be out. Everybody make sure if you're taking notes. It can't be all Journey. Nickelback.
It can't be all Journey. And they go back. Yeah. So you Got to change it up.
So to, to recap, events. So we've had too many to count that we did over $140,000 in one day in parts and labor sales, partnering up with local businesses. Department stores, restaurants, wineries.
And if you're independent, shop. If you think you're too small, you're not. Because these other businesses, I can tell you right now, it was an eye opener working with Sachs and working with Nordstrom's and working with Pottery Barn. And the places that we talk to, they view themselves as local companies.
They have a manager.
Yeah.
You get the general manager on the phone for Nordstrom's and then he's like, yeah. And they'll answer the phone.
Yep. And they operate like a local business. So don't think that they're this huge corporation you can't get into. They, they, they'll, they'll work with you.
And they'll give you something to put in your gift bags and the whole thing. So you want to make it into an event.
Yep.
You, you, you want to let them behind the curtain, you want to feed them, you want to give them gifts.
And then you know, if, if you know what you're doing, you're gonna make some friends.
Yeah.
I don't think retention, it's easy, right? It really is easy.
Yeah.
It's easier doing that in a lot of ways than just a normal day.
Right.
Cuz customers, then when they see it, they buy it.
It's fun. It's just a lot of fun. Yeah. Learn how to close though. Learn how to close.
Close the door.
What do you mean close? Close a deal.
How do you close the deal?
You just, you gotta ask for the sale.
Learn how to ask. No, no, because I don't like saying, I don't like teaching service guys to close because yeah, we have competition out there that's like, oh, I got the five closes for an advisor. And if you're trying to close a customer and service, you don't get it. We had just ask.
We, we ran a clinic actually for our other brand and it was not good. It did not go well. And we went back and kind of reviewed what happened. They just didn't ask for the sale. So we called the clients, got most of them back in, but nobody asked for the sale. And so I think it's funny, it was a failure on our part to train everybody and get them ready for that, but you just assume they're going to ask and they just didn't ask.
The last thing I should say, I just thought of this is in Service Manager University. We have a. A whole module on this, so all the templates, everything on how to do it. And James Kennedy.
Man, I forget. We'll have to put it in the notes of this podcast. The name of his company. Now, I don't.
Kmg, Kennedy Marketing Group.
Kennedy Marketing Group does those mailers and he's the best. Yeah, my Irish brother from South Orange county, just the sweetest guy.
Yeah, we just updated that whole car doctor clinic package. We just did that like, I don't know, a little less than a year ago. We updated that whole thing. So it's, it's all, it's all up to date now.
Yeah, it teaches you exactly how every step and what to do.
Yeah, it's good. Exactly. Good.
Thanks, everybody. I hope you have a great week. Make a lot of friends, collect some customers and try to, if you're around here, try to stay drying out of the rain.
Throw an event.
Throw an event, have a party.
Just a small town girl.
Living in a lonely world.
SDR out.
Some friends.
Yeah, I don't think.
Attention.
It's easy, right?
It really is easy.
Yeah.
It's easier doing that in a lot of ways than just a normal day.
Right.
Because customers then when they see it, they buy it.
It's fun. It's just a lot of fun. Yeah. Learn how to close, though. Learn how to close.
Close the door.
What do you mean close? Close the deal.
How do you close the deal?
You just. You gotta ask for the sale.
No, though, because I don't like saying. I don't like teaching service guys to close because, yeah, we have competition out there that it's like, oh, I got the five closes for an advisor. And if you're trying to close a customer and service, you don't get it. We had just ask.
We ran a clinic actually for our other brand and it was not good. It did not go well. And we went back and kind of reviewed what happened. They just didn't ask for the sale. So we called the clients, got most of them back in, but nobody asked for the sale. And so I think it's funny, it was a failure on our part to train everybody and get them ready for that, but you just assume they're gonna ask and they just didn't ask.
The last thing I should say, I just thought of this is in Service Manager University, we have a whole module on this, so all the templates, everything on how to do it. And James Kennedy.
Man, I forget. We'll have to put it in the notes of this podcast the name of his company. Now I don't.
Kmg. Kennedy Marketing Group.
Kennedy Marketing.
