Every Service Advisor's Holy Grail (Service Drive Revolution)

Foreign.

Welcome, everybody, to Service Drive Revolution.

Please say hello to Jeremy o' Neal and Christian Lafferty. I am Chris Collins. Today we have a fun, exciting and informative show for you. We're going to talk about space travel.

Space.

Just joking. We're going to talk about trust today.

I thought we were going to talk about Tesla stock price. Like, holy moly, no.

So we got a lot of action on the show. That was dealerships versus independents and who has the advantage. You have a weird recollection of those shows, but somebody who's a friend, actually.

And a professor, a client of our.

Shop, Free to Model Repair client, listens to our show.

Yeah, he watches the podcast. Yep.

No, has nothing to do with the industry.

No, he's a marketing professor at one of the local universities here. And anyways, he calls me up, he's like, hey, I caught the, the pot episode you did. Independents versus dealerships, Great stuff. But you guys forgot one thing. And I'm like, what did we forget? Like, we typically cover everything, right? And then all the answers for, you know, I mean, we get emails.

We went pretty deep on that.

Yeah, well, we do get emails from the voice of God saying how knowledgeable we are, so it's pretty cool. But he said that we forgot trust.

And it's interesting that I take that word for granted a lot.

Right.

Like you, you just assume that being good and wanting to take care of your customers and getting the five star reviews and your business keeps growing, that, you know, that that's paramount, like trust is the foundation. It's the cornerstone of your business. And he did say, you know, that's definitely something you've got to talk about. Independents are way better at trust than dealerships. And I thought that was kind of interesting because I've been on both sides of the fence, right. And so my skill set is, you know, it is what it is. And I treat my customers the same, whether it's independent or dealership. So I just thought it was interesting that his, his point of view from a consumer standpoint was there's more trust in the independent world. I also paid him $500 to make this call so I could actually win the challenge. So this is the, the topic that's gonna push it in my direction. Independence, execute better.

So you forget that the punchline to that was that they both have the advantage, right?

Yes, I forget.

It's about execution.

That's just the competitive side of me.

That comes out just wasting $500.

I didn't pay him 500 bucks for that.

It was 300.

So he thinks that independents have an advantage of trust. But why? Because I don't understand how they would be more trustworthy than. You might make the case that a dealership would be more trustworthy.

Well, and I asked him that. I said, what do you mean by that? Come on, why do you not trust the dealership? And he says, give me a break. After what they put me through to buy the car, there's absolutely no way I'm going back to them for anything else.

Sales department screwed it up.

Service loses them before they even get a shot. Interesting.

Parts department is there to pick up the pieces at the end of that.

So the parts department screwed it up.

Oh, they didn't. The sales. The sale did.

Yeah. I've always thought that it's an interesting dynamic. And we. We see that are dealer clients that are kind of schmucky at sales, usually services. And afterthought, the dealers that care about both usually are more ethical. Right?

Yeah.

Have you ever made that connection?

I would say for sure.

But the guys that are, like, wearing the open shirt and like, you know, kind of chains and the big wheels.

And all that stuff.

Yeah, Those guys end up being the ones that are like, you know, if I didn't have to have service, I wouldn't kind of a thing. Because there is also a certain reckoning, especially like if you're selling used cars that are not recon and kind of shady, and you're stuffing people into cars, service has to take that brunt. Right, Right.

So, yeah, I guess I. I get his point of view. It's sad, though.

Well, and it was interesting, though, that for me, hearing that, and that was so high on his list is what do our consumers want? How do you capture market share? How do you build a better business that can operate on its own and, you know, perpetuate itself into continued growth, sustainability, and be full circle, you know, and trust is something that's definitely there. So we definitely need to talk about it.

It was interesting. I had the same sort of conversation with somebody about that. And so it's the voice of God. Do you know how we came up with the term voice of God? Because I guess it's a little controversy. People think that it's.

I. I don't know.

How would you say. What were the comments?

That it's blasphemous.

Blasphemous. Right. But it's. Do you feel like it's blasphemous?

I have a dark spot on my soul, so I'm going to hell Anyway, so it doesn't matter.

So really has nothing to do with God.

We're not trying to make any kind of a statement or anything like that.

I. I don't know. Was it last year I spoke at a, At Volkswagen's parts and service meeting, right.

The parts managers didn't show up?

No, parts managers were there.

They were, and they asked questions.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I got, man.

Have you ever partied with parts managers?

Yeah, they don't have to work the next day. It's not a problem.

He's got an answer that was clear.

Brian.

So I, I get to the. I'm going to tell you how we came up with the Voice of God and why it has nothing to do with the religion. Okay. It's a, It's a industry term. I was trying to be hip for the boys to understand that I know how to speak their lingo. But so I, I get there the day before and I do a little sound check. And the, the guy who was running sound was a fan of the, the show and super nice guy. And he's like, hey, you want to come out to acdc? Right? And I was like, sure. He goes, okay, I'm gonna play. He goes, you want back in black? And I'm like, yeah, okay. That'd be awesome. So then the, you know, the next day.

I'm kind of ending the, the event. I'm the last speaker. And so I don't know, there's like. I think there's like a little over a thousand people in this hall. It's, it's. It was in Dallas.

It's gorgeous.

And so they, like, you know, there's people with headsets. It's a big production, right? So there's people with headsets behind, and they kind of tell you what's going to happen, and they say, okay. So when they, when the, when the two before me come off stage, then the Voice of God will announce your name and walk out. So you gotta, like, you know, you gotta be coordinated and follow their, the rules of their production. So then the two guys that were on stage come off and everybody's clapping for them. And then the Voice of God says, please welcome to the stage Chris Collins. So the reason why they call it the Voice of God is because there's no face. It's just a voice over the top, right? So the audience doesn't see, but it's just, please welcome to the stage Chris Collins. And so funny. So then I walk out and I start talking, and then.

And I don't I've thought about that so many times. What I could have said that have been way funnier than whenever I did. But it really caught me off guard because I was so focused on the voice of God. So you know, Russo isn't on camera, but he's a voice. So it's the voice of God. That's. It has nothing to do with religion. So if you're offended by it.

Nothing to do with religion.

Yeah, get over it.

It's an industry term.

Yeah. So you were talking about trust.

Yeah. And so I was talking to the voice of God and his real name is Chris, but we call him the voice of God because there's already one. There's Christian Chris. We, we really have a rule now. We only hire people named Chris. Yeah, perfect. Chris Hoagie.

Yeah, it's making resumes really easy to review.

Yeah, we got a lot of Chris's here. But the voice of God was telling me the opposite. He's like, I don't trust independence because he has had an issue. Every time he's gone to this shop in Orange county, it's had another issue and he's been towed back and forth. Tell us the story.

Russo. God, voice of God. And if he sounds like the voice of Satan, it's because he's really pissed.

So I was driving on the freeway after visiting my family, as I'm one to do on the weekends, and.

I had just gotten on the freeway and was driving back up home towards LA when my car stopped going. When I pushed the go pedal.

This is a Toyota by the way.

Says Toyota Yaris 09. Great car, very sensible, conservative four thousand dollar car.

Go pedal, wouldn't go. So pulled over to the.

Pulled over to the side of the road. He's like a hip mechanic now. He's like the go pedal or he's a NASCAR driver.

Pulled over the side of the road, got it towed to my family's mechanic who said the next day, oh well this and this are broken. We'll have it done by Wednesday and then how much? $1,400. And so said Wednesday, got it done Tuesday, thought great, under promising back to Orange County.

Cuz if you're not from here. Orange county is 45 minutes to three hours away, depending on traffic on a good day.

Went back down to Orange county, picked the car up, was running.

Is it past the 405Y or. Yeah, yeah. So it's deep into Orange County. Deep, deep, deep Orange county, northern San Diego pretty much.

So it's closer to San Diego than it is Los Angeles, that's for sure. So got the car.

And then as I'm driving away, it starts making a terrible screeching noise, so I had to bring it back in. They said, oh, well, that sounds like it's probably your starting motor, so we'll change that out.

That starting motor?

Yeah, the starter.

Starter.

The. The before go pedal gets pushed. The go motor has to start a motor that.

I thought it was your water pump pulley.

That was the first thing that broke.

Oh, that was fourteen hundred dollars.

It was that and a fuel pump.

Oh, okay.

So then brought it back in. They just charged for the part. No, no labor. Just because I had been in and out of there already. So labor was on them.

How did that make you feel?

That made me feel good. Made me feel like a valued customer.

So how much did you spend the second time?

It was 300 bucks for the part.

We're up to 1700.

1700.

We're pushing 50% of the purchase cost.

And. And what was that?

That was about two weeks ago, wasn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so now it just crapped out on me again this morning when I tried to.

So what you need to do, Russo, is you need to go into the shop and ask the person there. Can you say. Can you show me the dartboard that you throw the darts at to decide what you're going to tell me that I need?

Is that how you guys do it? Jeremy?

No, we use diagnostic. We use diagnostic dice at our shop.

So see, which is an upgrade of the man. That would happen in a dealership.

It would.

No, it wouldn't.

Come on.

No, it wouldn't.

You're. Wait. The problems that have been there could just be. How many miles are on your yards?

I just passed over a hundred thousand when it broke down.

Initially, it's barely broken.

Did either of these shops that you took the vehicle to ask you for.

Your service record was the same shop.

It was the same shop.

Oh, did that shop.

Family.

Family shop.

They asked you for your service record?

No, probably because I've only ever taken it there.

Ah, but now he's going to take it to a dealer.

No, he's not.

He's not.

I'm gonna fix it on the way home.

That's right. Jeremy offered to tow it to.

I would.

I mean, yeah, it's Vegas, basically.

It's easy to get customers. They're everywhere. You just have to be willing to help them.

Jeremy's shop is closer to Vegas than.

To la, so it's going from San Diego to Vegas.

There we go there, we go.

LA is completely written out of the conversation at lunch.

Just go play the slots in Vegas.

We can hit state line in about an hour and a half.

I was gonna say you could open your door and drop your coin in the machine. You're so close to Vegas.

So with trust, has the shop reached out to you to follow up to see how things are going?

No.

If they did, would you be open to their offer of help?

Probably.

If you were to place a call to them or text them and say, hey guys, I'm still having another issue. What can you do? How do you feel their attitude towards you would be?

They would probably say, bring it in.

That's another word that should have been on the four letter list a couple episodes ago, but it's not four letters. Why don't you just bring it on back in? That is the most frustrating thing for customers. Like, you want the car fixed. You want it fixed right the first time and you don't want any other problems. Right. So no matter how far they've been over backwards to help the customer out, bring it back in. The fact that his car is still broken is very frustrating. Yeah.

Now he's got a. We spent $4,000 on the car.

Yeah. I think it was 3, 800.

Now he's gonna be in it. 3, 800?

Yeah. It's sunk.

Yeah, that's. That thing's not getting sold.

You're an owner.

I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna break even now.

Can I ask the voice of God another question about this topic?

Sure.

So in your opinion as an auto repair consumer, how intensive should a shop or dealership look your vehicle over? So when you go to pick it up, what are your expectations with everything?

Are you asking, like, did they tell them all the other stuff that was wrong with it?

They did not. They said these two things wouldn't happen in a dealership. They said these two things failed. It's going to be 1400 bucks. And then something broke, literally. After I drove it back home from the shop, it started making a noise. They said, okay, well then that's got to be this. So bring it back in, we'll fix that. Which they did. And then now a couple weeks later, it doesn't start.

Wow.

Which could just be a battery issue.

Could be.

But, yeah, but the, the point of the matter is, is, you know, there's other stuff wrong with that car and they, they're not telling him all the stuff that's wrong. So every time something breaks, he thinks it's Related to the other thing.

Right.

Because they're not telling him, hey, by the way, you might want to plan on spending another $3,000 in the next six months because this and this and this.

Well, there's that saying that consumers have, which is ever since. Ya.

How many letters is that?

Too many to spell that. Well, that's a high. Does. That's a 909 term.

Why?

760 term. That's the IE term there.

Interesting though. Interesting that, you know, wouldn't have happened at the dealer.

So I disagree. Could happen at the dealer.

Dealers never don't inspect a car and present the work.

I will say I would have been happy to pay more money for it to just work.

Yeah.

If he, if he was, if he was.

That's a good lesson.

He's not shopping.

Yeah.

If he was telling me, you know, these parts are also broken, but we're not going to fix them now because they're not an issue. Like you can solve that later down the line, that would have been okay. But instead, instead it's these parts are broken, Go fix those. Oh, but then this other part is broken, Go fix that. But now this other part is broken.

And if they had told you at that time that your battery tested marginal and one of the things you can do is you can date code battery so you could see how old the battery is. So if they'd had that conversation with you and prep you for it and it is a battery now, then that's on you, not necessarily on the shop. So it's your choice to do it at that point in time. Very interesting though.

It's interesting the perspective though, right. Is when you don't inspect the car and tell them what to plan for, then they assume that it's your fault because you just worked on it. Right. Even though the battery and the water pump or whatever aren't really connected in any way. And so you bring that on yourself as a dealership or a shop. Right. I'm, I'm being facetious that dealerships inspect every time because they're just as bad.

But can I interject a different word here? Instead of dealership and independent, can we use the word expert? Because there's a big difference at the expert, you know, the expertise level of the technician doing the inspection.

Amateur or pro?

Amateur. Pro, absolutely. So we had a customer a couple weeks ago, brought in a car that she had just bought. She took it to a quick loop, they did $500 worth of who knows what. The vehicle had a blown head gasket, but because they weren't experts. They weren't able to identify it.

What did they do to it?

They did a radiator flush on it. They did a transmission service. Yeah. And had a blown head gasket. It overheated.

How is that gonna fix it?

It's not. That's.

I think they didn't recognize that there was a head gasket issue and just recommended the preventative maintenance is what it sounds like.

Yes. And it also. It was a train wreck. They could not identify that. It didn't have the factory cooling fan on it, so it had an aftermarket one. So there's obviously something going on there, which I would have been like, oh, timeout. We got to figure this out first before we do any type of maintenance on this car. So that's just the difference of having an expert. And, you know, I've seen it in my career where you have a master technician that's, you know, somebody's been with Volkswagen for 25 years. They can look at that car from bumper to bumper and give you a list. And they can project one what's going to fail and when it's going to fail. And they're pretty much zeroed in on it. And then if you don't have the experts working on the car, it's kind of more of a transaction. They're transactionalizing it and they're not looking out for everything. Totally.

I agree with that. Do you have any questions? Voice of God, on a lighter note.

Yeah.

Should I do this one in character?

Bring this. Depressing.

But before you do that, it's lonely getting stuck on the side of the road. You know what else is the worst part about being lonely?

Your segues.

When are you gonna start over?

Yeah.

What's the worst part of being lonely?

What's the worst part of being lonely?

I don't know.

Playing Frisbee.

That's why they invented the boomerang.

No, no, that's right.

Yeah.

They're ahead of the time.

Frisbee for lonely people.

The voice of God is here.

The voice of God is gazing upon the massive wreck of the fourth wall that we just broke.

This first question comes from YouTube. I'm opening a Euro shop with a friend who's a veteran in the auto industry. ASC Master Tech. Been a shop foreman for a year or so, and he believes he knows the recipe for an independent independent shop to thrive. I'm new to the auto industry, but doing my best to run front of the house. We use one of the major manager shop programs as first time entrepreneurs and shop owners, what are the most important variables in maintaining a healthy financial environment? And can you list any typical problem areas as well? Thanks. I get a lot of inspiration from you guys.

Nice.

Jeez, you got. I would suggest you get in our coaching program and we'll help you. Cuz it's not.

You know, it's like if you were to say what's the most important part of making a movie? It's like, well, you got to have a good script, you got to have a good director, you got to cast the right actors, then the actors got to execute on the script. Then sometimes you film things that you thought were going to be good when you read the script, but they're not and you got to rewrite. And then once you've filmed in the right locations with the weather cooperating and the right equipment, then you gotta edit it and then you gotta promote it. And it's like, what's the most important part? Well, all of it. And so it's really hard to say what would be the most important part because you gotta be able to produce the work in the shop. You gotta have systems to create, you know, to inspect the cars, create more work, communicate with customers, pricing strategies.

All of that marketing. I mean, it's a lot of stuff.

Well, the good news is if he's got a partner that has the back end of the shop, the expertise they're taking care of, you need to focus on the front end, take care of the customers and really make those customers feel really good, communicate with them properly.

And do accounting from day one. Like do your accounting. Right?

Yeah.

The other thing too, I think with that is that a lot of people go into business for themselves and they expect it to be easy. And they don't understand that success has like a gauntlet that you gotta jump through and it's gonna get harder before it gets easy. And you're gonna be tested a couple times, right to the point of giving up. And so if you set your mind to that, that it's going to be harder than you think, that you know your top tech's gonna walk out right at the wrong time, like all that stuff, like.

You'Ll, you'll be more successful if your expectations are that things are going to go right, you're just going to be disappointed and it's going to spin you right. And if you're easily spun, your energy is going to be spent in the wrong place.

Yeah. My other concern is partnership.

Right.

Make sure you've got the compensation laid out as far as what happens, signed.

And written up, how you get out of it. That's the other thing is if your partnership doesn't work, now's the time to talk about how you exit, how you buy the other person out.

Yeah. If there was ever a time to talk about your thing about never assume a social contract, it's when you're in a business partnership with somebody like you can't be, you can't over communicate that, that you've got to make sure that everything's laid out and it's very clear and there's no decisions to be made at the time when everyone's all emotional and things aren't going like they're supposed to.

Yeah. Because then everybody just wants to win.

Yeah.

So if it's pre written out when everybody is, you know, amicable, then those end up being the rules to follow and it makes everything easier.

Yeah. The other thing about expecting that things aren't going to go right is like you almost start to train your mind to that. When that happens you kick it into another gear going the other direction as opposed to folding up and failing. You're like, oh no. So this is the time to double down and get going and get better. Right. I think that that's so important to be realistically aware.

Yeah. I actually am putting this in some training the story that we're doing. But I was thinking about there was this time that I left.

Being a general manager and I was buying my own dealership and there was about a year in between I didn't feel like it was right to work at the dealership I was at and try to buy my own. Like I wanted to be fair to the guy. And so I, I wasn't working. Like I was going to meetings, I was talking to banks, I was talking to manufacturers, I was doing a lot of stuff. I did a little consulting but I wasn't really working. And so I'd go to Vegas a lot and I ended up in a six month period making about 120 grand gambling. And so like for a year I made my. I never pulled money out of savings because I won gambling. And I would go like on a Friday and I would gamble through the weekend and it was fun. Now I don't know that I could make my living gambling if that was my intention. This just kind of happened. But I took it very serious. And I read a lot of books about gambling and I think business is a lot like that. And so one thing is like if anybody's played blackjack and let's say you're sitting in a blackjack table, and you're betting $25 a hand, and you've lost five hands in a row. People's tendency is to pull their bet down.

You need to go up five times.

Yeah. And so the thing that I learned is I'm not going to lose 10 hands in a row. And so if I put 50 and then I put 100, and I just had to pay attention to what the limit was.

Right?

Right. So if the limit is 500, I want to start with 25, but I'm not going to get to 500 before I win again. But most people start playing not to lose instead of playing to win, and they play scared. And I think businesses like that is a lot of times when we hit an obstacle, what you. What you need to do is double down your effort, double down your. Your studying the subject, your preparation, your planning. Right. Like people say, oh, I can't hire a good technician. I'm like, well, what have you done?

Nothing.

Well, you got to double down. You got to be better at recruiting. You got to be better at writing an ad. You got to be better at networking. And so the success in business is created by doubling down when things go wrong, not backing off. And the. The other thing is, is you can't go bet $25 a hand if you don't have a bankroll.

Right.

Part of the reason why one is because I had a bankroll that I could lose for a period of time and double down and get it back. Right. And so you shouldn't go into a business that you don't have the skill set for. If you're not a good leader, if you can't think creatively, if you don't like obstacles, if you don't like challenges, then you can't double down. If a challenge shuts you off and you go home with your tail between your leg, then you probably aren't meant for business. Right. You got to have some cojones.

Yeah, absolutely.

And so I just. I don't know. I guess the. The lesson there is life or businesses like blackjack, right?

Yeah. It's appropriate.

Or craps, depending on how you look at it.

Yeah. Well, yeah, I didn't. I never played blackjack, actually. Rarely. I won my money on roulette and craps, but it's the same. It's the same. It's the same sort of idea. So I. I think that that's where people get messed up, is they. They like, oh, I expect to win, and then they lose. Five hands in a row and they retreat. When what you really have to do is double down. What you really have to do is stick in there. You got to push in. You can't, you can't pull back.

I think too, one of the things that I can kind of read into this is if they are starting a shop, okay. And the technician, shop foreman, partner is going to actually do the work and do all this, I would definitely side with you and say get a coach right away. Get into coaching right away. And you guys have to extract yourself out of the business because otherwise what you're going to do is build a job for yourself in that box because you're doing the work. And if they don't have the money to, you know, bring in the people, the talent to actually run the shop for them and focus working on the business, they could get stuck in that business very fast and it may not be the business that they want.

Yeah. And if you do a couple things right from the beginning and have that basic understanding of marketing and the financials, you, you have a hard time not succeeding. Like it's not. You're your worst enemy. It's not the market.

It's true.

You're not a victim.

Yeah.

So good question.

Great question.

Good luck too.

Okay.

May the force be with you.

Yep.

Okay.

This next question comes from story about mosquitoes. Hi Chris. I enjoy your videos a lot, so thank you for making them. Following your tips has helped me in my career. The only trouble I have is I always feel like I want to know about cars. I like being able to explain to my customers in a comprehensive way what is going on. But I have also always felt that I have to work harder for their trust. I have a customer base now, but it was hard won by hard work and instilling confidence. But I still have trouble instilling confidence in my customers. I know it is going to be a lot harder for me because I'm a woman and I have had people ask me if they could speak to a man. How do I make my customers feel confident in their repairs despite my lack of mechanical knowledge and my sex?

That's a lot.

That's a lot. I have four words that can help her out. Word number one, I can help you.

What?

I can help you. So when she said, you know what.

She'S asking.

I know she's gonna tell this to her auto repair clients because.

She so people, I can help you.

Yes. Because she said it's a male dominated industry and she's teach everybody to ask.

If they had an appointment.

No, we don't.

I'm also still confused about the mosquito.

That was her avatar.

Avatar.

How did I miss that? Who.

What was the question from God?

Her username was Story about mosquitoes.

That's. See, that's her user.

I'd also like to hear.

Can we clarify what that means when we send her swag?

Yeah, sure.

That's interesting.

So, and then about the technical side of it. I think if you want to learn about cars, it's got to be a passion, and you just do it because you want to increase your knowledge on it. The best service advisors on the planet don't really know a lot technically about the car. They know how to take care of the person and they fix the customer and let your technician in the shop fix the car. And then you're just the conduit of that. You are the ambassador that oversees all the technical details that happen with the repair or the service. And your job for your customer is to make sure that you deliver a perfect product. And that's what they're. You're there for. And with that, I can help you see how that.

Yeah, I. So.

We'Ve answered this question before also. And so, I mean, I guess I'll just go through my experience with this, but I was very young writing service. So the first thing that you need to do is really pay attention to how you show up, what you look like. Like, I wore suits because I was 19 or 20 and people questioned me because I was young. It's even harder when you're a female.

And so you gotta look the part. I would. I would really pay attention to how you dress and try to look more like a manager than a frumpy advisor. And I'm. I don't know how you dress now, but I'm saying how you look very much matters. It's the. It's the appearance. It's their first impression. And then the second thing is it's all about charisma and your. Your skills with the customer. It has nothing to do with the car. I knew nothing about the car. So I've told this story. When I answered this question before, there was this technician in the Volkswagen shop. His name was Shane.

Got all the Volkswagen techs around in the shop and had like this wooden crate box, and there was this round disc on there. And he called me, called me in the shop, and all the techs are staring at me, and he says, what is that? And I said, a brake rotor, and it was a clutch disc. And they all laughed. And you know, went to the boss, and how can he be a service advisor when he doesn't know the difference between a brake rotor and a clutch disc? It's like they didn't. They didn't get it. I was really good at connecting with people, and I was curious about people. And also I wanted to serve people. I wanted to take care of them. I wanted to be a host. I felt a certain reciprocation like that. I took care of them, and they kept coming to me. And I loved that interaction and that dynamic that the more I took care of them and the more I cared about them, the more loyal they were to me. And that's really where you want to focus. So practice your charisma. Read books on charisma. Pay attention to that. So the way you look, and that will get you far. The second thing is, every time a technician would give me an inspection sheet that had something on there I didn't understand, I would go back to the car and ask them to show me. And that's how I learned over time. But never lose perspective of the fact that the more you know about cars, the more shortcuts you tend to take. And that's why technicians have such a hard time when they come up to write service, because they know everything and they can diagnose it in the drive, and it ruins the customer experience. They end up taking shortcuts and they assume things, and.

They don't let the process take care of itself because they're telling them in the drive what it is. Customers make decisions right then and there. And we never got the car. We never rode an ro, we never dehorsed them, that whole thing. So the, you know, you want to know enough to be articulate, but at any point when you don't know something, just say you don't know and go ask the tech. No customer is going to begrudge you that. And so the most important part is how you look, how you present yourself, and how well you connect with customers. Talk to them about everything else but the commodity. The car or truck is irrelevant. What matters is their kids, their hobbies, their jobs, what they think about the local football team, politics, whatever. I know people say not to talk politics, but I never would in. I would never share my opinion, but I was really curious how other people felt. I love to talk politics and have people tell me how they feel and ask them questions about why they think the way they do. Sometimes it's, you know, 90% of the time, it's very disappointing because people just watch Fox News. And that's all they know. And they don't, you know, really have an opinion. They're just following everybody else. But yeah, you know what's amazing? The female thing can be your advantage. But you have to up all the. You have to compensate with clothes, charisma and all that. You have to really show up with an A game.

Yeah.

The one thing I know you have a comment. I'm going to come back to that.

Or Chris is going to come back. Segue to a joke.

But I'm not actually in this particular case. So what I would say is I think back to my coaching and the people that I've coached and some of the most successful service advisors that I've worked with are female. And there's a common denominator between all of them is that before they come into work every day, they walk in there and they know that they belong. So the first thing you need to do as an advisor, male or female, is recognize you're in the exact place that you should be and you belong there. The females that I've worked with that have struggled at first, they're not sure. They usually say like, I'm a woman in a man's world kind of thing. No, you're a bad. In the world exactly where you belong. You start to think like that and then your gender doesn't matter anymore.

Yeah. Although we do acknowledge it's harder.

No doubt.

It is a boys club. We're not discounting that. But you have to pretend like it is.

Yep.

That's what we're saying.

Yes.

We acknowledge that it is a male dominated thing, but that's changing too. But slower than it should.

Yeah. But on the microscope you can make it your own world.

And also, like some of our best managers in our coaching group are female, hands down. Yeah. And Vicki, like one of our coaches, like legendary.

So.

And they all came up against that. What were you saying?

I was gonna say it's interesting right now when we've got to go deeper than just the transaction in the car, like the commodity. So you're talking about the person's life like the. In caring about your customer. And I think right now people have this desire to connect with other human beings. Like we have been so sheltered away from people and you know, because of the COVID Yeah. With all that.

That's herpes.

Yes. Especially that.

Can you get herpes from a mosquito?

Probably.

That was a nice tie in.

What always amazes me is when you have trust with your client and they have a problem with the vehicle. And, you know, we have a customer this week that came in and his truck overheated and blew a head gasket. And it's a major job. And it's like, it's the tipping point. Are you going to keep it or are you going to go buy a new one? And all this. And when you really get down to it, he came in last night, we had a conversation, and he really shared the stuff that him and his wife had been going through with some family stuff that when he left, I just sat there for, like, five minutes. And I was so grateful that, you know, that I have my business, that we're able to reach out and help our customers in the way that we are, but also that he had the trust to share that information with me because he didn't have to. And realistically, everybody has stuff going on in their life, and we downplay sometimes our role in providing good transportation for customers. But it goes so much further beyond the car and the commodity, and the more that we can connect with people at a deeper level, that's really where your expertise needs to be at and listen to them and be there for them, because it's really amazing.

You know, I think that the reason why I reverted to talking to them about work and kids and all that is because I didn't know about the car. And it was my way of keeping it off of the car in an odd way, but it ended up being my secret weapon.

The best thing you could do.

But I didn't want to get asked a technical question about a car. I had no idea. Like, even, like, people assume, because I've done all this stuff in the car business that I'm out restoring cars on the weekend or whatever. Like, my. My favorite quote is, my favorite car is the one that's selling. Like, I don't. I've had every car that I've ever wanted. Like, I don't. I'm not, like, I'm not dreaming about a car. I mean, I like cars. I. I appreciate the engineering and the. The differences between the brands and all that, but I'm not. I'm not trying to figure out the horsepower on a car or, you know, working on them or whatever. So I like the experience of it. So I think I was afraid of people asking me technical questions. It was always in the back of my mind. And that's why I would get them off the subject and talk about their kids or whatever. And it just ended up. I ended up outperforming others because I had that connection. Right?

Absolutely.

You're talking about the stuff that mattered.

Yeah, but I don't. I don't think that that was tactical. I think that was out of insecurity that I reverted that way. Protection mechanism, right?

Yeah.

That's good. Well, good stuff, you guys. Trust.

Absolutely. Trust is important.

It's not sales training, it's trust training. It's all about building trust. That's the most important thing. Independent shop dealer. It's. It's the same thing. We wish you guys the best this week.

Yes.

Have fun. Don't do anything Jeremy wouldn't do. Short list and we'll see you next time on Service Drive Revolution.

Thanks for watching this episode of Service Drive Revolution.