Everything You Need To Know About Top Dog 2021!

Hey.

Welcome everybody, to Service Drive Revolution.

The favorite place you talk about service drives. It's the name. Service Drive Revolution.

I don't know how you guys got those two things together, but nice work.

Please, everybody, say hello to Christian.

Hello, everyone.

Christian, today we are going to talk to a very interesting.

Should we call him a philosopher? Would you go as far to say a philosopher and then some philosopher on LinkedIn? A LinkedIn philosopher. You seem like you don't agree.

I think that he has an interesting approach to how to motivate and retain the younger generation. I think everybody's going to learn from. I know here at the office we made us pause, we thought and then we're like, hey, we should, we should have him on the show because this is, this is a forward thinking.

Yeah. And in his second job, Besides being a LinkedIn philosopher, he, he runs a shop. Right. He's a, he's a mechanic slash shop owner. And that always makes me think about engines. And I got a question for you, Chris.

Okay.

Why was the engine humming?

I mean, I have so many questions. What engine? But why was the engine humming?

It got a tune.

Can you hear the laughter?

I like when the guys laugh in the back. It's one of my favorite things. It's almost like that's what I'm trying to do is make them laugh.

So we have a big event before we get to Matt that we need to talk about. It's called the top dog event. It's an event that pre Covid happened every year for ages. We haven't had it for a while at this event of giving away my Jeep Gladiator monster truck. Basically the thing's a monster truck. It's jacked up, fun to drive. But I'm giving it away to the service manager of the year that is in our, you know, on demand or coaching that has taken our stuff and has had the biggest increase in profit. Customer. Yeah, yeah.

It will be a tightly contested race. I can tell you that already with what I've seen.

Every year we've done it. There's been a clear winner. Yeah. You don't think there'll be a clear winner this year?

Well, I think there'll be a clear, clear winner, but I would say that the entries are being elevated.

There's good stuff out there as the. As they should be.

Yeah, for sure.

It works. We have John, John Taffer, the bar rescue guy. We're going to try to create some sort of scenario where he yells at you. I don't know how we're going to do that.

I don't think it'll be that hard.

But I mean, he is an expert on customer service, the psychology of pricing strategies, that sort of thing, which would be great. We have the incredible Robert Cialdini, author of Persuasion and Influence.

Yep.

We have the incredible Chase Hughes, author of the Ellipsis Manual and just a general.

Just a fascinating fellow.

Yeah. And then Matt Biamonte.

Love him.

People are going to leave the Top Dog event this year and talk about it forever.

Yeah.

People are going to make friends at the Top Dog event that they will remember those friends forever. It is going to be an experience like nothing else that we have had pre covet even, I think.

Yeah. In 2040 they'll be like, Member TD21.

Yep. I think that's gonna be incredible. So you don't want to miss it. If you do not have your tickets yet. I would hurry, go to Chris CollinsInc.com and get those and make your plans to be there. But we were talking about what things have happened in previous years and could we do a little countdown of the odd things that have happened at Top Dog? And basically when we read through them in our pre production meeting, we realized that 80% of them we can't talk about on the show.

So if you want to see what.

Happens, we are HR compliant here. We're trying to be good citizens.

I reek of HR compliance.

The one about the hot tub we cannot talk about. No, we can't talk about the pad in the bar.

That's right.

The wallet. The wallet.

We just can't.

I don't. I don't. Yeah. I get in so much trouble for telling the truth about stuff sometimes. So we've come up with some that.

Are more podcast appropriate.

HR appropriate.

Yes.

And so we're going to talk about the top five Top Dog mishaps, we call them.

Yeah.

These are good things that have happened at Top Dog. The first one is when managers come to Top Dog and they realize that their faces have been made into dart boards by other managers competing in our Top Dog software, where advisors and managers are competing against each other in sales and different benchmarks.

Nice. And it's happened multiple times and people.

Get their feelings hurt. This is how it starts. You realize that you've been made into a dartboard. So let's say an advisor for the other manager says, oh, I've thrown darts at your face before. You must be the manager from blah blah blah Motors or whatever. Like what? And then they show like a picture of your face with holes from the darts.

Yeah.

You look like you had chickenpox.

And there's. There's a. There's a. There's a process of processing that. And then usually they walk up to the manager and take a picture of them, and then they now are going to make the other manager into a dartboard that they're advisors.

Yes. It snowballs for sure.

That's happened a couple times.

Yeah, that's great.

The second one that I have on my list is when Jocko spoke at Top Dog.

Impactful.

Yes. As Jocko is. And. But he was so kind that he ended up signing autographs for a long time. Like we were coming back from lunch and he was still signing autographs. And now we've changed that, that, that any speakers that are speaking, they sign autographs for the elite group in the back and, you know, in a green room. But.

It held up the. You know, it held up us getting on with the. With the event. But that was a. We didn't anticipate that to take that long.

Yes. But it was a great display of Jocko being just a good human because he was so.

Jockey spoke. He. He was there before the doors opened and sat in the back all morning watching.

Yep.

Yeah. Great. I mean, he's the real deal. Amazing. Next one is we had somebody that came from the east coast that literally walked from LAX to the event, which, if anybody wants to just really quick pull up Google Maps and go from Los Angeles International Airport, LAX Terminal 2, to downtown Los Angeles, let's say Figueroa and Wilshire, and then draw your finger through Inglewood, Compton, every part of la, that if I dropped you off, you'd be scared to death.

This person backpacked 17 miles.

And what is your analysis of that after witnessing it?

Well, I believe that this person did this to say that they backpacked 17 miles through the worst parts of Los Angeles. And like, I think the way to determine if it's a good or bad part of town, if you've heard the town in a rap song, it's probably not a good part of town.

Yeah, that's a safe. Yeah, it's a safe, conservative bet that if the song is in a Snoop Dogg.

Yep.

One, you know, one of Tupac.

Ice cube, iced tea.

Probably not iced coffee. Maybe not the best. Right. It was a cry for help.

Yeah, it was a cry for help.

Next one is we did this thing where we had people write their limiting beliefs and different things on wood planks. And then we had the idea to have wood chippers on stage. And the next Day we had everybody come up and throw their wood planks in the wood chippers, which then these wood chippers ended up chewing up the back part of the stage, which cost us a lot of. We did not get our deposit.

No deposit coming back for sure.

Yeah, it made a mess too.

Well, there was also the guy on the stage that actually, like the way that he tore the whole room up with his story that literally everybody, 250 people were all crying about his story. And then he tore up the stage with the wood.

That was great. And then one thing that does happen in Top Dog a lot is people want to go to In N Out Burger when they come to California.

Yeah. They don't want to go see the Hollywood stars. They don't want to go on the tours. They literally say, where's In n Out Burger?

Yeah.

Like we've, we've tried to plan nights for people before and they're like, yeah, can we go to In N Out?

It's also interesting, people's take on In N Out because some people are like, I don't get it. Or some people are like, I love it. It's always interesting.

Yeah.

Might be overhyped, a little scotch, but.

It'S a darn fine burger.

Yeah. But I mean, it's a burger.

Yeah.

There's other good burgers out there. I'm sure that there's going to be better stories this year.

Yeah, there's no doubt.

Especially where we're having it and how people want to get out because of COVID and they, they want to, you know, do something fun, you know, get away from your business for a couple minutes to refocus on your business. There's something really powerful in coming away, going somewhere where other like minded individuals are talking about how, how can we attack the future, how can we increase our profitability, have a better customer experience? How can we recruit better advisors, better techs? What's the future? And one thing I would say too about Top Dog, no vendors. There's no vendors at Top Dog. It's just us. It's, it's built for you. It is not about selling. No vendors are allowed. People offer us, can I sponsor it? We, we've historically always said no because it changes. Then all of a sudden we're, we are in debt.

It's a commercial, right?

Yeah.

It's a weird thing. And I think the two things that. One is the clients are the stars throughout the whole event. Right. And we definitely make a solid effort that everything that we do is for them. There's nothing that's self serving in it or anything like that. It is literally. We want you guys to go back after Top Dog and I think my favorite part as a coach is seeing what happens with the results the two months following Top Dog. It's unbelievable. Always somebody goes back and breaks a record. Always somebody goes back and wins the comp that's never won the comp before. Always somebody pops into the elite group because they just needed that refocus. And this is two years of needing refocusing. So this is long overdue. And I think that everyone's gonna get a ton out of it.

I was just thinking when you were saying that is, you know, we should have Biamonte on the show too. So Biamonte, bless him, is doing a video for us where we're going through some of my books in my library. We're calling it Bulldog library. It's gonna be another YouTube channel. And he was intimately involved in the creation of the goat book for Tashin, the Ali book basically. And so he's going to explain to us some of the process in that. I think it might be cool to have him on here also. He's got great stories about training and mindset. I mean he's trained everybody, like NFL players, NBA players, like from LeBron to Matt Damon. I mean it's crazy who he's trained and the, the understanding of human behavior and.

You know. But I think boxing is one of the hardest sports because it's just you, right?

There's no one to talk about other than that. I also think he'd be great to be in house for filming. The three of us would have a lot of fun together. I think it'd be really entertaining. He's, he's so funny to me but like his, his take on boxing, it's so much more than just the technical aspect of it. He understands the mental part of the game as well and I think that that's why he's such an in demand trainer.

So let's talk next about our guest today, Matt. So Matt owns Mad Muscle Garage in Belle Plains, Minnesota which specializes in classic and muscle cars from parts to full restoration. At the age of 10, Matt started helping restore muscle cars and has never lost that passion. Matt has been doing certified appraisals and pre purchase inspections across the country for the last 15 years. Consignment of high end muscle cars sales classic and muscle cars and has been a shop manager of a high end classic car dealership and restoration shop. Hey Matt, how's it going?

Hey how you guys doing? Stephen, Good.

This is Christian. Christian.

Hello, Matt. How are you? I'm doing fine, thank you very much. Love the background you got going on there.

Yeah, that's a beautiful, beautiful car behind you. So. So everybody knows Matt owns Mad Muscle Garage in Belle Plaine, Minnesota. Did I say Minnesota? Right? Can you do the Minnesota accent?

Minnesota.

It's very close to Canada in the sense.

I think it's its own thing, though. Well, what part of Minnesota is that? Is that Northern?

Just about 40 minutes south of Minneapolis.

Okay, so closer to Iowa then kind of in between.

So our crack team, Matt, is always scouring LinkedIn for interesting, you know, topics or people that have ideas on leadership and business. And, you know, as a shop owner, we. We noticed that you kind of. You had a little insight into maybe we need to change our approach when hiring younger kids coming in. And we saw a post that you hired a high school kid to help them out a little bit, and then the kid was kind of no showing. And so instead of kicking the kid to the road, you thought, why don't I try something a little different? So tell everybody kind of what you tried and what the outcome was.

Yeah, well, of course I was upset. My first emotion was. Was a little upset and frustration, but kind of sat back. I'm like, what's the pros and cons to firing him? Who's it really going to hurt? It's just going to put more of a workload on me and. And what's the issue? You know, what's the issue of not showing up and, you know, trying to find the source of the problem and find a solution that works for both of us? Seem to kind of motivate them a little bit. It's, you know, back in my day, you want to get away with that no call, no show stuff. So, you know, I don't know if there's a sense of entitlement a little bit with the younger generation or not, but, you know, it's. Instead of just taking the easy road, I found something. I know he was into welding. He wanted to be a welder, and that's what he's going to go to school for once he graduates this year. So there's plenty of welding projects around the shop to do. So I'm like, well, why don't you show up? Why don't you show up a little early and show up on time and we'll get you into welding the last 45 minutes of the hour of the day and get you some point time and get your Practice and, you know, to move on to what you eventually want to do as a career.

And it worked, right? So then he started showing up.

It did. It did. You know, now he's. Now he's back to school. So, you know, I only have him a couple days a week, so. But yeah, it really did seem to help him out, you know, and it made me feel better, you know, because. Fire them and find someone else. And it's just more stress and. But if you can try to, you know, figure out the younger generation, figure out a different path. You know, I was taught the hard way where, you know, you got yelled at, you changed your. Changed your way pretty quick, but not every, you know, everyone's different. So it's a kind of a case by case situation. And like I said, there's always an issue to why. Why there's. Why there's a problem. You know, there's something at home. Is it something I'm doing wrong? Is there something I can improve on and, you know, teach you better? You know, nobody wants to come in and say in the car, you know, eight hours a day, that's not fun. But, hey, you got to start at the bottom and work your way to the top and give them a little bit of incentive, you know, to. To do that.

Now, when you. When you propose that and he accepted and started showing up, did you notice any change in your personal relationship with him at all?

No. That's a great question. Absolutely. You know, he was. I. I don't talk much. It's, you know, like, it's kind of work here when you hear me work. And now it kind of opened up a little bit. And every day you're learning more. I'm learning more about him. He's in the trucks. He bought himself a truck, so he wants to start putting suspension, exhaust, you know, the typical stuff as a teenager you want to do and show off. So, you know, learning more about him can help me kind of know more about him and help him kind of go in the right direction and see what, you know, see what kind of, you know, positivity seems to work for him. And going that route is something that works for both of us. No one wants to be negative or be in a negative situation. So it helped us both at the end of the day, you know, gave me a little bit of patience.

Is the kid a natural welder?

He wasn't bad. Absolutely. Absolutely. And he just, you know, we just put him on the mix, you know, on the. On the gun, on the MiG. So it was. Yeah, he didn't do too bad. So if that's what he wants to do, let's keep him practicing. Practice makes perfect. No one's perfect, no matter how long you've been doing this. So get him the basics to move along to the next step in life, you know, when he goes on to college. So he already has those basic tools and kind of can kind of excel from, you know, once he starts moving forward.

Well, your. Your post inspired us here in the office to stop and, you know, just look at ourselves a little bit different. And I think it was. It was a great, you know, experiment into human behavior. And I'm going to apologize in advance for what's about to happen, but it inspired Christian to come up with a list of other ways that he feels like we could inspire younger kids.

Yeah. So, Matt, we're gonna do something. If you're game for this, we're gonna call this the speed round. And what I've come up with, let's kind of pretend that I'm a young 18 year old. Something obviously not hard to imagine because I look 18.

Snowflake. You're an 18 year old snowflake.

It's so crazy. And I've got a list of jobs and I just really want a simple. Matt, just a yes or a no on whether or not you would mentor me in order to entice me to come to work regularly and on time.

So building off of the welding thing.

Yes. I feel like there may be willing to mentor.

Okay.

Right. Let me know when you're ready, Matt.

Oh, let's do it.

Just a simple yes or no will be fine, sir.

Let's do it.

And basket weaving.

No.

Glassblowing.

We could learn together. I'd love to learn that. That's a old school trade. I'd try that.

Rock collecting?

No.

Synchronized swimming?

No, definitely not.

Jackhammer operator.

Never done it, but I try that. Let's do it.

Fashion consultant?

No, no, sir.

Radio announcer.

That'd be fun. Sure.

Yeah.

This next one's my slam dunk. Yes on this. I'm guessing race car driver.

Let's go. Buckle up and drive, boys.

See, he doesn't know what a bad driver you are. Earlier today, I was explaining how at a meeting we were at in Kentucky, one of the technician or one of the managers, Service managers, Had had a little too much to drink, so he asked Christian to drive us in his truck to the hotel. And Christian, literally Dukes of Hazzard jumped the median. Here you don't have roundels, but they do there. And so he jumped it with the guy's truck. So I wouldn't let Christian race a car.

A roundabout is a waste of time.

You prove that.

At least he had a truck.

That's. That's exactly right. All right, so we got. Race car driver was a big. Yes. Jeweler, sure. Yeah. Jeweler, like the diamond makers. And you know that you make rings and necklaces and stuff like that. Brewmaster?

Sure. Yes.

Novelist?

No.

Food critic?

No.

Web designer?

No.

Dump truck driver.

What was that last one?

Dump truck driver?

Sure.

About 50%. I feel like you really got some doors opening.

Feel like there's a pattern of the stuff that Matt's willing to do, though.

And thank you to the team for the help in coming up with some. You should have heard us last night, Matt coming up with different jobs. This is probably the. This is the G list, but there are some really good suggestions that maybe off camera you'll think are really funny.

So we appreciate what you do, Matt. Keep posting. We love it. Is there any. Anything we can do for you wrapping this up? Any questions or anything that we can help you with?

Notice, you know, just everyone take a second. You know, you know, when something. Something negative happens, take a deep breath, get your emotions out of the situation and kind of analyze what positivity can come from the situation and handle everyone differently and try something different. Everyone works differently, especially younger generation. And try it. If it doesn't work well, try. Got option number two still.

So that's great advice and very, very inspiring and positive. We love it. Thank you so much.

Right. Appreciate it, guys. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Fun. See you later.

Bye. Thanks so much for watching this episode of Service Job Revolution. We're uploading new stuff every day, so make sure you subscribe and click the bell icon so you don't miss out. If you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show, call 8333 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 that's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video.

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