Holding Your Staff Accountable

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Welcome everybody to the big show. This is your Friday drive by where we answer your questions. I'm Chris Collins and this is Christian.

Hello everyone.

The number is 8333 Ask SDR. 8333 Ask SDR. If you have a question, we will be happy to answer it.

Have you seen the cool new swag or no?

I didn't even know we had new swag. Did we get parts hold swag? No, we should get parts hold swag.

I think parts hold swag. Probably the most requested parts hold T shirt. Yeah.

That I can cut the sleeves off of and I'll wear it to the gym.

Okay. I've got, I've got exactly three parts old T shirts. I had four. I actually gave one of the one of a kind parts hole T shirts away.

Let's order a bunch. What's holding us back?

I like the idea of the cut off not tank top, let's cut the sleeves off.

Yeah, it's good stuff. I have this pair of scissors right next to my dresser.

See how special?

Yeah. They're like the sleeve shears. Yeah. Let's do the question for today.

I'm just wondering your take on holding your staff accountable. If you think that if you've got staff who's underperforming or not kind of, you know, up to snuff. If you think it's better to kind of prune the tree and you know, take that like just replace those members, maybe scale back the schedule and kind of shrink to grow. Or if you think it's better to kind of like make changes almost like hockey line changes like in game. Like you just kind of put up with some sort of shortcomings until you find better replacements and kind of change on the fly. Thanks a lot, man.

I think the important thing to do here is to ask ourselves how we got in this situation because we're treating a symptom, not a cause. And so my question, like, so a manager will come up to me and you'll say, hey, curious. That's how they say it. Hey, Chris.

Oh yeah. What do you think that is? Is that. Is that two S's? Because it, it sounds dragged out a bit. Careers.

I don't know. I never thought about that.

Yeah, I think it's too.

But this hate Crius. What do you do if your advisors won't do walk arounds and then I.

Say, do you want me to say what you would say?

Yeah, well, who's in charge? Oh, I. I thought I would say when did it become Negotiable.

Oh, you say that too.

I have a saying around the, around the house that I say all the time. And it is don't negotiate with the bulldog.

That's right.

I have four bulldogs, by the way. And whenever we get new, a new person, a new assistant or help or whatever, and then.

The dogs are smarter than the person or more stubborn than.

The person I think is at least more stubborn. Yeah.

And then there's this awkward thing that happens where they're negotiating with a dog.

Yeah.

And then I, I'm like, you're losing to a dog.

Yeah, no, I'm.

That makes them feel really good.

I'm not saying that service advisors are dogs. That's not my point. My point is when did it become negotiable? So we gotta, we gotta think about that. Chris. Chris, what do I do when my service advisors won't do walk arounds? And then I say, when did it become negotiable?

Because it ends up in an environment like if, if there was an. If there was a story around the campfire about an advisor that did into a walk around and disappeared and nobody's.

Ever seen him again, it would live beyond.

You people most likely are not going to take a chance. But if everybody's just doing whatever they want, then everybody's gonna do whatever they want.

I think that it would be great if he. Somebody got fired and then on their drive home they picked up a hitchhiker and it was a serial killer. Like, let's stretch that thing out a little bit.

Just.

Yeah, let it go.

I like that. So that's what I would say, Seth, is where you're. You're asking us to give you advice on a symptom, but the cause is when. When did, when did anything become negotiable? So when did it become negotiable to answer the phone or talk to customers the right way or get up, you know, whatever it is. Right. So that's negotiable and there aren't consequences and you're not willing to, to draw a line. Then you find yourself in a situation where they're running the asylum. Basically.

Yeah.

Figure out a politically correct way to say that. And I couldn't. I got a.

That's pretty, that's pretty close. I don't think anyone. We might only get two or three bad comments on that, but that was pretty good. I've got a couple of thoughts. One is I would want to make sure that I set really clear expectations with my team of what the performance was supposed to be. Way too often I'll go into a store, the coaches go into a store. And the inmates are running the asylum because there's no rule book. So I think first you have to make sure that there's a rule book and a set of expectations. And if you're in a position where the inmates are running the asylum, my next thing always comes into play is always be hiring. You don't get in the situation where you have people working for you not doing what you want them to do if you have five other people that want to come work for you. So it's managing from a position of power, not a position of weakness. And a position of weakness means that you believe that you can't find advisors, you can't find technicians. And that way we just let them do whatever they want to do. So you have to choose how you want to be a leader. And then if you're always hiring. And then the other funny thing is, is that you can have somebody that's never held people accountable in their entire career. How many people do they have to hold accountable for? Everybody. To get the message they only like exactly one person. And then the legend grows. So that's kind of saying exactly what you said. But it's never as hard as you think it is to get the power.

Just said it without the accent, basically.

Yeah. So it was translating for everyone else.

So the. The thing too, Seth, that. That I do. And there's a. There is a thought that, like, if more people quit on you than you have to fire, you're probably doing this the right way. And what I do is I. Before I fire, I get in real close. And so let's say, for example, somebody isn't doing a walk around just for a loose. A loose analogy, right? So I would say, like, hey.

Joe, why do you think we do walk arounds? You know? And we would have that conversation and say, well, okay, good. That's not really why, but this is why.

Because they're gonna get it wrong.

Yeah, probably. And then I would say that. And it's, you know, it's important. And I'm trying to create some consistency. And not only do I want you to do a walk around, I want you to do it with some enthusiasm. And I want. I want it to have an effect. I want you to make friends with the customer. And so I explain why and the outcome. Then I ask them to kind of repeat it back to me, like, what did you understand about that? And they'll get that wrong. And then you gotta do that a couple Times say, okay, well, what, what would you. What would you predict my feelings would be if I saw you not do a walk around?

Would you. Would you understand that my feelings would be very hurt then I would, I would say, tom, you really hurt my feelings. And then I was stand out there.

Next to Tom.

Until your feelings weren't hurt anymore.

No, my feelings are still very hurt. But I would stand out there. Like I said, I get in close. I would stand out there. And so this is physically close. Yeah, I might even. If he didn't do a walk around, I might even do it for him. I don't know. And then. Then that's going to irritate Tom.

Yeah.

And then Tom is going to. Either Tom's head is going to explode or Tom's going to start doing walk arounds. And then should Tom not start doing walk arounds, then I'll make the decision for Tom. But usually me standing there, me, like constantly watching.

Is going to. It's going to either change the behavior or the person is just going to go, hey, I can't do this. Yeah, I can't work under this pressure, the. This environment. The other thing too, Seth, is always fire on your time. Like, if you need to make a change, do the change. When you. When you h. Don't ever do it out of emotions. Do it when you have a backup plan.

That's right.

So like Christian was saying, like, always be hiring, you know, get somebody lined up, but don't do it out of. Unless the person's just a complete. Or doing something unethical or something. Yeah.

Like very detrimental to the company in general. That makes sense.

So just to kind of recap, how did we get in this situation? Let's. Let's avoid. Let's not let bad behavior be negotiable. Let's attack it right out of the gate. Let's make an example and then let's push into the people and try to change their behavior. And either they're going to quit or they're going to go away. One of the two. But it's not negotiable. Good stuff.

It's like my grandpappy used to say, life is like a box of chocolates. Neither lasts very long around fat people.

There you go, a little wisdom. So thanks for the call, Seth, and enjoy your new Service. Drive Revolution swag. Remember the numbers 8333. Ask SDR was a great question. And we'll see you next time on Service Driver Revolution.

Thanks for watching this week's drive By. I hope we gave you something to.

Think about over the weekend.

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