How Much Do Service Advisors Make? | SDR #204

Welcome, everybody, to the big show. Today we're going to talk about what should service advisors make. And it's going to be surprising. It's going to be different than what you think. We're also going to go through the news. There's some interesting stuff in the news. And we're going to talk about Christian's recent service visit with his girlfriend's Toyota and a couple other things. I'm Chris Collins, and this is Chris Joan.

Hello, everyone.

Lafferty. Because genetically, he has been programmed to make you laugh for generations, I've got.

The most appropriate last name on the planet, I believe.

So join us on this episode of Service Drive Revolution.

Okay, before we get to the topic of what service advisors should make, there's a couple things we should update everybody on. First thing being that the air conditioning in the building is fixed. Costs way more than we thought it would like Way, way more. And it took longer. But now, you know, we. We have the proper air conditioning to have a meeting where people don't fall asleep from the heat exhaustion.

That's right. Hypothermia, yes. Falling asleep from heat exhaustion. No.

And then.

You mentioned a few weeks ago about an experience you had at a service department.

Girlfriend'S Toyota.

Yep.

That she puts a lot of miles on the Toyota. And then you went somewhere here locally to a client's. Yep. And it was a. It was a better experience. But the original Toyota dealership that the issue happened reached out to you.

I received a letter from the president and GM of the dealership.

Like an actual handwritten letter.

It was an email. Handwritten letter would have been pretty impressive, too. But the.

I like that you. You're so technologically advanced that you refer to an email as well.

It's so fun for everybody out there that maybe is new to the show. If you want. If you want a website, a computer program, anything to not work and crash, give Christian access.

It's a terrible idea.

Wasn't there something that happened the other day where all the electronics stopped working in the building?

And I think you just looked and said, what did.

Yeah, it did. We were like, where was Christian?

Okay, so you got to give an alibi.

You got a. An electronic letter.

Yes, I received an electronic communication from.

Does not require a stamp.

No, there was no stamp. I don't believe it was pretty instantaneous, but I thought it was really, really impressive. He apologized for the experience and said, you know, we're aware that there's some things that we're working on and the customer experience is really, really important to us in service. And I thought that was really cool that he reached out.

There's your reply to him.

So I gave him a couple of bits of advice, the unsolicited advice.

I talked a little bit life advice or business advice.

Way more about the tech. Yeah, tech advice is really good. Just about how to, how to run the dms. Right. But.

I gave him a couple of suggestions about that Purgatory line that I talked about where you just kind of sit there from the time you get greeted to the time that you actually get helped out. At the end of the day, I think there's a really, really big fix. But what I told him is that if everybody cared about the customer experience like he does, they'll be fine. They'll get it all figured out at the end of the day.

What's interesting to me is in a lot of these scenarios.

We'Re trying to create systems to fix the problem and the fix is more techs.

Yeah, he needs more throughput, more capacity.

Like when you're as big as they are, you, you know, you have to be creative with the schedules, but you have to just have more available time to sell.

Yeah, I don't think they can have enough staff on Saturdays because it doesn't.

Match their culture and what they built that on. Not to just allow drive ins. It's just. And it's kind of the Toyota thing too, where if you want an oil change, you just kind of drive in. So I do think there's a lesson for everybody here, and I said this.

To a lot of people. Cause it's one of those things where I connected some dots when.

I was running Crevia. So we were number one in the country in sales. This Toyota store you're referencing has historically been number one for like a zillion years. Fletcher Jones Mercedes is number one. And there's kind of this culture that you, you start to see in commonalities between the top selling dealerships is that there's this overwhelming concern for the customer, the opinion of the customer. And so I remember being a general manager and this is how long ago it was, was blogs were kind of a new thing. But people were posting on blogs how to get over on us with policy. Like if you just go in and complain and if you ask for the owner, they'll give it to you. And you know, people were saying like how to, how to get over on us. And I remember I walked into a manager's meeting and you know, you could tell like something was up. Like. And one of the managers, who was kind of the union leader in that sense had had them. But he starts the whole thing off. You know.

We got a huge problem. Like, he's dramatizing it, like, you know, and I'm. I'm like, okay, well, what is it? Kind of a thing? And, oh, people are getting over on us and it. You know, we need to stand up for our. And this and that and whatever. And I was like.

You know, okay. At the end of the day, we made this ungodly amount of money last month and every month, and we. Our policy was like, less than 1%.

Yes. Super low. That's great.

Like. Like an ungodly. Like, we're talking about, you know, seven figures plus, plus, like.

It didn't matter. And so if, you know, it's more important not to be right and win in the end. Right.

Well, yeah, that's what I'm thinking, is that there's so much. There's so many worse things than being known as the people in the marketplace that'll just do anything for the customer. Yeah, that's a great. That's a great way to be known.

Right. Because your. Your competition isn't known for that. Right. You know, and so that's a tribute to them and kind of a cool. And to that story. Now will you go back there? Do you have a connection now where you'll give it another try? Are you too embarrassed?

I'm not embarrassed.

You should be embarrassed.

Why?

I don't know.

Oh, okay. I'm imposing. I'm not embarrassed. I don't feel embarrassed. The other Toyota store that I went to made it really easy, but I.

Do think a few blocks away from here.

Yeah. So it's definitely more of like, I discovered a convenience thing. Even, you know, even me going back there as many times as I did, like, I was traveling out of my way to go because I have that sense of loyalty to where I bought the car from. I don't know if everyone's like that, but it's just. Yeah. So that's. It's definitely how I am. And just in. I was a hard no a week ago, but when. When somebody says that we care and we're trying to make stuff better, then I melt. So I probably will give it another shot.

Cool. That'll. That'll be interesting to see how that. How that goes. The other exciting thing that's kind of happening here on our front is we had our first boot camp. So boot camp is when somebody joins our coaching group, you know, about a month into it you come in person and we spend a day and a half kind of creating a plan, going through pricing strategies, how to approach the financials, hiring techs. Like, we kind of go through all that and.

We had been having them sort of virtually. You did a couple in person, but we're gonna go back to doing them in person because they're way more effective.

It's so the right thing to do.

And so we had our first one here in our new building while construction's going on. But we did kind of get our conference room to the point where we could, we could do it. And man, the feedback was great. Everybody, you know, loved what you did with them and I got so many compliments on that. We took them out to dinner with the in between night when they, when they were here, which was really fun, hanging out and talking in a pretty, you know, medium sized group. But that'll get bigger as we go. But it was good. Yeah.

And I think just a testament to how many awesome people there are in our industry.

Oh yeah.

Like, they're just. It was so easy to hang out with them and great conversations and like, the thing that I love is it, you know, it's a blend. So you got general managers, you got parts managers, you got service managers, and a boot camp. And it's interesting to see like the introverts, you know, mingling with the extroverts. And like everyone kind of came out of their show a little bit and it was just so fun. And the dinner was a highlight for me because it's so great to get people into a little bit of a social setting. And I think service managers in general don't get to do stuff like that very often. So the boot camp was a success.

Stories were great. The guys from Mississippi talking about how they fish.

Noodling is what that's called.

And so explain everybody what noodling is.

So essentially noodling is where you'll be in a river and you don't have a fishing pole or anything like that. You use your fist and. And there's these little holes that what.

They do is they take iron bathtubs out of old buildings and cut the top off. So the fish nest in there, oh, that's really advanced. And they, they, they put a glove on and they stick their hand in there. Then the fish bites their hand over the glove, they flip it upside down. And he showed me a picture. That thing looked like it was at least 75.

Yeah, these are, these are huge.

And they say they're good, they taste good. Which they do not look like they would taste good.

Yeah, they're ugly fish for sure.

But the taste doesn't go hand in hand with the fish being ugly. But they're ugly.

Grouper's ugly and it tastes great.

Wow. It's no halibut.

Next week on Surface Drive Revolution, we rate the sexiest fish.

What's the fish in Tampa that was on the menu all the time?

That's grouper.

Yeah, it's okay. But what they. What do they do to grouper to kind of make it edible? It's blackened and fried.

Oh, yeah.

You can just have a piece of halibut with some salt and pepper.

Okay.

I like. Do you not agree.

To me, grouper.

Tastes so light and fluffy and I don't care how it's prepared, it's good to me. But the.

When we were there, super, super fun listening to that. Those stories.

Yeah, they were just cool. For sure.

Yeah, it was great. So we. We are open for business in. Back in downtown Los Angeles. That's the funny thing too, is when people come from down to Los Angeles.

What it's got to be like to come from Mississippi or North Dakota to downtown la.

Welcome to where the.

How do you say that? There's. The monkeys have the key to the zoo or the inmates are running the asylum.

Yeah, one of the two.

The inmates are running the asylum here. But, you know, they have a surplus of our tax dollars. They're just not. They're not allocating it correctly.

There's definitely some information.

I saw a thing and I don't know, sometimes you can't take these. These stories for face value because.

People on both ends of it are trying to, you know, sell a narrative. But that. That guy that shot at the cops the other day got released on bail.

Really?

Yeah.

Wow.

How can you. I mean, I don't know. I just. I guess I grew up in a different time than I would figure. If you shot at cops, you probably. If they caught you, like, if. If they caught you, that's not a different time. Going to Sunday dinner at the families for a while.

Usually if you shoot at the cops, they shoot you back. Interesting.

No, but they let him out on bail, I guess.

How about that?

That's what I read. But I don't. You know, I don't know. There's probably another side to that story, I would hope.

You know, it just makes me feel like we gotta be. We gotta be prepared. We gotta be ready to defend ourselves. And a part of that's gonna be like exercising. Right? So I'm thinking about doing, starting to do a lot of lunges. It's a big step forward.

Prepare yourself for all out civil war.

With lunges.

With lunges.

Yes, sir.

Yeah, I think I'm gonna try to arm myself a little better than that.

You don't think that my bulbous thighs will not look.

What are you gonna do? Like, everybody hold on. Watch this.

Watch my technique.

That's funny.

Tony Stark has announced that Tesla will be implementing the spirit of F1 into their service centers.

You mean Elon Musk?

Tony Stark. This is also a strategy that Tony used to commandeer a certain Google executive's wife. He's a mover and a shaker. Tony.

10 kids, almost as many as you. Everybody pay attention. You didn't deny it.

So for the very first time in our industry, we're going to have multiple techs working on the same car to get simple tasks done.

We've never, we've never seen that before.

You've never tried that?

I think Tesla's just kind of, they're still functioning in a different model where they don't see their service department as a service department in that sense. But I mean we've had tons of manufacturers that force the quick lube and then they want you to take the least productive techs that are running at 50% efficient to begin with and make them worse and put two of them to a stall.

Do the math on that, everybody.

So let's say, what are those kids? Let's say they're making 20 bucks an hour and they're running at 50% efficient for a team.

So it's really a cost of 40 bucks an hour. Right.

Times two. So they want, for oil changes, they want you to have a cost of $80 an hour to shave three minutes off of an oil change which if you ever stand there, it's like you draining, like when they're draining the oil. Unless you have a pit, it doesn't matter.

Yeah. Seven people just said oh no.

Like nobody ever does the math.

Funny when you do like the math makes sense.

Yeah, it's tough. It's hard enough to get a quick lube. Efficient. You don't, you don't have to shoot.

Yourself in the face at any rate. So. So yeah, so that's what, that's what.

People with Tesla is wanting is the, the vegetarian moms and the Lululemons going slow in the fast lane. I'm a huge hurry to go anywhere in their Tesla. Yeah, they, they want to pull up to an F1 pit crew.

They Want to have people coming around him, the guns blazing, get their tires.

Changed to save them two minutes from what? Like big O tire or whatever.

Well, that's the funny thing is that when you think about Tesla, just in general, it's genius, that part of it. But like, there's nothing profound. They're like, well, we're going to get two thirds of our cars done in the same day. Well, think about what needs to be done on a Tesla, not.

So you had a Tesla for how long?

Two and a half years.

And how many things broke on it?

None. I had one little.

Put tires on it.

Never. They were 6, 30 seconds when I turned them in.

And speak that weird math.

I'm sorry. They were good when I turned them in.

Yeah. What were you gonna say? What broke?

I had a little weird intermittent problem where the passenger side mirror wouldn't always fold out when I started driving. Well, that's weird, but it was intermittent. I'm like, take it in.

No, no. Okay, so I don't know, what if.

We'Ve had a Tesla? So you guys have gotta be going on two years. Beyonce has a Tesla. It's definitely a year.

Yeah.

And so she has that plaid S. Tesla. Let me tell you guys something about Teslas. And maybe Elon Stark, or Elon Stark, Tony Musk is the richest man in the world, but also maybe, maybe he has godlike powers. Very possibly because this happened the other day on that Tesla. They. She was going to Disneyland on Sunday with her sister, and they were like, hey, do you have any chargers for phones that we can take with us? Because they're going to be in Disneyland and their phones will die. Right. Because they're going to be there all day. And the way they do Disneyland is they get there right when it opens, and then they don't leave until they shut the door. So.

So I have one of those Apple chargers that hooks onto the back of the phone, like magnetically. I forget what they're called, but they're made by Apple. And it gives you basically two charges on it.

Nice.

Right? So I had that, but it wasn't charged. And so I said, you know, this thing's at 50%. It'll give you one charge, but maybe charge it on your way down there. Now, the Tesla, I don't know if yours had this, but it has the wireless chargers in the center console.

Oh, no, mine didn't have wireless.

You just, you know, it's like a pad, and you set it on the pad. So they. They set this Apple battery on the pad. And it, it short circuited and knocked it out. And so it didn't. The chargers didn't work.

Like a blown fuse, basically.

Something. But here's, here's the thing about a Tesla. They heal themselves.

Yeah.

So I'm talking to her on the phone and she said, oh, this happened. I go, well, you're going to have to take it in for service. They're gonna have to fix it. We blew it up. Like, you probably shouldn't put that there. You should have charged it with the USB or whatever. Next day they work.

I'm so confused.

Yeah. Teslas have healing power. You don't even have to take them in for service.

That's impressive.

So even the one. The one thing that I was kind of excited to hear about how it would go, like, and I was even thinking about asking Steve because he knows the service manager at the Tesla. So I was thinking, like, it might be fun to do it without the introduction or the introduction. I don't know. And just to see what it's like. Like, what is the service department like. And we can't even get the thing to break to take it in for service.

Right.

I'm pretty sure that thing's gonna need tires, though. But I don't know if I would take it to Tesla for tires.

Yeah, but I, But I don't think. I don't think that Missy drives it really aggressively where she's burning them up either.

Oh, yeah. You.

Is she worse than me?

Nobody's worse than you.

Yeah, that's not, that's not even fair.

Right. But would. Would she drive enough that the tires would need replaced? Yeah, they're. And they're, they're, you know, low profile run flats. Like I'm sure those things are.

They're all the way in.

What do you. What do you think those tires cost? Two grand?

Yeah. 500 apiece. And that's reasonable.

Same as a BMW. Really.

So kind of. Speaking of, kind of like this electric thing and making everybody happy, the Volkswagen CEO is stepping down. The guy that took over after the whole diesel gate and everything like that.

Herbert Dice Dies kind of had Volkswagen on the cutting edge of, you know, because isn't Volkswagen the number one manufacturer worldwide in the world?

That's in the world with all their. Their umbrella.

What about if you add in the other planets in the solar system, Are they still number one?

Well, there's a. There's a really solid car company in Jupiter, but not the same. Their quality is not really as good as it used to be.

So he made this commitment that they were going to. Half of their inventory was going to be electric. Electric at the forefront. Because a lot of people don't understand that really what's driving this, this push for electric is that China has said by 2026, you can't sell anything but electric. Which is why Tesla has a factory over there and why, you know, the CEO of BMW stepped aside a little while ago because he's like, I messed this up. Because they didn't have really an answer for that. This guy from Volkswagen was at the forefront. He had Volkswagen positioned to flip the model for the future. And what happens?

So he. There's a couple of different conflicting stories. I'm going to go with one that makes the most sense. So apparently he ticked off the union and he wanted to cut jobs. He wanted to cut jobs.

Electric cars take less people. So he thought. How many jobs did he want to cut?

I don't remember the exact number.

30,000 or something.

Yeah, it's a big number.

And in Germany, the unions have what.

They have spaces on the board, Seats.

Yes, on the board. And so they voted him out.

That's right.

That's crazy. Do you think that the unions have seats on GM and Ford here?

I don't think so. If so, I've never heard of things.

Before that the unions can put their, their agenda ahead of the consumer and international, you know, positioning of a company.

Yeah, well, I mean, it's a. To me, it's actually kind of a cool check and balance. I like it. You know, just make sure that, that everybody's, everybody's getting along. You have no choice, otherwise you get ousted. So. Oh, that reminds me. What is a. What is a sheep's favorite car?

A Lamborghini.

Which I'm pretty sure is a VW brand.

Yeah, right.

Yep.

Yeah.

Came full circle.

Are they still.

Their favorite car even though they replaced their CEO?

Yeah, I think so.

Okay. Anything else in the news? What do you think?

You want to do one more story? I've got more.

Sure.

All right. And this isn't really necessarily. We're not going to deep dive into this thing, but.

Oh yeah, we are.

45 minute segment, but this is really just kind of a more of a mention because I wanted to chat with you about it. So Corvette going electric. So they've spotted. Yeah, so it's been spotted out there.

And I think what if it's fast?

I'm sure it is. I think that the. I don't know.

I really, I really like that new Corvette.

I do too.

I kind of Feel like you almost want to buy that. Like right now. Buy that Zo. What is it?

Z06.

And just put that thing in a garage. Because that's kind of the end of American muscle, right?

That's right. And I would do it in that blue color. I love it.

Oh, yeah. That blue is so cool with the stripe.

Yeah. I could with or without, but I think the stripes.

Sometimes I go onto the Chevy website and configure.

The Corvette. A lot of times the thing crashes on me.

Oh, really?

Yeah, because, like, if I put a fin on, but it can't. You can't do that with this set of wheels or whatever. And then it.

You just make it mad.

Yeah. But it's fun.

I. I definitely think that you can.

Get that thing up to costing 160 grand pretty quick.

Really expensive. The. I think I built it a few times and I had everything I wanted on it for like 85.

Yeah. You can do real good for. For 85.

I don't think it didn't.

Convertible. Yeah.

It didn't feel chintzy, but I don't know. I think that that's a heck of a lot of car for that money.

Good stuff. Okay, now you're ready to talk about what service advisors should make. So let's. Let's talk about why. Why we're bringing this up. One is we get the question quite a bit, and we'll see in comments, advisors wanting to know if where they're at is the right place pay plan wise. Like, how should I be paid? It's interesting when advisors ask that because there's so many variables to the brand, the market, the opportunity. Because a lot of times the thing that advisors don't take into consideration is you might be making less of a percentage and working for a dealership that sells twice as much volume.

And so sometimes working for a dealership where you have more opportunities because the sales department's really healthy and they sell a lot of new and used cars is.

More important than having a higher percentage on your pay plan. So it is, you know, and then the brand. Right. It's different if you're talking about Hyundai versus Mercedes or whatever it is. So there's so many variables there. It's kind of like talking about best quarterback ever. Whatever. It's like.

Yeah, you can find. You can find justification either way. That just. That does remind me, though, is that how many times would an advisor on an interview ask about the sales department? I bet that never happens, but I've.

Never had it happen.

Yeah.

And I'VE interviewed a few advisors. Then the other thing is we get this all the time and we answered it on a drive by what should the advisors make? Because a percentage of what's going on. Right?

Yep.

And then a lot of. A lot of guys have gone to 20 groups and then in the 20 group, the other guys are paying on gross. So they come back and they go, we got to pay our advisors on gross. Which is code for we got to confuse our advisors. So they don't know how they're getting paid.

That's right. Yeah. They don't, they don't understand and have very minimal to do with Gross.

This happened not that long ago. I was having this conversation and so I'm on a zoom with the guy and I'm like, well, you're just confusing them. They don't know what gross is. And the guy goes, oh, no, my advisors know what gross is. And there was an advisor in his office. I go, call that guy over here. And I go, what's the formula for Gross? Are you Chris Collins? I'm like, yeah, no, tell me what the formula.

Either they say no, yeah. Either they say they don't know or they give you something that's completely wrong.

But they certainly know if they're selling something and they certainly know if they're discounting the top of what they're selling. Right, Right. So paying on the sale sales number is usually better. So let's talk about what, what service advisors should make. Now the first thing that we could say is service advisors should make what they're worth.

Yes. That's been your standby for a long time.

What do I mean by that?

That. That if you work really, really hard and you are in the right spot with the right brand and the right pay plan, that you'll make exactly what you're worth.

Yes. It also means it isn't. If you approach this without entitlement and you see it as you're earning the money and the value that you bring to the table, the effort you bring to the table is going to reciprocate eventually. Then it puts it on the advisor to perform versus be entitled. And a lot of times people jump around or they're entitled and they don't. They don't think of it as their responsibility.

So yeah, like they're receiving the money as opposed to earning it. Yeah. Okay, I like that.

And establishing themselves like as. As something valuable. Right. So here's some things that I want you to take into consideration. If you're an advisor.

Wondering if you're if you're paid fairly or, you know.

However you want to ask yourself the question.

The good advisors out there are customer collectors, not salespeople. Customers trust and like them, and they come back, they look at every opportunity as a way to connect and make a friend. Become the trusted advisor in that person's life. As it pertains to the automotive business, the good advisors influence their. The customer's purchase of the next car. They influence them keeping the car, they influence them maintaining the car because they're trusted, they're there for them, and they're consistent in their.

Delivery of services to the customer. So the good advisors have a portfolio of customers that are going to follow them most of the time. That is achieved by staying in one place for a long time. But I have hired advisors.

And customers follow them to a different brand.

Yeah, like, they'll even. They'll take their off brand to that advisor. And then when the trade cycle's up, then they just buy whatever brand they work at.

So, you know, look in the mirror and ask yourself this question. If I left, how many of my customers of my customers would follow me to another brand?

And think about it. So if you're an advisor writing 12 or 15 a day, you're touching hundreds of customers a month, and only 10 of them would follow you.

Pretty bad. Some of you. One wouldn't follow you.

Yeah.

Some of you, your. Your own mom.

Doesn'T even support the dealership or brand you work at. Right. Like, it's a. So think about that. Like that's a big deal. Like you're, you're, you're interacting with them. You have their second highest valuable asset, which is usually the car. Right. They got the house and then the car. They have a relationship with it. They spend time in it. Cars, for the most part in today's society are an extension of somebody's.

Identity, for sure.

We just talked about that on the parts podcast the other day about accessories.

Parts hold.

Parts hold.

So excited about parts hold. Yeah.

That was one of the big ahas, is that you have to understand that the car is definitely. I think it's getting more personalized than ever and the things you can do to cars right now. Yeah.

How many people do you think out there, if we had them just hang out with you for 15 minutes, get to know Christian and then I want you to write on a piece of paper what kind of car you think he drives. How many people do you think would get that? Right?

Not very many.

No, probably not.

You're an anomaly.

Yeah, I have My what drives my car Buying is very interesting.

Next thing, technicians would follow you anywhere through fire. If you're a good advisor. Yes, the good advisors that are well compensated, that bring a lot to the table. Technicians follow them.

You're the advisor that the techs want to call the customer to sell the thing. You're the ones that are consistent. You're the one that goes back and tells the tech what happened, that hey, they're going to do it next time or whatever it is. But you don't just leave them in the dark. Right. You see the technicians as partners and you take care of them. You cover them, they cover you. But you know you're doing the right thing as it pertains to the technicians having an opportunity to have good descriptions, to count on you to call and do what you say you're going to do and set them up for success. And so if you were going to leave just like the customers, the technicians would be like, hey, where are you going?

They just pack up when you leave.

What's a question we ask when we're interviewing advisors? How many texts are going to follow you and the advisor? Like, oh, two. I'm already talking to them. Here's their number. Call them.

That's an advisor that's worth a lot. They're worth more because they're bringing customers and they're bringing texts. And to the point. And this one was when we were going through making this list. This was Christian's is. The good advisors look at it as their own business inside of a business.

Yeah.

It's their customer base, it's their team of technicians. They, they are looking at it as an opportunity inside of an opportunity.

Yeah. You can, you can even hear it in their verbiage. Like anytime they're talking to their coworkers or their bosses or the text, they're like, they always say my customer. Like they own it. They have the strongest ownership and they can tell you anything about their customer because they're, they've been collecting them for years.

Yeah. And so the best advisors that are worth a lot, they are customer collectors. They take care of technicians and they follow up that you know, they have a passion for, for customers are working a lot of hours, they put in a lot of work. And then the last thing I would say is what should an advisor make is directly correlated to the service advisors value of themselves.

And let me explain. When I was a service advisor and in the first dealership that I, that I worked at, there were eight advisors.

I believe that customers should pay more to get me as an advisor compared to everybody else. I did not need to discount. I did not need to give things away. Because what I brought to the table was the customers were going to get told the truth. And by telling the truth, sometimes it's not easy. But if there was something wrong and I could prevent a breakdown, I could prevent an unforeseen surprise. Even if it was hard to tell them, even if they were just in. I was going to tell them what was really going on. I was going to follow up and call him. I was going to do what I said. I, you know, there was a value to me helping those customers. I thought, literally when I was an advisor, this is how delusional I am. I thought I could have had my own labor rates that were higher than everybody else because I got pissed one day when a customer was shopping me on a van again for a clutch against an independent downtown Seattle, when we were at like, $85. That independent was in 1:25.

They were going to pay $125 an hour for a clutch somewhere else.

I was worth 100. I was worth more than that. Independent to me, in my head.

Right.

I could not believe they were quoting the same time out of Mitchell. They were buying the part from us and marking it up. Like, I believed in, in my heart that I was worth more than that. So discounting. No, like you were.

You were.

You were getting something different. If I was your service advisor, and if that's your thought process, you're collecting customers, you're taking care of technicians. Technicians believe in you, want to work with you, and you have a specific value of yourself that's higher than everybody else. You wouldn't be asking this question.

Oh, yeah, that's a good point.

Because you're very valuable in the marketplace. You can almost name your price, and.

Anyone would hire you.

Yeah.

And they'd be crazy not to.

I mean, just think about it. In today's market, you're like, hey, this is how much I write. This is my customer base. I don't know how many are gonna follow me, but I do know that three technicians will come, and you'll never have to worry about me. I follow up with my customers, I'll have great csi, and I'll be the kind of service advisor that you'll have your family members come to.

Oh, that's a really good line.

When you're a good advisor, the owner, the general manager, everybody wants to send their friends to you because they know they're gonna. I mean, this. This seems ridiculous, but it's true. They're gonna get called back. They're, they're going to, they're gonna like us because we're gonna make friends. You know, that's right. We're gonna, we're gonna treat them a little not better than we treat other customers, just better than they would get treated by a different advisor who wouldn't follow up, call them back, all that. So back to the kind of. The original point is you're, you're worth what you're worth. Yeah. You create your own value.

Well, there's a, I think there's a huge variance too. And when you know your own value, you are picky about your pay plan for sure. Like, that's another thing that you have to be asking during that interview because I'd want to see it.

I made, I gotta tell you though, I made a huge mistake on a pay plan, taking a job. So I was in one place for, for years, and then I went to another dealership which was arguably more high end. It was Cadillac, which was great. They presented me with the PayPal. I looked at it, I looked at the percentage and, you know, whatever. And I didn't understand that the way that that pay plan worked is that it was cost, it was averaged.

Yeah. It was the communism pay plan.

Yeah. So I got my first paycheck and I was like, this wasn't what I had calculated. And it ended up they were taking the, they were pooling the money, cutting it by the four advisors and then. And.

Guess how long that lasted.

Three months. Pretty close. I'll, I'll never understand how you didn't punch the guy that said, I hope you work here a long time because you make me a lot of money.

I was in shock, bro. I, I didn't, you know, you take a new job, you're trying to do the right thing, you're learning. It was a different dms, like different text, different brand. You know, you're, there's so many things you're trying to figure out and then when the pay plan, it's just part of it.

There's a lot of advisors out there making a really good living for themselves.

So now if you're a service manager, I hope this inspires you to think about the way you recruit and who you're going after. Because at the end of the day, what is an advisor that brings tax that you don't have to worry about. That just takes care of customers worth.

A bunch of money. Yeah, they're worth a pay them all the money is what I say, yeah.

They'Ll, they'll get you more in effective labor so you can pay them more and they don't need to discount. They don't, you know.

Need to do any of that. So great stuff. Really fun. Thanks, thanks for joining us on this little journey and we will see you next time on Service Drive Revolution. Thanks so much for watching this episode of Service Drive 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.chris collinsinc.com now that's offers.chris collins inc.com I'm Chris Collins and I'll see you in the next video.

Sa.