A short Drive-By episode where callers ask for help with (1) a toxic service manager who gives away discounts/free work and demoralizes advisors, and (2) parts-delivery delays causing production backlogs. Hosts Chris Collins and Christian advise focusing on what you can control (attendance, energy, workmanship), reframing toxic leadership as insecurity to avoid personalizing it, attempting limited positive influence, and otherwise planning an exit if necessary. For the operations problem they recommend increasing capacity—hire more technicians to absorb variability—rather than only managing the symptom of delayed parts.
Chapters
Foreign.
Welcome everybody to your Friday drive by where we answer your question. If you have a pen or a pencil and the ability to write this down or open up your phone and put this in the notes, the number is 8333 ask SDR. And if we play your question on the show, we'll send you some swag.
Good stuff too.
I'm Chris Collins and this is Chris Joan.
Hello everyone.
Let's go straight away to your question.
My service manager has very toxic traits and loves the fact that he has power over everybody but doesn't use the power the way he should. He gives away a lot of free stuff or at a very discounted price and blames lack numbers on US advisors. I like the guys I work with and the customers I take care of on a day to day basis and I don't want to go to a different dealer. But my manager has made it very miserable to show up to work and produce. I'd like to hear some feedback on how to deal with a manager like mine. That'd be great. Thank you.
It's kind of tough to answer because there's probably two ways to go.
I know one.
What's the one?
Well, the one is why does he want to stay? Oh, I just think that there's great people that work in the industry. There's great customers everywhere you go. If you have a toxic boss that's not going anywhere, I don't know, you can't fix him or her.
But you can be a great advisor in a great environment.
Yeah. So usually what, what happens when he quits and goes somewhere else? What's the thing that he hears through the grapevine or the call that he gets within 12 months of leaving that.
That manager got fired.
Yeah.
So most of the time people that have those sort of habits, you think they're going to be there forever, but they're not. It's going to catch up with them sooner or later and it's going to be sooner than later in my experience.
And so you're way better off focusing on what you can control.
And ignoring the things that you can't. Now, of course, some of his behaviors or situations he's putting you in might seem inconvenient and it might be hard and you're using terms like toxic and all this. But you know, when I was, when I was coming up, that was just how people managed. Like they were authoritarian, they were terrible leaders. They were also doing a ton of drugs.
Like I used to vacuum our service managers car when I was a porter. And, you know, it wasn't just weed, I'll tell you that. And so you think in the moment, like, oh, this is gonna last forever and I, you know, I gotta do something better and this is wrong. And, you know, just everything isn't a 50, 50 exchange. And you got. You gotta learn how to function in those situations sometimes. Because here's the thing is, as you move up, you're going to work for somebody else that's like that, or you're going to have people under you that are like that. And.
You really will do better for yourself if you focus on the things that you can control. So here's the things that you can control. What time you show up every day, the energy you bring, your charisma, how hard you work, how well you take care of your. Like, the. There's a long list of the things that you can control. And if you focus on those, the things that you can't will become irrelevant. And.
I would look at this as a challenge to navigate.
You don't agree.
You were ready to quit with him, like, out the door?
Well, I just didn't. He's like, no, I don't want to leave. So I'm trying to figure out what, what makes him want to stay.
Because it's comfortable, it's familiar, but it's not.
And then, you know, kind of going.
Devil'S advocate, he's saying he's. He likes the team he works with. So it is familiar.
I understand that.
How often do you think a toxic boss is actually there working?
Yeah. I don't know. But the other thing I was thinking in the back of my head was that. So that he's saying the boss always gives stuff away, but if the boss is talking to customers and doing that, it means that the advisors didn't do something. Right. Like, I will also tell you as a manager, when I'm giving it away, if it gets to me, I gave it away. And I actually telegraphed that I was doing it.
And I changed. I took the RO away from you.
So that part I actually agree with.
And then the other thing is, is like, that manager, that's toxic. I don't know. See if you can have a positive impact on him.
Yeah. Thinking back on my career, I would say that people that I think today would be classified as toxic, I might have learned the most from because they.
Were harder on me and they were super insecure. Everything you're describing is insecurity.
Yeah.
I mean, people that have to flex are doing it out of fear or insecurity. Most of the time. So, you know, pay attention to that too. But step up, push it and double down. That's what I say. Stop thinking of it as toxic and think of him as, you know, somebody that's insecure. Good question though. Thank you. Next one.
Hey, Chris, My name is Chase. I'm a service director at a import dealership in Memphis, Tennessee. A high volume import dealership. And one of the hardest things we're running to right now is how to manage when these, when parts come in, getting the work done. Considering that used to we get a part next day or two days now we have no idea when we're gonna get the part and boom, it pops in and it just backs up everything else because, you know, first in, first.
Out, you always need one more tech than you think you need. That's the way you get drive ins done. That's where you get the parts that come in done. That's the way you get a used car. That's an issue done. Like there's always gonna be contingencies and if you don't have that built into your production and if you're overbooked now, you got holdovers now your customers are, you know, out a week plus or whatever it is. You need more capacity. There's no good answer. You're. You're always in a situation where you're trading one bad thing for another bad thing. It's, it's a lose, lose, get yourself out of a lose, lose situation and have more capacity, hire more techs. That would be my advice.
Which goes to what we were talking about on an episode earlier is you're treating the symptom, not the cause. Or how would you say it?
The. You're treating the effect, not the cause. Yeah.
And I think what Christian means by effect is outcome.
Yes, definitely.
You're focusing on the outcome. The outcome is when a part comes in, you don't have the capacity, so you're focusing on that. But what you need to do is just increase your capacity. The part coming in isn't the problem. The problem is you don't have enough for drive ins, for unforeseen peaks and valleys and that sort of thing. And so I would guess you have quite a few holdovers every day and your book down a little bit. Text hire techs. If you need help hiring techs, tune in. Because we're. Christian is going to do a.
Thing.
Coming up that's going to teach you how to do that. If you don't know how to do it, how to hire techs Christian and I were debating yesterday how many techs we hire with our coaching clients a month. And I thought in my head, we probably add about 50 technicians.
Every month. He thought that was high. And then when we were done going through it, he thought it was low. Yeah, because I was just referencing like we were on our elite call and this guy hired six. And then you think about all. The first thing that happens when somebody comes into our coaching group is we have to hire techs every. Is there ever a client that comes in? We don't have to hire tech?
Not that I've seen.
Because if we want to increase the sales, we have to increase our production. We're not going to do it through, you know, making the text more efficient, although that's a part of it. It can't be the only path. You got to, you know, you got to do a couple different things to do that. So if you need help hiring technicians, reach out and we, we can help you with that. Okay. Thanks, everybody for tuning in. Have a, have yourself a wonderful weekend. If you're listening to this on Friday. If not, have a great day and we'll see you next time on Service Drive Revolution. Thanks for watching this week's Drive By. I hope we gave you something to think about over the weekend. 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 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 now that's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video.
