How to Increase Revenue in Cold Months SDR #272
YouTube episode where hosts Chris Collins and Christian mix humor and practical advice: after opening banter and a long TSA anecdote about Christian’s creatine container at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, they pivot to business coaching insights. They report record client results and argue the "secret to higher sales" for the slow/winter months is mindset — seeing seasonal downturns as opportunities and preparing (staffing, events, inspections) rather than reacting. Emphasis on profiling customers and leaders quickly by language, perspective, and behavior; planning ahead (Sept–Oct) for winter demand is highlighted.
Chapters
Welcome, everybody, to the big show. Today we're going to talk about the secret to higher sales. It's probably not what you think, but it's probably what you need to hear. We also are going to dive into Christian's new, I guess you would call it, hobby passion and cavity. He got a cavity search on a recent trip.
Is that how you would explain it?
I guess so.
And much, much more. Coming up on this edition of service drive revolution.
Before we talk about the cavity search.
That you had, which may confuse people.
I wonder how many people in our audience have had a cavity search. You know, my cousin who works in federal prison. Yeah. I think he does that.
I'm pretty.
He's on the. He's not like you, on the receiving end of it. He's on the.
He's the giver of the cavity or.
The taker, however you want to discover. Before we get to that last month.
Best results ever for our clients in net to grow. So we have software where we track this and.
Pretty unbelievable results.
The best I've seen in my time.
And I wonder.
If.
It'S not.
I don't know. I guess we have the best coaches we've ever had.
Yes, agreed.
But also we've been more discerning with who we take on as clients than ever before.
So I accept that, but I don't.
I think that the coaches are more.
The catalysts.
Yeah, I think the coaches have a lot to do with it. There's definitely a clarity of direction from the coaching staff down. And I think the other thing that's really interesting is that, yes, many clients that we just kind of obtained over the last 12 months had record months, which is not surprising. The thing that blew me away is how many clients we've had for 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 years that were just absolutely doing the best they've ever done.
Why does that surprise you?
Only because you would think that there's a limit on how much growth you can have. But we have. We have groups that are putting up some f. Fantastic numbers and individual stores that are, you know, doubled their net over the last 12 months. Like, there's some pretty sick stats out there.
Yeah. And if you're not. So if you're not in our. In our family, in our coaching group, and you want to do better, not just talk about it, but you actually want to do better, reach out and, you know, we do this thing where we'll do kind of a. We call it a strategy session, but we'll go over some numbers and give you some ideas. And.
If anything, you'll walk away with a couple numbers new thoughts every single time.
There's always. There's always a couple of things that we see.
But I'd get a jump on 20, 24 because momentum is picking up.
We're also.
And at some point. Yeah. We're gonna have to put people in reserve, right?
Yeah.
Yeah. I don't think that's a bad thing. I know that stresses you out. I think it's a good thing because.
I like to make everybody happy.
Yeah, I think it's good.
I understand it from a marketing and sales perspective. Supply, demand, all that.
Okay. So in the last week, Christian and I did a world tour.
Three cities in five days. Yeah, three cities in five days.
And the first one. So here's the problem that has been created around here, is that Christian.
So when we were flying out on Sunday, I didn't notice until the very last minute that we were flying American, which I. There is no worse airline in the country than American Airlines.
Spirit could check.
Well, Spirit is even on my list. I'm not flying Spirit.
Yeah, no, but.
So I was a little upset because.
People think I'm joking, but I literally did want to get banned on American Airlines during COVID If you didn't wear a mask or whatever, they would ban you for life.
We were on a flight together when you started to plot it.
Yeah. And I should have done it. I don't know why I didn't. I guess maybe because I just didn't get on an American flight again. But I really was kind of committed to that. And so, sure enough, I'm not banned for life, so our office can book us on whatever they want, you know, whatever. And I'm sure the city we're going to, that was the most convenient flight by far. I don't know when our flights got done delayed. I was looking. And there's other airlines that fly there.
I know that for sure. But what's funny is, so now Christian does this thing where if stuff starts going wrong, he's like, oh, great. It's a story for the show.
Then. That's not how I want to live my life. I don't want bad things to happen to me. So we can talk about it on the show.
Okay, now I understand.
Good thing is, this happened to you.
It didn't happen to me.
The cavity search, that was like karma at its best, wasn't it?
Coming back at the airport, we're going through security. Of course, our flight is delayed because it's American Airlines. They changed our Gate three times. It was only.
It ended up being the original gate or something like that.
Right. Four hours late.
Yeah, three or four hours.
The original one, but.
So funny. But we're going through security.
And this is Dallas Fort Worth Airport.
Dfw.
Dfw. And.
We both have TSA pre. So I fly right through, and you get pulled to the side, your bag. So your carry on away.
Suitcase. Carry on suitcase. Gets flagged by the guy that checks that. He pulls it to the side. Another TSA guy grabs it, takes it over and starts looking at it. I don't think you'd noticed yet that.
They were doing that.
I was getting there.
All I remember is the guy turns around and goes, whose bag is this? And he's got the screen where he can see what's in the bag. And he has clear instructions from the guy, whatever it is that made him flag it. He turns around, he goes, whose bag is this? And he goes, where's the powder?
Which is not a question you want to be asked in an airport.
And then you walk up and first of all, I was always under the impression that you're not supposed to touch the stuff, right? Not me. No. You walk right up and you open the thing and you go. It's right there. Meanwhile, news to me, Christian now is a bodybuilding competitor.
He's carrying a jug of creatine. The why? Why? Caring.
You're gonna compete. You're gonna. You're competing in the Schwarzenegger.
Creatine of all this stuff. But it's not protein powder.
No, I do protein, too.
But that wasn't in there.
You didn't have a tub of protein powder. You have a tub of creatine.
Yeah, but I had a tub of the bars in my backpack, which didn't get flagged, which were all protein.
All I know is real bodybuilders are drinking egg whites and protein powder.
Fair enough.
Anyway, so he's got a thing of creatine. How much is that thing?
50 bucks. For that? For that Little.
So then it turns into an episode of.
Keystone Cops. Was probably.
Oh, no, it's worse than that. What. What were the Three Stooges? Yeah, like that. Who's on first? Who's on second thing. That's what it turned into. So then the guy sets the creatine, like, right there, kind of prominently, all by itself. And then he says something, something. I'm gonna have to. I'm gonna swab it. No, no, before the swab. It was. I gotta pat you down now.
Oh, yeah, that's Right.
And so then it's like he goes, he goes, you don't remember this? He goes, would you. Like he's putting his rubber gloves on.
Like, I didn't catch that.
Where's the thing of Vaseline? He's putting his rubber gloves on like you're gonna get your, your annual prostate exam. And he looks at you and he goes, would you like to do it here or would you like to go somewhere private? You don't remember that?
I do because I know exactly what I said. Oh, right here, you know, let's do this right here.
Drop my pants right here. You didn't care. No shame whatsoever. So then, then the dumb and dumber thing happens where he swabs the creatine and it comes back as far as something contraband. Contraband, whatever. So then he swabs you and you come back as contraband. And then there's. This was a 20 minute discussion and Drew puddle about. And you're trying to tell them like, well, yeah, I just touched the creatine, but the creatine's on me. And then at no point does anybody go, but is creatine legal?
Not once.
So you touch the creatine and there's creatine on you. When they do those little swabs that they put in the little machine that probably does nothing. It's probably the same company that, that lady who's trying to sell blood tests, whatever. Oh, what was her name?
I don't know. Something.
Yeah, she's in jail now. She probably made those things.
They probably.
You probably could have gunpowder and it wouldn't even tell you, but creatine comes back is something. So, yeah, whatever. So then that happens for 20 minutes. And that's not the funniest part of the story, I don't think so.
I'm.
I'm kind of bored with this whole thing.
You look to know that guy changed.
His rubber gloves three times at least, which was super weird too, that he kept changing his clubs. But anyways, I.
Hadn'T mentioned that. This is one o' clock in the afternoon and I haven't eaten. So before we went to the airport, we couldn't really find somewhere convenient to eat. So we're like, we'll go return the rental car, we'll go to the airport and we'll eat. So I'm starving and so I'm looking out into the airport, trying to figure. I'm trying to plan our next meal. I'm thinking where once you're done with your cavity search, where we're Gonna go eat. And there's this larger gal standing there from TSA talking on the phone. So she's on a personal call or something.
She was somehow involved initially, maybe. I don't know how, but she was.
She wasn't. Cavity search. All the female TSA disappeared.
Yeah.
To give you your privacy, I guess. Which wouldn't you. When you get a massage, do you like to get a massage from a guy or a girl? Woman. Yeah. I always say female only. Yeah. So if I was gonna get a cavity search at tsa, I would prefer a female.
Yeah, that's not an option.
Should be.
Yeah, I like that.
Anyways, this gal is. Is rather healthy.
She's 411, 270.
And I thought, like, hey, if there's anybody here that would know where's a good place for lunch, it might be the heavy gal. She's clearly a connoisseur.
Yeah.
She's. She's taking some cow. She's going in that are being burned off.
She knows her way around the airport food, I would say. Yeah.
And so she gets off the phone, and I said to her, I go, hey, where's there a good place around here to get lunch? Now she's. She's taking this very seriously. She, like, stops and she thinks, and she goes, well, right around the corner, there is a Louisiana place called something Papa Doe, Papa Do's. And she goes, that's pretty good. And then she goes, right past that is McDonald's. She goes, But I recently heard that McDonald's isn't good for you.
Recently. And I said, I don't think I've been into McDonald's for more than 10 years. And she looked at me, like, shocked. She's like, what? And I go, you're lucky you didn't.
Get a cavity search after saying something.
Like that, I go, I said, you know, I kind of think I knew McDonald's wasn't good for me. By the way, I felt after you.
Eat it.
This is where it all.
Takes its time to read it.
I don't need to read the McDonald's isn't good for you.
What? It looks bad for you.
This is what Jeff Bezos is doing with the Washington Post.
Yeah.
Because he's educating the world.
I don't know.
Wherever.
Wherever. She heard that. And so she looked at me like, huh? Like. And because I said, I knew that it wasn't good for me by the way I felt after I ate it, and I haven't been there for 10 years, like, I'm not going to McDonald's I'm probably gonna try the puppet. Whatever. And she goes, yeah, she goes, yeah, cuz you're still hungry after you eat it.
And I was like, no, that's not it either.
No, you feel terrible.
The only good thing to this is.
That she's still hungry.
Yeah. It did keep you occupied for like 10 of the 20 minutes of the cavity search.
Yeah. Then what did I do?
I sat down on the couch.
Oh, you did sit.
I remember you standing TSA couch. Because then the. The last part of the story is.
I look over, they're taking you in the back.
And they cleared out this back room and three of them escorted you back there.
Yeah. And then there were seven people in the room. They spread like cockroaches when you turn the wall.
What happened in the room?
Oh, I got violated.
What?
It was. There was an intense search that occurred at that moment. Searching what, my whole body?
No. Cause they had a girl with them.
No, no, no. Two dudes.
Two dudes? Yeah. And they like. You took your clothes off?
No, but there was no limit to what they.
Two of them patting you down at once?
Yes.
It was the supervisor Pat.
Supervisor Pat?
Yeah. So I guess that was more intense, but like, they touched things on my.
Body that I was. This is what I know is we flew somewhere else two days later. And you gave up on your dream of being a bodybuilder. You didn't take creatine.
Well, I strategically did it. We were only gone for so long, so I front loaded and end loaded. So I still took it. I just didn't take it with me.
Oh, because that trip was so fast.
Yes.
Yeah.
But I won't.
I was with it again. I could have worn the same clothes. I didn't need to pack a change.
Of clothes on trip two. You did right. Or you could have done it right. Yeah, I was good. The other funny thing about that is, is that they actually, I don't know if you noticed this or not, they never opened the jar. The contraband jar. Like literally could have had, I don't know, half a pound of heroin stuffed in there. And they never opened the thing.
Well, they saw it on the X ray.
The only thing it could have been is like loose cocaine or something.
Yeah.
Do you think that little machine would tell them if it's cocaine?
I don't.
I think those little. I think that they bought those machines when Radio Shack went out of business. Yeah.
What else can we get?
Yeah, they don't. I don't think that those machines tell them anything. I always Think it's funny when they're like, put your palms up and they like. And then they put a little piece of cloth in there, and then they stand there and look at it.
Like, my. My other favorite part of this was. Is when I'm in the room, the closed door room with the supervisor, and then the. The guy. We'll call him Curly from the Three Stooges. But he's like. I'm like, yeah, my boss is. He's been waiting really, really patiently. He's like, hey, do you think we should. Won't we bring him in here and pat him down, too? Do you think I'll really think that's funny? And I'm like, no. No, he won't. Are you sure? We'll do it again. And even he doubled down again on the way out. Like, TSA Fun and jokes.
That guy is not in charge of new ideas.
No, but I kept thinking, like, if I was someone bad, like, there was not a lot to keep me there. I was kind of just doing my thing. Like, what happens if somebody seems confused?
I don't feel safer, I'm gonna tell you that. Right.
I originally did, until you learned a.
Lot of shady people going by while they were worried about you.
Oh, that was the other thing. Yeah. And then they just have way too many employees in that little area. Wow, that was so many. And then, like you said, there's a lot of people that. That looked more suspect.
We want to give more money to schools. Yeah, Cut.
Let's do that.
You could cut.
Well, there were more people standing than working. You could at least cut it by 50%.
That's right.
I mean, I don't know, maybe that was a. It's a shift change or something we came on. I don't know. But.
Well, there. I mean, the people that were. There was three or four people locked in that room that I went in there doing nothing.
This lady's still hungry after she eats McDonald's.
Yeah, that's with the option to supersize and still hungry.
Oh, I'm sure that's an op. That's something. She would take advantage.
She doesn't know that there's a meeting.
She knows a good deal when she. When she's presented.
But we did make it out of there alive at the end of it.
Oh, and.
Oh, speaking of, like, getting in shape and everything like that, I was. I was all excited. So I'm talking to my.
Wait, wait, wait.
Yeah.
If you ask me.
I'll give you.
$10,000 if you can guess what's in my suitcase. Do you know I would never guess creatine.
Probably not.
Also, I'm allergic to it.
Oh, well, let's see how this goes.
It makes me swell up, and not in the good way.
Yeah. So that's how I Like, that's how I feel.
I'm gonna give another doughboy way.
I'm gonna give it a couple. Another. Another weeks, but right now, I'm retaining all the wrong stuff.
I would have never guessed.
Yeah, so that's.
I would have guessed heroin before I get.
Yeah, it makes perfect sense.
But. So I'm talking to my dad the other day. He's like, yeah, I bought a treadmill the other day. And I'm like, that's great, dad. Like, I really. You know, he's in his 70s now, so he's. He's committed to health. He's probably the healthiest he's ever been in his life. And he's like, yeah, I bought a treadmill. I'm like, that's awesome, dad. Is it a peloton or is. He's like, what's a peloton? Of course. So I had to kind of go through that with him, and that's not what he bought. And I'm like, okay, so. So why'd you get that treadmill? It's like, because the rails on are really good for holding my clothes. He bought a treadmill so that he can have, like, a clothes hanger instead.
Of in his room? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Smart. That's what a lot of people do.
Not me, but I don't know. We'll see what happens. I think I'm gonna get him to actually use it one of these days. That would be fun.
Okay, let's get to our subject.
People are like, thankfully.
Thankfully. Finally.
I wonder how many people are going to send you creatine now.
Oh, it's expensive. I'll take it.
If you're. If you're looking to get Christian something for Christmas, send him a jug of creatine.
I'm ready to get jacked.
Okay.
The subject that we're talking about today is the secret to higher sales. Right?
Yeah.
Now, I was at dinner on Saturday.
With a. With a guy I've never met before. It was a group of us, but there was a new guy in the group. Never met him before. Okay, how long do you think it took me to profile and know exactly who this guy was? He's one of the. This, like, how long into the dinner do you think it took me?
40 seconds.
And what is it that what indicators tell you about. What indicators tell you what's important to that person, how they make decisions, how they think, how they see themselves, their identity, their, you know, their motivators, their demotivators. What. What.
What do you look at in order to determine that?
Oh, so many things. So they're.
Probably their presence, their posture, their. The things that they say. What are they talking about?
So that's probably the most telling is how they talk. Yeah. The way that they frame things. Right. The.
The way pronouns that they use, stuff like that. Yeah.
And so you. You can tell a lot about somebody by the way that they express themselves, because how they feel inside comes out in how they express themselves sometimes in a magnified way. Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
And that's true with everybody. Right. You. You can tell somebody's general perspective if they're positive or negative, if the. If they see things strategically or if they have an external locus of control, you can tell very quickly about somebody. Right now when it comes to people in fixed ops, so parts managers, service managers, fixed ops directors, same thing in 10 minutes, you could tell if this person's successful or not. And not by the way they project themselves as successful, but by the way that they talk. Right, yeah.
And what they want to talk about, all that stuff. Yeah, it's. People are trying to tell you who they are.
And so when we're talking about the secret to higher sales, we have.
You know, just.
Overwhelming amounts of experience in this that you can pretty much. Well, you know. You know, what's funny is, you know, Bustamante said about the CIA, and I forget exactly how he word that word of this, but basically, in a nutshell, he goes, oh, no, we profile. That's what it's not about, being politically correct. Like, no, we profile. There's commonalities, like, yeah, it's true. Somebody cheats on their wife, you can get them to. You know, there's. There's just commonalities between.
People'S behaviors and who they are. Right. It's just how it is. Like, it might not be politically correct to say that, but it's the truth. Right, right. And I don't know that I care about being.
Well, I mean, rather.
I'd rather give good insights than be politically correct.
Right.
Because I don't feel like I'm being disrespectful. Just tell them the truth. It is what it is.
So when you talk about the secret to higher sales, we. We have a Rolodex of experience in the characteristics between people with low sales, people with Stagnant sales and people with sales off the charts. Right. The gamut. And there are certain characteristics of the ones that have higher sales, but than the ones that are stagnant, than the ones that have low cells. Right.
And the groups are super easy to put them in. Like there's so many commonalities between high performers and low performers have the same exact group of commonalities in a different way.
And now all you have to do in order to to see this is put something up against them to make them react and then that whatever comes out will, you know, we'll tell you who they are. Right. Especially a challenge like you, you, you see who somebody really is under stress because all the niceties, everything goes away and they become who they truly are. Would you agree with that?
100.
Okay, so now what is, what is happening right now in the industry? There would be something we could put up against somebody to see who they really are.
EVs and something else.
Seasonality.
Perfect. Okay, what season are we in right.
Now we're going into winter. Okay.
So if we're going into winter.
Somebody'S view of that would tell you whether they're going to have high sales or not.
That's right.
So what would be something that somebody with low sales would say in reference to winter?
We're going to slow down. Traffic's going to be non existent.
Okay. On the opposite side of that, what would somebody say to that Same thing that's going to have high sales.
This actually just happened to me today. My buddy Adam, who runs a. He's a fixed ops director down in Naples, Florida, he said, oh yeah, we prepare every winter starting in September and October because we're going to get busy. Like I add on a shift is.
What he said was great.
But it was the same question. What are you going to do for winter?
Yeah. Now let's say you're not in Florida and your RO account goes down. That person might say, well, we have more time to spend on each customer. Our inspections would get better. Yes.
You're numbers could be flat if you want.
Or you're going to have an event to drive traffic. You're going to be doing something, but you're not reactionary. You see it as opportunity and you're looking at it as how do I create the opportunity versus how do I react to my perception of what it is.
Right.
And so the, the secret to higher sales is what is your perspective on the opportunity? Do you even see the opportunity like whenever there's like so say for example in Illinois.
When it gets cold, you got all kinds of things that happen to motorized vehicles.
Yeah. The slide off is my favorite.
Batteries, all the systems popping, like, all kinds of stuff happen. Right. And is that opportunity?
Tons.
Yeah. But a lot of people see it as, oh, traffic's down, whatever. Whatever it is. Right. So you have to train your mind to see the opportunity.
Exactly. And you have to believe it. It can't be. It can't just be fluff.
Yeah, there's a. There's a. There's a saying that you're preparing, and there's a physical preparing, I believe, is the huge difference between the doers and the non doers. Yeah, the doers and the complainers.
And so the secret to higher sales this winter is your perspective. How much have you planned? How do you see it? Are you finding the opportunity, or are you letting it slip by? Because you're never gonna get this winner back. And the more extreme the weather gets, the more emotional people get, the more opportunity there is.
Yeah, the more the better. Right? Oh, what do you call a broke Santa Claus?
What?
Saint Nicholas.
That's pretty good.
Thank you.
That's the secret to higher cells.
I just wrote down a few. A few easy things to focus on during the winter. If you're in those busy areas or the cold areas, I think the easiest thing do to.
