How to Reduce Chaos in the Drive

Foreign.

Welcome everybody to your Friday drive by. This is where Christian reads the Encyclopedia Britannica from 1992. Forward to backward, backwards to forward.

Today's episode T.

I thought we were.

Going to talk about animals in the jungle. No, we're going to answer your questions. The Phone number is 8333 Ask SDR. SDR stands for Service Drive revolution.

Let's go to today's question.

Hi, this is Peter from Houston, Texas. Love the Guy show. Got a question? I know you say everyone says it's controlled chaos. It's just chaos. And I'm trying to figure out a way to have less chaos. The assistant shot foreman. We have 43 technicians. I also run a training team where I've got six guys under me, I'm training. And where the chaos comes in is you can't really plan a day. Or I feel like I can't plan my day because we've got cars that are holdovers waiting on, you know, parts to come in, approvals, things like that. And then waiters are coming in and promise times are coming in while I'm trying to train and then help 30 other some odd technicians while I'm training my guys. Do you have any recommendations of ways I can better manage my time? Make sure the waiters get done, make sure the customers are happy. Our CSI is up and I can train my guys. Love the show. Thank you so much for taking my question.

Help Peter out a little bit, Christian, and tell him what is my favorite thing to do in Houston.

Go to the Rothko Chapel. Correct, Peter. Every once in a while. I don't always get those questions right, which is terrible. But, Peter, I think that I can answer your question by telling you a story. So a fish.

Walks into a bar and the bartender says, what can I get you? And the fish goes, water.

So a fish doesn't flop into a bar, walks.

No, but it definitely needs water.

Yeah. That's great.

So I hope that helps.

Peter, Peter, Peter. This is a simple question to answer, but not a simple thing to fix.

Peter already knows the right answer. Yeah.

So what happens, Peter, is when you have a system that doesn't work, you're in the position you're in in the middle of it, you're just. You're just treating symptoms all day. You're treating the outcome of a broken system. So you have to go upstream and control the faucet. Like if the faucet is, you know, wide open and there's water going everywhere and the bathtub's overfilling and you're like, well, how can I plug this water? It's like, no, you got to turn. You got to fix the faucet, right? So, you know, you have to create a system that the waiters are processed in an efficient, timely manner the way. But it goes all the way back to how many waiters do we schedule an hour? Who are they for? How do we process them? How do they get into the shop when those things aren't well thought out or they're not working? That's when you have chaos. And so, you know, I would highly recommend that you get in our coaching program, get your, whoever you're working for, get your managers, get in touch with us info at Chris Collins Inc. We, you know the, the process for, for scheduling and making an appointment, the process for how customers are are taken in and written up that we implement makes the shop more efficient. Like it, you know, it just gets worse. It doesn't get better from where you're at. And you can't really. You, you, you can only play whack a mole for so long before you just start losing in a training team that's a full time. I mean, six. That's a lot. Yeah, that's a lot. I don't know. I don't know that I would.

I don't know that I'd be doing that.

I love that. He said the thing about the controlled chaos is still chaos. That's the right attitude to have. And I think that to your point, what you're saying is that how do you train when you're trying to do all that stuff? The punch line is no. But the scary thing I think that happens most of the time is that what happens in these cases is that one where we're taking in cars, we're. We're shuffling through them and then when you're doing too many cars and you don't have enough people to do them or you're making people upset, then your RO value goes down. And then somebody looks at a financial statements like, oh my God, we're losing money, we need more traffic. And then all of a sudden you double your problems and make it even worse. And at the end of the day, I think that accepting that there is no requirement that a dealership has to be chaotic is the only way to fix this.

Yeah. And I don't know. So let's just, let's hypothetically say those six trainees, and I'm back to the system. They're all hourly trying to learn whatever. I would start with two trainees and Give them to a veteran tech and have him vested in them. But as a shop foreman, that's six, six green. Like we do this in the, in the drive too. We're like, hey, we hired three baristas, then we're gonna make them advisors. It's like one at a time. One at a time. I would pay more for a veteran advisor that knows what they're doing than three. I would rather overpay for vets that know how to write ros, you know, take care of the text and all that than having three of them. Because then the efficiency downstream to the taxes, you know, is maddening also. So I think there's a lot of things that I hear in the, in that, that just the system is up. You're biting off more than you can chew and you're. You.

You got to set it up.

Different and it's a hundred percent avoidable.

Yeah. But it's, it's. You got to get your manager and everybody on the same page, which we can help you do.

Yeah.

Because from your position. Well, and also you'll be a, you'll. You're a future service manager. So let's learn it now. Get in our program now and learn it. Because you're, you'll be jump starting your career where you'll just know where the levers are. Right now you're guessing.

Yeah. One of the best pieces of advice you ever gave me.

You only have time for yellow snow.

Well, you told me that too. But you only have time for one project at a time.

Yeah, for sure.

Because I think that I was on the verge. I. I had hired one barista that was green and new to the thing, and I was thinking about hiring another one. You're like, you might want to hold that thought.

Oh, just get some vet. Same thing with tax. Like why, why are you training six? Go pay for some good techs. Recruit some good techs.

They'd be better off being in a school learning, as opposed to six people on your drive watching chaos. Because then they perceive that that's what the industry is like.

Also the cost of labor on that doesn't make sense.

Yeah.

They're too inefficient. It doesn't. You need to. We got to be making money too. Now. I'm assuming a lot of things, Peter, so I don't know all of those details, but I'm trying to cover everything in, in the attempt to provide some value for you. But that, that would be, that would be our thoughts on it. Thanks for the question, man. We'll send you some swag and.

Yeah, get, get, let's get on the phone and see if we can help you with some coaching because we can fix those systems for you and know it'll it'll jump start your career too. So thanks, hope everybody has a good weekend and we'll see you next time on Service Driver.

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 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.