How To Stay On Top When Business Is Booming | SDR #247

Welcome, everybody, to the big show. Today we're gonna talk about how to stay organized and efficient when business is booming, booming fun times. How do we keep the wheels from falling off the bus? Actually, how do we keep the wheels from just rattling, getting loose? We talk about Christian's birthday, the news.

Much, much more. Coming up on this edition of Service Drive Revolution.

So there was a holiday recently.

There was Flag Day.

No, your birthday.

Oh, I did like my birthday this year. It was.

So I. I had to fly out on your birthday. So I came in with your gift. But then you. You opened two of your gifts while I was here, but you waited for the kind of bigger gift, and I got told about it, but I wasn't here to sing to you because I was on a plane during that.

But you did make me feel special, though, because I knew that you probably would have wanted to go to the airport earlier than you did. But I feel like you actually came in just for me. And even if you know that, let.

Me think that, you know, the. The punchline to that your flight was delayed. And the way that they set it up here is I don't get the notices.

I'm so sorry. That happens.

I don't get the notices. So I could have stayed for, like, another probably three hours.

Oh, you probably could have made it through lunch for sure.

Close.

Yeah.

At least I could have had you open it or, you know, early. So we have a tradition here at the office that when it's somebody's birthday, they get to pick lunch. So we have lunch brought in, but you get to pick the restaurant. And so what did you pick?

I picked. It was called cova.

Okay. Greek.

So I had, like, a bowl with what was called protein rice. Never heard of it before. Then a lot of.

Made in a test tube.

Yeah, probably. I'm gonna. And then it had a really good tasting Greek chicken in it and feta cheese, which I really like.

Why did you pick that?

I was looking for something different than the last two or three years that I've ordered stuff.

So you'd rather go different than good?

No, it was good, too. Yeah, I had a. It was a recommendation.

From who? Kosh.

He. We went around the world and she.

Gave kashi, or birthday wish.

No, it was my decision at the end.

You delegated your birthday choice.

So he did this thing where he's like, okay, Christian, what part of the world do you want the cuisine from?

Oh, what comes in them?

I'm like, europe is like, okay, now do you want northern Europe, southern Europe? Do you Want Eastern Europe do you?

Could have done Irish food where they just boil it till there's no flavor. Exactly.

We'd also eat wood, but we ended up in Greece. And then he's like, well, I know this place. And I looked at the menu, I was like, okay, that looks really, really good. And everybody gave pretty good feedback on it, so it was nice.

So you liked your gifts?

Like isn't the right word. I love shoes, but I love those shoes even more.

So they're, they're high end sneakers. You, you're not really a sneaker head. You're a, a bougie sneaker.

Yeah. So I'm not like your Jordan Nike guy. I'm more your like Christian Louboutin is my favorite brand with the red sole.

And so you got a couple pairs. You got a pair from, from us. And then you got a pair from your girlfriend. Yeah, which. Those were pretty cool too.

Yeah. I really like those shoes as well.

And then I got you some socks because the thing that drives me crazy is.

You wear these really expensive shoes with gym socks. What's in the news?

Mercedes Benz adding Chat GPT to its cars. So cool. I just think it's interesting that the, that that's fast for the automotive industry to adopt that.

But what's the application? Why do I need Chat GPT? First of all, I have personally found ChatGPT to be almost worthless.

Okay. So yeah, they're gonna voice commands through the hey, Mercedes voice assistant feature, conversations with natural dialogues and follow up questions with the general artificial intelligence platform. Participants who asked voice assistant for details about their destination, to suggest a new dinner recipe or to answer a complex question will receive a more comprehensive answer. So your car is your friend.

That's great. So I find no use for that person.

Apparently Chris thinks that's not new.

You think it is?

I think it's kind of interesting.

You would talk to your car and then.

No.

What do. Oh yeah, so I would talk to my. It's a marketing thing.

Yeah. But to me, the fact that, that Ben's is embracing that technology is fast compared to how our industry usually embraces technology.

So the degree that they're embracing something that we don't really need in that application fast fascinates me.

Got it. All right, let's, let's get some more news that you're not going to like. All right, so next in the news, Ford and GM are seeing a strong US consumer demand for vehicles. So it looks like they're going to have a good year this year. New vehicle Demand is outpacing, outpacing expectations in Detroit.

Know what I have to say about that? America.

Yeah, America. U.S. retail sh. Sales unexpectedly rose in May. No one, no one expected it, but everybody kicked butt in gm, Ford and Tesla.

America.

That's great.

Okay, you want to talk about how to stay organized and efficient when business is booming?

Yes. And I want to rid the world of the belief that there's such a thing as controlled chaos. That's the thing I hear all the time when it's really busy and everything's going nuts and everything like that. They're like, no, it's controlled chaos. No, it's chaos.

So how will you go about ridding the world of that? What is your grand strategy?

So my.

Like, do you find that people in South America say that as much as people in India? Or is this like when they say the World Series, but it's really just the American World Series, like, way more. It's way more like the best in the world. You're just the best in America and maybe Canada.

You're being quite contrarian today.

I kind of like, I'm just wondering, yeah, is. Are we in this? Am I involved in this plan? Am I going to have to help? Am I going to Ireland or Hungary or somewhere?

To what country would we send you.

To rid the world of the bias?

Hey, it's in the news.

Pay attention. What about Japan? Are they guilty of this in Japan?

Not that much.

I'm telling you something, bro, I'm not going to China for this. If you want to rid China of the theory of controlled chaos, you're going because they eat dogs there. I'm not going anywhere that eats dogs.

I'll send Dennis Brown. Everything will be fine. So I think that kind of the thing that I would say is that, you know, when you're slow is when you practice, and the game is when you're busy at the end of the day. And the good thing is, I think that when you're really busy is when you have the best opportunity to get your systems and processes in place. Because at some point in time, it becomes muscle memory.

Yeah.

So I always think about that, like when you and I are working and we're doing the same thing repeatedly and repeatedly. Let's say we're filming videos, for instance, Right. If we film once every three months, we like, have to shake rust off, right. And then it takes a little while for us to get there. But when we're filming five and six times a week, and I remember specifically, too, like, where there was A speaking engagement thing that you were doing, where we did it for like, two weeks straight. And by the end of the second week, it was muscle memory, and you weren't having to really think a lot. It was just kind of. It was smooth, it was better. It was better quality than it was when we started. So being busy and then getting that many repetitions at your system, I think, is the. Is ideal. That's when we should be at our best. And actually, the customers appreciate that way more.

Yeah.

And I think the opposite of this is a lot of times when. When we're slow, you would perceive that we would do a better job of inspections, a better job of connecting, and we don't. Right, Exactly. And so when we're slow, we don't, and when we're fast, it all kind of falls apart. And then we describe it as.

Well, wouldn't you say that when we're busy, all we're doing is the same stuff we did when we were slow? Yeah. So that's kind of the thing I would say is, is that you have to really have set systems and processes in place, and then the people come into that system and process, and they're just doing muscle memory and they're just doing the same thing. Right. How we greet a customer, how. How we do a walk around, how we do a check in, how we do a menu presentation, how we get the work into the shop, how we get the work out of the shop. All can be a system. It doesn't have to be that controlled chaos where you're just running around like a chicken with your head cut off. Because the thing that I know that customers pick up on is when there's chaos.

Yeah.

And they don't like it, and they don't want to be around it, and they certainly don't want to leave their $90,000 vehicle in chaos.

So the. The first one I had on my list was that you always need one more advisor and one more tech that you think you need. And so if you. If your business really swings, you might need two, but you need to staff to 75% of the app. Like, you know, you need to have more than what. What you. You need to staff to 75% of the peak.

Yeah.

Where most people staff to 50%.

Yep. You know, it's a really good example of that. And I just thought of this now, but wouldn't it be genius? So one of the things we'll hear from our Canadian clients is tire season. Right. So there's like two times out of the year where they need all hands on deck. But I just completely thought about this. Why wouldn't if. Let's say that that's seven months out of year, four months out of the year, that entire season, things going on like October, November, December, and then maybe April, March. So five months. So there's seven months. Wouldn't it be smart to do all your vacations and training and the other seven months and all hands on deck during those five months?

No, I would prefer just to leave it to chance and then complain about it.

Yeah, okay, I understand.

And then say, well, you don't understand. It's different here.

Yeah, okay.

That would be my. My answer.

That's what I thought you were gonna say.

Just leave it to chance and then see what happens.

Yeah, you know what?

Then when it doesn't work out, blame it on the weather.

So I was in a bar the other day.

The non drinker, you know, did you order an old duels or a Shirley Temple Capst?

Pabst N A. I was in a bar. Maybe the same thing happened to you. But I'm sitting there and in a dung beetle walks in a what? A dung beetle.

What is that?

A beetle that lives in dung? Yeah. And the bartender looks at the dung beetle and it's like, sorry, the stool's taken.

Interestingly enough, I was in a meeting and the, the idea of seasonality and the service drive came up.

Great topic.

And so my, My thought on that, and we've talked about this before, is like, you know, February and September are short months. And so when do you plan for February?

Six months before. In March.

Yeah. And when do you plan for September?

In. In March again? You asked me the same question twice.

It's actually November that we plan.

But.

But you. You plan three or four months out, and you have, you know, you can do marketing, you do events, you can give people time off. You know, all of that. Now, in the peak times, like for tire season or whatever it is, you would also control the schedule. So if I control the wheels and tires, like in a lot of dealerships or service departments, they would. They would store the summer tires and then they would store the winter tires. And when customers want them switched out, if you leave it to chance, everybody calls at the same time.

That's right.

But if you get ahead of it and you try to proactively schedule those customers, you're gonna get more than half of them that come in, and you can move your, you know, your peaks and kind of control it. So control is a. Is a big part of how you succeed, how you store, how you charge for it. And also what happens is if you don't control it, then your. Your average for tickets going to go way down. Because it's all just mountain balance. Right. Or just installing tires and you're not, you don't have time to inspect for brakes, alignments, those sort of things. And so you're just running them in and running them out, and your average per ticket goes down. So you lose money because, you know, those aren't a profitable endeavors.

No, just the captive audience. Exactly.

And so I'm talking about this idea of control and that they, you know, those sort of questions always start with a statement. So it's not really a question. It's like, well, I know you don't know because you're from California, whatever. And it's like, okay, well, that has.

Been happening a lot to me too, where someone says, I know you.

Yeah. Which is a statement. It's not a question.

It's not a statement. It's not a question at all.

Which. Yeah, they don't know me because I grew up in the northwest and seasonality was very much. Not only that. Worked at a Cadillac store where half of our customers flew to Phoenix in the winter. Right. So because I'm not breaking through to this group and they, they just want to hang on the idea that they're different, not that they could do some things to change the outcome. I said, you know, I like, I know a guy who owns Harley dealerships and think about this for a second. The customers turn their insurance off for half of the year. So those things are sealed in plastic and you can't touch them because they're not insured.

Right.

And so that's real seasonality where, you know, nobody's putting a car in storage for six months and turning off the insurance. Right. It's just in how we coordinate it. So I don't know how that landed or whatever, but that was my, that was my answer to that.

Right.

Later that night, I'm in a bar in, in the hotel I'm staying at, and guess who comes up to me?

Justin Trudeau.

No, that. That Harley dealer who's, who's a great guy. So at the time that we did work with him, I think he had two or three dealers.

Yeah.

And now he has five. And I asked him, I go, what.

Are you doing here?

You know, I said, join me for a drink. Let's. Let's drink all the tequila and mezcal in this bar.

So he didn't do that.

So he knew what he was getting.

Into, that they were. There were three of us. Byron was there too, and we were just having fun and he was telling us so he'd acquired to. He had. He's so good at what he does. I asked him to come on the show and he said he would, but we're going to figure out how to get him to la because he, like most people, doesn't want to come to L. A. But he's such a great guy, but he's so dialed into fixed stops and how, you know, just how he treats people and operates and all that. Like, he's. He's the best. But we were telling him that story and then he. He's kind of losing his mind, like, you know, because they've even figured out how to overcome that in this. In the sense of. Well, that's storing the bike and all that.

Yeah. And also he's also power sports. Right. So he's not limited just to hd. So he's diversified, which is really smart.

But not in a Harley.

Oh, he doesn't do any other power sports.

No, he does, but in the Harley dealership, because they're in different cities. Right.

But for him as a business person, he's. He's diversifying.

Let's just put it this way. For him, as a business person, he's not looking for excuses. He's trying to figure it out. Solutions, pushing the edge. He's willing. If we called him right now and we said, hey, Brian, we think you should try this, if it made sense to him, he would try it. He wouldn't go, well, you don't understand. You're from California. It's different. He's looking for ideas and he's gonna run it through his filter because he's been in business a while and he knows what he's doing. But if it makes sense, he's gonna try it. Okay, so control. The point of that is you control the input and the output.

That's right.

And so move the peaks.

Right. And then plan for the valleys. Yeah, I, like, don't leave it to chance.

And, And. And you have enough data to know when those are going to happen. For the most part, yeah. You might get surprised every once in a while.

The. The next one that I, that I have is to control the narrative. So the. I used to have this boss, and when our dealership, the Cadillac dealership I was saying was seasonal, he used to say this one thing to the text, especially when we were running out of work or whatever. You see, he'd Say, Listen, it's a 12 round fight and these, these are the slower rounds. And so if you got a kitchen.

Whatever it is, like, you know, this is the time. But it, you know, look at your, look at your final, you know, income for last year. And we all made good money. So let's, you know, let's do the best with what we have right now. But just because we're slow for two months, the, you know, it's, it's a 12 round fight and you win the fight by being consistent in all 12 rounds. And, you know, that's it.

That's an amazing analogy. Yeah, well, because it also coincides with months. Right. So it works with a calendar, but that's a really good way to look at it as opposed to, you know, your average, your average manager leader that is freaking out during the times that they know are going to be the slow times.

Yeah. So we need to do the best we can and maximize every opportunity because we, we knew last year that this time of year is going to be slow. Like, it's not, let's not pretend like it's a surprise. So control the narrative and then controlling the narrative controls the morale. Yeah. But just bring it back to, we got to be consistent. We got to go the extra mile, whatever it is. Right.

I should announce this in our next, our next meeting just to let everybody know they just made a huge announcement. Next year, February 28 days.

Surprise.

It's not that. It's not the 31. I thought it was working.

Whose idea was this?

Then?

The, the other one. So controlling the narrative, talk about it.

And then practice, like, practice for the peak times, practice for the slow times. But having little meetings and talking about, hey, you know, we control how many appointments are coming in. But talking about, hey, we still gotta be consistent. We, you know, we can't take shortcuts. We still gotta connect with people. And constantly talking about it and role playing and practicing it. What's that saying? I know it's attributed to a bunch of different people and I'm not sure who said it first. Most of the time it's attributed to Tyson. Is everybody, Everybody is something until they get in the ring and they get punched in the face. Like.

Right.

Thanks, everybody for hanging out with us. We'll see you next time on Service Drive Revolution.

Thanks so much for watching this episode of Service Job 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.chriscollinsinc.com now that's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins and I'll see.

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