A conversational YouTube segment (hosts Chris Collins and Jeremy) explaining four practical ways a dealership's parts department can increase sold labor: (1) actively sell accessories/modifications (gamify sales, spiffs, showroom examples like lift kits and bike racks); (2) build reciprocal relationships with body shops so mechanical work/alignments/programming come to the dealership; (3) don't just sell parts—sell diagnostics and convert retail-parts customers into service customers; (4) create and use a CRM for retail parts customers to follow up, schedule service appointments, and enable permission-based marketing. The hosts use anecdotes (lifted Jeeps, bike racks, Passat example) to illustrate missed opportunities and tactical recommendations (get out of the office, ask questions, collect contact info).
Chapters
Number one is sell some accessories or modification.
Sell some accessories or modification. Why does a lot of that go to the aftermarket?
Because we don't try.
We don't try. We don't ask.
Like, I. I do this all the time. I'll sit in the drive, and we'll just stand there and we'll look at the next 20 cars coming in. What percentage of the vehicles coming into the drive do you think have some sort of upgraded wheels lift kit?
Easy. 50%.
Yeah. So if you just sit there and count. So I'll take the parts manager and the service manager. I'll be like, let's just stand here for a second and talk about the Seattle Seahawks and watch cars come in and, like.
They'Re lifting them. They're doing things. So why don't we lift them? Why don't we pre lift them? Put them in the showroom? Lifted. Why don't we. When? When? Because the key to selling more accessories is gamify it. Why isn't the parts manager at the sales meeting every gamifying and handing out Spiff money for accessories sold?
Absolutely.
Get out of your desk.
Get out there.
Get out of your office, away from your desk. Take the seatbelt off.
It's all about ptd.
Get yourself a lot of cash and start spiffing salespeople to sell accessories. Even Spiff the sales manager.
Here's how they do it. So I just bought a Volkswagen Passat TDI and nobody at the dealership asked me what I do in my personal life. So what's one of the hobbies I love to do during the summer? Mountain bike. I like to do downhill mountain biking with my kids.
Thanks for letting me guess.
Sorry.
It's like a rhetorical question.
Slow, like, the clock's ticking. We gotta go.
It was a rhetorical question. I answered it for you. Sorry. I brought my B game.
Maybe some of us wanted to guess.
Okay, so what is.
So you go to a lot of nudist colonies in the summer?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Isn't there a nudist calling you out by you?
There's probably a lot of stuff when.
You take that turn on the 15, that thing down there is a nudist colony, right?
I wouldn't know.
You know. Come on, you know. You know exactly what I'm talking about.
Yes, I know exactly what you're talking about. I've never been there, though.
But it is a nudist colony.
I believe it is.
And you go there in the summer?
No, we don't go there. In the summer, we go to Big Bear and do downhill mountain biking. Now the reason I bought my Passat was for the fuel mileage. And I'm sitting here thinking, awesome, I can save so much money. Instead of driving my big Suburban up the mountain, I can drive the Passat.
I'm like, oh, wow, cuz your commute from home to work is a little long.
It's yeah, 30 miles each way. But I'm sitting here thinking, how am I going to get the bikes up to the mountain in the Passat? And how could the parks department help me?
They don't care.
They should care.
They don't care.
I'm going to spend probably a thousand bucks outfitting the Passat.
What? How much does it pay to put that thing on an hour of labor?
What the.
The bike rack.
Whatever it takes. Do it for me.
No, but does don't they usually pay like half an hour an hour?
Yeah, it depends if you're doing.
Brings me back to my point. Four hidden ways. Parts can sell more labor. Okay, so bike racks.
There we go.
But what you're saying is nobody cared to get to know you. What's this? Dealership. The name of the dealership.
Car pros, Volkswagen in San Bernardino could.
Care less about their customers.
I'll. Okay, there you go. Absolutely.
Could care less.
Could care less.
What do you think that parts manager is doing right now?
Probably looking for a new job.
No, he's sitting in his office checking.
Email, doing some report.
Most parts managers. Okay, so he's definitely not out trying to figure out how to sell more accessories so he can sell more labor.
Man, the numbers are just adding up. There's so many opportunities for parts to convert to labor.
It's endless.
It is.
Lift kits.
Lift kits.
Hey, when I bought that. So service manager challenge your Jeep. What are we giving away?
The Jeep.
The Jeep. A Jeep what?
Rubicon. Right?
Gladiator.
The Gladiator.
It's not a Rubicon. I wish I would have done the Rubicon, honestly, because sorry to hit a soft. I didn't do the Rubicon. And so then what did I have to do to it?
Okay, you had to re gear it, lift it, do all sorts of stuff.
Nobody cared when that. When I bought it, nobody said, hey, what are you going to do to this dude? What are your plans?
So that's what I wanted to look.
Like a guy that likes to stick out from the crowd.
Right.
You look like a guy with a small man's complex that wants to lift the thing up. Right, Right.
Yeah. Nobody asked you A question.
I lifted it, but it wasn't.
You didn't go back to the dealer, did you?
No.
So you went to an aftermarket shop.
Yeah. And that specializes in lifting and there was a line out the door?
Well, yeah.
It took me a week to get in.
That long?
Yeah.
Wow.
So they're taking it somewhere.
So how many hours of labor did they leave on the table?
So what they did to mine was three and a half hours.
Okay.
So how could parts sell more labor?
Sell lift kits, lift kits, sell accessories.
Get in, get into the business of. Number two is body shops. So if you have body shops that are buying a lot of parts from you, you go to them and make a deal that if they bring their alignments and their programming and the heavier mechanical stuff to us, we work out some sort of deal.
Absolutely.
But there's a. Body shops have the ability to charge at our rate to do the mechanical and create a relationship between the service department and these body shops.
Now if the dealership doesn't have a body shop, they should. That should be a two way street too. I used to control the collision repair that would come in. It was from the dealership. And then I subletted to the body shop. And then that helped me get my mechanical rate for the insurance company. So there's definitely ways you can do that too.
Yeah.
Body shop's great.
Do you think that parts managers are thinking like that?
No, I think they're running reports in their office right now.
Yeah.
Okay.
It's another way to sell more labor.
That's another way to sell more labor. What's number three?
Wait, one more question. Is there a lot of. Is there a lot of profit in wholesale parts?
No. In fact, a lot of dealerships are shutting down their wholesale parts department. Right.
Would there be if there was some sort of reciprocal relationship?
So you're talking like three to 400 hours a month going through the parts department.
It can be that.
Could be that.
I've made it that before. The thing is, is like a lot of parts guys got to sell the wholesale to hit their bonus.
Right.
Why not?
Win, win, win, win. Absolutely. Labor is there.
Gotta get out of your office. Gotta get out there, bring them coffee mugs, give them some service. Drive revolution swag.
There we go.
Right.
Number three. This one was yours and it's genius. Do you remember what it was?
Don't just sell the part. Sell the diagnostic.
Genius.
Absolutely. So when we look at the number one thing that we get phone calls on is how much is it to replace X? And it doesn't matter what X is. When a customer wants a component replaced, there's a triggering event that happened with that request. And it's no different in the parts department. When I walk up to the parts counter and say, hey, Chris, can I get an O2 sensor? What are the parts people do?
Get them an O2 sensor.
Okay. Do they ask any questions about the car?
Why do you think you need an O2 sensor? What makes you think you need an O2 sensor?
Those are two great.
Who told you you need an O2 sensor?
That's the third grade.
Who told you you need an o2 sensor?
Why do you want to change it?
Please. Can I ask you a question?
Yes.
Who told you you need an O2 sensor?
Well, the retail parts store down the street.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. Right. Or somebody's drunk uncle. I like to say so.
Or they watched a YouTube video.
They watched a YouTube video.
You know what's good is watch YouTube videos for advice on your health. Like, don't go to the doctor. Oh, watch YouTube.
That is so right. Absolutely.
Would you get. Would you get advice from a doctor on YouTube or would you go to a doctor?
I go to a doctor. Absolutely. So, yeah, so don't just sell the part. Sell the D. Have a two way conduit where the advisor can actually come to the counter and answer questions for the customer. But turn that retail parts customer into a service customer and sell them the diagnostic too. There's so much work that is there.
The great thing about Jeremy and I doing this show together is a lot of times I learn just as much as I'm sharing. And the fourth one was something I've never thought about before. And it's so right on. It's one of those things that it's like, clearly that's how you should do it, but nobody's doing it.
Number four is create a CRM with the customers that come in.
Yeah.
Customer relationship manager. And the parts department. The parts retail parts customers. Neglected. Right.
And a lot never follow up.
No, they don't. But there's sales opportunity. There's also the service opportunity as well. And when that customer leaves, what do we want to ask them? Your next appointment. Don't worry, I'll answer that for you. Rhetorical. Right? Rhetorical question. What about setting their next service appointment? Can we introduce you to our service department? We have a great.
Can we earn your business?
How can we help you?
Yeah, right.
We've got a ton of resources.
Hey, we're in the business of doing this. We do this stuff. We we got, we got all these parts and we got these techs standing around and they're dying to help you.
The other thing, the, another triggering question that is going to be asked is, do you think this is going to fix my problem? So your parts personnel have to be skilled in identifying that and then moving it over to labor. There's so much labor to be sold. It is untapped. And then we don't even try. We don't. No. Get the customer's email, get their cell phone, text them email. Get the permission to follow up. It's free marketing. Seth Godin coined that. Permission based marketing. It's absolutely free. We're missing a huge golden opportunity in our parts department by not creating a CRM.
Thank you so much for watching this clip of Service Drive Revolution. Now you can catch the full episode on YouTube, iTunes or Spotify or wherever you consume your podcast. If you have any questions, go ahead and post them in the comments below. Make sure you subscribe and hit the bell icon so you're notified when we post new episodes. I'm Chris Collins and you can find me on Facebook and Instagram at Chris Bulldog Collins and I'll see you again on the next episode.
