International Truck Coronavirus Update 18

Welcome, everybody, to Service Drive Revolution, the international family edition. Exclusively for our international family. Please welcome Luna to the show. Hi, Luna, Jeremy and Adam. What's going on, gentlemen?

Tons of fun. Chris, how you doing?

Pretty good. Doesn't Jeremy kind of look like the crazy city council, like Dr. Evil, I'll turn off your water.

Unless you pay me $1 million.

Today we're going to talk about the one commonality between the service and parts departments that are successful and the ones that aren't successful, the ones that thrive and the ones that struggle usually are a little miserable and have low morale and not much other culture. And it's one. One word, one single thing. We're going to talk about that. But first, let's talk about what. What you guys are reading. So, any new books, podcasts, TV shows, anything inspiring you?

Well, you go first. Adam.

Apologize. Chris, you weren't able to spend Valentine's Day with me this year. It's. It's like the first time years.

I got your text. You were. You were like, I wish we would have gone to Alaska. For everybody that doesn't know the story, Jeremy last minute.

Tells me that we're going to Phoenix to do training. And at the very last minute, he. He changes it to somewhere in northern Canada. It's close to Russia. Siberia. Like, if you just went over the other side, we would have been in Siberia. And so I spent Valentine's Day at an abandoned hotel in northern Canada with Jeremy. Was not romantic. He did not buy me flowers. I don't even think he bought me dinner. I probably paid for dinner.

I did not. Dinner was expensive. You know, it was a resort.

Good job, Jeremy.

Don't forget the year before. Also, we were in Baltimore.

Yeah, that was great. The little. The room, the lunchroom set for 12, and you jammed 40 people in there, then put me at the front. What was great is you didn't really need any heat because 40 people in that little room kept it nice and toasty.

Sharing is caring. Okay, guys, Sharing is caring.

Stopping every once in a while when the tech on the other side of the wall is like.

Awesome. Well, anyway, roll with the punches by Machiavelli. So one thing about me is I don't read, like, typically business books where it's like, do it harder by whoever. I like to read things like historical 10x precedence to them. Yeah, 100 millionx. But I like to read things with, like, historical precedence to them and then adapt them to what I do. So this one's the Prince. It was written by Nicolo Machiavelli. And it's basically a set of guidelines that he recommended to rulers on how to essentially govern successfully. So a lot of it obviously isn't going to apply. Like, I don't really need to worry about hereditary rule versus usurpers as much, but there's a lot of good governing practices in it. You know, how to gain, how to lead as opposed to how to, how to just govern by force and things like that. I'm still working on my way through it, but I do like a lot of the information in it and I think, like, it's. A lot of these things do apply to management and leadership because these concepts are timeless. And I think that if you can read something based on historical precedents and then transform it into your life.

It'S going to have even a little bit more value than someone just basically saying, yeah, just do it harder. Whatever it is you're doing, do it more and harder. I think this is, this applies to me a little bit more. No offense. Yeah, of course.

No, it's a little more intellectual and strategic.

Right.

It's good. I love that book. I think I've read it, you know, close to a dozen times.

It's short. It's a quick read.

Yeah, no, it's easy. What about you, Adam?

Well, I appreciate the, the reference there, Jeremy. I will, I will say that now that I've extended my library of readings, I kind of feel like I've migrated more, evolving from the, the 10x and, and what you would call just hit it harder and faster and more. But no, it's, it's quite interesting. So on this kick with the locus of control and leadership, I try to do a research or a search for some of these books and it's really kind of challenging to find them, especially in like audiobooks. But I did find one and they just started. It's called tectonic shift of employment. Then it says, change your locus of control by looking for customers, not a job. And it's by Mike Berg and it is short listen or a short read. And what I really find kind of interesting, there's a couple points in there, but when you think about the metaphor with tectonic shifts or tectonic plates, right through what, billions of years we have these tectonic plates, you know, that kind of move around and little. What is it? Geology? You know, we'll talk about, you know, moving around from what, Pangea. And then everything shifts. So if you think about it in the term of, of, you know, businesses and how we are all focused at Least from at a young age to go and find a job or career. And with today's day and age, kind of the employer and the work is actually kind of shifting and it's thinking about with technology, you know, instead of, you know, finding a place of work for, you know, 40, 50 years, whatever, you're looking really kind of more of like. He says the shift is going to be kind of, what do you call it, like freelance, more like services. So you're looking at more of a customer base. You know, you're. You're focused on your talents and being remarkable rather than just having a job and kind of becoming complacent. So if you're trying to look at this. I'm trying to. How. How does it relate to service in. In our industry? I look at it as the same thing of controlling what we can control and taking ownership, but also in the realm of. In the service world, is that we have to work and think differently. And I know we say this all the time or a lot is, you know, with technology that's taking place, the remote. The remote virtual setting. Right. Even with our own training, we have to work and think differently. And I think this is definitely here to stay. And it's going to be interesting to see what the future years do have to come as far as being remarkable. But we also have those choices.

And.

And one. I really appreciated this because I'm going to quote this, and I know Jeremy's going to love this too, because he loves the band Rush, but he actually did state this in one of the lyrics. Right. Is even, you know, Free Will, the song. Jeremy, you can choose not to, but you still have made a choice. So we all have a choice, but not to. But it's still making a choice, even if you're trying not to riddle me that, Jeremy. But yeah, so I find it kind of interesting because things are shifting and we are. We have to take control of our own destiny and the fact of. Within our service locations, whether it's service management or even if I'm a technician. Right. We keep throwing efficiencies out there and taking ownership of making and driving that change. But ultimately we're going to be spending a lot of our time and effort and the rest of our lives in this space and in this industry. And I think it's time to kind of take charge and moving forward. So, again, you know, I thought it was kind of interesting because it really relates to what we're going on with this pandemic and we're just. The world of Yesterday is gone.

Yeah.

So you read the Next hundred years, right?

Yes, sir.

One thing that I, that I think's fascinating about that too is that our population is dropping. Did you, did you see that Mitt Romney proposed a bill where they pay you 400amonth to have a kid and like you get four grand for every kid you have.

I haven't, no.

Now people discount it like, oh, he's Mormon, so that's why he did that. But it's not because our population is dropping and we're not going to have anybody to do labor jobs. And so in the book the Next Hundred Years, they predict that by 2030 we'll open our borders and we'll be begging people to come here because we won't have anybody to do labor jobs. And I think about technicians and how we already have a shortage of technicians, you know, to leave for everyone coming in. What's going to happen in the next 10 years with our labor force in creating technicians. And I wonder if we shouldn't start now going to other countries and starting vocational schools and importing them on work visas to get ahead of that because it's going to, you know, as the technicians retire, there's, there's not enough coming in. And that baby boomer generation of a huge population is not replaced well, and.

We'Re seeing that already. Right. I know when I was going in industry not that long ago, they were saying the same thing then and it's only going to get worse. So I would agree with you on that one, Chris. It's, it's quite interesting. I know that I've, I've worked with some technicians that were from Poland and Eastern Europe that came over here, you know, to be technicians because they do have a lot of skilled labor out there. And that's what's really kind of interesting. I think I'm hoping this, that we're recognizing the fact and I see it in certain aspects that, you know, you don't have to go to a four year school, you don't have to get the piece of paper. The skilled labor portion of that, that is definitely in demand. It has been, but it's, I think it's always been somewhat overshadowed too as well. And we're gonna, it's only increasing in demand and, but also if we get those technicians, we need to be able to retain them as well.

Yeah, but don't you think, like, I see this in Canada a lot because Canada is a little more progressive than we are with, with letting people in. And I, I'll see Like shops will have like half of the text will be from the Philippines and they're there on work visas. They're not going anywhere. You can't transfer a work visa. And so if you adopted somebody, like if we started a Tinder for Text and you adopted them and got them a work visa and they came, I don't believe we should talk to an immigration attorney, but I don't believe that they have the leeway to move around for the first couple years if they sign a contract.

Yeah, that would be interesting for sure.

Because Google and companies like that are importing engineers constantly and so. But that's something we need to get ahead of.

I would agree. That book is very insightful, man.

What?

Jeremy, did you say Tinder for text? Chris?

Yeah. You're a little slow, bro. Come on.

I'm sorry, I just turned that over my mind a little bit. I mean, I don't use Tinder, but I do know some background about it. So I mean.

Oh, come on, Jeremy. It's the concept.

If you were a, if you were a service manager that needed text, you would download Tinder for text.

Swipe right. Swipe right.

Anyway, yeah.

But I think it's going to require us helping them set up vocational schools there because the, you know, the dealerships are going to want to hire somebody that's already been trained to some degree. Right. So there'd have to be some sort of investment on our part. But.

I think, I think it's a good, it's a good idea.

Right.

That'S good, fun stuff. Okay, so Jeremy, what, what is the, the topic that you wanted to talk about today? The thing that you've noticed between the successful service departments and the ones that struggle, the ones that are having high turnover, a terrible culture, basically playing to not lose instead of playing to win versus thriving, growing. And it all can be put into one word, right?

Absolutely. And this has come from years of talking to dealerships and recent conversations. Even the differentiator that I've seen between high performing service departments and average to low performing departments, it's not technicians, it's not your market, it's vision. Do you have a vision for your service department or do you not? That is the differentiator.

It's interesting. The definition for vision is the ability to think about or plan the future with imagination, wisdom. And I think the one thing that's missing is the imagination part. I think a lot of managers have experience and wisdom of time, but they lack the drive and imagination to be able to see a future that's different. They want everything to stay the same. They don't want things to change. And they're sitting there hoping that the market doesn't change, that customers demands don't change, the. That, you know, the industry stays exactly the same forever. And to be honest, most of the time we struggle to execute even in that scenario. But the truth is everything's changing constantly and the speed of change is just picking up. So if you don't have an imagination.

Then you don't have vision.

Right. And it's in. One thing I've noticed is even when things get better, if. If you're a service department or a service manager without vision, even if the thing that you say will make things better, even if it gets better, then miraculously the excuse moves somewhere else. Well, I got my technicians, but they're not efficient or I had no business. Now I got tons of business. Now they're wrapped around my dealership. What am I going to do? Like it's the excuse or the reason moves.

It's always a problem.

Yeah, your problem doesn't go away because your problem is you don't have vision. That's the problem. It's your mindset.

Well said. I like that. Yeah, yeah. Everything's always a problem. Even like, oh, I got too many customers. It's like how many people want that problem?

So what is. What is the three letter word that tells you beyond a shadow of a doubt that somebody does not have vision? What is the indicator? If you could read minds and you could predict the future, what is the three letter word that a manager says that tells you that it's not gonna happen?

A three letter word. I don't know. Honestly, you're gonna have to surprise me in this. I know a four letter word, but we're not.

This is a family show. Jeremy.

Come on, Jeremy, try.

Try.

Yep. Try.

I'm gonna try. I'll try.

Jeremy, ask me a question.

Hey, Adam, can you hire some technicians?

I'll try.

I think I could try that.

I put up an ad. It didn't work.

Well, I tried.

Yeah, I did the one thing 10 years ago, it didn't work.

So I always like to use the analogy that, like, let's imagine, and this is Adam's favorite subject, let's imagine we're out to a steak dinner. The big, you know, the meat sweats one that you like. The double bone in all of that, right? Rare. Just like barely. Barely dead on the floor.

Like a little heartbeat going on.

The heartbeat still going. And you take a big chunk of that and you're choking on it and you're like.

And I'm like, I'll try to give you the Heimlich.

I'll try. Oh, you give him the Heimlich.

Just give me the middle finger and walk the other way. Right?

Yeah, it's a family show. Cut it out. Yeah, try. I'll give you the, the pointer finger. I'll try.

Yeah, tell me that I'm number one and then walk out the other way. It happens. It's like, it's interesting enough because you know this, you know, I try and I never realized this until probably about a month or two ago and we were having a discussion on this and about leadership and for our, our new trading, right. And then I've been challenging others, you know, just spend, you know, about a minute and think about all the time. Somebody asks you whether it's an imaginary, you know, imagination of an idea or a concept and you're like, yeah, I'll try. Or, you know, try to commit to something and it's like, oh, I'll try to have that to you by the end of the day. And it just gives them a permission just to say, well, if it didn't happen, I didn't say that I was going to. I didn't say that I wouldn't. So you really can't. I'm giving you permission that you really can't be upset with me. And if you are, it's okay. And it's, it's just not. And I think, and everything that's shifting that we have going on and I agree with Jeremy and having, we need to have a vision, but we can't try to have a vision. We need to actually have one. And, and it's going to be tough. It's going to be a challenge, it's going to be hard. We can use all those type of excuses. But I think we've spoken about this before. Fail, fail, do it and fail and keep going and keep going. Maybe not have to do, just hit it harder but just keep taking chunks away at this and making it happen. And I think that's what's really paramount into what, how we move to the next level and things. And it's really kind of interesting that just that small phrase or three letter word of saying try it really can be a detriment to our industry, to our customers. Like can you imagine if a customer said, hey, I've got so and so going on and they just dropped off a truck And I just said, well, I'll try to let you know, this afternoon of what's going on with it, regardless, like, you had, you know, ice cream or something. They probably repowered the load. But still, I think you guys understand. It's like, oh, yeah, I'll try to let you know what's going on with it. Don't talk.

I'll try. I'll try to. Try to pay my bill.

I'll try to pay by bill. Right?

Oh, man. It's just. It's. It's kind of interesting. And. And I'm not. I'll be totally honest. There's a lot of things that, like, I'll. I'll say I try, and then I'll stop and I'll go, no, I'll do it. Or, all right, I'm not going to do it today, but I will have it tomorrow. And I think it is a habit that we do have to break. So I'm not perfect. I know that I've had to catch myself sometimes, too. And then, you know, I think if we just start kind of thinking about those small pieces of just how we're approaching certain scenarios, I think we'll start seeing some of these changes. And that goes with all of our processes, too. You know, we need to have these systems in place. Not all try and look at, you know, how our intake process of our trucks are. You know, let's actually take the time. I will review and see how these things are, and we will get better. And I think, you know, when we start doing those things.

You know, the ships will rise.

I think, too, when vision is clear, everything gets really simple, right? So if your vision, and I hope that your vision would be that we're going to have the best customer experience, like, we're going to be where customers want to come. Fleets, everybody wants to come here because we. We're going to provide an experience now that in and of itself makes it super easy for your employees and techs and everybody to get behind. It makes it easy for you as a leader to know how many techs you need, what people need to do, the training, and everything gets simple. When we have a vision of we want to be the best at taking care of customers, when you don't have that vision, then what are we trying to be the best at? We're trying to be the best at gross profit or we're trying to be the best at lunch. Like what? Like what are we trying to be the best at? And so lack. Lack of vision is dangerous because nobody knows what to do, nobody knows what to rally behind, Nobody knows why we're here. And so then it's just about a job and it's just an exchange of, hey, pay me $18 an hour and I'll work. But it isn't going to drive your efficiency in the shop. Right. It isn't going to make advisors try harder or call or update or jump out to greet somebody because there's no vision. It's just we're going through the motions. And so that vision is that electricity, that spark, that idea that every day we wake up we can be better than we were yesterday.

Well, and I think that's perfect, Chris, when you're talking about that and when we talk about this tectonic shift, right. And things that your skill set and remarkable. It's not just finding a job or the job in itself is like, hey, I'm just going to come to show up to work every day, collect a paycheck. And I'm not saying that our folks that we work with, you know, in the network, they don't want that. You know, I just think they, like you said, they need some sort of a spark. Sometimes it is just a vision and have that overall Archer and vision and everything that feeds up into it, those are, that's where things get fun, that's where things get exciting. Right. You know, how things can happen. And then when people ask, well, the why, the purpose. Well, you know, if your vision is about customer experience, it makes it pretty simple then, doesn't it?

Yeah. I mean I remember when I was running a dealership, our vision, our goal was to be number one. So if somebody came in and said what do I do with this customer? I would just say what do you do if you wanted to be number one? And they walk out. I didn't have to like it self explanatory. Right. You're going to take care of the customer, you're going to go over and above, you're going to double check your work like the best. If you want to be the best, you're going to have to try a little bit harder. But it brings out the best in everybody. When you have something to shoot for. If you're not shooting for anything and you're just trying to maintain, the industry is changing so fast, you're just going to drown.

Well, and it's not fine too. You'll just get left behind.

But yeah, I'm with you on that. And that's the thing is we don't want to leave people behind. Right.

But again, sometimes it's harder to check yourself in the mirror and have that reflection and say, yeah, I've got to make some sort of change within my organization, you know, with what's in my control. And you know, sometimes, you know, when we try to make the distinguishing of what's truly in my control, of what I can change, there's a lot of times where there's more that you think you're in control of rather than not. And I think that's when we start playing that victim a little bit.

Yeah, I think there's so much talent out there and the only thing missing is vision. And I. There's this great documentary called the Known Unknowns with Donald Rumsfeld and he talks about in there that when he was coming up, the, you know, everybody in charge of the CIA and everything got called in front of Congress to explain why we didn't know Pearl harbor was going to happen. And they said, well, we just didn't imagine that on a Sunday afternoon at 2 o' clock they would attack us. And he said it was lack of imagination. And, and then the same thing happened to him with 9 11. He said it was lack of imagination that we didn't imagine that these guys would hijack planes and fly them into the Twin Towers. We had never imagined that before. And so oftentimes it's not just about the talent. It's not about the wisdom and experience that you bring to the table. It's about that vision and that excitement to imagine what we could do for the customers, to imagine how much better we could do with our business and forget about the past a little bit, forget about the habits and unlearn 20 years of experience and come in with a new, fresh attitude is really the secret to it. It's imagination. It's something that is fun. Imagination is fun. It's fun to go to Disneyland and experience, you know, that, that suspension of belief. But we don't allow ourselves to imagine how good it could be, how fun it could be. Right. Same thing with gamification with your employees. Like, imagine people having fun.

Competing. It's incredible.

Think about what your, think about what your ideal dealership would be like. What, what kind of experience are you looking for? How, how great would going to work every day be if your vision was realized? And yeah, stop being a victim to your circumstances. It's gonna come down to there's gonna always be problems. But if you're, if you manage around a vision and everyone else does in your department understands your vision and shares it, then a lot of problems don't even come to you. They're Handling them by. They're handling it by themselves. So I think that's the biggest thing. It's vision.

Yeah, well, that. That's kind of what we're hoping everybody will think about is let's just stop for a minute and take 15 minutes and, like, really think about what. What could it be? Let's imagine what it could be. And in that, think about the customer experience. Think about a thriving business. Think about having fun people around you that are going after the same thing. Think about having a shop where the culture is about production and not about, you know, coming in and trading time for money.

The bigger thing. And then start to work towards that.

Every day. Let's get better.

I agree. Just so we don't get left behind.

That's good stuff. That's great, Jeremy. It's a fun, fun subject.

If I were to challenge every manager that's watching this, I'd say just. And this helps me a lot when I'm struggling with the concept or what I want to accomplish. Put your phone down, turn your computer off, and just sit there for five minutes and think about what your vision would be, what your department would look like if you could make it the way you want. And it's something I have to do every once in a while, is just shut everything off and just think. You would be surprised at things that come to you.

Yeah.

That'S good. Great stuff, you guys. Anything else in closing? Vision and stop trying.

Yep.

Stop trying.

Do it. There's no try. Can you imagine if Nike's slogan was just try?

Just try.

Like Yoda said, do or do not. There is no try.

Exactly. Well, thanks, everybody. We will see you next time on Service Drive Revolution.