International Truck Coronavirus Update 9 (Service Drive Revolution)

Welcome, everybody, to this version of Coronavirus Update International Service Drive Revolution. How you doing, Adam and Jeremy? Good. Okay, today we're going to talk about wip, which I'll tell you what WIP stands for. Later we are going to talk about some focus groups that we just did. Books that you guys are reading and upcoming training. I'm pretty. I'm pretty excited about this. You guys don't look as excited as I am. Okay, so we just did some. We did three focus groups with the market team. We learned a lot of stuff.

Very.

Good feedback and positive feedback to help us create training and to help help the dealers. You know, the thing I have to say, of all the manufacturers that I've worked with, you guys are by far and away breaking the mold as far as there isn't this crazy factory agenda that makes no sense. You're really tactically trying to figure out what needs to be done on the ground and then creating stuff. And the feedback from the market teams was all the work that we put into this and all of your, you know, mentoring and toolage and bugging me to death. Jeremy, seems to have worked because you bugged me a lot.

Oh, yeah. And I will continue to do so. Yeah.

Can I see the outline? Can I see the outline? Can I remember all that?

Oh, yeah, yeah, I'll totally do that again. It's. It got good results. So I can't.

No, yeah, no, that's the thing that.

It'S okay to bug people.

Oh, hey, Chris.

Hello, everyone.

I was gonna tell you about my new diet. I ate a clock yesterday.

Why would you do that?

It was very time consuming.

Oh, my, oh my.

Thank you. Thank you for that. So one thing that was, was fun. Is it the. The came up a couple times that we need leadership training and little did they know where we have leadership training coming, which is pretty cool, right?

Yep.

And then some. Some other notes of things that we're going to incorporate and work on, but all very, very positive. What was your guys take?

I really liked how they. They were impressed with the training, but they still came up with things on how to make it better. That means that they were paying attention and that they really thought about the training after they took it. And I. And they listened to the service managers after they talked about it and really thought and really processed that like, yeah, there's nothing worse than. Yeah, there's nothing worse than people saying, well, yeah, it was great. Okay, what'd you like about it?

No, they had, they had real articulate ideas and opinions about it.

I Appreciate the engagement. The engagement we're starting to have with our field is great. I wrote a few things down. Some of the stuff that they'd like to see more to help support when we talk about leadership was the conflict management aspect and some of those type of things, working with customers. And I think one thing that really stuck out to me and I wrote this down is you don't fix your efficiencies by passing it on to the customers. So I think how engaging our field folks are into our training and engaging with their service managers and other various, you know, customers, like, that's crucial. So like you said, you know, we're breaking kind of the mold and I think we're doing that together. And for my short stint with the company, I haven't really seen that as much as far as I've seen it more happening now. And it's, it's going to be quite interesting to see how that, you know, grows as time goes on.

Yeah. And most manufacturers out there, like, I feel like you guys are young and progressive, but you know, most manufacturers out there will record training that already is outdated by the time it goes up and then they'll leave it up for five years where you guys are trying to proactively give, give the dealers the tools that they need to be successful and listen to them and, and not create the training that you want. Create the training that will help them and be most effective on the front lines. Which, you know, it gets me super excited. I got, you know, it really does because it's making a difference and it's, you know, it's incremental, but it's making a huge difference and I think it's only getting better as we go for sure.

And it's, it's, it's really been an organic thing and I really like the fact that everyone here has the same perspective, is that training needs to be continual. It's not like, okay, took the class, now everyone is good and we don't need to do anything with it for four to five years. Exactly your point. We need to keep redoing it, we need to keep looking at it and reflect the environment in the industry that exists now, not the one that existed in 2005.

Yeah. Anything else, Adam, from your notes?

Oh, I was just gonna say one insight that I picked up from in all the various discussions that we had with the field folks is that, you know, I think the message that we all heard from the service managers is them going into it, whether the web based or the virtual or hands on they were kind of going in. Yes. It's a. It's a criteria for diamond edge. Kind of checking the box. Yeah. And then once they go and attend it or. Or participate in it coming back, you know, the insight from the field was, hey, I enjoyed it. If I would have known that I was gonna get that much more out of it, you know, I would have gone in regardless. And I think that's what's good about this. And we want to continue to evolve and change as time goes on. Cause like you said, I mean, the training, the core of the training sometimes doesn't really change. It's how it's being perceived or how it's being deployed. Know we can add different elements. I mean, technology's always changing, right?

Yeah. We're not. We're not taking for granted that it's mandatory once they get there. We're really respecting their time. And also, I think the thing that we worked on really hard together was to create training that was relevant to a veteran or a beginner. Like a veteran that's been a manager for 20 years wouldn't go through it and go, this is a waste of time.

Yep.

Really paying, you know, respect to them that if they're gonna give us their time, we're gonna give them some value. And they will, we promise. You'll walk away with some new tools and a new way of looking at things different than when you started, which is really was really important to us from the beginning. So we're accomplishing what we tried to do.

Very true. Absolutely.

So we have training coming up here on the 8th and the 16th, right, Jeremy?

Yep, we do.

Is there room in those or are they full?

They're full. Full to the brim.

Then why are we talking about it.

Chris?

We're sold out.

Jeremy's got to be excited. Sorry.

That doesn't mean that we can't talk about it. Be excited about it.

We're sold out, kids. We're sold out. We have openings in September. When's our next opening?

You know, honestly, you probably heard it here first. We're probably going to be transitioning the July service manager training session to virtual only. Just because that's the environment we have going on right now. We will have a few spots open with that. They're going to open when they open up, so have a look, because that.

Allows us to do more when we do it virtual.

Not that many more, but about 10 more people.

Yeah. So we don't think we'll be back to Live Room until September. October.

I'm Hoping for all of them.

Quite possible.

It's possible. We just have to take it in stride.

Right now we're playing. The cool thing is, is we're learning the online one, too, and that's getting better every time. So.

They'Re oddly interactive.

I think the webcams really help. Like, you can't.

What book are you reading, Adam?

Well, I can't really show it, but it's virtual.

It's an imaginary book.

Adam's reading how to get and Stay.

Motivated by Grant Cardone.

You got it.

So learn from that book.

I don't know.

Is it audible or what is it?

Yeah, it's audible. It was the quickest thing I could do in between diaper changes and still listening to it. The diaper changes are becoming more frequent now. Peyton's doing very well.

Don't blame it on Peyton. It's not your. It's not her fault.

She's got a sweetness. She's got a lot. She's got big shoes to fill.

Well, I'll tell you right now, I. I almost got hit by the bazooka this morning at about 2am, 3am twice.

What's that mean?

Just kind of explosive.

Yes. Just shooting out.

Yep. That's the thing that happens when you have. When you have kids.

I dodged it. I dodged it very quickly.

Did you have to, like, do the full dodge or were you able to sidestep it?

Sidestep and hand up with the other old diaper.

So it was a block.

Nice work.

Yeah, I was like a block side, you know, kind of thing going on.

Wow. Reflexes.

Oh, man. You'll get. I guess, you know, they talk about you're just gonna get some weird reflexes and, you know, it doesn't matter how tired you are. Oh, yeah, that came into play.

Anyways. How to get and stay motivated. I figured this is a good book in the kind of realm of the. Our little opening of certain things and trying to sometimes, you know, find some motivation on these next steps and opening up of. Regardless if they're just businesses around or going back to work. I know. You know, Navistar is trying to figure out ways of going back to work incrementally back in the office and. And I'm sure there's plenty of businesses out there, like Illinois, technically, trying to open up this week. Right. So one thing that, you know, there's three things that really stick out to me in this short book.

And he.

And it's real quick. He just hits real quick. Or I should say Grant Cardone hits real Quick on certain items. And what stuck out to me is willing to fail. I think in different aspects we have, we talked about huddles, you know, not too long ago and, and trying new things and willing to fail. But I think what really sticks out to me when you talk about willing to fail, you know, when you keep pushing and making things happen, you know, failures really kind of is impossible because you never really stop, you never really give up. And we talked about, you know, his last book in 10x. Just keep putting more action and keep trying and pushing it forward. And if you're willing to fail.

That's not what we said, Adam.

What?

That's not what we said when we were talking about his book 10X. That's not what we said.

We're not gonna say massive action.

Oh, well, yeah, you threw me off there. Thanks, Chris. I didn't know that you took some, took some notes from Christian the hacker. But yeah, so basically failure is impossible. And I want people to think about that when we are coming out of this, this pandemic or continuing going back into the workplace or trying to get to a new norm is like we have to take an approach that failure is almost impossible and trying new things and even if we feel like they're not working, keep going at it and just keep adding more action. So like the next point is looking and then controlling time versus managing it. I think we always talk about certain skill sets is managing time. How can I manage my time better? And he puts it into an aspect of let's just keep focusing on eating minutes and having 15 minute blocks of time. Not necessarily, you know, just managing it, but controlling it. So it's something as simple as getting up earlier and putting some massive action into certain 15 minute blocks, whether it's something work related or even going and working out, you know, doing those, those little things. So for me, one thing that I'm trying, read more books or listen to more books. I don't, I feel like I don't have a lot of time, but I want to control it. So when we're at our service locations, all we do is sell time. We talked about the P and L statement and indirect time. Right? We need to control it. We truly need to control, I believe though, our labor, sales and our hours when we go into these shops. And if we're not controlling it, is managing really going to be, in my opinion, is it going to be that successful? I'd rather control the narrative and control it rather than just blatantly managing it. And then the third thing is keeping stats on everything that's important to you. So obviously we can talk about business related but everything into our side, our self and our lives. Right? So workouts, money, you know, investments, we should be keeping track of all of it as far as in statistics. And then that's the only way, if we have some sort of benchmarking, we can improve on that. If you can't really measure anything, if you're not measuring anything, how do you expect to improve? So those are some of the things that I think it's really interesting and he keys into this is that what we don't measure. It's kind of a mystery, right? So we need to get out of this chaotic mystery mess. And I feel like in some of our service locations, I've been to dealers before and when we're not measuring certain things or certain items, whether it's performance or financials or we don't understand, it is. It's a mystery mess. So like, you know, one of the things I know that, you know, Chris, you said before and we've talked about in our service manager training is that I'm probably going to screw this up. But the way I take it is, you know, how you manage anything is how you manage everything. Well, I kind of like to change it a little bit. It's like how you manage anything is how you control everything. And in the light of trying to control time and controlling the things.

Wait, wait, wait, slow down, say that again. How you what?

How we control anything or how we manage anything is how we control everything.

I don't know if this is going to come and bite me in the, in the butt. He's writing it down.

So it's obviously it's changing his life.

So by the way, the quote, the re. The real quote and I love this is how you do anything is how you do everything.

So I only take bits and fragments and then I put them.

No, how you control anything.

Is how we control everything.

Sure. I feel like we've talked about enough about controlling the narrative, controlling the situation. I think we're here trying to humanize ourselves, you know, from a corporate aspect. Right. We're just kind of regular guys trying to improve the industry and trying to share some tips that what we like to focus on with our service locations. I think we really need to control the outcome when we get out of this pandemic or whatever this new norm is and we share these tools and we truly, you know, I appreciate what you said earlier about you know, us from an OEM perspective, but really like, if we don't do things differently or we don't focus on these things, we're just going to be doomed to be in this chaotic state or this mess, this mystery mess. Right. And it's just.

And you're always gonna be a victim to circumstance.

Yeah. You know, and, you know, today's day and age is just quite interesting to say the least. And I could just be rambling on because I've only had maybe about three hours of sleep, but I truly believe in this. And I think we're gonna get.

Are you hallucinating?

Maybe.

I have a feeling. Christian.

There'S no mind that you are rambling. And it's all about sleep deprivation.

Thank you.

Since you have the sleep deprivation, you'll think this is great. Adam, I spotted an albino dalmatian yesterday. It was the least I could do.

Wait for it. He spotted a dalmatian. It's the least he could do. Put spots on an Albano.

Which then reminds me too, because I'm feeling all naturistic today. Why do tigers have stripes?

Why do tigers have stripes?

So they can't be spotted.

And one more. I'm gonna do a three for here.

Horse walks into a bar. Bartender says, why the long face?

I don't know why that's funny.

Take some minutes.

We have our own Norm McDonald.

Yeah.

So funny.

I do.

We do.

It's that same thing, right? With Norm, like, you kind of gotta wait for it. Like, takes a second to get it. That's a. That's awesome. I like. I like. I like that list too. Good.

Cool. Jeremy, What. What book are you reading?

Well, I am perusing again. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. By who?

By Robert M. Persic.

In case anybody wants to run out and get that right now.

You should to your local bookstore. So basically, a dude goes on a motorcycle trip across country with his son and a couple of friends. So basically, he rides an old motorcycle. He rides an old Honda 250. I have one that's like it. And it's. It requires a lot of understanding to operate. So you have to like, really pay attention to the motorcycle, make adjustments when you need to, and you have to really understand how to maintain it. And he goes into. It's. When it begins, it's just like a road trip book. And then it goes into, like more and more about, like how to maintain an old motorcycle and how. It's not a straightforward thing. You really have to put a little bit of artistic thought into it. You have to start solving problems, you have to do things that work. And he contrasts that with his friend who has. Owns a BMW and he doesn't do anything to it, doesn't know anything about it. So, like, basically the. The art of maintaining the motorcycle versus the straightforward. Just, this is a thing that I ride, and when it dies, then I'm not gonna ride it anymore. And then over on. As the book progresses and they go to different places, he goes back into. Thinks about. He thinks more and more about what quality is, what the concept is, because it's not really an ironclad thing. It means different things to different people. But he tried to define it, and eventually he gets so focused on what quality is that he loses his mind a bit. And.

In the end, it goes into kind of a story about how he kind of moves past that and how he grows as a person because he's thinking of these concepts and there's just a lot about it. And it kind of shapes a lot of my view on how I look at things and my view of what quality is. And before I read it, like, you kind of do what you're told to do. You do what the instructions say. But now when I approach any project or any kind of topic or anything that I'm supposed to do, I try to do my best at it, try to do what I consider to be quality. And it takes a lot more work. It's hard to do, but I think I'm a lot more satisfied with what I do for, you know, my lit in my job, as well as when I do maintenance on things or when I. When I do anything is I try to do it with an at. With a thought of quality.

Would you go as far as to say how you do anything is how you do everything?

Yeah, I'd say.

Or how you control anything is how we control everything.

Yeah.

Also, it's oddly. It's oddly very similar to what Adam was saying, right?

Very similar.

It's attention to detail.

It's almost like they're the same person, except very different. But anyway, it's a very.

Like. I'm hallucinating there, Jeremy. I'm hallucinating.

You know what? You know, what I know from. From my interrogation training is that after like, 52 hours of no sleep, you start hallucinating. Did you know that?

No.

Well, now you know. So when you hit 52 hours and you start seeing Indians or like, you know, flying pigs or whatever it is in your weird, demented mind. Well, Christians weird, demented mind.

Then you'll know you hit 52 hours. You might need a nap.

Yep.

So what you're saying, Jeremy, from the book, is like, the attention to detail, putting your heart into it, and then it kind of takes on, like, a soul. It means it has more meaning. Is that a good interpretation?

Yeah. I mean, it even goes into that if you're a machinist or a mechanic, if you can approach that with an atmosphere of you are doing. You're conducting art because you're. You're making a thing that doesn't work, and you're making it work. And a lot of times it requires solutions that aren't necessarily in the instructions, especially if you're working on older stuff. So I think that. That. That perspective has shaped a lot of the way I look at life.

Yeah, I like that.

I think that anybody that does anything at a high level, whether it be a mechanic or somebody in customer service or a chef or a great waiter or a great salesperson, it's high art.

Yeah.

Because it takes on another. Another level. Right. Like, I remember when I used to wear suits a lot and ties, like this guy that I would go to Duke, like, he could almost guarantee that I was going to get a compliment with my outfit. But also it was then how I felt about myself and my confidence, and it was how people felt about me when I came in the room. And so his salesmanship took on another level that was. That transcended just the clothes in the store. Right. And so same thing, like, you're saying, like, a good mechanic, if you. If they do a good job, and then the family or the driver that's driving that truck or whatever, that. Their safety, their efficiency, they're on time, whatever it is, takes on a whole bigger thing. And then they can feed their family or. Or they can send their kid to college or, you know, they can pay off their credit cards, whatever. It just. It has a bigger. A bigger impact. And that's high art in a lot of ways. It transcends. It transcends just the commodity or the action.

Yep.

That. That is taken.

Right.

Or like, same thing with, like, music. It's like an amazing song. Like, you hear ACDC Back in Black, and like, sonically, the production, the song, it takes you back to an emotion or a time when that song, you know, reminds you of things. And it's the same sort of thing. Like, it. It has. It has purpose and meaning beyond just in that moment. Is that what you're. Is that kind of what he's saying? Yeah. Yeah. Sounds like a cool book.

It's A very good book.

How did you hear about it?

I don't even know. It was so.

Amazon suggested it.

What's that?

Just Amazon suggested it.

Oh, it was before Amazon, when I first picked up this book. It was a while ago. I. I think I just saw it on either side on the shelf, or I heard something about it mentioned in the show or something like that and picked it up.

Cool. That's great.

Very cool.

Okay, now we're gonna talk about Whip.

Yes, we're gonna talk about Whip.

What does WIP stand for, Jeremy?

Work in process.

One of the things.

The H is silent. How does that go? Work in process? Oh, maybe it's just spelled W I.

P. Yeah, it's just spelled W I.

P. There's no H, there's no silent.

H. There's no Whip.

So, you know the thing I know about Whip? You know what I know about Whip? You guys might want to write this down.

Do I want to know what you know about Whip? Is there?

No. I'm going to tell you, Jeremy. You're going to write this down. Write it down. Just like fine wine.

Work in process gets better with age.

The longer arrows sit around, the longer they're not paid for collected, the better the stories get, the more money you can collect.

It's more like golf. You need to have a lower score, less.