International Truck Update 23

Welcome everybody, to service Drive Revolution. The international version. The favorite show of NASA, the Westminster Kennel Club and the Hamburger association of America and Canada.

Yes, I'm a.

Please say hello to Christian.

Hello, everyone.

To Adam.

Hello, everyone.

And to the handsome Jeremy. Today we are going to talk about the conspiracy behind the part shortages. The differences between advisors in truck dealerships and car dealerships and how dealers can build customer loyalty. But first, we're going to talk to Jeremy about why there is a controversy with our book club. Who is. Who is discouraging our little book club?

Yeah, the consumers. I mean, I don't really know.

One guy. One guy.

One guy that's probably never read a book in his life.

Since college. Yeah, college for sure. That guy went to college. I have my book. Boys, are you guys ready?

Yes.

Oh, that guy.

Yeah, this guy. Little coach called. His name is Pete Carroll. That's two Rs and two Ls. He wrote a book called Win Forever, Live, Work and Play Like a Champion. And as you see, I have gone to the trouble of highlighting some. Some areas of this book that might be of interest to you guys.

First of all, is it. Is it throwing a pass in an end zone when he obviously should have handed off to the best running back in the league and losing a Super Bowl? Is there a chapter on that?

Good news for us. He wrote this before that happened. That's the good News.

On page 79, he has a pyramid that looks very similar to somebody else's pyramid, but it's the wind forever working to maximize your potential pyramid.

And it starts with knowing you're going to win. It all starts with your belief that you're going to win. Then focus. There's the reason why I'm reading this, Jeremy, is because there's one on here specifically for you. So then we have focus coming down. And then we have. Practice is everything. Practice is everything. How you practice is how you play. It's who you are. It's everything. And then we have competition. Always compete. You're either competing or you're not in a relentless pursuit of a competitive edge. And then the last one is a philosophy, right? And the philosophy is your beliefs. It's all about the ball. Everything counts. Respect everyone and your style. Great effort, great enthusiasm, great toughness. Play smart and the rules always protect the team. Number two is no whining, no complaining, no excuses. And number three. You want to guess what number three is, Jeremy?

No.

Throw the pass in the end zone as opposed to handing it off.

No. Be early.

Oh.

Interesting. You know all this talk has gotten me thinking about falling like football and September, and it's getting really, really close to that great time of year. And it makes me think about pumpkins. What did the pumpkin say at church?

What?

Praise the gourd.

Ah, no, I don't get it.

No, it'd be praise gourd. That'd be bad. That'd be. That would really finish it up, I think.

Okay, I'll do. I'll do it better next time.

I'm not going to read it to you, you guys. But Adam, there. There is a kind of, what we might say is a poem on page 214 called Always Compete.

Maybe Pete took. Took his shot at some poetry. It's beautiful but exciting time right now because football season is upon us. It is the best time of the year.

I'm already. Even though it's the beginning of the season, I'm already worried about it ending.

It's funny.

Yeah. What's going on on the streets, Adam? What are you hearing? What's the news on the street?

Well, I would say that I don't think football started in Chicago. I don't think it's going to start in Chicago. Hence, I do believe that baseball is still going on. So I will continue to watch my Sox win. Actually going to a game tonight. So I'm pretty stoked about that. And I'd say my book, I think, is. It's gonna be a new one, as I know I. I was kind of, you know, not having that the last couple sessions. So. Larry wing it. I think I had a book on him a couple times before. Right. And it's. It's called Work for a reason. I think what's going on in these days is people need to step up and go back to work. And I say that in the most kindest way possible. But I. I just started this book. I just got back from tmc, so I. I'll be honest, but it's kind of a quick read. I took your advice there, Chris, and said, you know, if. If you're kind of listening or reading a book and it just kind of. You can't finish it within what? Well, for me, it's like 10. 10 cups of coffee. It's probably not worth reading or listening to. So. Larry's always an engaging author, so I really appreciate his. Just his bluntness on things. Right. So one thing that I appreciate him getting to work is the busy work. There's a lot of items or things that people think that just because they're busy, they're adding value. And that's not necessarily true. And I like the fact that he goes, well, I'm going to cite something. So he said, 50% of the time, people are doing work, are keeping busy, but they're not actually adding value to what they're doing or to the business. And he goes up. I'm not even gonna, like, look up the facts or anything like that. He goes, I. I just, you know, you know, it's true.

And it's kind of interesting. So you kind of try to do that reflection. And he goes, yeah, you know, you'll spend a little bit more time, you know, getting that 10 minute, you know, cup of coffee. It might turn into 30 minutes or whatever. And then he goes into a little segment that you're. You're stealing. And he goes, you're. You're a thief. And then you're kind of thinking about it, and it's like, well, if you're adding more value than what's expected of your employer, then you're probably not a thief. But if you're adding additional time and actually not working hard and adding value, then you were a thief. So I, I kind of found that a little bit interesting in this segment. And you do a little reflection and you're like, holy crap, that one time, maybe I was a kind of a thief or whatever. And it's like, it really kind of gives you that time to reflect. But I think right now, with everything going on, I think we talked about this before. A lot of the service around in restaurants or, you know, renting a car or whatever, it's. It's lacking. But there is, There are people that are really shining and coming to the challenge. We were just at a little restaurant last night, and there was probably about 15 tables, 15, 20 tables. And there was like three servers for those, and they were all packed, so you have to be patient. But these, these three girls were hustling, man. They were definitely adding value way more than expected. And they kept being apologetic, but, you know, I think we just got to add a little bit more patience to what we're working as a consumer, but definitely raised to the challenge. And they call it work for a reason. So that's the word on the streets.

Chris, I like that. I love Larry Wingett and what a great time we live in that we need to write a book called Its Work, right?

Oh, yeah. Nobody's writing the book. It's lunch.

Don't miss it.

I love Larry. He's the greatest. He's so funny too.

What about you, Chris?

Joan. So I am reading.

A book called It's Hard to See.

Oh, Chase Hughes.

Yes. The Ellipsis Manual. So I'm doing.

Just randomly open up to a page. Like, read. Just read.

When the cognitive system in a subject becomes loaded with scenario management, behavior regulation during deception, the movement of the body sometimes comes to a near halt.

There you go.

You told me that it's on audiobook now.

Yeah. So what I'm doing, guys, is I'm.

Gonna buy just to hear that. Right.

So I'm actually reading the book physically and doing the audiobook at the same time just to completely mess my mind up. But it's really interesting. It's from the. The subtitle is the Analysis and Engineering of Human Behavior, which is really, really fascinating to me. And it's something that Chris has been working on for a really, really long time. But now to kind of pull the curtain back a little bit. And there's a lot of really cool techniques that I think are really effective in terms of coaching and how to try to have influence on people. And really just. I think the big thing is I'm really focused right now with clients and hearing what they're saying. Right. It's not necessarily the words exactly. That are coming out of their mouth. It's a combination of their verbal and nonverbal. And I think that that's a book that can really help to get us to focus in on what people are really saying.

Yeah. And I think a little bit of what you're saying there is kind of one of the lessons in Ch. Chase Hughes's.

Stuff is that you have to take yourself out of the equation so then you can pay attention to what other people need, in a sense.

Yeah.

Am I explaining that right?

Very voyeuristic, for sure. Like you're watching and observing.

Yeah. But he's the greatest. The greatest anything by Chase Hughes. He's got tons of videos on YouTube. He does.

What is the show called that he does with the other three guys? I remember something panel. But yeah, he's the greatest. That's a great book, but it is dense. It's kind of like Jordan Peterson's Maps of Meaning.

Like, very similar.

You gotta sit there, read a couple pages, and then you gotta think about it and then read them again. But I kind of like books like that sometimes. I've never been a fan of speed reading.

I respect people that can do it, but I can't. I'd never retain anything.

Yeah, it's not.

I can't either. I don't like to Absorb it. I don't want to sit a little bit.

Would you want that, Adam?

I enjoy. I need that. Well, the whole point of reading is I want to be able to understand it, digest it, and then a little bit further processing and apply it. Apply something and apply it. Yeah, right. And it's all about that thought process. Because I agree with you, Christian, like the understanding kind of the inner workings on how people are thinking and in the dialogue and discussion and then, you know, not trying to make your next play. Because I agree in that, that listening segment. Jordan Peterson had that in. In his Rules for Life. Right. About separating yourself to truly, like, don't focus on what you're trying to say next. Really focus on listening to, you know, capturing what that individual is saying. And I think we definitely need to do a better job in the head of the industry, for sure.

Oh, it's hard to do. Like I'm. I'm always like reminding myself after the fact, like, hey, you know, you could talk way less, dude.

It's hard.

Yeah, it is.

Especially when you're an extrovert and you're always talking with folks. Right. I think part of it is really just stopping and listening.

Yeah, it's good.

And analyzing, like what you're saying. Does it have value? I think that that's a big part of it too. Sometimes, like, especially as, you know, all of us, we've all been in front of classrooms and, you know, to that point where we're like coaching and educating. It's like sometimes I think we have to look and say we're literally talking just to hear ourselves speak. So I think that this book says the person on the other side of the equation is just as important, if not more. That's what I'm really liking.

Yeah. I always go back to. In my mind. I've had two experiences that really stuck out to me is one was early on I was. I was in my mid-20s and I was visiting a client who was a dealer. And my boss came because I was doing such a good job in this store. My boss wanted to come take credit, basically is what happened. And he shows up in the dealer is talking to him. We're in the dealer's office and he's talking something about softball. And.

The. My boss at the time was kind of so nervous and awkward that he said something to the effect that he had pitched a no hitter in softball, which is like impossible.

It's like. It's like being a really good bowler.

And so I always think about that. And then I had Another one of the coaches that worked for us, he was actually in charge of all the coaches. Once we were same thing. We were sitting with the dealer. He was so nervous. The dealer was talking about how his kids were in. Were going to a private school in Hawaii. And the guy literally said, oh, yeah, my kids went to that same school. And when we left him, like, dude, you've never even been to Hawaii. Like, I don't. Like, you get so caught up in yourself or something that you just. So I always try to remember that I could be that, like, I could very easily just be trying so hard to be liked or to add to the conversation that, you know, it's better if you just shut up and listen.

You know.

It'S good stuff. Okay. Jeremy had two great topics today that I think are great. So, Jeremy, you want to introduce the first one about advisors and then kind of set us up with your thoughts on it?

Yeah. The first topic I wanted to talk about today is the differences between advisors in truck versus auto. I've been to a lot of dealerships, obviously discussed a lot of advisors in the truck world, and we obviously trained a lot of advisors as well. But I mean, the one thing I was looking for insight on is what's the differences between the advisors you see most of the time in the auto world and the ones that I see in the truck world? And kind of what can we do to make sure that despite the fact the difference, there's differences between the two? How can we make sure that the advisors in the truck world are still doing their best to take care of the customers and providing that experience that we're all looking for. Whether you're a truck driver or a. Or, you know, you own a. A Caprice or something like that that you're still able to get. Feel valued as a customer. And I know there's a lot of mechanisms built into the auto industry to reinforce that with advisors, but we don't have a lot of that in truck. So I was looking to kind of compare and contrast there.

I think if.

If we. If we want this to make sense, maybe we should. We should divide it into two parts. One is the external and then the internal. So the external part of it is that in Truck we're more B2B, so it's more business to business in a sense, and in car it's more B, 2C more business to consumer. And so that does. That does create its nuances and its differences because B2B is. Is more transactional. And I think it's perceived as more transactional. But what. What we have discovered and what we witness all the time is the truth of the matter is, Even though it's B2B on the truck side, it's still people. And those people still want to be liked. They still want to feel like they're heard, and they still want to feel like they're important. And I think oftentimes we approach it a lot like it's just paperwork. It's just a warranty. It's just a fleet. And we miss the part that on the other side of that, you know, those fleet managers or those people making those decisions have a say in next time they order trucks. Right.

Their input is valued.

I was gonna say. Or where they actually go and get it serviced.

Yeah.

You know that there's some customers that will totally bypass a service location just because of the way that they were treated. Right. So I agree. I think kind of have to find that transition instead of a B2B, more of a B2C when it comes into truck.

Yeah. And so I think we miss that as an industry, a lot of times is we don't put the advisors in a position or have the expectation of the advisors that their role is more political and psychological in the sense of. It's to make the process easier and make our clients feel better about it.

Right.

Like, we could. We could always go back to the old days when the driver would pull right in the shop and talk to the technician. We've added these layers of personnel, like service advisors, to improve the communication, to make the, you know, to make the customer feel good about it, feel listened to, feel informed over, communicate, in a sense. Right. And I think we. We tend to take those things for granted a lot of times.

Yeah, it's. It's gold. Building on Adam's point, we did a survey. We do a survey a lot of. Of, you know, terminal managers, you know, larger customers that have smaller outfits near dealerships, and basically surveying their experience. Experience with that dealership from that perspective of that terminal manager. And what you'll see a lot is even if that dealership is not providing class leading uptime, if they have a good rapport and communication with that terminal manager, they still get a ton of business. So it's.

It's about feelings.

Yeah. While we like to think of it as, well, we're dealing with a company with a business, you're. You're still dealing with people. You're just dealing with less people. And a lot of times they might be more or less technically inclined, but people still Want the same things out of life, they will still want to feel valued, they want to feel heard. And you need to provide that experience as an advisor. No matter what you're doing. If truck, whether you're in truck, whether you're in auto, whether you do boats or you work for even like a hangar for maintenance, for plane maintenance, that's where I come from. You still have to maintain communication with your customers and provide a class leading experience. Otherwise your customer's gonna go somewhere else.

Well, they have choices. They have choices at the end of the day. And I agree with you, Jeremy, on that. Cause I think in our experience we've also seen where.

Somebody within the dealership, predominantly, sometimes a service manager, especially working with a terminal manager or local customer, just taking them out to lunch, you know, even just that instant, you know, taking out to lunch, listening, having a discussion, just spending the hour there can go a long way on that. When we do hit challenges or roadblocks on turning trucks in a timely manner, there's a little bit more of an understanding. I think it goes a long way.

Yeah, I think that there's a little bit goes into the mindset too, the truck advisor is that every time you pick up the phone to call the fleet approval or whatever it is, it's an opportunity. Every phone call you make is an opportunity to be the best call that the person on the other end has gotten all day. Because it's in a sea of approvals in the same call over and over again. And then how many hoops does the other person make you jump through and everything like that. Being prepared, organized meeting, making the call and making it about the person on the other line. Like I said, every time you pick up the phone, you should be trying to make it the best call for the other person.

Yeah. And just a simple, like, how's your day going, what's going on? Just simple. Not just about the transaction or the commodity, the other thing. And it's interesting because you have a lot of advisors that come from Otto working in truck.

Yeah, absolutely.

It happens a lot in our training, in the classroom, there's been a lot of advisors that say, oh, I was in car, you know, they talk about the difference. And so.

A couple big differences. Now on the internal side, right, that's the external side. Now we go to. The internal side is predominantly 95 plus percent of advisors on the auto side are commission and a big part of their pay is on customer satisfaction. On the truck side, most advisors are hourly and there isn't, there isn't A lot of bonus or incentive for performance or any, any sort of, you know, customer satisfaction. Whether, whether we're turning quicker and we have better uptime. I mean just imagine if advisors were paid on uptime and they had a chance to make a lot more.

Money if you know, which would drive more work into the shop. Right. So just think about how that would change the mindset of service advisors because pay plans drive behavior in a, in a lot of.

Cases.

I agree with you on that, Chris. I think. Well, I think also if you were to apply that you might get more information from the customer to drive it to the tech. There's an incentive behind getting everything every time, executing with some excellence and all of that process of the whole intake and write up. Right. I think if you have that little bit of incentive.

I think that's a huge incentive really impact, but have it, you know, somewhat achievable in the sense though too.

I do also think that although the turnover in automotive for advisors is higher than we would want, it is lower than in truck. The advisors in truck turnover.

You know, at a higher, higher rate. And I don't have the specific numbers, but you can just tell that the turnover is way higher. Do you know the turnover, Jeremy.

For, for a truck?

Yeah, I think we're hovering somewhere around 40%.

Yeah, it's a little higher.

I hate to admit. It's between 40, 45 and 50%.

Yeah. And so and I think that that's a part of it is the, the pay and auto. Even though their turnover is still, you know, not ideal, the pay part does make people stay a little longer because they, they are incentivized. Then the, the other part that you hear a lot from the advisors is the difference in the shop. Right. So in automotive you have more of a flat rate shop that's driven, driven by performance. And then truck is mostly hourly. And so the way the work flows and trying to get work done is, is harder. If an advisor comes from auto and goes to truck, they will mention that often that getting work done is a lot harder because the technicians aren't incentivized the same way. And so I mean you just auto just in general is more performance based in the shop and in the advisor position.

Yeah, I think on the truck side the thing that I've observed, there's the theory of urgency there. Like they're aware that they need to be fast and uptime is really, really important. On the auto side, what I'm seeing is the presence of urgency in a lot of cases.

Now I will say one thing and this won't be popular but it's the truth is that the dealers on auto on the auto side and dealers on the truck side are about exactly the same and how many of them are closed minded and how many dealers right now watching this are like well why are we talking about auto or truck instead of like well what could we learn from other industries it's the same thing on the auto side when you talk about other industries or other ways to do things you know like for example body shops have really adopted some systems that are very progressive and have accelerated their their turn and the customer experience is drastically improved and car dealers will be like yeah well we're not we're not a body shop it's you know it's service it's the same sort of thing where we just somehow I don't know if it's because our industries have been around so long that we breed that close mindedness but there's that.