Interviewing TikTok Star Mia Griggs, AKA Chaotic Feminist

MIA, yeah. Has263,000 followers on tick Tock. You've. You've been going crazy on the tip.

She's a tick.

I'm gonna start doing videos on Tick Tock.

I'm.

I'm thinking motivation for bulldogs is what I'm going to call it.

I love it.

Kind of insinuating that we're all bulldogs, right? Like, if you're a winner, you're a bulldog. You got bulldog mentality. And I'm going to read like quotes in the morning with my bulldogs thinking about doing something like that. But Mia does great stuff for service advisors where, you know, she pretends like she's the customer, the advisor role plays different scenarios. She's hilarious. She has over 10 million views. And recently we had a chance to catch up with her and do an interview. So check this out. Christian and I are super excited today because we're huge fans of mia Greggs on TikTok. We're new to the TikTok, Mia. Christian's gone a little too far into it, but we're trying to talk about how we could post and have fun. But we love your videos. And I have the first question I have to ask you is when, when you, when you talk about females in the industry, do you think that it's changed in the last, you know, 10 years, or do you think it's still the same?

That's a good question. I think it's getting marginally better, but that's only because there have been laws put in place to protect certain marginalized groups. I guess would be the best way to say that without being inflammatory.

But I think even with certain laws in place, dealerships, shops and even customers in general still get away with a lot of really crappy behaviors, unfortunately. And I could go on for hours about that. I'm sure it is getting a little bit better because it's becoming more common to see women in the field, but it's still very, very uneven, I guess.

Yeah, I think. And Christian could pipe in here too, but I feel like the.

The employers, whether it's dealerships or shops or, you know, have, have come light years, but I still see quite a bit customers challenging female managers or advisors. And it's always surprising to me, but I do, I feel like that still hasn't, hasn't changed as much.

But I feel like the industry as a whole, there's just so many great female leaders and, you know, some of the top advisors in our group are females. And so I feel like that has changed dramatically. Don't you, Christian?

I would agree 100%. I think that there's something to that. And that's one of the things I see your videos on most is that customer condescension. And like, I can only imagine what that's gotta be like for you after 10 years of dealing with it. Right. And I think it's amazing that I don't even know all the time if the customers know that they're like that. I just think that like it's somewhere like totally wired into their system that the woman can't possibly someone that they have to talk to a man. And like I've seen it so many times that thing where like can I talk to someone else? Like I just, I want to club somebody. Like I get it, the frustration and everything like that. But I would like to say from the owner's side at least, what we've seen is that they are way more embracing to females. And it's amazing to me how many times a female get into a situation that's all male dominated and kick everybody's ass. Like that happens regularly with us. So I think that the performance is helping to change the industry for sure.

Yeah.

I do think that the inside of the industry.

Working harder to make strides towards being. Being more equal between the genders. But you're 100% right. The customer base has not changed really at all. And it really depends on where you're working too, what the demographic of the area is too. I've worked in places where 90% of our customers were, you know, elderly people who are maybe a little bit more set in their ways still. And I've worked in places that were more yuppie, you know, like millennials that are my age and they're a lot more open minded and progressive, I guess. So a lot of that plays into it too. But I agree. 100.

So you know what's interesting, Mia, is we have, we have a lot of of car clients and then we have truck clients. And it seems like it happens more with the car clients than it does with heavy duty truck. And you would think truck would be more guyish or whatever. That is always interesting to me that it's less there. Which kind of. I don't know, some of this stuff never makes sense anyways.

But yeah, I noticed that too for sure. I worked for a company that I'm not going to say the brand because I just don't want to get in trouble, but they don't really sell trucks. The manufacturer that I'm talking about and that was the worst customer base I've ever dealt with. So.

So how do you, you know, if there's female advisors out there in a constructive, positive way, what is it that you do? Like, I see a lot of the female managers in our group will kind of laugh it off.

But how do you. How do you handle it in a, you know, in a positive way? Or how do you create a positive outcome from buffoonery?

That's a tough one. It's. It's definitely.

It depended on the place that I worked at. And it was really. This sucks to say, but it was really up to the service drive manager and how they wanted to handle it. Because I am assertive. I'm an assertive person. And if you are incredibly disrespectful to me, I probably won't be very nice to you. But I've also learned, like, every time I would start at a new shop or a dealership, I would say, hey, if this happens, how do you want me to handle it? And I would just do whatever they said. So some of the dealership managers would be like, just smile and just give them what they want. And so I'd have to do that if they were like, well, I don't want to talk to you. I want to talk to a guy. Okay, Brad, can you come help this there? Like, you know. And then at my most recent shop, not the one I work at now, but my last job before I got laid off due to Covid, my boss, was like, you're allowed to stand up for yourself. If they refuse to talk to you because you're a woman, you can kindly keyword tell them they can take their business elsewhere. And that was amazing to me that they allowed me to advocate for myself. And so I did. I was never rude. I was never mean. I was never, like, yelling or anything, but would just very kindly say, you know, if you're not going to allow me to help you, I don't think I can help you further. So, you know, you might just want to go somewhere else. And nine times out of 10, that usually knocked them off their high horse. And then they let me help them, and then they realized that I was really good at my job. And there you go.

So the takeaway, when you take it away, they kind of reassess their position.

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. When you. When you're. When you put your foot down.

Kind of, I think, knocks a little bit of sense into them.

So you have a really funny TikTok kind of about that where you pretend you're the Guy advisor and all that. I think that that was one of the first ones I saw and I thought it was hilarious.

The long face thing too is great, where she's the customer in the long face. Those make me laugh.

You're very funny. You're very funny. Okay, so then one thing.

You have a position on is how do you avoid getting taken advantage of as a service advisor?

That's a tough one. Are you talking about from like a customer standpoint or from employer standpoint?

I would start with employer.

That's a really good question. It's tough because for a long time I didn't know how to advocate for myself and I didn't know how to prevent myself from getting taken advantage of. So I always say if you are interviewing for a service advisor position as a woman, you have to ask the tough questions. You have to know exactly, like I said before, how they would expect you to handle a situation like that. And then don't be afraid to stand up and speak out when things do happen.

You know, when you're getting harassed or you're having you feel like you're not being listened to, go to hr. And if HR doesn't do anything, go above them. And I think people nowadays are so scared.

To stand up for themselves because they're afraid of backlash. But even if you do get backlash, like standing up for yourself when stuff goes south is the best thing that you can do for yourself. And if you lose your job because of it, fine. Like you don't. You shouldn't work for that company anyways.

So, okay, how about customers? What. What are your, like, top three secrets as a service advisor now? Moving this towards just connecting with customers. I believe an advisor's role is to collect customers and make friends. And so what are the top three things that you do as an advisor to take care of customers? What is the secret?

The secret, which probably isn't a secret because I'm sure this has been beaten into our brains over and over. But my number one thing that I value the most is customer rapport. And something that I had to learn along the way was when you first start at a new shop, or whatever it may be, you, your customers aren't going to trust you because they don't know you. And there's such a negative, you know, the automotive industry in general has such a negative stereotype. So you have to learn that building customer rapport can take some time, but once you do, you have customers for life. And I really saw that happen at my last shop. And because I was there for almost two years. And you know, when they come in, you know, like, hey, how was your kid's baseball game? Or like, you know, and you become family with these people. So my first, like, yeah, my first piece of advice is just know that customer rapport does not happen on your first day. It's going to take time. You're going to have to put in the work, you're going to have to build that trust. And once you do, I mean, you are golden, you're set.

My second piece of advice is.

To not take things personally also something I struggled with for a very long time because I'm obviously a very emotional person. I'm very animated and so I take things personally. So when customers would get mad or upset with me or they would be super angry for whatever reason, I took it upon myself as my problem or my fault and I'd get really upset about it. Not to the customer, but I'd like go into the back and be like, you know, super mad about it. And so I had to learn that you have to put yourself in your customer shoes and you have to think about why are they mad. The reason that they're mad is probably valid. Even if they're not treating you with respect, even if you don't, as the advisor, don't think that it's a valid reason to be upset. They're upset, hard as it is to put yourself in their shoes. And it just be empathetic. And when they are being angry or they are yelling at you or whatever it may be, it actually does help manage the situation a little bit better and also helps you calm them down because it's not just a back and forth of they're angry, so you're angry and then it like builds up. It's, it's easier to kind of diffuse the situation when you put yourself in their shoes. And then the last thing I would say is probably.

This may not make sense to a lot of people and it probably sounds bad, but when you're at work, you're at work, you're not there to make friends. You're not there to.

Yeah, you're not there to make friends. And I know that a lot of people are like, well, your work is your family and blah, blah, blah. And I do agree to that to a certain extent. But as somebody who has dealt with being dealt not the greatest hand in the industry, I think you have to learn to protect yourself. And this goes for men and women. I'm just clarifying, that's not just women.

And obviously treat your co workers with respect and treat them the way you would want to be treated, but also protect yourself, protect your heart, and protect your paycheck. Because in turn, at least for me, that helped me be a better advisor because I could put more time and energy on my customers and not trying to deal with drama on the drive, if that makes sense, and just kind of be, you know, an unbiased person on the drive. And I just, for me, it made my life a lot easier.

So.

You know, so the, the first one, and I love that you said family. Right. But the, the rapport. And then this second one you said empathy, which I love. The third one, I don't, I don't agree with and that's one that I've, I've had disagreements with shop owners and dealers and managers because to me, like, I don't know, like, I feel like I'm, I'm friends with everybody that works for me. And I feel like people end up feeling that way because they're not honest about things.

Like, I feel like people hold things in and then they overreact. But if you, if you're authentic and honest in the moment.

You know, I don't know, I wouldn't want to work with people that I don't feel like are my friends. I would hate that environment. I wouldn't want to work, I wouldn't want people working for me that I didn't like because then I would feel like my customers wouldn't like them. I don't know. But I guess you're coming from the point of view of an advisor too. So you have to work with whoever's there. So it's a little different.

Yeah. And just really quickly, I think your, your perspective is totally valid too. And I'm not saying that I go to work and ignore everybody and don't get along with people. I get along with my co workers every single place I've ever worked at. I'm the kind of person that is, I am very friendly and outgoing, but I still keep people at a distance because I've been screwed over so many times and I've been stabbed in the back way too many times by coworkers that for me personally, I just have to protect myself in order to. Because I'm not going to get into it. But there's been several instances where my CSI bonuses were sabotaged and I lost my, most of my paycheck because of it. And that's happened on several occasions. And so for me personally, I just don't. I guess I'm just jaded. And I won't even lie. I'm a little jaded, and I've just had too many bad experiences with coworkers to want to have that family connection with them. But. And I'm not saying, you know, that nobody else should feel that way.

That's just my personal opinion.

So I feel like if I, if. If I worked with you, I'd be laughing constantly.

Yeah, and I'm that way, too. I'm naturally a very bubbly person. I'm a Gemini. That's how we are.

I'm a Capricorn. What does that say about me?

I don't know. I just know that Geminis are possibly.

The funniest people on the planet. Geminis definitely are the Geminis, for sure.

Are you a Gemini, Christian?

Yes, I am.

Bias.

Well, we're huge fans, Mia. Anything you want to talk about kind of in wrapping it up?

No, I just, I think you guys are great, and I'm really glad I discovered you, and I'm super honored that you guys even talked about my. My Tik Toks on your. On your channel. I think that's really awesome and. And it's appreciated. So.

Oh, we're huge fans. You're so funny, and I hope you keep. You keep doing it. So everybody, if you, if you have Tick tock, you need to go to Chaotic Feminist and follow her and watch. And then she also has a podcast. So you started a podcast, and it's called Cars, Chaos and Coffee. Cars, Chaos and Coffee. That's a great name. Well, thank you so much for coming on, everybody. Check out Mia, and hopefully we'll talk again soon. Mia, we'll tag you on TikTok when we start doing them. Thanks, Mia. Thanks so much for watching this clip of Service Driver 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. 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 you in the next video.