Keeping Your Service Advisors Engaged, Motivated, and Driven to Succeed | SDR #267

Welcome everybody, to the big show. This is an interesting one today. We read your comments.

Again.

And the gift that keeps on giving. Repair authorization.

Let's get to it this time. Let's put it to bed for real.

I almost feel like we should ban repair authorization.

Just stop doing it.

Yeah, there's enough out there if I.

Yeah, we can't talk about it anymore.

But we read your comments and, you know, a lot of you are really smart.

That and much, much more. Coming up on this edition of Service Drive Evolution.

We have a lot of exciting events coming up. Your social calendar is filling up Christian.

Which doesn't happen very often. However, it's going to be a cool off.

The back of driving all the way to Bakersfield for pizza.

Is that weird?

Yeah. Explain to everybody what you did okay. Over the weekend.

So.

Most people know that I'm from the Chicagoland area. And one of the things I think that Chicago is most known for is, is their deep dish pizza, which is not just like a pan pizza or like a large pizza. It is.

Do you really think people don't know.

A deep dish pizza is the real stuff? I'm not sure. I've seen a lot of people call Chicago.

I'm telling you, if there's one thing I know about our audience, they eat pizza. They eat pizza. In fact, quite a few of them are probably barbecue and pizza con. Like, I think there's two subjects that you can jump right into with our audience. One is barbecue.

Yeah, of course.

And the other one is pizza.

Okay.

And you could just go right into the New York Chicago debate. Probably they'd be right there.

Yeah. So I'm. I'm team Chicago all the way. And there is this place in Bakersfield, California.

Really? Yeah.

Which is. Although I didn't hate it when we went to New York and had that pizza was good. But it's a very different experience. Like to me, I'm all Chicago style is the way to go. I actually, believe it or not, I think Chicago style thin crust pizza is the best.

Not the, not the, the pie pizza. But I was all in on the pie pizza this weekend. So I've been doing a lot, really, I would say really well with the whole diet thing and being really disciplined with what I'm eating, taking in a lot of protein, not a lot of carbs. And I had this kind of planned out that this was going to be like my reward for that was going.

To be this week to drive.

Two hours to drive. Yeah. So Bakersfield's two hours north.

What happens after you eat that. That style of pizza. Are you. Do you have more energy or less energy?

I actually don't remember the drive home. Yeah, in a coma.

You're in a coma.

But it was so wonderful. And so we drove the two hours and we got up there and I was a little worried at first because I ordered the pizza that, that Claudia and I were going to split. And she's like, we ran out of the crust. And I'm like, well, maybe I should have called ahead of time. But she's like, we only have.

Did you do the. I drove all the way from Los Angeles.

No, before I said that. She's like, but you know what? You might want to try the Mini Pizz. And the mini pizza was not mini, by the way. It was four. It was like a. Like a personal pan pizza. So we got the mini pizza, which was still too much food. And I just really, really enjoyed it. There's the place has.

You go for a hike or anything?

I mean, I.

No exercise and Chicago pizza over the weekend?

No, I exercised. I did like two and a half hours each day at the gym.

Which gym are you going to?

LA Fitness.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

I didn't know that.

So. But it was great. And then the, the drive home. I also scored some new shoes on the way back.

Where do you stop to get shoes on the way?

There's a little outlet mall that has. Believe it or not, it's an outlet mall that has Air Jordans.

So can Air Jordan shop.

It was a Nike. Nike store, but they had Air Jordans. Where Most outlets don't have Nike Air Jordans.

I was in a. I was in a store yesterday by my house on memoirs and they had a pair of like, they were orange. I don't know what college is orange.

Oh, gosh. Syracuse.

Yeah, Syracuse Nike Jordan. Like the mid top ones.

Oh, okay.

Guess how much they were. Size 13s. They were in a, in a display case.

350.

15,000.

Then there has to be more to it than that. That's crazy. Like, were they worn by Carmelo Anthony or something?

No, no, they're brand new.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

$15,000.

Yeah.

Okay.

If I'm spending 15 grand, those shoes.

Sneaker heads spend a lot of money on shoes.

Yeah. So I've got three pairs of Jordans. I'm not crazy into the Jordan thing, but I don't.

Like, I couldn't afford him when I was a kid and now I'm over it.

Yeah. So I think that's my thing is that I Also couldn't afford them when I was a kid. And I had the knockoffs Jordans. Did you have those where they were the Payless Shoe Source that.

No, I had like the vans or the cumbers.

Okay. Yeah. I had airwalks one time.

I had the night the Reebok pumps.

Okay.

Those are terrible.

Yeah, they didn't. The pump was the best thing.

But your social calendar is going to get better than driving to Bakersfield for two hours. So we're taking the team to see the Sphere in Vegas, which I hear is quite an experience.

Well, every video I watched on it, it's next level.

Or taking like the team. Kind of like that field trip we did to Chicago. More people this time. Are you going to drive? Yeah, yeah.

Top down. You want to come with me? We can ride together. You can smoke cigars in my car.

Are you going alone?

I. I don't know. I didn't even think about it.

Where would I put Missy?

She could sit in the back seat and get all that.

The one thing about your car, it's cool. It's a cool car for two people, but it's not. That back seat is like in a Porsche 911. It's like. I don't know what those people look like in Italy that are riding in the back of that car.

They don't look like me.

Yeah, that's true. So so far I'm. No one's volunteered to ride with me, probably because they're frightened of my drive.

And that would be the first cigar that was smoked in your car. I'm sure it would be. Then we're going to the LA car show, which I'm a little bit nervous about because if I see the new Land Rover, I'm gonna want it.

Okay. So that is.

I have purposely been avoiding that in the. In the sense that you know me. Like once there's no. I have no. No self control when I want something. Something about being poor when I was a kid. Like, I just don't.

Don't you think we share that a little bit?

Probably, yeah.

Yeah, I definitely.

But I can. If I don't put myself in the situation, then I never have to.

Yeah. So they're expecting the auto show to be big. 27 different automakers are going to be at LA starts actually this Friday and Lucid's gonna be there.

We should sneak in during the day. I don't want to go on a weekend.

The tickets, believe it or not, by the way, which I thought it was really impressive. Eight box starting nice. So they made it really accessible for everybody, which is kind of cool. I also thought that the comments in this post that I had this. I think this was like NBC News or something like that. But everyone's like, all the cars are gonna get stolen because it's in Los Angeles. It's gonna pull them right off the LA Convention center floor. So I thought that was, that was pretty funny. But yeah, it looks like it's gonna be big. Subaru's doing a big unveil, which I don't know about, but I do think that.

There'S some cool eye candy. I've never been to an auto show as a. As just a person just going to look at around. I've only worked them as a civilian. Yeah, I've never gone as a civilian before, but yeah. So back in the day the manufacturers used to have salespeople go and work the floors and they always pick like the people that probably had the most product knowledge or maybe there was some charisma.

I don't know. You're personality might, might have helped.

I made a lot of friends, but every year I was easy to talk to. Yeah. So I went and did the auto show. So it was me and all the models, they didn't look like me by the way. But. But I also eat there. I did their vouchers.

Met your third wife.

But. But I'm kind of curious to see what it's like going to the auto show as a just straight up civilian. Just there to enjoy. So it'll be pretty cool.

It's probably a good way to catch a venereal disease.

Yeah.

You know, in and out of those cars.

We also could have. We couldn't have got. We could have gotten the press pass. We keep saying that stuff afterwards.

Yeah. We should do a live SDR from the auto show.

I think that would be kind of cool.

Oh, and then Seahawks, Rams.

Okay.

If you want to come, you're more than welcome.

Up to.

My cousins are flying in.

You've said I haven't gotten to see a football game with your cousins, but you've threatened it a couple of times.

The one time the game. The only time ever a game was moved because of COVID They flew in. It was the ramps. We had more beer. We. Because you got to pre order your food or whatever. We had tons of beer and they moved it from like Sunday to a Tuesday or something. And that was the biggest waste of money ever.

So much extra boost. Well, no, the biggest waste was when we tried to go to Seattle and we didn't make it because of snow.

Oh, I forgot about that. Okay. Anything else in the news before we get to today's subject?

Yeah, so. So just light recall notification. Um, so Toyota, believe it or not, hopped on our little recall chain. 1.9 million RAV fours because batteries that can pose a fire risk.

Don't see that all the time with old Toyota, but certain RAV Fours from 2013 to 2018 models.

Do you think that there's more recalls when Democrats are in office?

I have no idea.

Gas prices go up and.

You think that that's a.

Could we have somebody chart that?

Yeah, if it's affected by the political climate or not. But at any rate, Toyota getting a new battery.

It looks like that's it.

That was it. Oh. I got more news if you want to hear it, but.

Yeah.

Oh, this is also funny. Indirectly related to the crime level here, not just in Los Angeles, but all over the place. Catalytic converter thefts are declining. So what do you think that means?

This a joke?

No, There was a huge surge. Right. People stealing catalytic converters.

The reason why I park my car on the sidewalk.

Yeah. But the thefts are going down probably because the way it's getting policed and people are falling. Oh, really?

The police are doing something, or you should tell everybody in the audience. There was a. An alarm call on our building here, The. The library. These kids climbed up on the roof and were spray painting, but for all we knew, they were trying to do the. What's that Tom Cruise movie where he, like, comes down on the cable?

Mission Impossible.

Yeah. They think they're doing the Mission Impossible into the. We didn't know or whatever. Yeah. And so the alarm company called the cops. What do you think?

The cops.

We can see it on the cameras. What do you think the cops did?

Nothing.

They drove by.

That's cool. All right, so the. Unfortunately.

So we're under the impression that the L. A. Cops are doing a bunch of stuff.

No, what happened, actually, it wakes. Makes way more sense. The price of all the precious metals in the Cadillac converters has gone down, so it's not just for them to steal them.

Cause and effect.

Yeah, cause and effect.

So, okay, I'm gonna try to. I'm gonna try to be diplomatic when we do this, because I feel like I get upset.

You really do.

I get worked up, and I know people like that, but it's not. I. I don't like it.

Yeah. I don't think that the person.

I'm gonna be very diplomatic.

Okay.

So we're gonna talk about comments to different things that people have made on social media.

Yeah. So we've had a couple of posts on LinkedIn.

They've gotten a lot of few weeks.

That have gotten a lot of comments, reactions.

Tons of like, what do they call that? The impressions where it pops up on someone's feed. But the first one I want to talk about is.

Hold on, I. Oh, you want to set this up? So YouTube comments. Whenever we get a YouTube comment, I get an email.

Yeah.

And I read them. And the other day somebody, one of those accounts that has no.

You know, no name. Yeah. Ghosty account said that I should date somebody with the same color hair as my beard.

In other words, insinuating that because I date somebody younger than me.

That was their comment. Like that was it.

Wow, that's very.

What do you think that means?

I don't know.

Do you think that's a female or a male that says that?

Female.

I thought the same thing too. I deleted it.

But of all the stuff like that's.

The one thing, I deleted it.

Yeah, it's interesting.

But I thought it was funny.

Yeah, it is super interesting what people get. Get themselves into. So we had a couple of posts. The first one that I want to talk about is really, I think, I mean it's a, it's a thing for sure in our industry. But you know, the post was that lots of service advisors out there just going through the motions. They think that if they show up and write some tickets, their job is done.

So this is a post we made on LinkedIn.

Yeah, we made this post based off on LinkedIn.

We put this up.

Yep. And it's inspired by one of the previous episodes of sdr. You don't have it? I have it over here. But. But essentially mediocre advisors take no pride in their workmanship, sloppy presentations, half baked write ups and cutting corners that then team teammates have to clean up later. You know, the ones that are invested in constantly improving and strengthening relationships with customers. And we put. I want to hear from you. Are you seeing this lackadaisical attitude in your service drives too? What steps are you taking to motivate and inspire complacent advisors? So I thought maybe we just. I'll read some of the comments. But also like, do you think, do you see that as a trend that. I think that the skill level of advisors compared to maybe 15, 20 years ago has changed?

Not really. I. I think that a lot of the advisors when I was an advisor didn't care about being an advisor. I think that you you have a lot of really, really talented professional advisors. Like we have them in our group right in our comp. Like they're.

Actually, you could, you could say that the numbers that the advisors are putting up in our comp, we have software that tracks the advisor's performance and all the important measurables like csi, total sales hours per ro elr, all of that. Right. How many different things like alignments, that sort of thing that they're selling. We call them wild cards. The.

Performance of the advisors. I bet you if you go back five years and compare the average advisors now compared to five years ago, it would appear to me that the results are dramatically higher.

Yeah, I remember we had one advisor that we called the goat and his numbers were way, way ahead of everybody else's. And even currently we have two or three people that actually hit that on a regular level where.

As opposed to where back then it seemed unobtainable.

Yeah.

And now it now.

Like the average performance of advisors in our composite is way up. And so I think that the professionalism and the talent has gone up. I think you're always going to have an element of bad management that allows entitlement and that doesn't create an environment where those sort of advisors have to perform or go away. But I think that's existed since the beginning of time.

Yeah. Which supports our first comment on this. This is from Barry and he says it's all about keeping complacency at bay or even out of the picture. I think that's the.

Yeah, but I would say, I would say as an industry we have the best advisors we've ever had right now.

That's funny. It's easy to go the other direction because I feel like, man, there's so.

Much, there's so many advisors that are so good and so professional and are, they're. Yeah, yeah.

And I, I look at, you know, as we're, as we're meeting with, you know, potential clients and stuff like that and I'll look at things like, like pay plans and everything like that. And I'll see where you could see it could breed complacency. Like there's just pay plans out there that are reward advisors for not being very good, no minimum standards. And like there are. It's easy to get a job and make better money than you make anywhere else as an advisor and not be good at it.

Well, I think what is, what has happened forever, this isn't new is people have terrible systems and they'll have like a quick lube. They can't keep advisors because their systems chew them up and spit them out. And then what they do is they go oh well they're not making enough. So the weak manager will come to leadership and say the reason why we can't keep advisors because we're not paying them enough. You know, Tommy Toms across town is paying advisors 120 or whatever and they will completely detach it from the performance and just say they're making 120 over there which is a ghost. It's, it's not the full picture. And then they will pay more. So their, their advisor comp as a percentage of gross will go way up and they still don't retain advisors. Like it doesn't fix the, the problem, right?

Yeah, so.

But it creates complacency.

So I dig that that Barry said that right out of the game.

A lot of people like Barry's comment actually.

Go Barry.

Another person said that question is why do so many service advisors get into a slump? I mean it could be a lack of supportive leadership. Manufacturers who can't get them parts to keep customers happy. Managers who won't hire support staff on our techs to keep advisors from having to do multiple roles and keep up and keep work flowing. And of course pay plans meant to hurt instead of uplift or any combination of these. I think we should be more focused on changing the culture in general. The dealership, workplace. And then you can retain good advisors who are enthusiastic about the role.

It's an interesting approach.

Makes sense. I don't disagree with that.

Oh, this is pretty good too. I like this. This is from Jeff up in Jeff.

It says Jeff Han H a N. And one thing I've noticed successful advisors with strong gross per CPR and good CSI have in common is a consistent process from write up to cash out and everything in between. That's good. That's the advisor I'm going to recommend my friends and family deal with. Don't oversell but rather educate the client. Be transparent but don't be afraid to recommend what services are due at the same time. Underselling can be just as bad as overselling. I like that.

Yeah, so I remember we've done this before and every comment was terrible. I'm pretty happy so far.

Just wait till we get to the other one.

Yeah, this is the, this is the good one. Right?

Couple things. Fact. Oh then Justin says couldn't agree more. Chris Collins, curious to your take on this point. Is that just on the advisor or do you hold the service director partially responsible for this? Too. I typically find that complacency is tolerated due to broken or ignored processes in the drive that aren't being managed too.

I agree. Who's that?

That is Justin Hill.

Good job, Justin.

Good stuff, Justin.

100%.

Somebody even put in there preach it. H.

That's someone compliment saying Hill instead of Justin Hill. Oh, do you want to hear a story?

I don't know. Was it good?

Yeah.

So is it better than going to Bakersfield for pizza?

Probably. So there's this burglar.

He broke into a house. You know how it is when you break into a house in the middle of the night, right? It's dark. Gotta be careful. You're a cat burglar. You're moving around. And all of a sudden he hears this voice, a soft voice that says, jesus is watching.

Burglar looks around, doesn't see anything. It's like, okay, I'm hearing voices. That's kind of odd. But he goes about. He's starting to get to like the stereo equipment and starting to assess what he can take out of there. Here's the voice again. Jesus is watching.

This time. He's like. Pulls his flashlight. I was like, okay, someone's messing with me. Looks around, parrot in a cage. He's like, was that you that just said that? The parrot's like, yes, that was me. And it's like, okay, what's your name, parrot? Moses. The burglar's like.

What kind of a person names their parrot Moses? And Moses says, the same kind that names their pit bull Jesus.

That's good.

Thank you.

All right.

Home robbery comedy.

Yeah, everyone likes home robbery comedy.

Oh, this is a good one. Jim Shaw. Unfortunately, many advisors go through the motions because excellence is optional at their store.

They're not help. They're not helped at the statum because it doesn't matter.

Good stuff. But overall, I would say that that was a. That was a good one. You want to get to the one that's going to fire you up.

The gift that keeps on giving. Repair authorization.

I don't.

I don't even remember the name of the. The nice kid that called in the other day.

For repair authorization.

I don't remember either.

But it was on a drive. It was on a drive by, I don't know, a couple weeks ago.

Not. It was like the one before last. I think it was two.

A couple weeks ago. It was really, really recent. And then what we do, part of our process is then we repost those things on the different social media platforms to start conversations. Exactly. And so this one was reposted.

And.

Do you think people watch the video or do you think they just comment?

I feel like this is a lesson in human nature. We posted the thumbnail from the YouTube.

Video, but there is a link to the video.

So the thumbnail says bye bye diag fee, which we might have incited this a little bit.

Okay, so this video is about repair authorization.

Correct.

Would you like to summarize repair authorization for the people that are just joining us.

That are new to the. To the program?

Well, I would normally, but instead I would rather if you either now or at the end, there is a viewer slash listener that did exactly what they were supposed to do. And I actually think their explanation of pre authorization is about as good as I've seen. It's in your little pile here.

Oh, yeah, yeah, I was saving that for the end.

Okay.

Okay. So these, these people, and we're gonna name them too Roberts.

Hmm.

He says this is tricky one. Chris Collins, do you charge a consulting fee or diagnosis fee of a dealership for your services? Not trying to be a. Just flipping the script. I feel if you have per preformed a service diagnosis of a problem and present the customer with a written estimate to fix said problem. And yes, I will charge diag for. Here's the problem, Robert. They're not parallels what we do in charging diagnosis. But we don't charge diagnosis. We do a strategy session for free. We don't want clients that we don't know what they're like. We will not take a client for coaching if we don't see your financial and talk to you and your people and figure out where you're at. I never once ever say not to charge for diagnosis. But you wouldn't know that because you didn't watch the videos. Meow. And how many, how many comments did this thing get? Nobody thought to turn it off. Can you turn it off?

31.

31 Comments we got here. Can we undo the Internet? Is there a way to turn it off? Can we talk to Al Gore about this?

He's the only one that has the flip switch.

What else you got in there?

If you think should be. If the work gets performed at you location, you should waive it. I'm not making that up.

So that's saying that we I think.

Should, but if the work gets performed at you location, you should waive it.

Read that right there. Just read it.

You should, but if the work gets performed at u location, you should waive it. Yeah.

And would you think this person watched the video?

No, I Don't think so.

It's free to everyone. Aren't these videos free?

Yes, very free.

This is all it is, right? You.

You.

You read these, right? You know, I'm just gonna get more and more pissed.

Yeah, we don't have to continue on that much, but I do want you.

To read why is Phil saying, yes, sir? Good luck with everything.

So he's responding to something, but I.

Separately printed his repair organization can work much better with an experienced advisor if you have a customer concern.

Yeah, yeah, you got to watch the video.

He's. I guess he's talking about diagnosis. You need to take it on a case by case basis.

I. That's.

Our doctor brought coffee and cake for the staff when our daughter was born. So they had cake and coffee while I was paying them. I didn't have insurance at that.

Yeah. So the story that you skipped over there was that when the child was born, they had to still pay the anesthesiologist even though the wife didn't get the epidural.

What does that have to do with repair authorization? Daniel, that you.

That you pay it? So the story in there is that.

You think Daniel watched the video?

No, but. Yeah, it doesn't.

Yeah, it's a cute story, but it has nothing to do with this.

Now, can you read Phil?

Can you read Phil? Because I'm going to have a heart attack.

So, Phil, great job. He's a server.

We should send Phil swag.

Yeah. So, Phil, if you're listening, we know Phil. I don't, but I'd like to. First off, I'd like to connect with you on LinkedIn just in case you're interested. But it says you do. It says gang. Please watch the video. I think many are not understanding the point he is making. We use a lot of words that mean nothing or confusing to our guests. Other times we waste time. He's not saying waive the diagnosis fee, not charge for one, or not pay the technician. And he is simply saying to get a repair authorization upfront, which includes diagnosis. You have an idea what the worst case scenario is, and you present that price to the customer upfront, getting their buy in if they agree to it. Then once the technician diagnoses the problem and the estimate is under the authorization amount, there is no wasted time getting a repair approval. After a diagnosis, the tech moves right into the repair. It saves everyone time and keeps that technician busy. Boom.

Good job, Phil.

Thank you, Phil.

Yeah, I'd like to send you swag.

Phil.

Should have never done this.

I, I. You know what? I do these things where we talk about these kinds of topics in pre production, and then I usually end up regretting it afterwards.

But you, you have to insulate me from this because I, I just want to fight. I don't.

But more importantly, I think the lesson.

The idea that people don't watch the video and then comment about it in a way that.

Like, it upsets me that I would be classified in a category that thinks the technicians shouldn't get paid for diagnosis. The technicians are the most important part.

Of the whole thing and their time protected.

There is never a time where you, anybody can find a clip of me saying that the technicians shouldn't be well taken care of. It doesn't. I don't. Because fundamentally, I, I don't think that way. Like, I think the technicians are.