Chris Collins and Lithia Performance managers share how peer groups drive results: attendees report higher labor capture, bigger revenue gains, and better customer satisfaction. The advice is simple: own your job, find your people, write daily goals, stop making excuses.
Questions this video answers
From roughly $98 per hour to about $142 per hour — a $44 increase.
Managers attending were up $2.1 million versus $364,000 for non-attendees.
Non-attendees had an increase of 0.2; managers in the performance group had an increase of 1.9.
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A person gets in this place where they don't think they can or they're too busy or they have too much going on or I'll do it next week, I'll do it next month. The more that you do that, the less likely it is to actually happen.
Along with the opportunity to kind of get out of the store and hear the best practices from other organizations, you know, other stores within the organization to be able to leverage the additional information from Chris.
When Bruce and Ken invited me in, the challenge was how can we provide the managers with the best tools out there and systems to increase the customer experience in csi, increase profitability, and basically be the best that there is our industry. And I think with the meetings, we've accomplished a lot of that. We've given the managers tools, we've leveraged all of the talent in the room and had a lot of fun and made it a safe place for managers to come and really learn and be at the forefront of a very challenging industry.
So let's talk about the managers and the performance group and the difference between their results and the results of the managers not coming to the performance group.
We just completely changed everything. We bought into the whole how much is our one hour's worth of time worth? And we went from roughly $98 an hour for an effective labor rate on the BMW of Des Moines side to I think we're at 142 an hour right now. So $44 increase? Yes. Yeah.
Total increases we've managed to bump. You know, when you're shooting for 5 and 10% up to 30, 40% at certain times.
So the managers coming are up 2.1 million in the last six months compared to 364,000. So that's an increase of 1.9% compared to an increase of 12.4%. And then let's talk about CSI. They have the non attendees have an increase of 0.2 and the managers in the performance group have an increase of 1.9%. So dramatic increase in results from managers that are taking the ideas and the tools and they're going back and doing the hard work and taking a leap of faith and really making a difference. And then it's feeding on itself because managers are getting encouraged by seeing the results by other managers in the meeting. And so then they're doing it just constantly gets better. And it's really, really fun environment to be a part of.
I have some pretty good ideas on my own, but because of the minds that we have in the company, I have learned a tremendous amount of information for coming to the meetings and picking stuff up to take apart and put back together in my own store and make it mine.
What was your biggest challenge and how did you overcome it?
Me?
My biggest challenge was me. I kept making excuses and. And there was absolutely no reason.
One thing that has blown me away about Lithia is the amount of freedom that they've given the managers and how they take the obstacles away. And then they support them with resources and a mindset that really, really is fun to be around. And if you're plugged into it, you can't help but get better and improve. It's been an inspiration for me and really for the managers. It comes down to whether you want to take the resources and implement them and get better or if you don't. And it's really that simple. There aren't a lot of obstacles that are in your way.
If you had some advice to share with either a young manager or a manager that maybe is stagnant in his growth and wants to continue performance increases year after year, what advice would you give them?
Love the job and own the job or find something else to do?
I've learned an immense amount of knowledge you get in this business for a long time, come to figure out that it's really who you surround yourself with, and come to realization that some of the best ideas are stolen from other people.
Do you have any advice for either a young manager that's new in their position, or maybe a manager that's become stagnant in their growth in their store and is looking at how do I get to that next step? Do you have any advice for them?
Get involved with 20 groups like this. Reach out to people around you. Read as much as you can. Challenge yourself to do better. Look in the mirror every day and write the goal down. How are we going to improve today?
Be honest with yourself. Look in the mirror. I mean, it starts with you.
