A recorded episode of the Service Drive Revolution show ("Managing Your Management") where hosts Chris Collins and Christian answer listener calls about service-department operations. Topics covered include a Murphy's/Cole's law joke, practical scheduling advice for multi-brand service drives (recommendation: structured advisor schedules, 20-minute appointment spacing), operational targets (an advisor should write ~12–15 RO orders/day), and guidance on "managing up" when leadership focuses on RO count versus net profit. The episode also gives a call-in number for future questions and plugs related offers.
Questions this video answers
833-3-ASK-SDR (833-327-5737)
20 minutes apart
Approximately 12–15 RO orders per day
Chapters
Foreign.
We're going to go to your question.
So I had a question for you. Before we go to other questions, I have a question for you. What is that thing where it's like anything that can go wrong will go wrong. It's a rule or something like that. It's like someone's law. Do you know what I'm talking about?
No.
It's a Murphy's law. You heard of Murphy's law?
Murphy's law.
Yeah. But then you've got Cole's law, which is really cabbage cut up. Really?
When you can't get your own joke out because you're laughing at yourself.
I've been joke.
Yeah.
So Murphy's law.
Murphy's law is where everything that can go wrong will go wrong.
And then Cole's law is cold sloth, chopped up cabbage, thinly cut cabbage.
Yeah.
Mayonnaise.
I blew the punchline. But it's a great joke, isn't it?
Yeah. You're gonna, in your delivery, you're gonna have to learn not to laugh at your own jokes.
No, I think that that's a sincerity to the, to the humor.
So we take your questions. If we play your question on the big show, we send you a swag bag, trucker hat, coffee mug, T shirt, T shirt. The number for you to call in and ask your question. It doesn't just have to be related to the Service Drive is 833-3-ASK SDR. And if you don't know how to spell on the phone or your phone doesn't have that like some androids, that's 833-327-5737. Let's go to our first question this week.
Hey, it's Melissa at Jeff Weiler in Springfield. My question is with a multi brand service drive, I'm finding it hard to maximize or increase my RO count without the wild west schedule causing issues with customer satisfaction and surveys. Separate schedules have one express lane that is fed off of all three and advisors who write for all three brands. Would you suggest one schedule for all three brands or how can I best increase my RO count and maximize everything with keeping the status quo? Thanks so much. You guys are great.
Melissa, Miss Melissa.
She's good stuff. I like Melissa a lot. So the thing I would say is first and foremost is that I know that Melissa and your coach have talked about this. Maybe since you guys have actually since you left this message for us. But just as a general overall arc to this whole thing, I think that the thing that Melissa was hung up on was that she's Got three brands that she's managing. And the thing that is the equalizer with that is that all of her advisors can write any one of the three brands. So to me, the brand's become irrelevant and it's more about controlling everything. Right. So I think that the wild, wild west mentality that she was alluding to, where she wanted to make sure that it's free and easy for everybody to come in. I'm telling you that the more structure you have to it, the more your customers appreciate it and the better you can manage it. So come up with a really distinct schedule of what you want to do and space it apart and make sure that your team has time to connect with your customers.
But the answer is.
Make the schedule for the advisors.
Make the schedule for the advisors 20 minutes apart. That's what I would do.
Was that our answer?
Yes.
Okay. So make the schedule for the advisors. And then if you need, if you're growing your traffic or you have more traffic, add more advisors. But you know, an advisor should only write 12 to 15 a day and then scale it from there. So if your advisors are writing 16 a day, add another advisor and get them down to 11 or 12 and your numbers will go up because they'll have more time to spend. Good question. Thanks. Melissa, what's the next question?
Hey, Chris. My question is, I'm a new service manager of a store in a metro Atlanta area. Took over about a year ago, right before the pandemic happened. Luckily, I'd made some changes.
And got things going in the right direction. But now, since the pandemic's gone on, my owner seems to be more concerned about RO count than he is about us doing better net profit wise than we have the previous three years. I just find it hard to wrap my head around doing better from a net profit standpoint without letting anybody go during all this and us being more worried about RO count. Am I, am I missing something there or am I right in my thinking?
So a couple things. One is you need to understand how to manage your boss.
That's what's going on here. So most of the time, dealers and general managers come from the front end. They come from sales. They don't understand fixed stops. And the only way they know how to process success is how many units are going over the curb. So they revert to RO count. So I would have two different dialogues. I would agree with him and try to grow your RO account while you're getting net profit. But you can do both. But I would just agree with them. And say, yeah, we're trying to get our RO count. Listen to what he has to say.
Don't tell him, hey, I know how we can get our account up. Use like a Christian joke. Hey, want to know how to get your RO count up?
How do you do that?
Sell more cars.
That's pretty good.
Yeah, right. Because if you're selling cars, the service department's going to be, you know, busy.
So. Yeah, I would just. I would just agree with them and listen to what he has to say. Try to understand. But the context most of the time of a general manager, a dealer is they only understand units. So they think ro count and learn the financial statement and focus on. On net to gross. You can do both. It isn't. It isn't one or the other.
Just agree with them.
Yeah, man. Managing your upper management is a great lesson. It's a.
That's a manage up. Gotta manage up. I. I've always had to do that in my career. Manage up.
Yeah. And I think you've been pretty.
You kind of do that to me, don't you?
I have my moments, probably.
That's funny. 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 8,000, 333 Ask SDR. 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.
