Chris Collins (with Speaker B) advises small automotive shop managers to stop doing front-line operational tasks (e.g., driving the shuttle) and instead act as leaders/conductors who build scalable systems. Key points: focus on understanding effective labor rate, pricing strategies, recruiting/retaining technicians, and service advisor training before offering customer amenities like shuttle services. If a shop lacks capacity (e.g., one advisor/one manager), Collins suggests not offering a shuttle rather than overextending.
Chapters
You should not be driving the show.
Contingency plans, that's the name of the game.
And people that actually.
Like, I don't know, just be. I couldn't imagine my GM driving somebody holding in the shuttle. Like literally I would just be, I'd be freaking out the whole time. And the fact that I would never let the GM do it because I would do it first. But goodness gracious, yeah.
Now there's two other things that I want to leave you with on this subject because I'm sure a lot of you listening to this don't agree with me. And that's okay. You will. Eventually. If you want to be an effective leader, you're going to have to come to this side of thinking. Otherwise you'll always be the, the doer. You're not the conductor. You're always going to be the, the person playing the instrument, not the, the conductor. There are departments out there where the manager is the warranty administrator. They have one advisor and three techs and it's a pretty small shop.
Yeah.
Every time I've done a strategy session in the last couple years with a store that size, the amount of potential they're booked out two weeks at least.
Nowadays it's more.
You don't have the resources because you don't understand effective labor rate. You don't understand pricing strategies. You don't understand how to recruit technicians and build something that is scalable, that allows you to afford the amenities that customers need to keep them coming back.
Right.
If you're the shuttle driver, there's a pretty good chance of your customers are barely hanging on.
I think that's really fair.
Your results are not very good and you're not taking advantage of the opportunity for the most part. I'm sure there's an exception here, there. But I would contend, don't make yourself the exception. And you're not going to get better by, by laying on an excuse, are you, Are you maximizing your full potential with what you, what availability you could create in the shop, what you could convert by inspecting cars, what you could sell, what effective labor you could achieve by having a pricing strategy and the right service advisors and the right service advisor training? Could you then afford a shuttle driver? And then the last thing I'm going to say is, let's say you are the shop with one advisor or you're the advisor and the manager and you don't have, you know, the potential for that. Maybe don't offer a shuttle.
Yeah. If you can't man it, don't do it.
You're cooked out two or three weeks. You don't have to don't offer a shuttle. Just focus on what you can do.
Okay, that makes sense.
Now, that's the minority that we're speaking to, but.
I think it's important.
Thanks so much for watching this clip.
Of Service Driving 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 special deals on our books and training, head over to offers.chris collins inc.com. now that's offers.chriscollinsinc.com I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video.
