New Service Manager? Avoid These Pitfalls and Drive Success | SDR #295

Welcome to the big show. We got a good one for you. Today we are going to talk about what to do as a new service manager. We're breaking the rules and we're pulling a drive by into the show. It's a great conversation, a lot of insights. And even if you're not new and you're a veteran, there's a lot that you can take away from. You know, what we know about being an effective leader and running a profitable, healthy department.

We.

We talk a little bit about my experiences with Christian on a jet Ski.

Oh, boy.

And the news and much, much more coming up on this edition of Service Drive Revolution.

Is it possible that a jet ski needs an alignment?

I don't think so. Unless Christian drove it.

Yeah. It's funny. Even when we were docking them when we were leaving, Missy had to take that jet ski, like, and loop it around and come back, you know, and she goes, you're right. There is something like, it's a little to the. It's. It's a little faded to the right. Like you got a counter a little bit.

How is it.

How would you, how would you align a jet ski? Do you know?

Don't know. I don't know.

Yeah, the steering is off center a little. Like, you literally have to, like, if you're going straight now, you hold it like just a quarter.

Oh, my God.

Do you have any insight into that?

No. I actually would say it was fairly uneventful. I didn't hit anything this time.

Yeah, I've never heard that before. Yeah, well, you probably hit waves because.

It was real choppy.

It was pretty choppy. But. But I was. But I was pretty sedate on the throttle. Like, I didn't. I didn't go super fast on the, the choppy stuff. The only time I went fast was in the morning when it was really nice and smooth on the lake.

But even then, we didn't really go that fast.

I think. I think went 56, which I think it'll go 70 or something like that. But I felt like it was pretty quick, man.

The eagles were hunting.

Oh, really?

I've never seen somebody that's awesome and just they swoop down and grab a fish. It's the best.

That's an all American Fourth of July.

Yeah, it was pretty. It was pretty great. The really, the most impressive thing was watching a dad of the year over here with the sun.

Oh, yeah.

It was pretty impressive.

That was sarcasm or not?

What do you mean?

I couldn't tell. I can't tell if you're Being sarcastic or not.

No, I think it's. I think you're a really good dad. Like, you're very. Like, there's no point. He doesn't swoop in. And, like, you know, he's very attentive, very involved in the kid. He's turning out pretty good. Like, you know, man, he's a lot.

Bigger than when I saw.

Yeah, he looks like a little man now.

Yeah.

And I think my favorite part was he was super polite to everybody.

Yeah. He calls me Mr. Collins.

He calls him Mr. Collins. I, like. I don't know.

I let it go because he must have told Christian must have told him to do that. So.

Yeah.

Going with the program. It's odd, but I go with it.

Yeah.

Because if that's what Christian wants, it's okay.

I. I also would tell you that I never. Especially when he's around water, because he's got a. Probably an inflated sense of his abilities a little bit. And I don't know if that's just a normal thing with 11 year olds, but.

He thinks he's better than he is in almost everything. And, like, I just don't take my eyes off him when he's out at that near the water. But I thought he was. I thought he was.

He.

He also was very social with my nephews. Like, he integrated with the other kids there.

Oh, that's great.

Like, yeah, just like, he'd been there the whole time. Like, he was very, very social, very nice, very respectful. It was. It was. It was fun.

He tried to wean the one kid off of pyromania.

That wanted to start everything on fire.

Oh, yeah, my nephew. I gotta. I gotta. Yeah, Mike. It's funny. They're.

Sad.

So how many kids did you guys have?

Which day?

It was three.

So many people that rotated through this. So it started with my family, and then Christian came in the middle of that, and then Missy's family came, and so it was. I think at the height of it, maybe there were five kids or something.

Oh, okay. Wow.

Pretty fun.

Yeah.

I thought you're. I thought you guys did a great job of hosting and just no matter how many people were there, everybody always felt like they're.

My mom made so much food.

Too much, in some many cases, was.

So glad to come home.

I'm back to intermittent fasting and then. And then seeing your stepdad drive the boat with the tube behind it and just the sheer joy that he experiences.

Oh, he loves that. Was one thing in my family is the kids, hands down, like, me pulling them Better on the inner tube. Yeah. Than Tim. Because Tim, literally, I have videos of him. Like, he just gets a kick out of them screaming. Like when they're screaming, I feel obligated to slow down a little.

That's so funny.

He loves to torture him. Yeah, that's.

He. He won't stop grinning the whole time he's driving.

But I have this, this one little nephew.

He screw.

He screams like a girl. Like.

Yeah, I stopped at one point. I just stopped him like, hey man, are you. Let's go back in or get in the boat. And he's like, no, no, I want to keep going. And I'm like, well then you got to stop screaming like that.

Yes.

And it was, it's such a high, it was such a high pitched screen. It was a. Yeah, it was a slasher movie.

Scre.

It was like all the way there.

I wasn't doing anything crazy. No, because that was my first time pulling them by myself. Like usually Tim is there and so, you know, I was being cautious. And also there was a lot of boats and you know, you got to be careful.

Yeah.

And it was very, very distracting in the sense I. You know. And also when I was a kid, I had a couple uncles that would mess with me and like try to get you to, you know, break or whatever. And I'm not, I'm definitely not of that school. Like, yeah, yeah, I want it to be fun.

Right.

I want to push them to the, to the edge of what they think, but I don't want to, I don't want to traumatize them. So I'm very aware of where that line is. But with him, the screaming, it made.

Him go a little.

Pushing that throttle just a little more.

He did over the days though. He did. He. Him and I communicated and we talked through it and he, you know, I told him like, hey, if you want, tell me like. But otherwise, don't scream like that and then go. No, go again.

Yeah, it's a mixed messaging.

It was pretty funny. Okay, what's in the news? And then we're. This. I think the subject's pretty fun.

Yeah, I think this is going to be exciting, exciting show today. So this is mostly just to make you feel really, really good that you haven't gotten a new Range Rover because they recalled a bunch of 2024 Range Rovers and Jaguars because they have oil leaks that can start a fire.

Yeah, I think I have, I have a Range Rover coming in September.

Is it. So it would be a 25 probably, maybe. Yeah.

I don't know.

So hopefully not a fire ordered it.

From our clients there and the other side of the country. I don't know how I'm gonna get it. They're like, it's no problem.

No, they'll ship it to you.

Can I keep. Well, we'll talk about it. Nobody cares. But I'm wondering if they can do a courtesy delivery because I never, in the one I have, I never learned how to use the WI fi or any of that. And it doesn't work. I would kind of in this new one like to know how the stuff works.

Yeah. So I think it'll be fixed by the 2025 model, but range Rover Defender and the Jaguar F pace, which I think is a cool looking suv. So yeah, just in case anybody wanted to know about that, we got a recall on the Jaguar Range Rover. And then I thought this was kind of interesting and I didn't really think about it. It's kind of like the winners and losers from the second quarter of auto sales and one of the fastest growing segments, believe it or not, electric SUVs.

What are they?

So obviously you got the Tesla Model X and model. Yeah.

Isn't one of those the top selling car?

I think the X is the one that's the top selling one.

Is that the little one?

Yeah, I think the Y is the bigger one. The Mustang mach E. Hyundai Ioniq 5. The Cadillac Lyric actually sold 7,294 units, which really. That's a lot of sales for. Yeah. And a quarter for Cadillac.

That's the one that they put all the technology in that they were banking.

Which is a really, really sharp looking car on the inside and the outside. You've seen those things. I think the Lyric is gorgeous. I would actually drive one of those.

One day into something else. But. But Toyota's entry into something else.

I got that joke.

Yeah, thank you. Tell more jokes.

Like Toyota BZ4X, Subaru, Solterra, the Kia EV9.

And I heard a lot of talk about that. Subaru.

Yeah, I think that that's a joint. That's a joint venture with Toyota, which is a good move for Subaru, I think, to pair up with that.

I've kind of always done the joint venture thing.

Have they done. Yes.

Okay. So I think for a while weren't they Mitsu and like something else too. They were owned by the same.

Yeah.

Venture. Well, what was.

Oh, Mitsu's done that for a long time. Because remember like the 3000 GT was Dodge. Right. So Mitsu's, I feel like always Partnered with somebody.

Toyota's.

Toyota partners with BMW and yeah, that supra.

Yeah, the Z4 and the supra, the.

The hydrogen back further.

The Matrix, the Toyota Matrix and the Pontiac Vibe, those were the same.

Okay.

Toyota's done a lot of it too over the years.

Another big group that came up was mid sized GM trucks. So the Colorado and GMC Canyon both sold a bunch. Mazda had a huge increase for their CS.

I think GMs doing a great job with some of their products. Like. Yeah, well, I would. I said before, but I rented a Z. Is it a Z? 71 Suburban.

She was like, yeah, I want the, like. She loved it more than the Escalade. H. It was.

That's great.

Really nice.

What's bigger? Well, if you get an ESV Escalade, but it's bigger than the standard Escalade. That Suburban means business.

And then some of the, some of the losers. Stellantis had a terrible second quarter. Their jeep sales dropped 20%.

People are down on them.

Ram was down 26%.

I have a neighbor that was, that was going to buy another Cherokee and I was trying to help him and he's out. He's buying a Volkswagen.

Yeah, so. So that's interesting stuff.

That's the second quarter of auto sales. And that's it for the news today.

Do you think, do you think the electric cars have a chance? Yeah, I think they're gonna make it.

I think they'll be okay.

I think the segment.

Do you think Toyota will go electric?

Well, they, I think they. Well, that BZ4X, that SUV, I think it's just the, just the primer to it.

But that was low on the list.

No, it was in a. They had a record sales.

Yeah, but it was low on the list that you read. It wasn't number one.

I don't think it was in any particular order. Those were just a list of the. That was a list of the winners of the second quarter. So they were all winners. It was like me when I run a 10K.

So we're going to break the, the.

Norms today a little bit in the sense that when we were previewing the drive bys, I thought this call would be a good one for just an overall subject. And so we had. I think dawn called in and. Well, let's just play it and then we'll talk about it. Go ahead and play. Play her call, Kev. I guess I'm just having difficulty navigating all the various moving parts. I feel like I'm getting lost in the process, and I just want to know how I can put all these moving parts together just to do my job better. There's just a lot of various employees and aspects that I kind of have to move through every day. And I just want to know how I can smooth out the process so that my end product is what I want it to be. I want it to be as perfect as it can. Thanks so much. I love your show. I bought your book, and I hope you can help me with my question. Thank you. Thank you, Don. And.

The first thing I want to say is if.

I had the choice and you guys can. Can kind of share your opinion, if I had the choice between you being new in the role or a veteran of 20 years, I would take you being new in the role in the sense that the role of a service manager has changed so much. But as an industry and as we approach it, most of the time our behaviors and habits are stuck in the past. And so.

If we can teach you a few different things and you don't have that history or that context working against you, there's a saying, it says, hey, a lot of people have 30 years of experience working against them, right? Or even there's that old Zen parable of the guy is sitting there drinking tea, and the master comes up and pours tea into his teacup, and it immediately starts to overflow. And the guy's like, what, master? What are you doing? What are you doing? You're making a mess. And he goes, well, I can't teach you anything unless there's room in the cup. You got to pour some of that out, in a sense, right? And so, in a sense, a lot of our industry, the cup is full. Everybody's doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result, but nobody makes the connection that you got to change your beliefs and habits and you got to make some more room in order to learn some. Some new things. So for me personally, hands down, I would much rather have somebody like yourself to teach than somebody with a bunch of bad habits. Do you guys agree with that or not?

Yeah. And there's also something really special about dawn that we didn't. We have not seen in a ton of service managers is someone that's willing to ask, where do I start?

Yeah, yeah.

Like, I think that the school of hard knocks for service managers. I know that I went through this. I think. Pretty sure, Hoagie, you went through this too. It was like there was an assumption that when you got promoted, you had to spend time figuring it out. Like, like you're the first service manager ever to be. To exist, and you can't possibly learn something from someone else. You have to figure it out on your own. Which to me, looking back, was a tremendous waste of time. I didn't spend the time in the first six months working on the things that we're going to go over that matter. And instead I was putting out fires and like, I was putting, you know, energy and focus into the wrong things because I didn't know where to start. And I love that Don just asked the question. It's like, I see that there's a lot of stuff going on. What should I be paying attention to? So asking the question to me is great, and then having someone there to answer it.

So now, now let's kind of, let's talk through this just a little bit and set some sort of context in the sense that you're. You're probably taking over a department that's a little bit of a mess. I can kind of hear it in your voice. You're also already talking about symptoms, not causes. So you're. It sounds like you're playing whack a mole with the things that are the loudest and brightest in the moment, which is, in the end, a death sentence, really.

So what you kind of have to do is you have to step back for a second and you got to build it. And it's easier to build it when you're new than to assume the same sort of behaviors and trajectory that got it where it is. And you're, you're going to by default fall into that, because whatever is built and whatever is happening is the outcome of, of bad ideas, bad beliefs, bad actions, and you know that. So the, the other thing is, on top of that is you have an industry that is not friendly to service managers in the sense that you are not. There's really not many places you can go that are going to teach you what is important and how to affect the things that are important in a way that is easy to understand and meaningful. So what you're going to be told is get me more gross most of the time. So I'm, I'm assuming. So you're going to be told, get me more gross. And only when it is bad, you're going to.

You'Re going to be put on the dime about csi, but only when it's bad. So it's going to be a reactive type thing is, CSI might be okay, and then all of a sudden it's not okay. And so then you're going to, you know, feel the pressure of CSI not being good, and you're going to ignore it when it is good, more or less. But neither one of those two things are a solution. And so what you want to do, and here is, here's the real truth. And now this truth is going to be hard for you because what you should be doing is your owner or, you know, general manager should be signing you up for Chris Collins coaching. You should be coming here to our masterclass, and you should be learning how to do all this before you even start day one, really is what, what should be happening. But that isn't what's going to happen. You probably work for somebody who doesn't invest in training and is just going to throw you out there and let you kind of do the best you can do. And when things go wrong, you're going to be called on the spot, and you'll always kind of be in purgatory. And what we see with a lot of the manufacturers that we work with is the turnover at that position is somewhere close to 50%. So sometimes it's higher, sometimes it's a little bit lower. But for the most part, the, you know, the batting average of a service manager in the seat is, you know, in a year's time, 50% of them go away or, or turn over.

The real approach here, and the real mindset is there's only two, two things that really matter. And then we're going to talk about that. Then we're going to talk about kind of how to get there, in a sense. But the two things that matter, and contrary to what everybody else is going to tell you.

This is, you know, I'm, I'm. We may be the only ones that tell you the truth, but this is the truth. Profitability, the profitability of your department and the customer experience, those are the only two things that matter. You got to make customers happy and they got to want to come back, and you got to do it in a way that's fair, that's comfortable for them, and that they feel good. And that's not easy to do. That's. That's hard to do. Then on the flip side of that, you got to run a profitable department. So you got to be able to charge enough to be profitable, which means customers have to perceive value in, in broken systems and chaos and all that. It's very hard to create a scenario where customers perceive value that you can, you can hold the margins that you need to, to hold. So those are the two most important things is you, you need to run a profitable department and you need a great customer experience. The profitable department part is where the trick is, is a lot of times you don't see the financial statement. A lot of times you'll never even get around to asking for the financial statement because you're so busy grabbing the cat by the tail and it dragging you around. And when you do see the financial statement, you're not even going to understand what it says. And so if you're not starting and building something backwards with the intention of I'm going to have a very profitable department with a great customer experience, just about everything else you, you're going to do is going to put you in purgatory because you're never going to have a sense of accomplishment. You, you're never going to be driving the business forward. You are just going to be maintaining somebody else's system that they created and invented. And you'll always be just a manager. That's it. At best, a middle, you know, a middle manager. Now when we get to the profitability side is the thing you have to understand is what you're selling is time, right? It's like a, a lawyer or a doctor, in a sense, you're selling time. The only person that can produce that time is a technician. So the most important asset that you have is your technicians. Nothing else matters until you have technicians. You have nothing to sell of quality. And you can't create a great customer experience if you don't have good text advisors, warranty, administrators, porters, none of you yourself, none of that matters if you don't have technicians that can turn the hours and turn the hours in a way that doesn't create comebacks and makes the customer feel good in a sense. So just to recap, you want to run a profitable department and you want to have a great customer experience, and to run a profitable department, you got to have technicians because the thing you're selling is time, right? And so it takes a lot of work to build a shop and recruit good technicians and keep them happy and motivated and, you know, that sort of thing. A lot of times we spend our time on advisors and advisors are important, but they're not as important as the technician. So so far, just think, you guys, thinking back on our experience.

What are your thoughts on the profitability and the, the customer.

Experience as it, as it relates to Ms. Dawn?

Yeah, I think one thing that I wrote down that is key that she said is, she said the end product. How do I make the end product? So kind of like you're saying there's only two things that really matter, profitability and customer experience. And I think a lot of times as a new manager, the lines get blurred so much as to what's the most important metric, what am I chasing? You know, all of those different things, and it doesn't, it doesn't seem in the moment when you're new that it can be that simple, that it can be just these two things. So, one, don't over complicate it. Like, you're looking for the end product. Those are the two most important things for sure. So, you know, stay focused on that. And, and, and don't. Yeah, don't over complicate it. Our industry, I think, you know, one of the, One of the things about having time as the commodity that you sell is it is easy to, to complicate it. Right. You have unproductive tax and you have all these different things. And that's always been a funny thing. And I know, you know, I've talked about it before, but it's always kind of a funny thing to me, all the different ways they measure that, from efficiency and proficiency and productivity. And then you go to this group or this manufacturer and they define proficiency.

Or it's the same word with a different formula. It's so funny.

And then they want to fight about it and like, what are we fighting about it? And it's funny, too, because some people, you know, just want to fall on the sword of, oh, look at my spreadsheet. My shop is productive, and their cost of sale will be $60 an hour. They're losing $60 an hour. You know, like, none of the math adds up at all. But they want to say that, you know, they, they look good on, on this one report. And it's funny how many metrics in our world.

You know, will feel good about the metric and the department's just hemorrhaging money. So don't, you know.

Yeah. Don't buy into all that.

Don't fall in love with any.

Yeah, none of that. It's crazy how many metrics are out there.

You're the department's losing money and a guy's bragging about proficiency. Yeah, yeah, it's like.

Yeah, exactly. And there's so much of that out there. So much of it. So it, I think that was, you know, once I started to get a handle on it, probably one of the biggest revelations to myself was like, oh, it's, it's way, you know, it's way easier than I thought it was.

And that's our job. Yeah, right. That's the role we play, is we need to make it easy. We need to make it easy for dealers and general managers to see where fix stops is working and not. And we need to make it easy for the people inside of there to function. You know, step up and hit the ball. Like now. You know, in a sense, it's going to be hard for Don to step up and hit the ball because she's going to be like, where's the bat? Where's. Oh, well, this ball isn't real leather, it's fake.

Yeah.

It's going to be all this other stuff and it's like, no, just hit a home run. Like, let's go.

Yeah.

You want to add anything? Any jokes? You got a joke for Don? You got a 10 minute joke for Don?

Not yet, but I could.

Yeah. I think that what you guys said already is really, really great.

I've got a couple noted down here.

Just as a rule, like one of those things I was, I was trying to remember back, like, what were, like, what were five pieces of advice that I really would have liked.

And we don't jump. Just stick with profit and CSI or customer experience. We're coming to the rest of it. I got a list here.

All right. Yeah. So my number one, my number one was understand financials.

Yeah. So we see it all the time when we do a masterclass. Their eyes get big and they're like, oh, this. Okay, now I know. It's like, why, why we keep it a secret, why the manufacturers don't teach them when we're teaching them is nuts.

Yeah, yeah. And the small percentage that do get training on financials.

Like you feel like you're trying to become a CPA rather than run a, you know, rather than run a successful service department.

Isn't it funny when you, when you think about what we do, like, if you thought about, hey, we're going to go out and fix businesses or whatever, you would never think that the real leverage in the results we get is in what we're actually like. It's so odd that we're teaching the thing that they should already know. Right. Like, you give a manager all this responsibility and they have no idea why they're doing what they're doing. Yeah, it's nuts.

It is.

It's definitely an industry curse of complicating the simple.

Yeah, yeah.

And what we do, I think that that's what happens when somebody comes in here to a masterclass is we pull all the distractions out and they just Focus on, like, they leave here with four or five really good solid things. And you can see it, like, when we go over the financial stuff, like, their confidence goes up. They're like, oh, wait, it wasn't as crazy as I thought that it was going to be. And they just, it's clarity at the end of the day. And I think that that's from a financial standpoint. For dawn, clarity and understanding how the business operates would be a huge advantage over her contemporary.

You want to be 40% net to gross, and you want to have the best CSI in the country, the best customer experience. Those two things.

Yeah.

If you got that, you're, you're probably, you probably have a pretty easy day at the office.

Yeah, right. And the same thing on the customer experience side. I think it's just as true there to not, you know, people over complicate CSI also. And, you know.

There'S lots of things they want to blame it on and all that stuff, but at the end of it, if it's in your DNA, if it's just who you are and, and you're hiring people, that it's in their DNA that they just want to take care of people.

It really is that simple. Like, I think a lot of times csi, like, they, everybody wants the new tool or trick that gets good csi, like, it's a, you know, and at the heart of it, it is. It's just taking care of people.

If people like us and they feel like we're their friends, they're going to rate us highly on any sort of survey, they're going to come back. Because CSI is really one side of the coin. Them coming back is really what we want. Right. The. Them liking us and wanting to come back. And I've seen many times that we, you know, and by we, I mean the service department I was working in or with made cat like total the customer's car. And they still gave us great CSI because they liked us and they understood the mistakes happen. And. But what happens is if they don't like you and you make a mistake, it's just confirmation.

Unforgivable.

Yeah. Yeah. It's just a confirmation of a bigger narrative that they, that they're allowed to create in their head.

Yeah.

That we're.

We.

We don't care. They're just another number. That sort of thing. Right. Okay, so then the next thing, Donna, I want you to really pay attention to and you could, you could do a thing where you could, at the end of every day, you could sit down with a glass of Wine or a big glass of tequila or whatever it is and just rate your day in two different categories. Did you play offense or did you play defense? Because the system that we're talking about is a system where you're in control and you're playing offense. If you find yourself playing defense, that's an outcome of something broken somewhere else. If you're constantly reacting to things, it means that you really don't have any sort of intention or control. You're not driving and you want to be driving and you know, you want to be at the steering wheel 10 and 2 with your foot on the gas. You don't want to be, you know, reacting and playing bumper cars in a sense. So then the, the next part is there's, there's two things and people. When I was younger doing this, I fit. I have fixed a lot of stuff in my life and I came to a conclusion very early on that I love to, to tell everybody because I, I made this insight and I thought this insight was so crazy that because it was counterintuitive to what everybody had told me. And so I wanted to, I wanted to tell everybody like, hey no, you got this wrong. Look, I'm fixing all this stuff at a very high level and I'm doing it in a different way. And if I do it the way you think it should be done, it doesn't work. And that's that there's two schools of thought. Systems and people. And everybody thinks that people are the most important.

I'm not saying that people aren't important, but you put good people in bad systems and you run them off. You have to have systems first. Systems and processes with accountability, with intention, with measurable outcomes. Systems are everything. And then you put good people into systems and you have a nuclear reaction. That's when you become unstoppable. But if you put good people into a bad system and they just have to fight and survive like you're going to have to do of playing, you know, grab the cat by the tail and get drug around all day. They underperform. The other thing is if you have good systems and you put average people in there, they perform above average. Yeah, they over it's. And it gives you when things aren't going right. A really easy diagnostic tool to see. Oh, it's right there, it's here. They're not doing, they, they stop doing follow up calls or they stop, you know, it's. Whatever it is, it's very, it's very intuitive. Do you have anything in your list.

About This, I just really like that. Can you see my number two?

Yeah. Good, that's great.

I, I put systems first, people second.

Yeah.

And then my favorite thing about.

And it doesn't mean that people aren't important, it means that you people, you will kill innocent people.

Good, good, innocent people. That's right. And then the main reason systems first, people second is, is that if you develop a really, really good system, you attract the people that like to not be in chaos and all that controlled chaos crap. I think Hoagie actually said a beautiful thing that, like, there's some sort of a badge of honor that the industry believes that they have, that they, they, they manage organized chaos. It does not have to be that way. So I really say if you have the system, it's going to attract the people that you want in there. And then you just keep getting better and better.

There's, there's two things that happen to us when we come into, to a business. One is the leadership of that business has a preconceived idea of who's going to make it and who isn't in our system. They are never right. Most of the time there's very low turnover and the people that they perceive to be a pain in the butt or underperformers actually, a lot of times become the top performers. And so that is only because we're putting in place a system and they can step up and hit the ball instead of dealing with finding the tar and where's the bat, you know, and all that. And I had a very profound experience when I was a young general manager where we went out, there was a big dealership that was number one in their, their brand luxury car. It was a Mercedes dealership. They sold to one of the big public companies. And of course, the first thing they did is change all the pay plans and all the talent ran off, right? And there was a salesperson there that was selling like 40 cars a month. And there was a bidding war for these salespeople. They were famous. They all had newsletters and, you know, they, they were pretty well known. Well, we, we got one of them to come to the dealership I was running, and we, we paid him a signing bonus and we got him there. And he had been there a week and he came in my office and closed the door and he said, chris, I really believe in what you're doing here and I really like you, but I can't work here. And I was like, what are you talking about? And he gave his bonus back. Like he was a Stand up guy. He gave his signing bonus back. But he said, listen, he goes, my job is to sell cars. And all I do here is look for the books and the car. They're, you know, you can't find a car. It says we have a white with tan interior. I can't find it. When I do find it, the books are missing. If I find the book, the extra key is gone. Like it was just this. And he said, I can't, like I can't spend all day looking for stuff. I gotta, I gotta be in front of customers, selling. I'm only good for you if I'm up to bat, hitting, hitting the ball. Now if you, if that was a wake up call for me and if you jump ahead, you know, six months, our whole inventory, we had five lots with, you know, over 800 BMWs and you know, depending at the time, how many Minis and a couple hundred used cars two times a day. Every one of the five parking lots, one of them was two miles away. They were scanned in the morning and they were scanned in the afternoon. So if a car moved that day, it would, the location showed up in our dms. All of the cars when they were checked in, it was part of the PDI that the books, the keys, everything were shrink wrapped in a bag and they went in the parts department and the parts department held those until the car. Like I fixed all of those things, but those were system, I put systems in place for all of that. And so, you know, it wasn't that he wasn't a great salesperson. He was not only great, he was smart to know that his value was in front of customers, not chasing, you know, chasing a bunch of dead ends. And so systems are, are really the most important thing. And then, then getting good at recruiting the right people is second. But if you recruit the right people with broken systems, they're just going to run off.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting too when you say, you know, systems over people. If you really care about your people, you're going to try to manufacture environment situations where they can do their job better, right? And it's, it's interesting because I think where a lot of people go wrong, especially when they're a new manager, is they want to be liked. And so if I want to be liked, I don't want to hold people to a standard. If you have a really good system, the whole thing's defined, the whole service experience, the whole service process is defined. And hey, at customer check in, here's what we do like, this is the standard for it. And, and that's. That's just what we do. Every customer, every time gets this piece in. In, you know, and that's the way we do it. Here. Here's the playbook. Here's what it is. And it's great clarity to you as the leader, too. And that really kind of. I think the. The key that unlocks this door is culture. Right. Because if I have a system and I have standards for every part of that system.

What defines me as the leader is to be able to bring everybody to that standard, to every part of that system, and then they're kind of running my playbook. I'm holding them accountable to those different things. And when people want to be liked, they compromise those standards for their system. And so it's an interesting thing. Like it. You know, people want to. They thrive in structure and. And if. And a lot of times, as new managers, you want to be liked, so you don't want to hold them accountable. You compromise depending on who the person is and what the situation, you know, all these different things. But if the system's the system, if the standard is the standard, you hold people to that standard, you'll start to build your culture. A lot of times, all those little things within your standard, they're all things that you can control. And a lot of times we. We chase all these different things, especially as a new manager, and it's a trick bag. Like, you know, it's not really. It's these fictitious things that you're. You're chasing. So, you know, a lot of these little. Can you control that? We greet every customer in a timely manner on the service drive.

Yeah.

Can I create better systems to manufacture those opportunities for my advisors?

Very much.

100%. All. All that stuff. So that's always kind of a thing with this conversation that sticks out to me is, you know, it's easy to chase the wrong thing. And being liked sometimes is. Is one of those things that really stands in your way, like, you know what the system should be, define it, hold people accountable to it. Because if you're not doing that, by definition, what you have then is people coming up with their own standards, with their own systems, and it's different from person to person. And. And they're not meeting the standard you want. And then.

You know, by definition, that's anarchy, right?

Yeah.

And more service departments feel like anarchy. Not. Yeah.

Most people think that that is culture. Anarchy.

Yeah.

Letting. Letting them run the asylum. Right.

Yep.

Then the.

The last one that That I have on here is that the devil is in the details. The details matter. You know, you got to embrace complexity. And you know, how we answer the phone is how we'll greet people in the drive. And to what Hoagie was saying, the culture, you know, one of the things that, that always is a, an indicator of how good somebody is at what they're doing is somebody will say, well, how do I get my advisors to do a walk around? How do I get my advisors to report damage? How do I get my text to fill out an inspection sheet? And the more things that are negotiable, the more insight into the lack of a system and culture that you really have. Like, they can't, they can't be negotiable. Like it's not negotiable to do, to answer the phone in a certain way or, you know, write up a customer in a certain way. Quality control your work. Like those things can't be negotiable because when they're negotiable, then they're left to chance. And if you're leaving everything to chance, it's not a system. That's a hope and a prayer.

Yeah, yeah.

And most people are living on a hope and a prayer, trying to get lucky.

Yeah.

Or we would encourage you to, to, you know, intentionally create something that is, you know, is offense, not defense. Because you're always going to be reacting. If it's a hope and a prayer.

Yeah. I want to make sure it doesn't get lost too. As a new manager, I don't want you to think we're saying that like, you know, you can't.

Be friends with your people, build rapport with your people. All of those different things. That, that's all completely separate than having a strong culture, having good systems and holding them accountable to them.

You know, you, I've heard you say before time and time again, like you always assume somebody's getting ready to screw you if they say it's just business. Just business. It's just business. It's nothing personal. Truth of the matter is you're going to spend more time with these people. We always talk about it. You spend more time at the store with these people than you do your own friends and family. Like it's personal. It is. You should get to know them. You should know their kids names. You should, you know, all that, all that stuff. But there's this weird thing where holding them accountable and, and being friends with them and knowing them and, and there's nothing wrong with that positive aspect of Leader of being a leader. That's merited and that's good. It's just the feeling part of it is not culture. Culture is the accepted behaviors. It's the opposite of chaos. Right. Like, so that's completely separate. So I don't want it to get lost when we're saying all of these things of. Because I'm bad about that.

Sometimes you don't have to yell.

None of that. It's not this black cloud thing. It's. Yeah. It's. It's freedom for them. Right.

That's the word I was thinking that Chris just said is that accountability and mean aren't the same word either. Not even close to it. The truth is, is that I think that not having rules and regulations is the meanest thing that we can do. Where one month a thing can be okay, and then the next month it's not okay. Is really confusing to somebody. And then, you know, with the friend thing, just kind of piggybacking off of what you said is if there's a really good, healthy dynamic between you and your people, the friendship is that. That they want to do a good job for you.

Yeah.

So it's actually a little more towards. They want to support and, you know, see, you look good. And then you had said something. I'm going to borrow it from you, but I think that that was probably one of the things as I transition from just a worker into. Into a leader or manager, the recognition that it's not your personal performance, it's your team's personal. It's your team's performance that reflects on you. Like, if I was. If I was having a bad month writing service, I could just write more tickets and make those extra calls to the people that had declined. And I knew that I could always save a month. But the truth is, is that they're looking, you know, leadership's looking at the aggregate of your team performance, not your personal performance. They're not timing you on changing the light bulb in the bathroom.

Yeah.

I would. I would leave you dawn on the. On this note that, you know, there's something that. That fascinates me about humans and human behavior. Behavior and especially in. In our industry, in the sense that whether you run a department that you're always reactive and you never know if you're winning or losing and you feel like you're in purgatory or you run a department that is really, you know, creating a lot of profit and an incredible customer experience. You're going to work hard either way. You're. You're going to give a piece of yourself either way. You're, you know, you're going to have to, you know, compromise your personal needs in a lot of ways. You're, you're going to make a lot of sacrifices in order to accomplish or to just survive. Well, you know, one way or the other. But the thing that, that always.

You know, fascinates me. But maybe the word fascinate isn't, isn't. It confuses me is.

People will, will come to us for help, training. And in that, you know, let's, let's say, you know, neck, is it next week? You have a master class in here?

Yes.

So Hoagie will have a master class in here. And I don't know, what is it, like 22 people so far or something like that. So he's gonna have over 20 people in, in here. And he's gonna be standing at the front of the room looking at these 20 people, and he will have had their financials and their, you know, what their numbers are and their metrics and their CSI and all that, and he'll. Hoagie will look at it. Now what Hoagie sees is this weird thing that never, ever crosses any of those 22 people's mind. Like, never. But they're here to get better. And what, what, what that thing is, is full potential. Like, that's the thing that always confuses me is people ask for help or they ask for advice. And if you're going to put in all the work and you're going to sacrifice and you're going to give a piece of your soul and you're going to care, why not shoot for full potential? Why not shoot to be the best?

It.

Whatever it is you're doing, you know, you learn way more about yourself and what you're capable of shooting for, for the best. But when you, when the class starts and Hoagie starts training them and teaching them and he starts, you know, giving advice and direction on, well, why don't you just go for this and why don't you do that? And it's like this weird thing starts to happen of, oh, well, no, we're not. Our market's different. You know, we, we that. And it's like you will spend so much time justifying our underperformance, and we never ever just sit for a second and think about what if, why not, why not shoot for full potential? Because what we see is full potential. When we see a department that there's a couple things that need to fundamentally be fixed. And the thing could be incredible. Like, for us it's hard not to tell that story. For us it's hard not to want to do that. You know, for us it's hard to listen to you frustrated and you can just tell on the call, like, you know, you're new and you have just the fact that, like I think Christian said, like, the fact that you called is like incredible. You care, you want to do good, we want to help you, we want to train you. But then, you know, it's like, well, why do we want, why do we want to invest in train? Why do we want to be good? It's like, let just make customers happ. Just like keep the, keep the noise down. But let's not really do anything incredible or amazing with all the, this effort.

Don't rock that boat.

You gotta, you got, you gotta stop for a second and think about full potential, dawn. And, you know, if we'll have somebody reach out to you from our team. But the, you know, the sooner you can understand the financials and have a, you know, a basic outline for the customer experience, the, the, the more dangerous you're going to be and, and the more control, like you want to be driving, you don't want to be reacting. So the, you know, I always end up apologizing when, when I, you know, do that. I call it the Chris Collins effect. Like, hey, I'm going to say some things and in the moment they might hurt your feelings, but you're going to think about it overnight, you're going to come back and it's like, why don't you think about full potential? Why am I having to justify the fact that you're here and you want to be good? And I'm telling you, this is how you can be good. And it hurts your feelings. It doesn't even make sense. Does it make sense to you?

No, no, it doesn't. But I've seen, I've seen this side of it now because I've, you know, I've experienced the Chris Collins effect too, several times.

What are you talking about?

Once you see the other side of it, it's. Yeah. Then, then you're kind of left wondering.

But yeah, but you, I mean, in a sense though, you have understood that all of that comes from a place of me wanting the best for you.

Oh, for sure.

And seeing something in you that maybe you don't see.

Yeah, right. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And yeah, and I think that's a key, key piece of it with dawn as well, is just being coachable, you know, and, and Going along with one thing Christian was saying that I would kind of leave. Leave her with is know that you're, you know, you're being judged on how you. How your people perform, not you. Like, that's really hard thing for new managers is you were. You were judged on what you were doing, right? Like, you were the best tech or the best advisor, whatever it is. So it's really easy to fall into that trick bag when you get in that seat to just try to get stuff done yourself. And, you know, we hear it all the time where dealers are like, hey, I don't know if Hoagie's the guy. Like, I don't know if he can run the service department or not. I don't think he's the guy. And we always end up in that, you know, in that conversation, and it's kind of weird. And then you go down to the service manager, and they're like, hey, I work really hard, but I feel like nobody appreciates me, you know, like, they don't ever tell me, good job. And. And the owner's like, you know, I don't know if he's the guy. I appreciate him. He works really hard, but I don't ever want to tell him because he stays busy with all the wrong stuff, right? And it's this weird conversation between the two. See it over and over and over and over again. And, you know, the. The hard thing as a new manager is you're. You're judged on what your department looks like, sounds like, feels like how your people are performing, not how much stuff you can get done. They'll never tell you. Thank you for how much stuff you can get done.

You know, it's a difficult thing to try to connect.

Great stuff. Thanks, Don. We're gonna send you a swag bag.

And the number, if you have a question, is 8333 Ask STR. That's 8333 Ask STR. And we'll see you next time on Service Drive Revolution. Thanks so much for watching this episode of Service Job Revolution. We're uploading new stuff 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.chriscollinsinc.com now. That's offers dot. Chris Collins. Collinsinc.com I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video.