Q & A | Advice For New Service Managers Stepping Into Chaos

Foreign.

I didn't know the way it all would end, the way it all would go. Oh, sorry. Welcome to your Friday drive by. This is where we sing karaoke and answer your questions. Are you excited, Christian? I am excited about this question, little Garth Brooks. Let me tell you a little bit about the background of whoever this is that called in whatever question this is. What what they did is they took destiny into their own hands and they dialed 8333-ASK SDR. That's 8333-ASK SDR. And now we are going to solve all their problems, even though we have no idea what this question is.

Just a couple of minutes.

Yeah. Just pay attention to how quick and easy this is going to be because you also could be a caller on this show and we also could send you a swag bag, which is what is going to happen to this next caller. Go ahead, play the question.

Hi, Chris, My name is Janelle. I'm just calling with a question. I've been in the service department as an ASM for about 12 years at a Toyota dealership. I recently moved to a GMC dealership as the service manager. And I guess I'm looking for some advice. Being a woman service manager and just gaining the respect.

For all these men that have been there longer, they're older than me, and I just, I want to be taken seriously. And the department that I went into is smaller, very hectic, very unorganized, and I feel like I can't even get one step forward because I'm putting out fire after fire after fire after fire after fire. So I feel like I can't even make a dent because everything from the way the scheduling is.

To the technicians that I have in the shop to the size of the shop is just working against me. I really want to prove that I can do this because I know I can. I was very good when I was at the Toyota dealership. I was very good at my job. So I just like some advice.

Thank you for the, for the call. Janelle, did you catch whether. Is she a manager now or is she still a service advisor?

She's a manager, so she was an asm. Now she's a manager.

And an ASM is basically an advisor.

So it's Toyota's version of service advisor. That's exactly right.

So now she's a manager.

Now she's in charge.

Oh, well, Janelle, the first thing I would do, and if you, if you don't have the irreplaceable service manager, well.

I, I send it in the, in the swag.

We'll send. Yeah, we'll send you one. But I would, I would kind of advise you to get in our coaching group just in the sense that the best thing that you can do is have a coach right now to help you implement all this and get ahead of it because it's really hard if the thing is that broken and you don't have experience being a manager, to guess what the best process is or to guess about anything. You really want to set up a system that is consistent so then you can function inside of it. And if you, if the only knowledge you have is the, the experience of tribal knowledge, which is basically who you've worked for before, it's going to be really, really hard. So I would suggest you get, you get a coach and get some training. There's no better time right now than right now to get training because you don't have any bad habits. It's way easier to help you become an incredible manager than, than to help a manager that's been doing it 20 years because they have 20 years of experience working against them in a lot of cases.

That's right.

And so you don't. And so don't, don't develop them. Get, get in our coaching if you can and let, let us help you with that. Now, that being said, on the other side of it, listen, there's something that happens, right, is when you're in a situation where you feel helpless, so you feel like your back is against the wall or no matter what you do, it isn't going to work out or you're in over your head. We as humans have a protection mechanism built in that's called learned helplessness. And we, we basically externalize control in those situations. So, for example, growing up when I was a kid, when things didn't go right, it was, it wasn't God's will. We externalize the, the control to God or fate, right? It was because we were sinners and everybody's a sinner. Whatever. One thing that I see with really, really talented people, and I'm not saying that the, the issue doesn't exist. That's not my point. But all we can do is control you, right? We can't control the industry, we can't control what others do, is don't externalize the reason why people are treating you different or things aren't going right to the fact that you're a female. Just ignore every.

Desire for you to do that. And once again, maybe it's true, but you got to focus on the things you can control. So what you can control is you, your attitude, your work ethic, you know, how coachable you are, how much you can adapt to change, whether you're willing to go out and get help and learn. Right. Like people are amazed all the time by how much I spend personally on hiring people to tell me how to do the thing I want to do. Like I just go right to the top and I just go, I want to buy an hour, I want to buy a day of your time because I want to ask you a bunch of questions. I, I don't necessarily want to read the book because the book usually never tells you everything. I don't necessarily want to ask others. I'd rather just go right to the source. And so your ability to get in a coaching group, get the habits and the structure, that's way more important than whether you're female or male.

Right.

That's really good. So the, I had a couple of thoughts here about this. One is Janelle had said something about she spent, she spends a lot of her day dealing with heat cases. And the first thing I would remind now systems. Yes. Is that that is an effect, not a cause. So find the, find the, the cause. And, and what usually happens is it's either broken or non existent systems. But the reason you have employees is so that you don't have to deal with heat cases and you can focus on driving the department. The other thing I would say is when it comes to your people, I think the lower your expectations of them being able to do what you want them to do without your guidance, the lower the expectations, the better off you'll perform. And I was also going to kind of mirror what Chris said about the whole gender thing is like as I think back into our coaching group, I think we've had five service manager challenge winners. Two of the five were females so.

Oh, so we have. That's another thing coming into our coaching group is there are some just, they're just incredible people that are, that are female leaders in our, in our coaching group. And you will love, you will love them. But also.

I'm, I can't think of any like they use the fact that they're female to their advantage because they see it that way I think. And you know this business is a, is a, it's a very much not. Yeah. It's not always fair.

No. But I think that there's a healthy relationship with that as a woman. Like all the really successful females have a really good relationship with the fairness or lack thereof. They're not expecting anything different.

Yeah. And oftentimes when it's harder, you end up. You know, it's my favorite book. Right. For the blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. The message in that book is the blind man has the advantage because they have to work harder because they can't see, so they have to figure things out the long way. And then they have the advantage because they didn't take any shortcuts. And so the. The constraints become your best friend in the end. And so, I mean, it just sounds like, you know, and I'm reading a lot into your tone and your attitude. It sounds like you're ready to work and you have really high expectations. That's. That's all you need. That's the best thing that you could have. And if. If you focus on the things you can control and. And surround yourself with people that are doing it and performing at a high level, you're guaranteed success. Like, that's it. Like, there's no way you fail.

Yep. Oh, that was another thing. She also reported a track record of success. So I think that, yeah, she's gonna be in good shape.

So hopefully we can help you, but if not.

Focus on the things that you can control.

Great.

Thanks, Janelle. And should we sing? Can you sing while I do the outro?

I don't think I know all the.

Words that you know. Here we go. You're so excuses.

You're so good at this.

You need a little creatine to get your.

It doesn't go to the brain.

All right, we'll see you guys next time on Service Drive Revolution.

Thanks for watching this week's Drive By. I hope we gave you something to think about over the weekend. 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.chriscollinsinc.com now that's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video.