A dealership owner asks how to handle staff negativity after an acquisition. Chris Collins and Christian recommend a 'shock and awe' approach: bring in an energetic team, interview staff to find problems, create quick wins, gamify systems, and recruit top performers from other locations who buy into the new ownership.
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To your Friday drive by. This is where we answer your questions. The ones that are burning.
Keeping you.
Awake at night, tossing, turning, making you sweat.
Oh, yeah, lose sleep. The one that you're scared to talk to your best friend about.
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Encourage you to call. Let's go to this week's question. Are you ready, Christian?
I believe I am.
Watch your guys show all the time. Just want a quick question.
You.
You know, we've been buying some dealerships and when we come in there, it's always negativity from them consistently about new ownership. It's our fault this and our fault that. What. What do you guys think that we can do to change that to help that? We like the culture type of having fun. Yeah. Let me, let me know. Thanks.
I've been a part of a bunch of acquisitions.
We've gone in many times after the old acquisition.
Honey, why don't you take a shot at this? I feel like your answer is going to be funny.
I don't know if it's going to be funny or not, but the thing that popped into my head is that there's a couple of things that you say as we kind of do ventures and stuff like that. One is, I think you go into that acquisition assuming that it's going to be really hard. And then if you come across an acquisition that's not really hard, just be pleasantly surprised. But don't be surprised by anything that you see that's a negative. And then I always like the art of shock and awe and distraction and fun and like, try to make people feel included and that the. The new ownership is going to bring a. A little more fun, a little more excitement, and you control the narrative at that. And if you distract them enough, they forget who the old owner was kind of at the end of the day. And the other thing would be is, is that.
You control at the end of the day who the. Who the employees are. So you could also constantly be recruiting your team to go in and work.
At your new store, suggesting like a mass layoff.
Not necessarily. I think everybody has a choice to get on the team, but you can't be on the team and off the team at the same time, if you know what I'm saying.
I know what you're saying.
Okay. I know exactly what you're saying.
Okay, so that's.
Do we have anybody on our team that's on the team, but not on the team?
I hope not. I'd be surprised.
You should go through the list.
You don't want to be on the wrong side of that list.
I would say there's an art to acquisitions. Would you not agree with that?
Well, I think I've seen some people do it at a really good art form level. Yeah.
I mean, first of all, I have a buddy that buy. That buys dental offices all the time. And. Yeah. So you got to have a rah rah team that goes in. You got to interview everybody and see what it is that they did and didn't like about the way it was before, and then manufacture some wins and give them credit for that while you're bringing in new people.
And creating momentum. So you put in systems, gamify all that, bring in some new blood. If you're buying dealerships and you have more than a couple, roll some of your top performers from the dealerships you already have into the new one and that will. That'll water it down too.
Yeah. I love your idea. Like an acquisition team, basically, what you said, the rah rah team, that they would get really good at it. If you're buying like five, six, seven dealerships a year.
Yeah.
You want.
You want to sell people on why it's better with you and what the benefits are and how, you know, there's a career path. You want to start selling people on a career path right out of the get go.
I like that.
So. Yeah. Well, thanks for the question.
We weren't too far off of each other, I don't think. No. Wow.
For the most part, we think the same.
Yeah. Sometimes. Sometimes not.
Should we go through the knots for everybody? I'm sure they're curious.
What are some things we don't agree on?
You know what's funny is, you know, I was. I was looking into buying that winery.
Yeah. Which I think would be a cool thing for you.
Yeah. But then after I got the numbers and I was explaining it to my buddy Mike, like I wasn't even done explaining it, and I was like, oh, I'm not doing this.
It's a. It was a money pit. No.
I think I could have made money.
Too much work logistics because of where it's located in relation to where you're.
Located and how much of my time it would take. And we have a new book coming out and all that. It would just be like, it was almost no joke. It was almost like I was almost sabotaging myself, in a way, by finding a new shiny thing.
Oh, yeah. Okay.
Do you know what I mean? Like, I caught myself, and I wasn't even done explaining it to him, and then.
He was kind of shaking his head almost. And then I go, I looked at him. I go, bad idea, right? And he goes, yeah, no, no good. I was like, okay, well, thanks for. Thanks for looking.
Maybe that's one day for you. I think that would be kind of neat.
Oh, yeah. But not right now.
No, not today. That reminds me, too. So remember a few weeks ago we asked people to comment in one of our episodes about where we should move to?
Oh, what did they say?
So the results are in, and it was. It was a close vote, but Oklahoma. Nope. I feel like you're gonna guess this if I give you three shots that was on the list. Not the top vote getter.
Dallas.
Nope.
Austin.
No one voted for Dallas.
Austin.
No.
San Francisco.
Geez Louise. Okay.
Seattle.
No. Seattle was a vote too.
One vote.
One vote for Seattle.
My people.
Yeah, your people calling you home.
Go Hawks.
Vegas.
Oh, I'd probably be. I believe we could get a casino to give us the space to do this.
Yeah. So I do think we should keep that on the back burner. And then there was one.
They want our clientele because they are gamblers, drinkers, and partiers.
And then there was. Right. And then there was one. There was one viewer. His name was Captain James B. He suggested San Diego.
That's funny. Oh, that's great. Can you just. Before we go, one thing that we don't see eye that were different. I don't think there's a many. I, I have a hard time coming up with one, so I'm curious.
Yeah, I, I, I feel like there's been a couple that have happened in the moment, and then you've, You've also. Chris Collins affected me a couple of times where I disagreed with you, and then I ended up changing my mind afterwards. So there's got to be a thing out there.
I don't. There aren't many.
Stay tuned.
If there's one. There aren't many. For the most part. I think we think the same.
Yeah, even we.
We end up in the same place we agree on.
Like, I think that you have a little bit of a different taste in music than I do. Like, you probably have a much broader palette where sometimes you'll be listening to something. I'm like, I don't know if that's my hit thing, but that's about as close as I get. There's also a lot of music that you like that I also like.
We go through stages together.
Vegas it is. Thanks, everybody.
See ya.
We'll see you 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 8-333-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 collinsinc.com now that's offers.chriscollinsinc.com I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video.
