SDR #318: How To Make The Best Technician Videos

Welcome to the big show. I'm Chris Collins. This is Chrishon.

Hello, everyone.

And Hoagie. What's up, Oklahoma Boy Chiefs fan?

Today we're going to be talking about the secrets to a successful video inspection. And I think the list will surprise you, but give you some great insight and hopefully start a conversation that will help you, you know, get better than you are. We talk a little bit about water sports, Jet skis, and Christian, of course, has the news and much, much more coming up on this edition of Service Drive Revolution.

I mean, the reason why we're talking about video inspections is because we're filming and putting up in our On Demand, a course for the technicians on how to maximize that. We have a lot of. We actually have a lot of videos up there for our technicians.

An entire module, plus some extra little bonus stuff.

You know, my favorite one is the one that some technicians in Virginia requested that we do something for them so they understand the process and the financials. So that one is close to my heart because it actually was something that we did from feedback.

Yeah. From the audience. Yeah.

Which is great. So look for that coming in On Demand in the not too distant future.

Right.

These boys are production turnaround pros.

They're very good at what they do.

Yeah, they get better all the time.

What they can take from. From raw footage into final On Demand training, it's super impressive.

Yeah, I agree.

They make us look good.

I was gonna say, they make us look really, really good. Sometimes I make my jokes funny.

So because we haven't been doing a lot of SDRs, I constantly get the question about the Jet Skis, and people are like, what did you do with the Jet Skis?

A lot of development.

So the Jet Skis are gone and I got new ones. I will say too, that I had somebody very helpful in the process.

At the dealership, kind of buy my house up in Washington. I don't think I want to say the name because I don't want people to bother him, but I did give them a Yelp review, a Google review. Sent some tequila. Sent that three pack of tequila.

Because he went way above and beyond.

It's good to see, like, it restores your faith in humanity, doesn't it? It did, because the first time around, your purchase experience wasn't like that.

So I wanted the.

20, 25, 325. The 325 hoagie stands for horsepower. 325 horses. Ponies in there. 25.

What's the size of the motor? It's the Horse fog.

Yeah.

Okay.

He's thinking about it.

I don't know what that means. Trying to talk your language. And now you're confusing me.

A lot of power sports. Yeah, the cc's. So it's like a 325cc.

Maybe, but I know I'm not. I'm not uber power sports guy either.

No, there's. There's a good possibility. I don't know what I'm talking about.

But that's not the point.

That's not the point. So it's a 2025, 325. And then the stereo went from 50 watts to 100 watts on this Limited. So it's like the GTX Limited.

Okay.

Now, each dealership only got allocated one. So what he did is he found another dealership that would sell me the other one. And even to the point where the other one was the other color. So they're not the same. But one. One's white and then one's like a teal green. The white is beautiful. Like you wouldn't think that it would be as cool as it is, but it's like a pearl white gray. Like it's really cool.

Those things have come a long way.

Oh, yeah.

I had to get a new trailer because it's wider than the old ones. So different trailer I sold. I was going to trade in the other ones, but I actually ended up selling them to somebody up there who has helped me with, you know, building stuff, the dock and all that, and he, he wanted them. So we made a deal, which worked out pretty good. But I'm pretty happy I got the one is unlocked from Eco mode, so you have to break them in for three and a half hours.

Yeah.

The other one is not, because that's the one that Missy drives, but is the.

Is going through and getting it out of Eco mode pretty grueling. Like you just kind of putt. Putt around. Like. How bad is that? How.

I think the most you're supposed to go is 30 miles an hour. And then you're not supposed to put it in sport until you've got eight hours on it. Which I have eight hours on the one I'm riding. The other one isn't out of Eco mode, but we didn't get them at the same time because the way they were allocated to the dealers, it took a little. A little time, I will say. And did you ask Missy?

No.

Oh, hands down, faster, better. It doesn't skate as much.

Oh, because it's heavier, I would guess.

Right. Heavier and a little wider. But it sits in the water different than the other ones did. And it's only. So the other ones were 22023s. They weren't that old. I would love to have somebody.

Put something to make the stereo louder. Yeah, the 100 watts doesn't feel any different. So it says it's 100 watts, but it feels just like the old one.

Yeah, well. And your expectation of audio is probably a little bit more particular than.

Well, just when you're going fast, it doesn't.

Yeah, it runs away from you.

Yeah, it's interesting.

It has like the thing that makes it louder, but it doesn't help that much. But pretty fun. Had a lot of fun. So I've been on them twice. I went up there to get the one, put it in the water, and then I was just up there for Memorial Day. It was good.

Funny. I was asking him about. He was telling me that like this one has 50 more horsepower or whatever. And I was like, you know, now I understand with motorcycles or power sports or like jet skis or whatever, like why do you need 50 more horsepower going? He's like, I'll tell you why. He's like, cuz the guy I saw that already had one. I was going full speed. I was like, oh, that's where the new jet skis came from.

Well, no, it's funny is I joked about that forever. I was like, hey, I need the. I need the 325. I need. And everybody's like, what? And then a guy passed me and people saw it too.

Yeah, they knew.

And it. And I passed people this weekend like they were standing still. Like it's. I don't know, it's a. I think it's a whole different setup. Cause it's just way faster on the, on the get up.

And you've bought all of those that existed in Washington so no one can get it for the leg.

When my friend up there wanted to get the. The old ones or whatever, I did like the used car walk and I pointed out the dent that you put in it. I'm like, yeah, this was Christian. And then I also sent Christian a picture of the.

Made my weekend.

By the way, do not go more. And is it five miles an hour?

Yeah, it was like a no wake.

Dude blew by that going 40.

Yeah, I was going probably closer to 50. There was no slowing down. And. And I like all the people were waving at me on the sides of the beach and I'm like, oh, they're happy to see me. And pretty much I think that in hindsight, it was not waving. It was like, slow down, you're gonna kill yourself.

I saw, you know, the funnest part was I saw some eagles get in a little bit of a tussle.

An eagle tussle.

It looked more like jets, like fighting, like.

Oh, it's crazy.

It's. It's nuts how big they are and how, how they maneuver. They're so big. Like, their wingspan has to be like 7ft. Like they're Labrador retrievers with wings.

That's. I think that's part of your experience up there, too. Like, a lot of times people ask me if I golf or if I, you know, hunt or fish or whatever. And I've done a little bit of all of those things, but I'm not like an av, any of those things. I just like being out there.

Yeah. Best part of golfing is being outside, for sure. Yeah. And being with friends and whatever. Keeping score and all. That's another side of it. But yeah, just being outside, it's fun. Okay, let's go to the news. Christian is our in House Bill O'Reilly.

No, maybe like more of a Megyn Kelly.

Yeah. Our in house megging Kelly meets Norm MacDonald. It's not exactly fresh news. It's just news.

No, it's just information printed. So our first story today is about Cox Automotive's quarterly survey that they do with their dealerships and found that fixed ops continues to be a bright spot for dealerships. And it's a sentiment survey. So the fixed operations part of.

They have to ask people.

Yeah, they gotta ask them because they didn't know. They weren't sure.

They could just call us. We could tell them.

Well, we predicted this.

How much do you think they spent on the survey that we could have saved on the money?

$2 million.

Plus.

Okay, what does the survey say? But essentially is important was the question.

No. Fixed operations has a. It's a bright spot. So the sentiment towards fixed operations has improved. Now I'm just getting started. Like, it's gonna get so much better than this. And like, are these the same people.

That give everybody a trophy just for showing up?

Maybe they might be Participation trophy.

It's a bright spot.

It is a bright spot. So they, they scored a 65. A 50 is neutral. And then anything below 50 means they hate it. And above.

Who are they asking this to?

Dealership. So it's a dealer survey. And then here's what's funny. And this is where it makes me start to kind of question. This is. It says AGMC dealer in the Midwest. Like that doesn't sound very specific. And then they're like a Ford dealer in the west. Like what does that mean? So I feel like they made up their sources but it's. They're saying that oh, better parts availability, fewer technician defections. If we don't have the technician, you know, the business needs technicians to be more successful. All that common sense Y stuff. Then a Subaru dealer in the Midwest was worried about a declining customer base. Which is something I think Hoagie and I are getting to hear really regularly. Maybe that's a future episode. Is talking about like the, almost like the myth of Ro account. But we will save that for a different time. So good job fix stops. Someone thinks you're completely irrelevant.

Bright spot.

Then this was.

This is just kind of your half a volt.

This is great.

You might have a seat at the table because it's not really. Stay tuned.

Yeah.

It's not an A on the paper. It's just like it's a C plus.

Like we said, not quite the news.

Right. Also like this is a little bit of scandal. An outer Audi dealership general manager who joined a rival store temporarily banned from poaching former co workers. And what I want to do is like part of it is like no, no, don't do this in the other state, Massachusetts. So we had a, he had a non compete clause in Massachusetts and he was barred from working into rival or poaching people into his rival dealership if he worked anywhere less than 25 mile radius of the store. So his other store was like 15 miles away. And I wanted to read off like the list of people that he poached. That's where like I appreciate his thoroughness.

Yeah.

So Megan Kelly's doing a lot of research.

I know.

So he's actually reading it this, this, this, this person that went through from one store and to be a GM at another store he recruited eight employees. A finance manager, two client advisors, a shop foreman, a service advisor, two master techs and a regular technician. Like that's what he took with him.

Went all out.

So he got a bus and I would. I understand why the Audi dealer was a little sad about that. So I guess people wanted somebody followed him.

Yeah, that was my first thought when you, when you ran all the way through that list was we should try.

To have that guy on.

He got people from every department to follow.

He rebuilt well, I mean he might be under a lawsuit so you can't talk. But just in case Audi general manager reach Out. We'd love to chat.

For those listening and not watching, that was a big wink. A big Megyn Kelly link wink.

Yep.

Meg and Kelly with hairy legs.

That's it in the news.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

I did such thorough research. I can only do so much of that.

So the secret to successful video inspections, and I, I just right off the top.

People think that I'm anti video inspections. I get that a lot. People like, oh, you. You're against video inspections. I've never said that. I've said that if you can't do it with paper, you can't do with video. Which is why do you think they.

Get that out of that?

I think because they're looking for you to.

Validate the idea that it's a miracle pill. And so people, you know how in our industry, everybody bought mpi, everybody bought all of this software, and because we're just dudes, we think that software fixes everything. But it's just like CRMs or anything is garbage in, garbage out. Like, if you can't do it with paper, automating it with software isn't better. It's worse, actually. And so people want to hear, oh, it's going to be a miracle pill. And all I'm trying to say is it's work. Like, you could do it with paper. Yeah. There's certain aspects to the video inspections that's good. But you're thinking that it's automatically going to make the text accountable, that it's automatically going to increase your sales, and that you're not going to have to do anything. And it's like, no, it's more work. You're implementing a new thing that has all kinds of variables and nuances to it and ends up that paper is the. Is the best starting point. If you can have consistency with paper, then it's easier to implement something else.

Yeah, the adoption process goes way faster because they've already kind of gotten into that thing and that they did it.

People just want you to tell you that it's a miracle pill. Yeah, that's my assumption.

I agree with that. I think. And then another thing I wanted to make sure that I pointed out. So some of the information that we have with this is we have our elite group, which is reserved for, like, the best service managers in our coaching program. And part of being in that elite group is that we do a call every month and we talk about results, and then we also talk about kind of big ideas. So the last few months, we've been kind of coming to the table with assignments and the. And this month our elite call completely circled like the. The bit good, the bad, the ugly about tech videos. And then some of these things that we're talking about today were pulled out from the elite members, which I would suggest are some of the top service manager in the country. So this is like, if you want to hear, you know, get a little bit of a leg up in terms of, if you're just starting videos and haven't really kind of figured that out yet. Some of this stuff comes from those people that are, they're at a different level in terms of how they're operating. But that was a great conversation, wasn't it?

Yeah, it really was. It really was. It was great. It was great.

Okay, so there's five, right. So let's go with the number one.

Which is kind of the mindset and the idea that technicians never went to school thinking that they were going to be on camera and performing. Right.

Just imagine that it's 1995. You go to UTI, you're like, I want to work on cars.

Today we're going to do communications.

Here's how you use a selfie stick.

Here's how you put the sticky on the.

You're going to go to hair and makeup over here and then we're going to get your selfie stick. Yeah, it is funny. And the, you know, the, the other side of that thing too is it comes supernatural to your younger techs. They grew up in front of the camera, so there's a, you know, you're kind of dealing with both sides of that. Right. But it is definitely, you know, a mindset thing and, and kind of like you were talking about, like, you know, it's garbage in, garbage out. A really great place to start an exercise we do in store a lot with, with clients is.

We call them re racks. Pull, pull. If you want to know if that thing is true, that videos isn't going to be the magic pill that you're going to have to have a solid process before.

Pull five technicians together and give them a paper MPI and have them all inspect the same car. And after they're all done, lay those inspections out on the workbench and it will absolutely terrify you. Yeah, it's like, hey, send them all.

To the waiting room. Bring them in one by one.

Yeah, yeah.

The tires grew and you're older, more, more experienced techs sometimes are the worst.

Yeah.

They pencil whip what they want to do.

Yeah. So I think just having those, you know, having those conversations, doing exercises like that it sets you up to get a Runway into this, to make it very effective. Because they're, like I said, there's a world for this. And customers love it. The transparency of it. They haven't seen the underside of their car, all those things. Um, but people that have success with it the quickest, it's definitely.

You know, with the mindset and, and showing.

You know, with the reracks, like the inconsistencies that we have and the technology can be part of.

Making that more consistent. But, like, if we're not acknowledging any of that stuff and seeing the outcomes of an exercise like that before you start all this stuff, it's, you know, it can all be for naught.

And I. And I think one thing to really think about right there too, is you're changing the communication style, right? So if you're used to selling over the phone and now a tech is making a video, now this is visual communication. Like, I know we joke about when I took my, my Land Rover in and they sent me the wrong video inspection, they spent it for. Sent it to me for an old Jaguar that needed all this work, right?

It wasn't even a Range Rover. That's favorite part.

But in this, a true story, like, they did that. You know, the thing that I noticed, besides the fact that it was the wrong car, is how messy the textile was, how disheveled he was. And so, like, do you trust somebody who looks like they don't know how to dress and they're dirty and there's a mess around? Like, it's visual communication. And visual communication ends up being a whole nother thing. Like, you know, you're not. You're not going to take a picture and put it on Instagram of your messy, you know, room, right? You're going to straighten things up and they. So now your hair matters that, you know, you miss that one spot right here shaving. Like, whatever it is, it's visual communication. And then, you know, there's the auditory part, there's the confidence that, you know, all of that comes across in video. And so you're just changing the. You're. You're now taking the role of what the advisor was doing in a lot of ways and putting it on the technician. But the technician isn't, you know, trained in communications or sales or that sort of thing. And so that's back to what I said about if you could do a paper. It's almost easier because, I mean, I'm judging that. And female customers are even worse when you're talking about messes and, you know, how you appear. They're very judgmental in all the research. So nobody's talking about that. In a sense of the techs kind of have you got to tuck in your shirt? Like, if you think about when we have a car doctor service clinic, all the technicians tuck in their shirts, they clean their stalls.

Yeah.

Because people, you know, customers are going to come in the shop and it's about appearance. It's the same thing on video. And I think that that whole thing is just overlooked. Just like, do it.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's like many times just like with MPI or tablets in the drive or whatever, we do these things and nobody pays attention to the fact that the hours per hour went down, the sales went down, and we're just in love with technology instead of being in love with the outcomes.

Okay, what's number two?

Consistency.

Okay. Yeah. So can I take this one?

Yeah.

So I think that what as I've watched videos from, you know, a shop that has 15 technicians, one of the things that I know right off the bat is they're just starting, is if I watch 15 different technician videos, I'm going to get 15 very, very different experiences. And I would suggest that if we're going to try to build this into a pattern for a customer, that they would see like a similar kind of cadence. So whatever you choose is fine. But like a lot of dealers are starting at the back of the car where you can see like the license plate so that the customer knows that it's their vehicle. And I've got some other ones that are like, oh, we always want to start from the driver's seat and do like the gauge cluster. Whatever you choose is fine, but there should be some sort of a welcome to, right? Or thank you for choosing or something like that. And then I love, like, if you're a master tech, say you're a master tech. Like, that's a big deal. And, and although the customer doesn't know all our lingo in the industry, which we'll talk about in a little bit, they understand that master tech is a. Yeah, is a. Is a really, really important thing. So like taking that and then kind of going through the way that you would look through the cars, pretty much the same every way around. And the way that you would end the video would be the same every way around. So I see consistency as like you kind of have a cadence that you go through and you can script a little bit of it, but for the most part it's just that you're kind of doing the same thing throughout.

It's good. Which brings us to number three, which is sell the positive.

You cannot just tell, like, you just.

Come out with the problems and all the bad customers are like, huh. So you, you know, you want to point out them, the main things and, and, you know, talk about the things that are good, even complimenting the car, you know, how they maintain the car, whatever it is, but don't just go negative or go to the problem.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I had an advisor one time that went from like 40% wild car penetration, which wild car penetration is how we measure, like, how much maintenance they're selling in regards to CPROs. And he said, like, the one little change up was when he was doing his menu presentation, he'd go over all the service that they're not due for right now. So here, you know, here's all the services that your vehicle's due for. These two things are the only thing that's due right now. None of these are due right now. I think it's the same thing with inspections and, you know, calling out all the things that do look good, complimenting them on the, the car if it's well maintained. And, you know, all those little things provide a nice Runway to it. It's really important.

Also, just understanding, like, the different customer types, right? Like a customer that buys a Toyota is expecting a Toyota to be relia. Not to require a lot of work. And so you have, you know, you kind of have to understand that that's a different customer than a BMW. Even the Honda customer is different. The Ford customer, a truck customer versus a car customer. And so how, how you're, you know, talking to them, pointing out in the tone, all of that matters because, like, you know, they expect a certain thing from their car. And you don't want to break that script or that expectation because that kind of shatters the, you know, the trust.

Which is the opposite of what the videos are meant for in the first place.

And then number four is talk customer language.

Vitally important. This is a huge one.

They don't know what millimeters are.

Yeah, yeah, they just tune out. Right? Like all the acronyms.

Don't assume they know anything.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You don't want them to say, throw some diag on that.

Yeah. Or just even like, oh, your brakes are at 20. It's like, well, is that good or bad? Like, they don't know.

So to me, 20 means I've still got life. But 20, I think for most text is like, that's 2 millimeters, which is basically, they're terrible. So that's confusing. You have to give it reference. Right. With the customer.

So even if you're going to say like they're at 20, it's kind of to, you're due for breaks, it'd be a good idea to do them or turn the rotors or whatever. But give it context if you're going to throw out a number because they don't, they don't know what is.

Good or bad or what some of the things mean.

Yeah.

I think that that's why actually, like, I almost think the most important video that's done is that first service video because it can be a reference point for the rest of the ownership of the car. So like, you know, a lot of, a lot of our top performers are using, you know, the sticks and the measurement tools and everything like that. But like your tires will never look better than they do on the first service. So then you can use that as a reference point further on down the road like that, you know, that talking about the good stuff, that first inspection, which I think everyone thinks, oh, we don't need to do it, that could be the most important one because you can always reference that back.

Yeah. And really that goes back to why the scripts are so important. Right. So if you're going to say it's at 20% or whatever measurement you're going to use, one, you want that to be the thing. Right. You don't want it inconsistent from video to video. And two, it's a good, it's a good time to like use that third party validation. Right. So you give reference to it. So the best practice with that is, is, you know, hey, Mr. Collins, your brakes are at 30%, which is roughly, you know, whatever 3 millimeter. BMW recommends brake pad replacement at 4 millimeter. These brake pad was be overdue. Yeah. Like just some of that reference. No. Yeah, yeah, they know what it is, but you can't be too careful with the script. And it's funny because I think sometimes people will think the texts aren't going to like it because it's scripted and we're going to make them do it a certain way. But they're actually relieved because I want.

To think of it.

They don't want to think about what they have to do when they're like.

Filling in blanks as opposed to writing. Yeah.

There's just a comfort in the, you know, consistency.

Yeah. And they'll get, they'll flat rate it. They'll get better and better at it.

And then the, the last one, number five is actually do it and tell the truth. Like you know one of the things that happens when we go into a store is we'll, we'll figure out very quickly that the technicians aren't inspecting the cars. They're just you know, drawing a line or just hitting it, hitting enter and doing it because we'll re rack the cars, we'll find all kinds of stuff that we're missing. And so then the conversation changes with the text to the to Well I do it but they don't sell it. And it's like you got to understand that the one thing with the digital inspections is you're making the averages look better than they are if you're not suggesting the work. So the, the good part of this is it tracks the, the conversion ratio and tells you a real story of what's going on on. But if you're not doing the inspection, it's all for not.

That's always an eye opener for the technicians like and when there's inconsistent or just inspections not happening, especially for your senior techs like a lot of people feel that that's where they have the hardest problem. Getting buy in on inspections are from the senior techs. Right. They, they think they know what cars to inspect and what cars not to. And and don't buy into the law of averages and the data that goes along with it. And that's always a great conversation to have with them is like hey, you're going to make their closing percentages look better up front. If you're not doing a good inspection. Right. If you're not telling us all the opportunity that's available on this car and we're just pencil whipping it and send it up. I can't hold the advisors accountable to selling at the closing percentages we want because we don't have any good data to go off of. It's always eye opener.

It's the chicken or the egg. Right. Like we have to have the recommendations in order to work with the advisors and you know, train them. But if we don't have anything to, to sell then we don't know, you know, really what we're doing.

Right. And just as dangerous as going to the other end of the spectrum where you recommend everything.

Like where that's fair to say too.

You either go from like nothing to everything. The truth is where it actually has to lie. Yeah. At the end of the day.

Yeah. So it's good. So you know the first one is the technicians didn't go to school for this. So they need training on communications, basically, like what, what visual communication is. Right. And then we need to have some sort of consistency, a consistent script. We need to sell the positive talk, the customer's language, and we need to be consistent in telling the truth and actually be doing the inspection so we know what the averages really are and what the opportunities were that we missed, in a sense.

Yeah. Great stuff.

Yeah, it's good. So thanks for hanging out with us, and we'll see you next time on Service Driver Revolution. Thanks so much for watching this episode of Service Job Revolution. We're uploading new stuff every, 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 collinsinc.com now that's offers.chris collins inc.com I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video.