SDR 321: Benchmarks For Net-To-Gross, Hours Per RO & Ford Recalls

Chris Collins and Christian discuss service advisor benchmarks including net-to-gross ratios and hours per repair order, plus Ford recalls and the new Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X. They cover jet ski safety and video inspection training for automotive shops.
Welcome to the big show. Today we're going to talk about benchmarks. What numbers should you be doing in net to gross hours per o? We have software that tracks our clients and we're going to share our, our numbers and benchmarks with you. You're going to be blown away by some of them. Hopefully inspired, but very fun to go through and kind of celebrate. And we talk about some things going on in the news and much, much more. Coming up on this edition of Service Drive Revolution. You, you like to plan stuff out, right?
I do.
When you go on trips, vacations.
I do, yeah.
I, I don't.
I know you do. I know you don't.
So the family is having like a get together at the, the lake house, you know, a summer thing. And so I have family coming from Arizona and then just my family there in Washington. And it's like a long weekend, like a four day weekend type thing. And there's a, there's a twist to this that I didn't expect to this story, which is pretty funny. So my one cousin hit up my chicken and was like, what's the plan? And she's like, oh yeah, I love a plan.
And so just needed to be asked. Right.
So then they started planning all of this and they came up with an itinerary, like a little itinerary. Now I had talked about making it fun for everybody, but also taking some of the stress off of my mom is that each couple was responsible for dinner one night. And then my cousin Jeff's such a great cook. Like he, I wanted him to barbecue steaks. He's so good. But kind of breaking that up a little bit. So maybe I kind of influenced this in a way because I thought, and.
You'Re not wrong, it would include everybody.
But also take the stress off my mom because like she'll do good the first night. But by day two, she's pretty wiped out cooking for that many people.
Yeah. And she doesn't quit, she just keeps going because she's got that drive to take care of people.
And I want her, you know, I wanted to have fun and kind of enjoy it, not have to the work, whatever. So they come up with an itinerary.
How many, how many pages is it, Chris?
I think the actual one that went out is five, but I think it started at seven. Yeah, something like that. So she's go, she's, she asked me like, what do I think before it had been sent out. Right. So it literally is an itinerary. Like it says like from 12 to 4 staggered arrivals welcome drinks on the dock.
Are there X's on the dock where people have to stand.
You know what I think when I read that?
I don't know, it feels like a 20 group.
Almost like, well, who's gonna be making the drinks? Like I'm giving myself a job. Like now I gotta serve drinks from 12 to 4. Like these. My. Like half of them are late. Like yeah, like. And then. But here's the one that caught me. So the second thing on the itinerary on this first half day of this event. 4:00pm Jet Ski orientation.
Tell me more.
I can't safety refresh for adults. And I was like, what is that? And she's like yeah, we, we need to go over the jet skis. And I'm like no, we don't like what we need. What, what are we, what are we talking about? So then there's an actual outline for the jet ski. I mean there's so many problems with this in the sense that if you're inviting everybody to a jet ski orientation, that would basically mean that everybody would be riding the jet Skis.
Right.
Which would mean the only thing I would do for three or four days is. Is carry gas up and down the hill. Cuz these, the new jet skis just burn gas. They have a bigger tank but they burn more gas engine. Yeah. And so you. I would just be running into town to get gas. Carrying gas down the hill. That's all I would be doing.
And the hill's no joke either.
So you don't want everybody riding the Jet Ski. But this is like an invitation for everybody. And then on, on the Jet Ski rules and safety. Listen to this. Number one. Life jackets are mandatory. No exceptions. Number two, Only adults may operate the jet skis.
Was there a specific age or. No.
18. Okay, 18 plus. Never operate jet skis under the influence of alcohol.
I would immediately.
That eliminates. I propose third of my family.
I propose we change that to rarely instead of rarely.
Our rider. One rider per Jet ski unless otherwise approved for kids. What do you think that means?
That they don't want that. We don't want it. Three deep.
Keep a safe distance from other water. This is for you.
That's the Christian rule.
Yeah. Other watercraft and swimmers. Number six. Always ride with a buddy. Both Jet skis out together or one following the pontoon. So the boat. I guess. Number seven. Use the designated ride zone. No wake near shore. Number eight, Return Jet ski to dock with each ride and report any issues.
Immediately to maintenance control. We could build a portal.
Oh My gosh. Be courteous, take turns and respect. Ride times. Number 10. Can you imagine you, the clipboard in.
A visor hat and like, this is.
What I have telling people. Like, oh, no, you weren't in orientation. You can't ride.
Like, it's been 22 minutes.
Number 10. Enjoy responsibly. Safety first. Fun always. Yeah, so I vetoed that.
Yep. Down with the.
The other thing on here. Like, man, like, there's walks, like. So this itinerary has, like, different group walks, like where you walk around the lake.
Oh.
Whether it's lawn games and sparklers, just. It's not my thing. It's not my thing to have an itinerary.
Yeah.
I like to go with the flow. I don't like. It's. It's the lake. I want to do what I want to do and I want to do it. I want to read a book. I want to hang out with my cousins and just talk. I don't want to have to be anywhere.
You know what that sounds like is a workshop.
Yeah, exactly. I've gone on vacation with friends that are like this and I'm. I tell them right out of the gate, like, as soon as they hand you the itinerary and they're like, oh, we're going to go, you know, to the volcano and hike and whatever. I'm like, okay, well, just so you know, if you need me, I'm gonna be by the pool reading a book.
Right. And smiling.
I will, I'll make dinner, though. Yeah, I'll find my way to dinner, but that's about it. Yeah, I thought it was pretty funny. And so then the, the kicker, the, the thing that I didn't see coming is they created this in AI, which.
Is actually a good thing because I bet AI did it in 35 seconds.
Well, I think it took them an hour and a half to type in the commands because you have a lot of.
That's right. You gotta teach it first.
And so the, the Jet Ski orientation outline or whatever was AI.
That was all AI's idea.
Yeah. Because, I mean, one thing in Washington is you have to have a boat license to drive a Jet Ski. So, I mean, that takes care of half of that. Like, you don't, you don't need to. Oh, I did that? Yeah. You had to do that.
Yeah.
It's still good for a couple more years, I think, but.
Yeah, I'm a certified 65 bucks state of Washington jet ski operator.
So. Funny.
I, I know you really like the jet Ski orientation to me, like the Planned walk. The planned leisure walk is like out.
Just for so many reasons.
Missy, you can write my trip itinerary anytime. I love it.
No.
Should we talk about news also?
Like that thing kind of. Doesn't it kind of sound like you're, you know, those managers that manage through pay plan? Yes, like that. The pay plan is like you, you know, you get this and this, but if you, you know, I don't know, whatever you're.
Yeah, I call those if then statements.
Yeah. And it's always one idiot that you're writing the pay plan around so you're, you know, you're wasting everybody else's time instead of just addressing that idiot. That's kind of what that felt like, is like we're managing through itinerary.
Yeah, for sure. Speaking of itinerary. All right, so in the news today, we have Ford. Beautiful, beautiful Ford being sued over their band Aid fix for alleged defective engines. And this is like, I like the part about this where it says alleged. But like it's vehicles from 2013 to 2019. I feel like we're pretty sure if they're defective or not. There's no alleging anymore. Like it's. The sample size is big enough, the time frame is big, long enough. Were okay, but. But they seem to really have problems with like the, their little ecoboosty supercharged turbo engines, but to the point where they're getting sued.
We should ask AI what manufacturers had the most recalls ever? And I bet you Ford wins by.
Gotta be Ford by a long twice.
Yeah, I bet it's twice as much as the next closest one.
Well, do you remember for a while when I was doing the news, like every week it would be like the first thing I come pull up is another Ford recall where I just stopped doing it because everyone was like, oh yeah, Ford recall.
It's just built into their plan, I guess.
So I feel like they haven't Learned anything in 150 years of building vehicles. Maybe I'm wrong.
Well, they've learned something, but they just have a lot of recalls.
Yeah, but they're. They're selling them still, which is interesting.
I still love Ford trucks.
Yeah, I do too. Very, very well built vehicle. So no complaints there. And this is not a Ford truck. This is something super cool, but General Motors 2026 Chevrolet Corvette, the ZR1X. So it's.
We were talking about if we were to bring back the competition for a manager of the year, this would be it. The Corvette would be it.
Well, the ZR1X is A, is A little bit of a big brother to this. It is going to be a production vehicle.
Yeah, they're gonna make them, right. They're not limited.
It's a hybrid. So there's a engine. There's an electric engine at the front wheel, I think. And just listen to this. Like, how much horsepower do you think this bad boy has?
It's over a thousand.
Twelve fifty.
Yeah, it's nuts. You.
I could do a lot of damage with this thing.
Makes no sense. In Los Angeles, right?
You get to go nine feet and feel every pothole. Oh, my gosh. I feel like there's a. There's this place by my house, the potholes. Like, no exaggeration. 10ft by 10ft. And it's just a matter of time before that whole thing just falls right into the subway system.
Sinkholes.
Yeah, it's got a sinkhole feel to it. So I. I don't drive over it anymore. I just completely drive around it or take a different route. But that's a common out common thing in Los Angeles. We don't have enough taxes.
That's why I drive my big boat is I like my big air suspension.
Yeah, that thing's super comfortable.
But, man, what a car.
Yeah. So the. So the engine. It's a 55L V8 is the naturally aspirated part. And then it's picking up another 186 horsepower from the electric unit.
Still to this day, when I see one of those Corvettes on the. On the road, I still do a double take, like, every time. I'm like, wow, that's a sexy car.
Don't you think they really hit a home run, too, with the colors?
Yeah.
Probably one of the best colored cars that I've seen. That blue, to me, just the blue.
I saw one a couple days ago coming into work that was brown, but like. Like a. Odd, like kind of flat brown. It was incredible.
Yeah.
And some. Some young kid driving it looked like he was an influencer or something. I don't know. It was a cool car.
I can't wait for my next midlife crisis.
You can't have two. That means you didn't get the first one out of your system.
I did. I had the sports car. It's so funny. But, yeah, that's. That's a pretty. Pretty sexy car. The interior looked insane.
So we're gonna go a different path now than we usually go because most of the time we don't talk about specific numbers and we don't talk about specific numbers because they seem unbelievable to a Person not in our program, usually. And what happens is the conversation just becomes like, oh, they must be cheating or whatever. Nobody ever really can get past their ego to understand that people are putting up numbers that are much bigger than what you think is possible.
Yeah.
And so it always ends up being this negative thing. Right. Like, even when we talk to people coming into our program, a lot of times we avoid talking about numbers because sometimes there's such a gap between that they can't get over it, and they spend all their time trying to justify why they aren't doing those numbers and.
How it's not them.
Yeah. That we try to kind of avoid that because it's. It's just a waste of time.
Yeah.
It becomes an argument versus how do we get there.
Maybe one out of 30 or one out of 40 strategy sessions, I can put up like, a. What I would consider, like a full potential result page for somebody. It's not very often.
So keep that in mind when we're talking about these numbers. If your first, you know, reaction is, that's impossible, or they must be cheating or whatever it is, that's you. That's not us. Like, there are people out there performing at a very high level that are constantly improving and getting better. And I don't know what to say if, If. If your insecurity and judgment is to try to diminish people that are doing something that's really cool that says more about you than it does about anybody else. But that being said, there's some pretty crazy numbers in. In our group. And so the way that we track this stuff is we have software, we have a competition monthly between our. Our clients and the advisors all compete against other advisors in. In different categories. So, like, you know, the Ford stores would be in an American group.
Yep.
Honda stores would be in a Honda group, that sort of thing. So it's like, you know, like brands competing or just individual brands competing against themselves. But this gives us a tremendous amount of data. And we've had AI in there looking at the data and different patterns and that sort of thing. But it gives us benchmarks, and it kind of tells us where. Where the averages are, where the top performers are, and then, you know, individual performers also. And so I asked Christian. I'm like, hey, can we go through some of the advisor benchmarks and just talk about that? Because I think a lot of people are curious about what. What is possible and, you know, what the numbers should be.
Yeah. So. So there's so many places that we could start. But. But I thought Maybe what we could do is. The first is I want to take a couple of things off the table as we talk about these results. One of the things that matters extremely little is geographic location. So whether you're in a small market or a big market, whether you're a huge store or small store, I feel like it's a very level playing field based on the fact that some of these numbers that I'm going to give, there's no rhyme or reason to those two items. So the first thing would be is that anything's possible anywhere. And I think that kind of like Chris was saying is don't try to. Don't try to talk yourself out or explain a way that it can't be done. The right question is to ask how. Don't you think? Like, that's the big thing is ask how. And the other thing I can say this really, really proudly is some of these crazy results that I'm about to give. The thing that goes along with that in these stores is that not only do they have really crazy sales numbers, their CSI typically is either number one or number two in the region, if not in the country. And some of these things, like we've got stores that are, you know, top of the business in Honda and gm, like there's just brands all over the board. But the CSI typically seems to be going up with the sales. So that's another thing that I would say, like you have to accept that, that at the end of the day, if we're taking great care of customers, they're happy to spend the money. So if you go into this with those two types of things. So any preference on where you want me to start?
No.
Okay, so what I would tell you is that let's just start with Highline. Okay, so on the hours prior and this is like BMW, Mercedes, jlr, there's a Porsche store in here, Audi. So all of those things, the benchmark hours per ro run right around between 3, 5 and 4 is like the benchmark that the average.
How do we have the benchmark set? The top 25%.
Yeah. So that's the top 20%.
20%.
And then I also wanted to give the high side is that we've got stores in the high line. Multiple advisors are averaging well over six, closer to seven hours per row. So the highest in our group with Highline, 6.88. The dollars in cents part of it in terms of we're talking about total parts and labor sales. The next section that we're on our average is anywhere between like let's call it 240 to 260 in the high line. And the high number. You're going to laugh at this. I think one advisor $510,913.
That's more than some departments.
That's more than some departments. With one person, that same person. They're. They're high line. They. They definitely are writing some warranty. But I wanted to make sure that I pointed out that it wasn't just writing warranty that that Same person had $141,745 and just CP labor sales.
And that 500,000 is parts and labor.
500,000 parts and labor customer internal warranty. The whole shimazu is the 510. So that's a big number. So that is. That's your high line. I wanted to go to domestic or what we call our American Muscle League and we have some pretty crazy results from that that's probably arguably are most competitive between the stores. Like. Like we've gotten just kind of a. Out of like 25 stores. Out of the 25 stores that are competing for this championship every month at any given time there's seven or eight that could win it. So it kind of lets you know it's like really top loaded with results. So let's talk about some of that data. So the. The benchmark CP effective labor rate 21222 is the top 20% CP hours per RO. Top 20% 2.79 hours per hour.
What's the net to gross?
The. The top 20%. It's over 50 is the top 20% and we've got some that are 60 plus percent net to gross. Should we talk. You want to talk about S Pop at all and explain that.
S Pop is a service and parts profit combined.
Our top 20% 500,000 in SPOP. So it's a pretty big number.
The benchmark.
Yes, that's the benchmark.
So it means you know, parts is making 250 services making 250 or something like that.
Right. Now let's talk about some individual advisor performance. Out of our top advisors on domestic, our top advisor in CP labor only sales 102k CP effective labor rate top advisor 231.32 and top hours per RO. This might surprise you a little bit. 3.82 on a domestic. So those are some pretty big numbers, huh? All right, this is kind of fun. We should talk about Honda. I'm always trying to figure out like. And I think it changes from time to time but like, like what brands work best with our thing? They all work. But I feel like Honda really kind of shines.
I feel like if I, if I was to buy a dealership, I would buy a Honda dealership.
Would you? I'm. I'm Toyota or Porsche. Like is my. My two and Honda would be third for me.
Porsche doesn't have enough volume for me. I like volume.
Yeah, well, that makes sense. You did have the number one BMW store in the world. Okay, so let's talk about Honda benchmarks. So top 20% in CP effective laboring to 1980.
Net up to gross benchmark.
All right, 55.44. Yeah, that's the top 20%.
What's the benchmark for hours per hour for Honda?
One hundred and ninety nine.
Yeah. So about two.
Yep.
That's kind of the sweet spot.
Yeah, I like this number two CP sales per advisor for Honda. 65821 pretty good number s pop 44% or 349,000. That's pretty good. So those are like the benchmarks and then some individual hours per hour which are just phenomenal. Highest CP hours per RO of an advisor 355. Then highest CP labor sales. 81,965 is the high mark. So that tells me because our benchmark is 65, there's a lot of people running between 60 and 80.
Yeah, a lot.
So that's pretty cool. Average advisors 10 and 31. 31 text 10 advisors. So really close to that three to one ratio we talk about all the time. Let's see what other kind of. I mean, we got a lot of data in here.
Yeah, I don't think we should give all the data away. You want me to keep the net to gross is the important one and then CSI is just different across all the brands. But that's something we track too.
Yeah. Like I said, I've just got. I think my highest Honda dealer is pushing a 98 regularly. So that's pretty close to perfect. We have had plenty of stores across many brands. So like Infinity, we had a couple of stores that had a thousand last month. GM stores like at the 97, 98 when everyone else is kind of in the 80s. So we've got lots of examples of stores either perfect or close to perfect with their csi.
It's the summer of fixed stops and it's only going to get better. It's so fun. Also we should have talked about this at the top, but where the team did training for tax on video inspections. I know there's this thought out there that I don't like video inspections, which is not what I've said.
Nope.
I've said if you can't do it with paper, you can't do with video, which means it's all about the system. Garbage in, garbage out. But I think the team did a really good job just going through, like, all the different things that it takes for that to work, because there is a lot to it. And, you know, we're asking technicians that aren't on camera, that aren't comfortable with that to. To do it. So we created some training from them to. To help them, which is fun. That's going up in our On Demand.
Have you seen any of the rough yet over that?
Oh, yeah, I saw. Yeah, I've seen. It's really well shot. He. Our boys are doing a good job.
Yeah, I was on the. Kind of like, there was a. What I would say that training is made up as, like, it's part field, right?
Yeah. We filmed it in.
In a shop and everything like that. And I went with, just to kind of help Kosh, our. You know, what would you call him?
Like our head of production?
Head of production. Like head videographer. Creative genius of sorts. So I was helping to give him context to what he was shooting, and there were times that, like, you don't get to see his creative genius until it comes out on the video. And then that same night, we came back from doing the shoot and he showed me and I was just like, just blown away. Like, training. Training doesn't normally look like this. And it's really.
Training can be fun.
Yeah. So it is fun and it's educational and the thing that you're going to get coming out of this stuff and. And Coach Hogie did an amazing job with it. But you're systematizing the video inspection if you're trying to set yourself up for success, like, that's the way to go.
Yeah. And also, you know, Hoagie's attack. And so we have a tech teaching text. Like, I don't. I don't think it would come off the same if it was me and you, because, I don't know, I think it's. There's a value to the authenticity of somebody walking a day in their shoes, like, actually being them. Not.
Yeah. Even.
Even talking about idealized versions of stuff.
Even watching, like, this is a little thing, but like his comfort level underneath the car and his comfort level using the. The tools, like the tread depth gauge and the brake thing and everything like that. It was like he'd done it a thousand times that I haven't done it a thousand times.
Yeah.
And I think that him doing that was it was a perfect fit. But be on the lookout for that. They're turned. They're editing and doing all that production really quick.
Super fun. Well, thanks, everybody. Thanks for hanging out. We'll see you next time on Service Drive Revolution. Thanks so much for watching this episode of Service Drive Revolution. We're uploading new stuff every day, so make sure you subscribe and click the bell icon so you don't miss out. If you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show, call 8333 Ask SDR and we'll answer your question on the show. That's 8333 Ask SDR. For special deals on our books and training, head over to offers.chriscollinsinc.com now that's offers chriscollinsinc. Com. I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video.










