A short YouTube clip (Service Driving Revolution) featuring Chris Collins advising service-department managers to stop trying to force profitability by cutting expenses and instead invest in people, pay competitive wages (raise ELR), and change how technicians are treated—engaging them as partners. Collins cites having "fixed hundreds of service departments" and contrasts perception vs. reality on effective labor costs, ending with a CTA to subscribe and contact the show.
Chapters
You got to have a pricing strategy and advisors in place and understand how to be able to have a profitable business and pay the most. I don't know how many times you do a strategy session and people still have an ELR under 100 bucks more.
Often than it ever should be.
And they're losing technicians and they, they can't imagine paying somebody 40 bucks an hour. But you have to have the capacity to be competitive, not be the one reacting and playing from behind. And most of the industry is playing from behind.
That's right. It's so funny in those cases where the ELR is under a hundred. You'd be shocked at how many times they think they're paying 30. They're really paying 55 on a dollar 98.
Effective labor. Yeah.
Is.
I would not be shocked.
And disappointed.
Yeah. It could be better.
But perception and reality are quite, quite a ways apart.
Yeah.
And then, and then what do most of the managers in that situation that don't understand how to.
Execute a, you know, a pricing strategy.
And a system that produces the results that they need. They say, I gotta cut expenses.
Yeah. Or I need more traffic, but cut expenses. I gotta really maintain or control my expenses.
This year I have fixed.
Hundreds of service departments and never once have I cut one into profitability.
This is not possible. No. Did you know that before you came into my store? That, that was our, that was our thing. Did I ever tell you that, like we had meetings every month about cutting expenses from a, from a really smart general manager too.
Yeah.
But every month I had to make just the most heart wrenching decisions on personnel. And then you came in and it was so great because it was like, no, you need more. And we're like, oh, okay. And then it got better really fast.
You know, for, I mean, it would still happen today. Right. You go, you go into a service department, they're losing money. They're laying off everybody that they can. They don't have any porters. No. They stopped washing customers, cars. They're cutting back all of these things and they're booked out for weeks.
Yep.
And so you come in and you're like, okay, well we want to, we want to bring some people in. And they're like, we're going to hire 10 techs and can we hire all those people back? Like, yeah, but it's, it's. They just don't understand what they don't know. But so the first thing is you got to have the avail, the ability to pay more. And what that is is dependent on market brand all that, then the next thing is, I think you got to change your relationship with the shop.
I think you gotta look at your technicians as friends, people you communicate with, people that have a say and are involved in the overall plan. Not just the guys in the back doing a job. Another, you know, they're another number on an ro. And the only time we deal with them is when they have a comeback or they're in trouble.
Yeah.
Thanks so much for watching this clip of Service Driving 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 that's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you.
