The Fastest Way For a Service Manager to Get Fired (Service Drive Revolution)

Okay. So I. I was. I was thinking about this, Jeremy, and this. This actually happened to me before the. The lockdown. I was flying back from the Midwest, and I'm on the plane sitting next to somebody, and the. You know. You know how when you're sitting next to somebody on the plane and it's that weird? Like, do you talk to people when you're sitting next to them on the plane?

I try not to. I put my sunglasses on, put my earbuds in, and if they talk to me, I just let them know that I'm a fundraiser for a religious cult, and if they had a few minutes, I could talk to them.

Yeah, so the. The thing that happens there is if you. If you do talk to them, then now this is your best friend for the next four hours or whatever. Right. So you're kind of frustrated, like, if.

You want to get some work done. Right. Or you had a plan for that time. It's like, oh, no. So. Been there.

Yeah. I think the time I sat next to you on a plane, you just went to sleep.

That was you, sir?

No, that was him.

No, you. You were out.

I was in the.

It was weird, too.

He had, like, a whole thing. Didn't he have, like, an eye cover?

He was perfect.

What are those things you wear when you sleep? You were out, bro.

Are you talking about our. Our trip to Kansas City?

Kansas City, Yeah.

Yeah.

You were napping.

Great conversation on the way there. Maybe the trip back. I slept the trip back.

You didn't even make takeoff, Jeremy.

It was a tired.

It was.

So you worked hard, though. You spoke two times. So we were. We were just sitting at the bar eating wings or whatever. But. Okay, so. So it's that weird, awkward thing. And then. So then I think we. We did decide to talk, and then you get into that thing, like, what do you do? But I kind of have a. I have a feeling that the guy knew who I was, because he was definitely initiating the conversation. And so he didn't ask me what I do, but I asked him what he did, which also makes me think that he kind of knew who I was. So he says, oh, well, I was the service director of a Volkswagen store. So was the service director of a Volkswagen store. Now, first of all, what. Where are we at in life? That service director is applied to somebody running one store.

Now, you could say I'm the parts and service director of a Volkswagen store, but the service director. Like, we. We know a lot of service directors run in a lot of big groups, but do when we Are when we are called by the Urban Dictionary to describe the definition of service director, is it one store or two stores or three stores? At what point, Jeremy, do you become a director?

Chris, I've seen, I've heard that term used with guys that have one store and they are the service director at that one store. So I. I honestly don't know how to answer. Answer that. I'm going to vote for one or above.

So just. You can be vice president. You can be whatever you want. Just make up a title. Doesn't matter.

You can just. Yeah, you can label yourself anything that you want to be. It is America.

Okay. So the. So he says was. And I said, what happened? Oh, I was let go. So I'm no longer there. And, you know, I'm looking for a job. Do you know anybody looking that whole thing? And so I'm like, okay, well, maybe I'll help this guy. And I said, what was your net to gross?

I don't know. He says, I don't know what my netsu says.

That could have something to do with the was.

Yeah. And so into the. To the question earlier, right. Is like, you gotta understand, like, I actually earlier this week was talking to a director running five stores. He's an actual director. He's running five stores.

The clear, appropriate use of the term director. And.

I said, what's the net to gross for all the stores? And he goes, oh, I don't know. We don't look at that. And I'm like, well, you're not a fit for us. Like, we don't need to be on a call. I can't help you because we grade ourselves on what's important because we don't like to get fired. You're going to get fired. Like, I'm telling you right now, you're going to get fired. If you don't know the answer to that. Like. So let's just, let's say, for example, Christian here is running.

Like, what do you call those, like, rest home things where, like, old people.

Convalescent center.

Convalescent. Is that what.

I don't know. I might have just made that up.

Could be called a nursing home.

A nursing home. That's it. So you're. So Christian here is running a nursing home. Now, it doesn't really matter if Christian knows the average age of everybody in his nursing home. Right. Like, you know, good old Chuck there, he could be 90, he could be 85, he could be 80. Or what matters is that Chuck's diaper gets changed. That's what Matters, his age, the numbers don't matter in that situation. What matters is that we change Chuck's diapers and that he gets three meals a day and you know, that he's healthy, he takes his pills when he's supposed to take them. That's what matters. But in business, just like sports, there's a scoreboard, there's clear winning and losing. And so it's very clear if you've won or you've lost. So one of the things that I thought was really interesting about watching that the Last Dance documentary series on ESPN was, you know, those players could recall games from 20 something years ago, 25 years ago, and they could talk about how many points they'd scored and how many rebounds they had by the third quarter of a game and what they were thinking and what their plan was. Like they know everything about everything. Like you could go, I guarantee you right now, we could call up Michael Jordan and we could say 1987, what was the win loss record for the Bulls and what did you average? And he would go, I averaged 32 points a game and we won 61 games and lost. Whatever. Right now let's say you're the backup to the backup to the backup in the bullpen for the Colorado Rockies. And I say what was the win loss record two years ago for the Colorado Rockies? Maybe you don't know, but hence why you're the backup to the backup to the backup to the backup. Because if you're the starting closer or a pitcher or anybody of significance on any sports team anywhere, you know if you won or lost, right? I don't know one dealer or general manager that doesn't have the financial statement within arms ring reach from them in their office all the time. Most of the time it's just sitting there on the desk. But it's in a drawer. It's behind them, but it's somewhere without getting up, they can find the financial statement and they're looking at it. And when they look at the service numbers, your face comes up in their mind. Like it's just a natural reaction. Your face comes up. And so if you are under the impression that net to gross and profit doesn't matter, you probably are going to get fired eventually because you're not looking at what's important. And so the industries let you down, us down because they don't share those numbers with you sometime. But I would very much encourage you to go to the general manager or the owner and say, hey, I'm trying to get better and I want to be Mentored. Mentor me on financial statements. Will you teach me what you know? And I guarantee you 9 out of 10 will pull you in and mentor you and start explaining and showing. Now, if you go to them and you're accusatory or indifferent or just a jerk or you don't know what you're talking about, they're probably not going to share it with you. But if you just say, hey, will you teach me? Will you mentor me? Everybody wants to mentor and share the things that they've learned. It's just natural that people want to do that. But if you're a service manager or director and you're not looking at the financial statement, it doesn't mean you're not judged on it. You're still being judged on it. So if you don't want your pay plan change, why don't you really start to understand what the ROI is of you in that position? Because if you're not looking at the financial statement, we don't know if there's an ROI, right? So this kid that's making $18,000 as a backup service manager, if we don't know what the net to gross is and the profit is, you got a target on your head. I see it. The reason why I named my book the Irreplaceable Service Manager is because there's 50% turnover in the service manager position. And the reason why is because they don't know what the ROI is. If I go into a service department and I'm like, hey, I'm putting $200,000 on the bottom line every month, that's $2.4 million a year. And you're paying me $15,000 a month. I can do that math. Nobody's changing my pay plan. And if I go to the next service department to get a job and they're losing $5,000 a month, that I'm like, hey, the last place I was at, I got them to 2.4 million. This is what I want my pay plan to be. You're going to get that pay plan. You just are. Because you know what the ROI is, what you know what's important in business. And so it's not. You're not changing diapers if you're not focused on the things that matter. You're just managing your day by feelings. And if you're just chasing gross, it's a recipe to disaster. Thank you so much for watching this clip of Service Drive Revolution. Now you can catch the full episode on YouTube, iTunes or Spotify or wherever you consume your podcast. If you have any questions, go ahead and post them in the comments below. Make sure you subscribe and hit the bell icon so you're notified when we post new episodes. I'm Chris Collins and you can find me on Facebook and Instagram at Chris Bulldog Collins and I'll see you again on the next episode.