The Horror of Buying a New Car

Welcome everybody to Service Drive Revolution. I am Chris Collins and this is Christian Lafferty.

Hello everyone.

Better known as Papi Julo.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays. You heard our little intro with some jingle bells in there for you. Kind of fun once a year to be able to play that.

Yeah, that's clearly Michael's favorite intro. It's very festive, quite ringy.

Now we have a great show coming up for you today. I'm going to talk about something very emotional, about something that made me really want to cry recently. And I will tell everybody that I'm not the kind of person that cries easy. In fact, the last time I cried was when my dog Rocky died. But when my grandfather died, I wanted to cry. Like I tried to cry and I couldn't cry. I have friends that cry pretty easy, but I don't cry. This made me want to cry. So we're gonna talk about that also. We're just, we're going to talk a little bit about some, some housekeeping stuff and things going on. But with our coaching clients which if you are looking to make 2022 a better year and have your fixed stops coming along and be a part of a network and a family that's doing some, some pretty progressive things on the service side, we have a couple slots left. We, we are starting to turn people away in the sense that we do not have the capacity to take everybody on as, as clients. For the coaching side, the on demand and the online stuff is, is wide open because that's, you know, more scalable and doesn't require the attention that coaching does. But on our coaching calls, a few last week and a couple here coming up next week, we do this thing with, with our clients where we have an ugly sweater contest and the winner gets a bottle of kind of hand selected limited edition tequila.

Yeah, very fancy.

Is very fancy. In fact, I don't even have a bottle of that tequila we're giving away.

So every time we give it away, I'm like, man, I'd really like just take one.

But so far nobody's had an uglier sweater than Christian. So if you're listening to this, I apologize, but you should go to YouTube and just look at Christian sweater. When you get a minute, just fast forward to the first couple of minutes and you'll see Christian sweater. But I asked you if that was a raccoon. It's believe it or not, everybody. That's a sloth.

It's the Christmas sloth.

Christmas sloth.

Yeah.

It's incredible. Even better is the material it's made out of. It's made out of, like, silky.

How would you describe that material?

Chinese spandex.

Chinese spandex, yeah. It's incredible. It's. It's a sight. It's a sight to behold. So, you know, we hope everybody's having a great holiday season. And, you know, reflecting back on this year, do you. When you think, Christian, about last year, are there any episodes of SDR that really stick out to you or moments that.

You remember?

I have two. The one would be the amount of energy that came out of the diagnosis episode. And in terms of feedback and repair authorization. Yes. And the other one that I got the most feedback from and I felt like we really gave away some good content was like our 11 steps to hiring coaches. I got a lot of people say that, oh, I never would have thought to ask that question. And I've gotten some feedback from our clients that they're actually getting better at interviewing, which I do think that there's a little bit of a gap. Like, we don't teach, at least in the automotive industry. I don't think we do a good enough job of teaching people how to interview and, like, what we should be looking for when we're doing it. I thought those were two of my favorite episodes of the last year.

So I. So I have gotten some feedback from that. Just talking to people randomly on strategy sessions or, you know, people DMing me on Instagram. And the thing that's funny about the repair authorization one is that a couple people, surprisingly, they're not on our platform, right? They. They're like, wow, that. That was really good. Like, they're surprised. And I think we have said from the very beginning that our goal is that we're going to give away better content than most people charge for. But the truth of the matter is, is most advisor training out there that I've seen or we've come in behind in a service drive. And I think coming in behind in a service drive is probably more insightful than what I've seen. I purposely won't watch a lot of other people's training because I never want to steal their stuff. And subconsciously that that could happen. But when I have seen stuff, I am. I'm, you know, really just blown away that that's what we're teaching and that we're giving people scripts. It's like, you know, the idea that I give somebody a script and they're going to read that and that's going to help them is, you know, crazy. A script Might inspire you and give you a little bit of a roadmap, but it's not going to make you a better service advisor. We got to fix the mental aspect of it first. Right?

There's a lot of make it your own. It's got to be genuine.

Then. Then on the other side of it, the. The team in the office was showing me that people that we talked about in that one, because it was from a. From a post, a thread of comments that inspired us to talk about it, the repair authorization part, that people in there were saying that, oh, I will never. I'll never share your stuff again or I'll never tell other people about you. You're a terrible person, whatever. And I guess it's because we mentioned their names. Not the point we made probably, that we mentioned their names. And I think that's funny, too. Like, if you were gonna hurt us, telling us that you're not going to share our free stuff.

Doesn'T really hurt us.

No, we're okay.

One guy's like, I'm in charge of seven dealerships and I'm not gonna, you know, watch your free videos anymore. It's like, okay, well, we're giving you, you know, who else out there is giving the. The content or who. Who else out there is actually is authentic and in the service drive and knows what they're talking about. Like, yeah, we'll be good luck with that. But I thought that was funny. I also think it's funny the people that posted comments that were.

Negative because of the headline, but they never actually watched the video. I would, I would say most of the negative comments, they never watched it. So they were commenting on the headline, not the actual content, which was the.

Same thing that was happening with the link with the article in the first place, right?

Yeah.

So the whole reason went sideways is because I think people are commenting without. Without reading or listening. And then the same thing happened on the videos, and I was like, oh, my good Lord.

Like, we're.

We're committing the same sins. We're not getting better. I.

One of my favorite parts of last year is we kind of. Was it like midway through the year, we're like, we need to shift things up a little bit. We need to have some guests. And so we started trying to have guests.

Oh, yeah, that was fun.

And one of the rules that I had when we started having guests is we're not going to pitch anything to our audience. They actually have to provide content and value to our audience. So if they're. If they work at a company or they have a product, maybe we will plug the product at the end. And I always say, like, let me plug your product. Don't you do it. Give. Give our clients some content, you know, like, actually give them some knowledge in some content. That honestly turned out to be more of a toss of the coin because most people just, you know, if they're selling, they're selling, and they don't understand the. The idea of give to get. Yeah, like putting your best foot forward. But there were a couple people that came on, they. They pitched the whole time, and then we didn't. We didn't put the episodes out. And then, you know, the. The, you know, really nice, sweet people in our office then said, well, could we give them another chance? They're so sorry, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then we did it again. So remember, do you remember me saying, like, it's not going to make a difference. There's not. There's no value here for. For our clients. And even to the point with one of the guests, like, I literally was trying to give the value for them. Like, I was trying to write, like, I was giving the value, making it into, like, an episode that we would do, just trying to bring them along and they still wouldn't go along with it. They were fighting me. Right.

That was great. It was. I didn't even realize one of them. You did twice, because one was with me the first time around. And then you redid it with the same person with Mia. And I thought you were talking about the same episode when you're like, yeah, all he did was pitch his thing. Come to find out it was the second episode that had the same story. It was really.

Well, I did it because the office was asking me, like, please, he's really sorry. Really. You know, and it didn't. It didn't make a difference. And so we have. That's something we struggle with is getting guests that actually, like, can talk about content, not in relation to. The only way that it'll work is if you buy my stuff. And most of the vendors out there that are the most progressive are the ones selling tablets or software. And I mean, it's not that that stuff isn't good, but you're not gonna fix your service. Driver, tablets. I hate, you know, I hate to tell everybody, so just.

It's just another thing to do. You know what? I did, like, one of. One of my favorite guests was Raleigh, the guy that does, like the military placement.

Oh, yeah. I thought that was great.

That was one of those episodes where I Just sat there and I just got to watch, and it was such great content. I think that if for future guests on sdr, watch that episode first, you will be an amazing guest.

Also, the two from Reuters on the chips.

Yep. That was a great episode, too.

They were. They were great. I'm sure we're forgetting some.

But it was. It was great. So we, you know, we thank you so much for supporting the show and the conversations that we're having. We're going to try to have more listeners on as guests or more managers in our system and, you know, talk more about what's really working and what isn't. Versus pitching products. The worst is somebody, you know, just pitching their stuff. That's not why you're here. And you have to listen to our stupid stories. Enough.

On top of it. Somebody pitching is.

We really just want to. We want to give back. We want it to be a gift. Which kind of reminds me, what is. What is the best Christmas gift?

What is the best Christmas gift? And now are you. Are you asking this because you want to know what to get me?

No, I already got.

Oh, this is a Christian dad joke.

Yeah.

What is the best Christmas joke? I don't know.

A broken drum. It can't be beat.

Christian did a thing, you guys, earlier in pre production where he was telling a joke to everybody, and.

Michael, I think, didn't laugh or whatever. And then Christian said, you're not my audience right now.

It wasn't that the joke wasn't funny. It was. Now Christian's turned it on us that if we don't laugh, we're not the audience.

You don't get it.

I thought that was so funny. Well, you're not the audience right now.

Oh, that made me laugh so hard.

The. The other thing, if you haven't seen it on YouTube, I do believe it's on Facebook and LinkedIn. But I would not know how to navigate those two.

People would be surprised how little time I spend on either one of those. Yeah. Sites. But I am on YouTube all the time, and it's from our top dog event this year, and it's titled the State of the Union. It has. It's one of our fastest videos on YouTube.

The views are unused. Yeah.

But it was the top of our top dog event, which still to this day, people tell me, like, I don't know that I. That I go through a week where a couple people don't tell me that that was the best event they've ever been to. And just how real and emotional and, you know, Honest. It was. But the top of that, I talk about our industry, and it was. You know, I was. When I was writing it and thinking about what I wanted to say, I was thinking like, this is. This is the State of the Union in reference to us and fixed ops. This is where we're at in the. In the automotive industry. And so if you haven't. If you haven't seen that, check it out. It also shows the winner of the. Of the Jeep at Top Dog, Amanda. And, you know, it's a cool video from the heart, and we dolled it up a little bit after the fact that we actually put in some pictures of my grandfather, and there's actually a picture of myself with my grandfather and his Toyota Land Cruiser. Man, he loved that thing. I regret not grabbing that when he passed away and having it restored, but the video is really relevant to where we're at and you would enjoy it. So make sure you check that out on YouTube. Just search Chris Collins, State of the Union and it'll. It'll come up. Yeah. Good. Good stuff.

Yeah. That was. That was a phenomenal video. I think that the. It was a really heartfelt message, and I actually think the production team did really well on that thing. Like, it literally was like a.

It was.

It was a movie trailer. There was that kind of quality of shooting, and as you're watching it, you have no choice but to get sucked into the information. The story's really, really good, but you get really introspective after watching it. It's pretty cool.

Yeah. The team did a great job, too, in the shooting of it, the editing, the music they put behind it. And.

I think it represents where we're at and, you know, it will resonate with. With you. I know it's kind of going around and people are sharing it because you can just see that it's getting a lot of views and a lot of shares.

Good message.

Fun, fun stuff. Okay, so.

Maybe we should end with the.

Premise or the conversation of where. What do we think is going to change next year? A little bit talk about next year, but let's talk about what made me want to cry.

This is a really random thing.

Yeah. No, but it really. It was interesting, too, because I was talking to Missy about this even. Even last night, because she has. You know, when people from the outside of our industry interact with our industry directly but don't quite. They didn't grow up in it and they don't understand it. Right. They're only interacting because of us.

Yeah.

Because there are spouses or that sort of thing. It's interesting to her how simple it would be to fix, but how in our industry it's, you know, it's not. So.

When.

When we decided to do the, the contest for Service Manager of the year and I was going to give away my, my vehicle or whatever years ago, I, I bought a Jeep truck, if you're not familiar, and we had a contest, the contest was going to run a year that, that was it. And whoever, you know, was in our On Demand or our coaching program that had the, the largest increase in profitability, the main one, although they're weighted the same, the main, the main goal is profitability, effective labor rate and customer satisfaction measurable, plus an essay. Just like, you know, when people come into our coaching program, there's always a leap of faith and you know, those essays for us become great inspiration to new people coming in that they understand that it's not unique to feel different. It's not unique to be scared of change. That there were other managers that were just like you, that thought just like you that ended up achieving incredible results, improving their quality of life, you know, having the freedom to run their business, not be, not be victims of their business. And, you know, and some of them are, early on were funnier maybe where like years ago, Matt's essay talked about, you know, this guy from California. And I think that happens a lot too, that a lot of our clients come from the east coast or the Midwest and they come, it's their first time coming to California or they've been to California, but it's not, it's not on their list of places they would want to go. And especially now politically, it seems like California is like this, you know, this wasteland to a lot of the, the country and the way they talk about it or think about it. So they come to California for their boot camp and they, they realize that it's, you know, not as scary as they think. And then once they, they learn what they learn, they're weaponized. And then they, they start to feel like, oh, wow, okay, I can do this. This makes sense. And you know, they're just weaponized. And then they go to work. A lot of times when, when they come to boot camp, they can't wait to get back and start, you know, start doing things because it all starts to make sense, sense and line up and they feel like, oh, okay, I know where the levers are now. I know where the light switches are to turn on. And I was in the dark before basically in a lot of Ways a lot of.

Managers and fixed stops have learned everything they've learned through tribal knowledge, but they, you know, they feel like they're, they're in the dark. So those essays become, you know, inspiration to everybody. And so what happened was when we were doing that, Covid started popping up and then all of a sudden we don't know what to do because our Top Dog event isn't going to go down. And then we're like, it, you know, we were talking to our lawyers that kind of oversee that contest and they were saying, well, you kind of have to pull it back because different parts of the country are shut down and it's not really fair. Right. Like, also, people in Canada were competing for it too, and they were shut down. Down were, you know, more than the U.S. and so you just, Even though service departments were, were open, for the most part, there were a lot of service departments that laid people off. They, they panicked. And so it wasn't fair to continue the contest. So we had to kind of put it on hold and then bring it back. So I ended up driving this Jeep, which I fell in love with, by the way. I never had one problem with that Jeep. The only thing that ever happened was we changed the oil on it. That's it. I mean, I didn't put a ton of miles on it, but I, I never had one issue with it. It was, it was an incredible fun to drive, like, and also, like here in California, for me, I just, you know, the thing looked like a monster truck because we jacked it up. We'd, we'd done a Vine, did a vinyl wrap in orange and, you know, pulling up to valet or whatever here, it's just fun because it's so different than what people would do in la. And I'm, I'm usually never looking to be the average person, so I like, I like shocking people. But Top Dog finally did come around. We, you know, we, we got tons of people that applied to win it, wrote their essays, turned in their numbers, and at Top Dog, we, we, you know, there was a clear winner and we, you know, I gave it away. So this was, you know, the day that we gave it away at Top Dog. I drove it there like I was still driving it. And so since Top Dog months ago, I haven't had a vehicle. And I was in Europe for a couple weeks and I've been Ubering and borrowing my, my fiance's car sometimes and.

But I haven't really had, I really haven't had a car. And I needed to get A car. So when I, when I got back from my last trip, I'm like, you know, I need, I need to get a car. And I, I started looking around and I didn't. The, the other problem, I think why I took so long to actually decide to buy something was that I didn't know what I wanted. And so do I want to get a convertible again? Because I like convertibles because I can smoke cigars and they're more fun. But, you know.

I didn't know. I didn't know what to do, honestly. I mean, I asked you a lot. Like, I would ask you, like what your opinion was and that sort of thing. Right. And so finally I, I decided kind of what I thought I wanted, that was an suv because I'm bigger and something smooth. But, you know, I didn't want something that was going to be a sport. Hit all the potholes and all that. And so I decided on a Land Rover. I decided, hey, I think I want to get a Land Rover. So I started looking online. Now we have clients that sell Land Rovers, but none here in la. In the, the, you know, the bigger ones here in LA are owned by a publicly traded auto group that. How should we say this? They, Their group believes that their nation for autos.

This is great.

How would you disguise that name a nation for. They're their own nation and autos of autos.

Yep.

Yeah. So they own the, you know, the kind of. The bigger ones. And then I was looking online. Now here, here's a funny thing is when you're in our industry, but you become the consumer and you're not asking any of your clients for a favor. And I, I felt like two things. I felt like the clients that we have that sell rovers, I didn't want to ask them because their inventories are low and hard to find. Right. And also shipping in and all that, I just, I didn't want to bother them and it wasn't. I also feel like they'd feel obligated to then give me a deal. And I.