Chris Collins launches a weekly live series tied to his book Irreplaceable Service Manager, starting each episode with a real story from his automotive service career. He promises cautionary tales: embezzlement, mass staff walkouts after firings, nepotism, and blackmail schemes. New episodes drop Tuesdays at 9 AM Pacific.
Questions this video answers
Tuesdays at 9 AM Pacific.
8333 Ask SDR.
offers.chriscollinsInc.com.
24.
About 25–26 years old.
Chapters
I want to go through the irreplaceable service manager chapter by chapter, and I want to add some content to it.
Yeah, I think that's probably the thing people don't know is that part the ad content part, because you got some good stuff.
We've experienced. We've learned a lot since then.
Yes.
Right.
But also, there's a lot of stories that I can't put in that book or I didn't feel.
I don't know, I didn't feel like it was a good idea.
There's probably a lot of stories we can't say on the air.
This is how it's gonna go. Okay. So every. Are we doing it on Tuesdays? Tuesdays, what time on Tuesday?
9Am Pacific.
So we're gonna go live here kind of similar to the way we did the tech tree.
Correct.
It's just gonna be me in a chair. I'm going. So the reason why I brought this out is to kind of explain how it's gonna go. So I will probably have a cigar.
I like it.
And I will start every one of these.
Episodes.
With a story that I couldn't tell, that I shouldn't tell. The things that I've experienced in. In the automotive industry. So, I mean, if you think about, I was 24 when I started going around training or fixing service departments all over in God knows where. Like a lot of small towns, a lot of farm towns, all of that. Right.
You spent more than your fair share of time in Iowa.
So the way that it's going to go is we're going to start off every one of these irreplaceable service manager lectures, going through the book kind of chapter by chapter with a little story, a little, you know, hey, here's my experiences now. I've made a list. I've had an ongoing list of stories that I want to tell, and I'm going to kind of go through some of them.
And just kind of, you tell me what you. What you think. So I got a story. Dealer brought cashier to a 20 grit meeting.
What?
Yeah.
Trying to figure out how to balance the drawer.
That same dealer fired his service manager without talking to me. And all the advisors and half of the techs left with the service manager. And he calls me. I'm in a different state, panicked. And I flew up. This is when I was young, so I was probably 25, 26 when this happened. Flew up there. No advisors, and really no texts. Oh, my gosh. In a pretty. So we're talking about a store that had five advisors we're not talking about.
Went from five to zero.
Yeah.
So? So they write tomorrow. So it's a 6070 RO.
There's a lesson in there that I'm gonna talk. So every one of these has a lesson. I'm gonna talk about the lesson. So three times I've caught office managers embezzling.
Wow. Okay.
Two of them left in handcuffs. I'm gonna talk about that. And used car. Used car managers were involved in some of that.
It's gonna be a dealer's worst nightmare.
Vickster firing her top advisor. And I didn't agree at the time, but a really good lesson was learned there. Hiring 38 techs in 45 days.
Okay. Nice. I like it.
The time.
Big.
A big dealer group.
The. The son wanted. Wanted us to help him, but he says, you got to meet my dad. It's like kind of like go kiss the ring kind of a thing.
Yeah, for sure.
So I show up to this conference room. There's all these managers in there. They. They had more managers than you would know what to do with. Dad comes in, starts yelling at me.
And was just interesting. Like.
And then at some point.
He says.
He calls me Jeff, and he thought I was Jeff Cowan.
That's really funny.
Yeah, it was funny.
Yeah. I wonder what he was so mad at Jeff for.
There's a story about all the cashiers leaving on Friday afternoon. But I will. I'll leave that for behind the curtain.
So what you're saying is you recognize patterns.
One time a guy faked having cancer. What? Yeah. And I. I caught him. It's a fascinating story. I've kind of told that story before, but it's hilarious. One time a guy tried to blackmail me, but he had nothing on me, so then he just ended up threatening me.
Oh, yeah, I know that story.
Was it.
Weren't they trying to get you to do the dirt that they would be able to blackmail you?
Wanted.
They wanted me to turn all my clients over. And.
Kind of interesting. Nothing came of it. Nobody ever.
No. Nobody ever came at you with a baseball bat or anything like.
Nothing. But they. They insinuated that that was gonna happen.
Interesting.
Incestual management. I got so many of those stories.
That sounds interesting.
Why incestual?
Yeah. What do you think I mean by that? Wait. Don't answer that. Let me just tell you because you might. You might take us off the rails.
Safer. It's.
No, it's like that thing where when.
I would go into. To fix, you know, the. The business or whatever, and I would say, hey, is anybody off limits? And then the guy would go, yeah, well, the manager's my son in law.
Oh yeah, they also call that nepotism, right?
Yeah. Well, I like Ancestral.
Ancestral's way catchier.
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That's 8333 Ask SDR. For special deals on our books and training, head over to to offers.chriscollinsinc.com now that's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins, and I'll.
