This Service Advisor Really Hates Us

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the big show, Service Drive Revolution. Happy, happy Wednesday. I hope everybody's having as much fun as we are. We have a great show for you today. We are going to talk about a forum post from an advisor. Well, It's a very negative post in a Jeff Cowan forum, and I'm going to read it and then we're going to talk about it. That will be a lot of fun. We have a question from the Service Drive Academy that we thought we would answer here on this show. So if you're not familiar with the Academy, every other week we get on and we teach how to, you know, maximize your potential in fixed ops. We've been going over the kind of financials recently. Last week, Hoagie went over mindset. What are you doing next week, Hoagie?

Oklahoma Smoke Show, uh, we're doing, uh, systems, the importance of a system, and kind of outlining, um, yeah, letting everybody do an exercise where they outline what the overview of their system should be.

Now normally we would answer questions live in there, but this one was called in to the hotline and we're gonna play it and answer it. And the, the question is basically what What is the difference between parts in a truck dealership versus an automotive dealership? And there, there's some big differences. It's going to be a great conversation.

Great question.

Yeah, really good question. We thought it would be better for the, the whole world, even though I think the intention was that it would be in the academy that we answered it, and much, much more. So I'm Chris Collins. You just heard from Smoke Show, Oklahoma Smoke Show. Hogi, and then Adam. Cray here is in beautiful Florida on vacation. We, we wanted him to be on the beach when he did this, but it was too noisy, so he's inside. Are you in Airbnb?

Uh, yes, we rented a house, so I'm actually in one of the, uh, the bungalows for the kids, so I commandeered it for now. It's almost nap time.

And so last week we were all together in Indiana having a blast working. We're doing a pilot in a heavy Duty Truck Group, and there was a lot of drama leading up to this vacation for Adam, and it feels like there's no drama now that you're there. Feels like pretty—

yeah, it's very climactic, I think, right? You hit that climax and now you're just here and whatever happens happens, right? It's the, uh, the laundry list of things to bring and stack into a trailer. Which, uh, was not a part of, uh, I was able to skate out of that because we were all together in, in Indiana.

But, uh, it's funny, um, so some of you flew down and some drove down, right? Am I getting—

yes.

And there was, there was drama about that. How many, how many adults in the house?

Uh, 7.

How many kids? Uh, 8.

Yeah, that's what, 4, 5, 4? Yeah, 4.

So one thing that, that is funny is I won't stay in an Airbnb with our team. Like, I want to stay in a hotel. I want to have my own room, my own bathroom. I don't want to wait for Adam to get done with his hour-long shower. Yeah, where he uses all the hot water. Or, you know, I just don't— I, I realized very early on when I was a kid, so when I was like I think I was 18. I moved into a house with my band. We had a band house. We all lived together in a house, and I figured out very quickly I don't like roommates. Like, just, they would eat my— I was the only one in the band that had a, had a full-time job because I worked. I was a porter at a car dealership. They would— I had money. They didn't have money, clearly, because they didn't work. And so they would eat all my food. They would go, you know, they would go in my bedroom with you know, girl. It was just a disaster. And so it comes up all the time, like, hey, could we stay at an Airbnb in this city when I'm, when I'm tagging along? And I'm always like, you guys can, but I'm staying at the hotel. Like, and so it would be a nightmare for me, Adam, to be 7 adults in an Airbnb. The kid, you know, the kids probably are more fun, but the adults would be the, the problem. What sort of things— you had, you had a bottle of whiskey there. What sort of events have happened so far?

Yes, so we had a fish boil last night.

Fish boil?

We did. Yep, fish boil. So we, uh, get what, crab, a bunch of, uh, seafood. And you know me and seafood, I'm okay, take it or leave it kind of guy. So we had some of that with corn, potatoes. Um, it was really good though. I think the corn was the best. The corn takes that Creole spice and just like locks it in. So like it's just awesome. But, um, we've done that. We went golfing yesterday. Uh, what'd you shoot? Uh, we did, we did best ball. So I always team up with my father-in-law and we beat my, um, my, my, my two brother-in-laws. So this would be the first win. Many times of golfing. So that was good, but we shot, I think, 9 over par overall. So that wasn't too bad. Um, had a few decent shots, you know, just enough to keep you going, but I'd say overall it's been a, it's been a decent vacation. We're still through midway of the week. We're actually having this, we started this last year, uh, a drink, what, uh, whoever can have the best drink and there's a rating scale to it. So it's our little drink competition. So we haven't gone yet, but I think ours is gonna be a, some sort of mojito. 'Cause I tried that one, what was that one, cosmopolitan drink that we have? And that went horrible last year. So that was definitely not a choice. So we've gotta change it up this year, but thus far it's been good. It's been really hot.

Does Bob participate in the drink competition?

He did last year.

Bob is Adam's father-in-law who makes the incredible jerk beef.

Yeah, so like, I just feel like, Ryan, yeah, if he can put the jerky together, um, you know, um, yeah, if he understands the mixology of that, like, I think he'd have a head start on the drinks. I think—

tell him, uh, tell him thank you again. When we were in Indiana, Adam brought a bunch, and it doesn't last long. It goes quick.

I definitely found the remnants of wrappers in the, in the, in the wagon.

I offered to take it with me when I got out at the airport and you're like, no, just leave it. You go, you go.

I didn't, I didn't want you guys to miss your flights.

But there was evidence for sure.

There was evidence. It was a good time though. Thus far it's going pretty good.

Tell him thank you. We appreciate it.

I'll tell him.

For sure.

But glad to be with you guys though, still. From even remote.

Oh, it was so fun. Last week we went to, uh, Planet Fitness and worked out most day— I mean, most days it was just Adam and I, right, Adam?

We had a couple, yeah, but Hoagie was there. I didn't need all of us though.

Hoagie never went when I went.

Yeah, we went, we went, uh, we went together one day. Yeah, I kind of went towards the beginning of the week for 2 or 3 days, and then I think you went towards the end of the week for 2 or 3 days.

Yeah, Planet Fitness is funny. I mean, the whole business model there is interesting, right? Because they charge $10 a month and they're counting on nobody coming.

So they're—

yeah, they're— you know, business strategy is to sell a lot of memberships under the, you know, the understanding that people that buy a gym membership usually don't go. But unfortunately, like, a lot of people do go, so it's always really crowded. But it was fun. It was fun working out. I felt better at the end of the week.

Yeah, for sure.

We'll do it again next time.

It's good. So, uh, is there any housekeeping stuff we need to talk about? So next week will be SDR Academy. What are you talking about next week, Hoagie? Oh, we talked about systems, right?

Yep.

Okay.

And then, um, do we want to get to the question about parts? We want to play that.

Yeah, I think that's a good place to start.

Yeah, can we cue that up, gentlemen?

I'm calling because I have a question about the similarities and differences between the parts department and the parts operation in a car dealership versus the truck, trucking business. I have a— my in-laws kind of in-laws, kind of family friends, own a trucking company. They're having some issues with their parts department that they told me about. I'm the parts director for my auto group, and so I'm wanting to help them. I suggest that they look into you guys because I think you guys are really good at what you do. But in the meantime, I also— I don't know how actively they're going to do that, so I was also going to look at it myself. But I wanted to kind of— I'm confident about how to, for example, with obsolescence, I'm confident of all the exit strategies and preventative strategies and systems to put in place to prevent and remove obsolescence if you have some, because your prevention is not good enough in a dealership. But I was hoping to get some insight from you all about how similar that is not just obsolescence, but the whole thing. Even going into technicians, 'cause I know they pay their technicians hourly and all of that. I just, I'd like to get some more insight on what the trucking business looks like so that I can help my friends. And hopefully they'll check you guys out too.

It's nice that he is saying that. Also, we have had so many referrals from, factory guys lately, which is unbelievable because usually that doesn't— usually the factory guys aren't paying attention. But it's been really nice that they've, they've seen the dramatic change in mostly CSI, right, Hoagie? It's more about customer satisfaction.

Yeah.

And so the people are just calling in and saying, hey, my, my factory guy said that you you know, blew the doors off over here and I'm struggling with my, with my service department, you know, can we set up a call sort of thing, which is very nice. So yeah, we'll kind of go around. I will— let me try to lay a foundation that we can build on here in answering this question. So the, the biggest difference between a car dealership and a heavy truck dealership is that One is B2C, so business to consumer. You're servicing a consumer. Truck dealerships are more B2B, so they're, they're business to business in a sense. And so now a parts department in a car dealership in a sense is B2B because you, you do sell stuff on the retail counter, but for the most part The bulk of your business in parts is going to be through the service department. So you're, you know, you're kind of at the mercy of the service department. If the service department's running really well, they're doing good with their inspections, they're selling a lot of repair labor, you're going to sell a lot of parts in a sense, right? In a truck dealership, a lot of the business in parts comes from the outside, not the inside. So their numbers really, for the most part, will come from them selling to outside businesses because in the truck world, a lot of these fleets, so imagine a school district or Amazon, these businesses that have buses or trucks have their own technicians. But they don't have their own parts department. So they buy their parts from the dealership. And so you'll see a parts department in a truck dealership doing $400,000 a month to the service department and $2 million a month to the outside. Their outside sales, or in, you could call it wholesale, their wholesale sales are by far and away the bulk of their business. And so Parts departments in a truck dealership have people out there selling. They have, they have, um, they have teams just like— you'll see a room of people just taking incoming calls for parts, where in a car dealership you would just have the counter people taking those calls, or maybe the front counter. It would be like 10 people in a truck dealership versus you know, one or two in a car dealership on the front counter. So it's more of a B2B business and the wholesale part of it is the bulk of what most truck dealerships are doing because municipalities will have their own technicians. All sorts of fleets have their own techs and they're buying the parts from the dealership. And then you also have more competition in a sense because there's other,, you know, vendors out there that will sell parts to them. So it's all about the service. It's about delivering, you know, and inventory. So the inventories will be much higher in a truck dealership also because they have to have it in order to, to sell it. How did it, how did I do, Adam?

That was awesome. I'm trying to think of ways to insert any sort of little gaps, but that was a really good overall arching Yeah, it's fascinating.

Like, you know, we're fans of businesses and models and how things work. And that one has always been fascinating to me because if you've spent a lot of time in a car dealership, the parts department in a heavy truck dealership is a different, a completely different animal. And sometimes, like when we were working with International, I would go around and visit dealerships. There would be dealerships that didn't even have a drive, like they were like a warehouse, and the parts would be functioning in cubicles with, without, totally disconnected from the dealership. And they were doing huge numbers, like humongous numbers, like 4 million. Like, I, I'm trying to think of a— there's There is a— there's one dealer that I know of in the Midwest that was doing like $2 million a month in parts wholesaling because he would buy a lot of the parts from the—

pallets, truckloads—

from the, the manufacturers of the parts. So he'd go to Bosch and he'd say, hey, these, these alternators for Suburbans, you know, whatever you have left over after you fulfill Chevy's order, I'll buy those. And he would buy the overruns, I think they're called. And he was doing huge numbers, but that's the only time I've ever experienced on the car side somebody doing any sort of numbers like truck dealerships do in parts. It's a completely different animal in the, you know, the margins are a different thing too, 'cause the margins are very competitive. It's a harder game.

I always look at it though, there's so much more of an upside though. I feel like not more of an upside, I just think there's a lot of opportunity in that truck parts realm too because of all those different vendors.

For sure. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, we have a couple little secret things that we're trying that I don't think we want to talk about on here, but they're missing some things too, you know. But just like on the, on the automotive side, they're missing some things, not, you know, not really building a strong wholesale business.

So we, you know, we could learn from each other.

What would you guys say about how to avoid obsolescence on the truck side?

Keeping track of lost sales.

I think the thing with obsolescence is they run, they usually get it out of order in my experience, no matter whether it's car or truck really, in that they try to go clean it up first. So they realize they have a big a big number over 12 months and over, over 9 months no sell. And then they say, okay, like, let's, let's pull these numbers, let's go get them, let's go find, find different creative ways to get rid of them. And, um, you're way better off to stop the bleeding first and go figure out your special order parts process, your returns process. Is it being utilized? Like, what, what's the special order shelf look like? Um, you know, all of those things and really nailing down, those processes. And the truth of the matter is, is they're just avoiding that. You can walk and chew gum at the same time, so to speak. You can do both of them at the same time. It's just the, the processes of, it's a lot of conversations with a lot of, uh, with a lot of people. Like, um, you know, if we looked at the, what was, if you go take a sample size of obsolescence and look at what's in there, you know, you're gonna find techs returning stuff that they didn't need, that they, uh, the classic, oh, I got it just in case. And then, uh, diagnosis, you know, hey, we tried all these different things, maybe even the tech line told us to get one of these and we're trying it, or, or whatever the thing is. Um, and, uh, and they, you know, they end up returning it. So With obsolescence, I think you gotta stop the bleeding and figure out like what is your special order parts process? Are you allowing people to order special orders without prepaying? And if so, what are those contingencies? Are you allowing techs to order stuff just in case? And if so, what are, you know, what are those contingencies?

Prepaying is way more common on the truck side than on the automotive side.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so it's just, it's, it's those, those things. But I don't think you have to take a very big sample size. And in some places, depending on their, their setup, um, you know, their obsolescence comes, you know, may come from a different place, but it's usually just like one of three things. And, uh, and it doesn't usually take a very big sample size of your obsolescence to figure out what it is. But then you got to go have conversations with, you know, whether a lot of it's coming internally from your own shop or from outside customers. Are we letting, you know, people order and return? And then just, you know, sitting down and deciding what the processes are going to be. For whatever reason, people like to go clean it up and avoid the cleaning up their process. On that side of it. And then as soon as you get it cleaned up, you have that same amount in obsolescence all over again because you didn't stop the bleeding.

I like that, Hoagie, because there's one thing that I saw a lot. Um, one of the pieces that you made is the specialty ordered parts. Uh, going through a bunch of those orders, and what was the last recent one that I did was a back parts counter had shelving, and they didn't go through all the orders that they had on the shelves. And when they started doing, there's over 6 months, and then going back to the RO was closed and the part was just there. So nobody goes back and restocks it, or, uh, and they didn't have a system in place to go do the prepay. So they were just stuck with the part and then, oh, we'll sell it to the next one. And then they just kind of forgot it. And then when they go do an annual inventory, knowing that they have all these obsolescence parts. So I, I'd like to double down on the system that you just said. But also knowing where, like, that's kind of what Chris is just saying a little bit ago and all these different vendors. So if they go to these other different vendors and have these special ordered parts, but they can't get it from the factory, now you've got two other different issues there, right? Because it all comes together because it's easier to kind of track it with an RO attached to it. Not necessarily that easy to attach it when it's just an outside vendor that we wanted to have a special ordered part and didn't put somebody else on the hook on it. So you're 100% right on the Gotta get back in those processes and reviewing those. What would you say, Hoagie, is it a monthly basis that you're reviewing those specialty ordered parts that are missed or what?

Yeah, probably. And I think getting everybody on the same page also and agreeing on what it is and why, because, you know, it's the bigger conversation with that is how much all the departments affect each other. For a lot of, uh, if you have a big wholesale business, um, whoever your, whoever your biggest customer is, whether it's wholesale or, or the shop internally, um, your ability to serve them is dependent on those processes being good. And a lot of times we think we're not holding people's feet to the fire on adhering to those processes and what they can return and what they can't and all that stuff. Um, But if it makes your obsolescence higher, your first-time fill rate's going to go way down and your ability to serve those clients, it really inhibits that ability. So it really is a situation of like, help me help you. So there's, you know, there's a bigger conversation there also. But the, you know, yeah, that—

But it's very similar to automotive. It's not different for that. Like, you got to be on it. You got to look at it every month. All the processes, it's the same. It's just on the truck side, there's just more, there's more parts.

Be very— with the dollar signs too, it can be very expensive too. Maybe a little bit more too.

Yeah, the average part is going to be way higher. Yeah, it's good. Great question.

Yeah.

Okay, so now let's get into this, uh, this Advisor Hates Me. And I— setting this up, so this is something that was sent to me that is in a forum on Facebook. I'm not in the forum, I'm not even on Facebook. If you interact with us on Facebook, it's our team, it's not me. So I'm not super familiar with, with this and how this works, but it's a forum ran by Jeff Cowan. So Jeff Cowan's people have, or he has this forum that is for service advisors. And I will say, like, my relationship with Jeff Cowan has always been very cordial. I have, you know, invited him to stuff. I've always been of the opinion that working together and collaborating is better for the industry. I don't think that we even really step on each other's toes with what we offer because we're not at the heart of what we do. We're not training. We're not advisor training. We're fixing the business and we will train the advisors in that process, but we don't compete one-on-one with just— if somebody calls us and they just want advisor training, we, we, we don't do it. Like we've talked about that for a long time of, you know, that's a stream of revenue we're missing, not just doing advisor training. But my concern with that is when we did just do advisor training, we made it worse. Like We can sell people advisor training, but their CSI gets worse. Their numbers go down because really you gotta be able to hire techs. You gotta have systems in place and all that. And I don't, I don't know how much Jeff gets into that or, you know, but from what I've seen or coming in behind him, that isn't, that isn't what they're doing. They're mostly just doing on-the-drive training. So I've always been very cordial. I've invited Jeff to stuff. He's always declined. But I have no animosity towards him. So it surprises me that I don't know if he's picking a fight with, with us. I'm not sure. Do you guys feel like he's picking a fight with us?

I don't, I don't know. There's a— it, it seemed like the, the comments were coming from advisors.

When I first read this, I thought it was real. And then the more we dig into it, it's completely fake. So this person who posted this doesn't have a real profile. They're not a real person. Second of all, the things that they say in here aren't true. Like, we're— we, you know, maybe we launch 2 clients a month at the most. We're very familiar with the clients that we're launching and what is going on in those stores. And I think, uh, when we first— this was only brought to my attention this week, but I think— what, did you see it last week, Hoagie? When was it brought to your attention?

Uh, yeah, I think I saw it. I think I saw it last week for the first time.

And so the one store that you thought it could be, you called the general manager And he's like, there's no way, you know what? None of, none of this applies. And so it's a, it's a fiction of imagination, but I will read it to everybody and then we can kind of go through it. I, I originally wanted to address this like it was real. Cause there are some things in here that I think advisors could benefit from understanding why we do things the way that we do. And.

You know, that's fair.

Yeah, I think it's good.

But then there's other parts of this that are just a complete fabrication. So, and now that I know that it's fake, I read it completely different than I did originally thinking it was real, because you can kind of tell it's fake. But so it says, uh, Chris Collins dot dot dot is the subject line. My dealership just started using Chris Collins consultant guy. I've heard of him and no, I never read his book, but here's the changes since implemented. Every tech now flat rate. 4 good techs walked out because of it. Okay, so I'm not a— I'm not aware of any automotive dealership that we've gone into where the techs aren't flat rate. On the truck side, it's very common for them not to be flat rate.

But we haven't gotten there. We haven't done that.

So there, there are no clients that we have where the techs weren't already flat rate. And we have no, we have no dealerships where 4 techs have walked out, let alone 1 or 2 in, I don't know, this year for sure. So that's a complete fabrication. And it's interesting that that would be the thing that they would say, right? Cause you would be a, if techs were walking out, that would be a big deal. The, the other part of this is there's no, no client that we've gone in that we're not adding techs also. Yeah, so yeah, it's just a complete fabrication. Then he's— then that says menu items messed with, flagged flat rate hours dropped and labor went up, techs getting screwed, customers are really noticing price increases, aggressive parts price matrix in place, labor grid pricing pushing wallet flushes heavily and charging way more than they are worth, to the point I don't even— I'm not comfortable selling them. And yeah, it—

what it—

if it was my mother, I'd tell her to take it elsewhere for same service. And so just unpacking that, I say in all of our advisor training that if you wouldn't sell it to your mother, don't sell it, right? Because, you know, that's, that's what I believe.

I—

if we're going to debate the value of maintenance, which would be a hard thing for anybody to disagree with, that maintenance isn't a good idea. We don't want to sell people things that they don't need, and we don't want to play with the intervals to the point that it doesn't benefit the customer. And so the, you know, the mom thing is an analogy that I use. Clearly they're aware of that, even though they've never read my book. Somehow they're aware of that, which is kind of funny. Um, we're not, we never put in an aggressive parts matrix anywhere. That, that doesn't happen. The labor grids. Yeah. Sometimes we put in a labor grid, but the, the bigger point here is that if you're a service advisor and we come into your dealership and we change the pricing, The reason why we're changing the pricing is because your service department is losing money with your old pricing and we're right-sizing, like water has to find even ground. We're right-sizing the pricing so that the service department is profitable in what they sell. A lot of times when we go in, things haven't changed. I mean, literally we'll have service departments where the pricing is the same as it was in the '90s. Like we're paying the tax more, we're in a new building, rent, you know, all kinds of things have changed, but our pricing hasn't changed. And so we figure out where our break-even point is on selling an hour of labor and we fix the pricing. Now we do that with the leadership. We walk them through that, them, and kind of train them on that. But there are times when the pricing is out of whack. Now, if you're a service advisor in a service department working for someone who's losing money and you're okay with that, I would really question your integrity and just the idea of entitlement. Like, you're so entitled that you think that the dealership doesn't have the right to be profitable and your role is to ensure that the dealership is profitable, right? Like, that doesn't even make logical sense that you would work for somebody and not want them to be profitable and demonstrate the value to the customer. I mean, it's the whole reason you're there as a service advisor. So if a real service advisor wrote this, which clearly they didn't, you know, I would just, I would encourage you to try to understand the business and understand why the pricing is the way it is versus, you know, but this is a complete fabrication. And then it says, uh, I don't know, I'm ready to start looking elsewhere. But I know the grass isn't always greener on the other side. It's just hard working at a dealership for so many years and developing trustworthy relationships with customers. And now I seriously feel like we're getting ripped off. I'm doing my best to look at the business perspective, but the whole thing just feels unethical. That, that is the funniest thing to me is like whenever in politics or any sort of debate, with people that understand, you know, psychology is if you can't beat somebody on the facts, then challenge it with ethics, right?

Yeah.

Like, so make it about ethics. And the contradiction here is, you know, that I say don't sell it if you wouldn't sell it to your mother, and then you're still, you know, making it about ethics.

No, it is funny listening to them go back and forth, right? Like Hey, you know, I wouldn't, you know, there's so much product and, you know, as you look at repair orders in these stores, there's so much opportunity. There's zero reason to sell anybody anything they don't need. And, you know, like one thing I go through in boot camp is the dealer is in kind of a tough spot. The manufacturer says, you know, lifetime transmission fluid, right? Like, and things like that. And then if you're with a chemical company, they want the intervals to be super, super quick. And so you gotta, you gotta like, you're in the middle of that. You're the one that actually has to talk to the customer as the dealer and, and, you know, figure all of that out and come up with product that makes sense for you. And then to your point, Chris, like, then we have to have product that we can offer that is profitable. And I think that's where a lot of the communication breaks down is I can't tell you how many advisors I've told that the department's not profitable and they don't believe it. They're like, what? That doesn't make any sense. Like, do you see all the money? You know, all they see is those big tickets going through there. And to think that the department only makes a little bit of money for every hour that they sell, or possibly even losing money. But yeah, it is funny. Like he— they say, well, I'm trying to see the business side of it, but you know, they're just kind of going back and forth.

So yeah, it's great writing too when it says, anyone have experience with this program? Is this only to benefit the owners and screw over the advisors, techs, and customers? Building a wall between ownership and everybody, like that the owners don't care about their employees and that the customers aren't the one driving all of this. If the customers aren't happy, we don't have anything. Like, yeah, for the most part, our intention when we go in is that the advisors and techs are having more fun, that then is contagious to the customers. But the customers drive everything. So Yeah, it's okay. So back to, do we think Jeff Cowan's picking a fight with us? You guys didn't say.

I, I don't, I don't think so.

I think it's, uh, it's clearly a fabrication. By the way, Alpha Dog 739 is the, is the person's profile, which is blank, right? Is it blank, Hoagie?

Yeah.

Yeah. So it's a blank profile. It's not even a real person.

Yeah, it's AI. Is it like—

I don't think, I don't think this is written by AI. This is clearly a person who is semi-familiar with our program. I mean, they're, they're not really familiar with it, or they haven't really experienced it firsthand because there's a lot of inconsistencies here with what we do.

But what's interesting though, I know whether they— whether there's a fight or not, we're very intentional in educating people in what we're trying to drive as far as the desired outcome for our clients. That's what I think is just very contradictory to that. A lot of times our advisors are being educated on what it means to sell and value.

Yeah, there's no— there's nothing about that in here because if this advisor really worked in a service drive we were in, he would have gone through things that would have, you know, taught him some stuff.

Yeah, perception, value.

He would have a deeper understanding of what it is we're trying to do instead of this sort of superficial— yeah, sort of tone.

Yeah. Well, the ones that, uh, if there was an advisor I've seen in, you know, taking our program to hundreds of stores over the years The ones that sometimes default to kind of Charlie Brown comments like this are the ones that don't have a belief in customer service or that they can control it. And so they don't want to buy into the systems and methods that get those outcomes. And if you're committed to that thing where CSI is a farce and it's unobtainable and customers are crazy, One, that means we failed you because one of our primary focuses is bending mindset on that and showing how systems and structures can set you up for success in that area where the industry has failed the advisor typically in that way. And then we're doing that and gamification and a couple of other things where You know, I just, I just don't see it where, uh, they also don't talk about the games in here. Yeah, yeah.

Like, it's so funny. Like, if you really had experienced our, our program there, there's a whole thing you're missing here that you wouldn't leave out. Like, there's no way you would leave that out, right? Even if you made fun of it, you wouldn't leave it out.

Yeah, yeah.

I think he's trying to pick a fight with us. I think he— this is a, this is a deliberate attack. And, uh, this is, this is how we're gonna fight back. This is how we're gonna get Jeff Cowan back. Are you guys ready? Yeah, we're just gonna keep doing what we do. I don't think it's good for the industry for us to be fighting with anybody. And I, you know, we're not perfect. We're always trying to get better.

Yeah.

And these sort of attacks surprise me. It's kind of lowbrow. It's punching down in a lot of ways. For us to, to go on the attack. It would be punching down.

I don't know.

Yeah, that's how I feel.

He—

Yeah. Like, there's so many. Yeah. No, I just don't. I don't feel good about myself when I inflict pain on others. It's not my deal.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And like I said, I've tried. I've tried to collaborate with Jeff a couple of times and he's just not into it. And that's okay. You know, I don't care. Yeah, I've invited him out too. I know he likes wine, so I've invited him out to dinner.

Yeah, no, I think it's, uh, I think it's all good. Like I said, um, just, uh, yeah, I mean, we do what we do and there's, there's the, the other thing, you know, you kind of mentioning that because you say that to the team from time to time, like, hey, yeah, no, I understand that's the case, but like, that's not us. That's, you know, the punching down thing, because there's the, the industry affords us plenty of opportunities in the marketplace to kind of punch down, if you will. If you're just results-oriented and you're just looking for great customer experience and great profitability, there's a straight line to, to those things in our industry that the, the industry turns a blind eye to, and it's almost comical. But we're pretty careful about not, you know, trying not to punch down, like you say. Like, there's plenty of opportunity for it all, all around us, but we just, uh, you know, like, our energy is better spent on us getting better at what we do.

Like, we, we have so much opportunity out there to help our industry, to help the trucking industry to become better. That's a full-time job. And if If Jeff wants to do this sort of thing and attack us, it's fine. I would believe, I would hope that our clients that are in this forum are sticking up for us. I haven't been in the forum. I haven't read any of that, but there's going to be a lot of people. If you say, let's talk about it, I got to imagine that there's a lot of people out there that will say that this is a joke.

Yeah, and I haven't been there. I haven't been in there either. Like, it just got sent to me. But, but yeah, even, even the screenshots that, that, that were sent to me, there's, there's people in there that are like, this doesn't sound like him. Have you ever read his book? You know, like, which is funny.

It says I never read his book at the top.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So by the way, the book is an easy read. You know, anybody out there. Like, it's a 2-cup-of-coffee book.

Yeah, yeah. But yeah, no, it was, uh, it's, uh, it's kind of, it's kind of interesting. But the, the backside of that is to, um, you know, whether it's fake or, or real or whatever, like, I don't know, I think everybody understands too. There's just, uh, there's some keyboard warriors, and most of them are Charlie browns who instead of spending their time focusing on how to make themselves better and all the opportunity, you know, get in there to where they have an echo chamber of some sort. But, but yeah, it's, you know, I don't know. Try to not give too much, too much thought to it, honestly, most of the time.

Yeah, we're trying, we're really trying to focus on getting better and what works versus what doesn't and how can we learn. How can we grow and share that with others? How can we make as many other people invited to the party as we can, you know, in this journey? And that's, that's where we want to put our focus. I'm a big fan of the mirror. I, I, I'm just going to look in the mirror and try to fix the things that we can do and not going to go on the attack.

Yeah.

So Adam looks super worried about it.

Oh yeah, he's got— before you got on, he's got this big bottle of whiskey he's all excited about, like single barrel something.

He's never been more concerned a moment in his, in his life than he is right now. He's just filled with—

we ain't got time for that, guys. We ain't got time.

How hot is it there?

Oh, they said that, uh, the heat warning is finally gone, which I don't even know what that means down here. It was 106 degrees yesterday. Now it's 95.

90?

Oh, so bad. Yeah, don't go inland. We're right on the beach, which is nice. So you get that sea breeze, but, uh, I've been hanging out by the pool.

I'd be in the shade.

I bet golfing was intense.

Uh, golfing was a little rough.

Yesterday.

Yes. Yes.

Yeah.

We might try to do 9 holes, uh, tomorrow night. We'll see. But anyways, it's a—

well, we'll let you, we'll let you get back to the fun. We loved hanging out with you today. Thanks everybody. Thanks for the question too. That was great. And if you're not in our on-demand, you can go to chriscollinsinc.com and sign up. So you're there next week when Hogan is talking about systems. And beyond that, I just really hope everybody has a great week.

Yeah, yeah, look forward to seeing you guys next week. Um, yeah, we had a ton of fun, a ton of great questions, and a ton of great takeaways last week. So excited to see everybody in, uh, in Academy next week for sure. Come, uh, come join us.

We'll see everybody next time on Service Drive Revolution. I know from experience that a lot of our dealers, owners won't invest in training for fixed stops, but 8 service managers in our coaching group have been promoted to general managers, something that doesn't happen enough in our industry. Proof that when you're given the right tools and the right mentorship, you can do amazing things. And I'd like to personally invite you to something that should exist already, but unfortunately it doesn't. And that's a live fixed-op academy, a mentorship, a community. But what it really is, is a service drive revolution.

Boom!

Anybody can afford it. Anybody that wants to invest in themselves. We're going to teach what we know about running a healthy fixed-op service business. Our average coaching client performs well above the industry average, and a handful of them are in a league completely their own. In fact, if I told you their numbers, you wouldn't even believe it, they're so good.