What I Learned Fixing Dealerships!

This is the beginning of something exciting. We are going live. We didn't tell anybody we were doing this, but we're going to start going and doing the show live on Wednesdays at 10 AM, which is very fun. And then on the back of this, at 11 AM, we're going to do the new SDR, Service Drive Revolution Academy, where we're going to be teaching you how to run a successful service department. It, uh, is a community, but it's a membership site. So it's something you have to subscribe to. We've priced it so anybody can afford it. If you want to invest in yourself or get better and learn tools or just be, be inside of our community and make some new friends that are kicking butt and taking names, this is the, the place to do it. So you'd want to go to chriscollinsinc.com and purchase on demand. That's how you get in there. But our thought process, Adam Hoagie and myself, is that we will do SDR at 10, we will take a 10-minute break, and then we will go live in the membership side on Zoom and do the academy starting at 11. We're doing the academy currently every other week, but there's going to be a bonus coming up where I'm going to start doing the other weeks. It'll be every week and teaching leadership and personal development in between. 'Cause we kind of think that you need a week to apply the things that you learn.

Yeah. Yep.

Yeah.

But the personal development side and all that will help you with that. So we're going to try to build this for effect for you to get the most out of it.

I think there's an important one-two punch with that, right? Like a lot of times we talk about it being the art and science and, uh, the art being, uh, people, leadership, like stuff like that. And if you spend too much time, um, on that, you get a little glassy-eyed because you're like, it's a lot dealing with all your childhood trauma. And then if you, if you, uh, are looking at financials for too long, you get that paralysis by analysis thing. And so I think it's a great one-two punch to be able to, uh, set it up to go back and forth like that. I think this will be a lot of fun.

Yeah. So as we're doing this, people will be coming into the membership community Zoom, the Service Drive Academy, and maybe sometimes we'll bring those people onto the show and they can ask questions. So if you ever wanted to ask a question, you're going to need to be in the membership site. Today, what Hoagie's going to be teaching is basically the intro to what everybody's going to be learning. And how it's going to work and then the, you know, the mindset that you need. And then you're going to kind of touch on financials a little bit too.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe assign a little bit of homework and, um, yeah. And just kind of talk about the spirit of, uh, who we are and what we want to deliver through, through this new, uh, SDR Academy.

And I think we have like almost 300 people signed up. I don't know if all those people will show up, but they— I clicked and said that they reserved their spot. So it'll be really, really fun. So if you're, if you're not in our, uh, coaching group or our on-demand, I would, you know, go to chriscollinsinc.com and click on on-demand, purchase that. It'll get you in there. And like I said, we've, we've priced this so any manager who wants to invest in themselves— because unfortunately a lot of companies don't invest in their people, especially when it comes to fixed ops. Sales training is sexy, but fixed ops is kind of the afterthought, unfortunately. You can do it for yourself, which, you know, if you knew how much I spend on myself every year in improving and personal development, you would, uh, be surprised. I stopped adding it up. I asked the accountants the other day, I'm like, how many books did I buy on average a month. You don't want to know. It's a very big number.

You're expensive, but you're worth it.

It's funny. So we, we are lucky enough that, that Hoagie and Adam are here in the office because we have, uh, our new client bootcamp this week and we're doing a bunch of other stuff together, but we will either be doing it together when everybody's here in the office, or we will be doing it remotely from different locations, but we have the ability for everybody to to be together in one place and it'll be fun. So even if, you know, we're on the road, like we're gonna be in Indiana, we're still planning on doing it from Indiana.

We'll take the show on the road if we have to.

Yeah, so we'll actually be in some truck centers in Indiana piloting something and we're gonna do the show. It'll be really fun. We've had a fun couple days. We've gone out every night so far this week.

So you're welcome.

Yeah, uh, it's all Adam's fault.

That's what I heard.

He set it all up.

Oh my gosh, I have like— I haven't been drinking at all, and then Monday, oh, I don't know what I was thinking. You were having fun until it wasn't the next day. It wasn't fun. It's hilarious. Um, so today I wanted to kind of talk about lessons that I've learned. I've been telling my story, and we, we We talked about starting to fix dealerships and that sort of journey, but there's some things that have stood out to me over the 35 years of doing this that feel like in a way they are unrealized by the general public, but very true from our point of view or from the reality that we exist in. To the point where people will argue it, but it doesn't change the fact that it almost feels like some of these things are like the law of nature. And I'm sharing these things because I believe that people want to get better and they want to learn. But I also understand that a lot of people are going to hear some of the things I'm going to say and they're just going to shut down because it's too much reality for them. They don't want to live in that reality. And I, I apologize for that. That's not my intention. But I do love these sort of deeper intellectual conversations. I love talking about getting better. I love human behavior and psychology. And so if that's not for you, I, I apologize, but I'm always trying to improve and get better and learn and try to, you know, understand from our point of view, how can we create better training, better environments for people to grow and get better also. And so it's, you know, we have to lead by example. We have to practice what we preach, which we definitely do, but that's a part of it. And so there, there's quite a few things that stick out to me that don't, don't seem like most people understand them, but you know, really are a reality in, in our industry. And our industry is so different than other industries. It, it really is like, It's just a, it's a funny thing that you have these businesses that would stand on their own inside of a business. Yeah, it's, it, it doesn't exist in a lot of other, other places. And I mean, I've, I've tried to figure it out in that way. Also too, like, you know, we, we have been different in the industry in that we're really trying to fix things. We're not trying to be experts or consultants. And it's funny, Adam got to sit in on a call, but I told one of our sales guys who had a dealer losing money in a couple franchises in a bigger metro market. And me, you know, just me looking at the numbers and looking at what it is, I was like, hey, I really want to talk to this dealer before we would offer to sign them up because this is going to be a hard one. And if the dealer isn't, our type, it's not going to work. And sure enough, I get on with this dealer, and the dealer tells me— so granted, this guy, he's booked out over a week, so booked out appointments over a week. He has a brand that's a pretty tricky brand, brands that are a little tricky in a, in a metro market where, let's say, you're downtown, like you're, you're landlocked. And he proceeds to tell me that what he needs is he needs us to train his advisors. And I'm like, listen, like, if we doubled your sales by training your advisors, you would implode worse than you're imploding right now. And the fact that you don't understand that or see that, and, uh, you know, and then he's like, it's just, it's just funny. And so at the end of the thing, it's like, you're not a fit for us. Like, we're, we have You know, we have very limited time to fix stores the way that we've been fixing them lately. And we only want people that understand what it is we're, you know, we're trying to do and we're trying to fix the store and make it healthy. We're not trying to train. Yeah. Like training doesn't stick. We, we, we have to create systems and get the, you know, The people math has to work. You torture service advisors by asking them to sell more when you can't get the work done. It's just not even logical. And so these are the sort of things that we run into that just aren't logical, that, you know, we just have to screen for this sort of stuff. And so we would never be a fit for that guy. I wouldn't, I wouldn't take his money.

No, it wouldn't be successful. We were— the focus wasn't on the results. No, it was more on the time that we would be in, in the store while it's losing money.

It just makes no sense. Yeah. Like that's the thing that even made me want to take the call with the guy is I see a financial statement that's losing money and I want to fix it. Yep. It's just, you know, I don't know. Cause it's fun. It's fun to fix stuff, but unfortunately you have to have a partner on the other side that wants it fixed. And too many times the reason why they're in the situation they are is them. Like, wherever they go, there they are. Yeah, they're the same people whether they hire us or not, you know. So they have to— you have to admit your kid is ugly or we can't help you, basically. Sad truth. Yeah. Yeah, so funny. What did you think about that call?

I thought it was a healthy, uh, discussion. Um, I would hope that they would process what was— I actually feel like you kind of gave him a gift. You showed him the mirror a little bit. Yeah.

And hopefully I could have fed his ego. I could have said, oh, an important guy like you, you should hire us. We'll do it, you know.

No, I think that's what most people would do. That's what consultants—

I don't want to sell him.

Yeah, I don't want to totally do that.

Yeah, that's the worst thing. Okay, so I've made a list. I kind of went over some of these with you, Hoagie. I don't know, Adam, if you heard any of that. You were too busy, uh, smoking cigars and drinking.

Oh, thanks, bud.

Poor Adam's getting a reputation. What is the reputation you're getting from being on the show? Because now people see you and they're like, it's, it's mostly probably hunting.

It's hunting, or, uh, I've had a couple times for my driving, apparently. Um, we'll see, we'll see when we take the show on the road what, what may take.

I told him he's shaping up to be a pretty good punching bag.

Yeah, it's all right. Waymo.

That's not the intention.

Waymo. I've gotten questions about Waymo. Yes.

Oh yeah. You didn't— you guys just have a Waymo experience.

I don't want to talk about it.

No, come on.

So we'll give them one more shot. I'll give them one more shot.

A couple of Adam's friends came into town that, uh, they own, I don't know, run software for big fleets. Two really cool guys. We, we went to— I'm a member of the cigar club here in LA. We went there. It just so happened the basketball game was on, which was great, but we smoked cigars and hung out. And, um, I drove everybody there, but because I live closer to there, you guys were gonna have to Uber back. And, uh, I, I didn't think that you would, you would take a Waymo from Beverly Hills to downtown LA just because it seems kind of far to me. But you guys, at the end of the night, we're like, nope, we're taking a Waymo.

And I was like, I wanted to show our guests.

Tell us, you call the Waymo. Does Waymo have its own app?

Yeah, it has its own app.

And so, uh, so you dial up the Waymo?

Yeah, there's 4 of us, and, uh, so I want to make sure because I knew one of us would have to sit in the, in the driver's seat. And, uh, in the driver's seat there's—

but there is room for 3 in the back.

There is. And I guess that's what it was, like the back seat of a Porsche. Yeah, yeah, like it would have been snug. But, uh, yeah, so I'm— I enter in the chat like, can you— can there be 4 riders on one, you know, at a time? AI said, of course, yeah, yeah, no, no problem. So as soon as we get in, then the like guy comes on and it— they're— it's pulling itself over and everything, and he's like, one of them—

you can't get out, abort mission. So even though there's no driver, you can't be in the driver's seat?

You can't be in the driver's seat.

So how far did you get with the— how far out of Beverly Hills did you get?

Oh, not, not around the corner.

Yeah.

Okay, like 100 feet.

Here we go. So then you call an Uber.

Yeah.

And then you guys wanted a nightcap, so you're gonna keep going. Yeah. Which is hilarious because I was done and you guys kept going. So how many more drinks did you have at the bar you went to? Just two.

Two.

So we went to the rooftop and then, uh, the, the night's up and for whatever reason, like We go back to the Waymo app, go back to—

I, I will admit I said, hey, we should only— it's only a couple miles, let's take a—

it'll be fine.

Yeah, it'll be all right.

And to make a very long story short, the Waymo took you guys into an alley where there were a bunch of people that looked like they wanted to hurt us, but there was some sort of drug deal going down.

There was definitely something going on.

And then you guys decided to abort in the alley and get out and run the other way.

We walked very fast, we didn't want to drive too much more attention, but it was already there. But the—

for For some reason, the Waymo decided to go down a dark alley and just kind of stop.

And so, uh, because people were standing in the middle of the alley doing what stuff they were doing.

Yeah, doing stuff, congregating. And so you guys hightailed it the other way. But still, we would— this afternoon, we would pull up the Waymo app.

Adam says he wants to give him another—

maybe, or, or maybe we did talk about this. It depends on the time of day.

So are we learning the lesson the hard way, or how would we, how would we describe this experience of learning that, yeah, maybe people are better than machines.

It's— oh yeah, I mean, there's always risk with people.

It was never a question for me.

Yeah, yeah, gives a good experience. What experience?

You think you've grown from this experience?

We're here talking about it.

How much cheaper is it?

It's significantly cheaper, probably.

Yeah, you guys should keep Keep trying. Keep trying. Save us money. You can run.

Chris is like, no, I got the Uber Black. You guys can go in that one.

Okay. So let's go through my list of things that I've observed or learned over the years. And just a reminder to everybody, we're, we're starting the Service Drive Revolution Academy today at 11. If you're not signed up on On Demand, Go to chriscollinsinc.com, click on demand, sign up, and we will get you in there. Today we are talking about the setup, what you're going to learn, mindset, and, uh, getting some feedback from you also. But things that I've observed and learned in my last 35 years in dealerships. First one is that people have to want it. You can't change people. Yeah, I've spent a lot of time trying to change people that didn't want to be changed. I've spent a lot of time seeing the potential in people that they don't see in themselves, and at the end of the day, it, it almost becomes abusive in a sense because, you know, the— they get deeper and deeper into their their nonsense, and we get further and further away from what we are there to do, which is help customers and run a healthy business. Yeah, right. And it becomes about them. Yeah, it's not about the customer, it's not about the business, it's— it becomes about them. The more pressure, the more expectation that's on the wrong people. Yeah, it gets very unhealthy.

Yeah.

And so, you know, when we're hiring people too, I think that's one thing that I've learned about hiring is it isn't about liking the person. Like, I might like somebody in an interview. In fact, it's rare that I interview somebody that I don't like, but they might not be a fit for what we're trying to do in, in that way, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think people struggle with that a lot too. Like, um, we get that, we get the question a lot. Um, you know, from dealers and then even sometimes from managers about a service advisor, but a lot from dealers about their service manager that— and I think we've talked about this before, but like, hey, I don't know if, you know, Mr. or Ms. Service Manager is the guy or the gal for the job or whatever.

They don't like people.

Yeah, that's the service advisor that sits by the door.

I hide in my office.

Can you fix them?

But we always say, you know, give us, give us that person. And like, let's, uh, because, you know, a good portion of the time it always surprises us, you know, who works out and who doesn't. And, um, but, you know, uh, really kind of the, the, the test for it is, uh, you give them a couple of things and they usually tell you who they are and if they're going to do it. And sometimes you like them, but deep down, you know, they're not going to do it. Yeah. It can become this.

So people are trying to tell us who they are and we don't listen. Why do we— why do we think that is? Why don't we listen? Because you can always look back whenever we've made a bad hire. You can always look back and go, the signs were always there. We just overlooked them for some reason. Right. So one reason is we, we just need people, right?

Going to say the pressure. Yeah, there's multiple—

fill the spot.

Yeah. Pressure of filling the spot.

I would even go back— requires a lot of discipline.

Well, let's see what you said right here is people have to want it. Sometimes I feel like we want that person more than that person wants the actual opportunity or role.

We see the potential.

Yeah. And they can't see it within themselves. Or like what really comes to mind is it almost the more you dig in deeper to help expose that to, you know, in a good way for them to want to flourish, it's more of a detractor. They run the other way. That's what the scary part about it is. But yeah, it's, it's wanting them more in the position than they want it.

Next one that I have is management versus leadership. So growing up in the car business, you go to leadership training, and there's a lot of leadership trainers out there. What I started to observe when I started fixing service departments and interacting with dealers is I rarely ran into a leader. Most people are managers, especially dealers are running a franchise, right? So a car franchise, Ford is creating the car, BMW is creating the car. They're, they're just running a business that is, that is basically outlined by the franchise. It's like running a McDonald's. Nobody running a McDonald's is a leader in a way. Now a car dealership is more complicated than a McDonald's. But at the end of the day, it's very rare that a dealer or that a sales manager or a service manager in the business is a leader. It's very rare. And even to the point, I mean, it's funny, my I Am Leader book has sold a ton and not many people in the car business buy it because it's way too, way too lofty for where people are at mentally. In that way. But I always felt like the conversation of leadership was, uh, we were using the term wrong. Like, it— we're, we're giving ourselves more credit than we deserve and calling it leadership training. Like, most leadership training is management training. Leadership is a completely different thing.

I think it's used just for marketing. Yeah, marketing to sell whatever clickbait or stuff up there, like, hey, I want to be a leader, I want to be that. Well, I'm going to click on that, and then whatever I do, uh, I'll be able to— the self-help stuff, right?

Yeah, yeah. And, and so, you know, if you wanted to define leadership, leadership is getting other people to do something, you know, counter to their own self-priorities in service of a mission, right? It's followership. You're creating followership in people in, in a mutual agreed-upon mission. It's a very hard thing to do. And, uh, yeah, so that's, that's one. You, you guys have any other thoughts on that one, or—

um, well, I just think, like, uh, when I think of, um the way people talk about leadership, uh, like it's a kind of like you guys are saying, like, like there's a lot of feel-good things and, and you talk about, uh, concepts and, and, uh, but like at the, at the end of the day, it's like, um, more like working out or something. Like you can talk about it, but there's the person that's doing it there's evidence that they're doing it and you don't need to— you don't need to talk about it or ask about it. They're a student of it and then it shows. Yeah. And so they're not— they're not the ones posting all the stuff to LinkedIn.

Yeah.

About like—

that's a really good point.

That's just the way I always think about it. And but, but it's actually really, really hard in practice. It's really, really hard to even be effective. You know, in, in, in the, in some of the smallest capacities with it. It's just, uh, yeah, it's, it's, uh, you know, it's an iceberg thing where 99% of the people are talking about the, the tip of the iceberg above the water, and real leadership is all the base of it below. For sure. You know, when it's hard, um, yeah, I mean, we could talk about that all day. Yeah, if we wanted to, but That's, uh, that's what you see for sure.

The next one is things travel in packs, and this is just like one of those laws of nature, right? Like, it's just for a simple example, if somebody is late all the time, if you followed them home, their house is probably messy. They probably don't keep their promises. Like people aren't— usually it's not one isolated thing that's the problem, it's the whole of the person that's the problem. And in, in some of the interrogation training that I've been in is, you know, body language and the pronouns people use and the words. One, one, uh, trigger isn't enough. You need to see a pattern of 3 or 4 different ones to then assume that somebody is guilty. So, you know, it takes a little time, right? Like, if, if somebody, somebody, uh, is talking about— well, a good example is like Bill Clinton when they said, uh, did you have sexual relations with that, or I did not have sexual relations with that woman.

Yeah.

What does that tell you when he says that?

Daddy did it.

No, so it's, it's very psychopathic. Is, uh, does he not know her name? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It isn't, I didn't have sex with Monica. It's, I did not have relations with that woman. He's dehumanizing her.

Oh wow.

Yeah, and it's separating, right? And he's almost talking about it in the third person. So if somebody talks about themselves in the third person, they're dehumanizing the other person. Like All of those things add up, but it isn't one isolated thing. And so, you know, when, when somebody is running a business and they're losing money in one department, there's a pretty good chance, like we say this, that you can tell by the financial what's going on. The receivables probably aren't tight. Yeah. Customers probably aren't getting help. Like it isn't, it isn't going— just losing money isn't—

yeah, yeah.

That's the symptom, not the cause. There's a bunch of other things behind that. That are the problem.

There was some— I forget who you told me said it, but as a technician, it made me think of how true it was. But you can tell a lot about a person by looking inside their car.

Yeah.

And yeah, I always thought that as a tech, like you get people's car, like, you know, and you, when you sit in someone else's car in the driver's seat and pull it into the shop, like you've entered their world. And yeah, and you just, you learn a lot about a person, especially when you start taking a car apart. Like, oh, I've learned more about people in their glove box than they would ever care to know I know about them. Yeah.

And, uh, but it is true, like, yeah, same thing with the pronouns they use. Yeah. You know, I versus them. Yeah. You know, they're deflecting.

Yeah.

Like, it's funny when somebody works in a business and it's they, they're talking about management as they, like, they're not a part of the business.

Yeah.

Right. I mean, all of those things, yeah.

I'm not a reflection of what they are doing.

And then would you— then you could safely assume that that person probably isn't going to take responsibility for the customer that didn't get helped, for calling people back. They just— those— they travel in packs, and we just don't think that way. We think they're isolated incidents, but you pull, you know, you pull one shoebox out of the closet and they all come falling down. Yeah, in a way. So things travel in packs. Indifference is a decision. Like, not doing anything is as much of a decision as doing something. It's a, it's a very strong signal. Then, uh, how mimetic people are. So mimetic means following others, and we're all mimetic. We grew up basically learning from other— that's how we create our personalities, it's how we develop, is by watching others. But people in the car business are super memetic, and over the years I've endured some pretty big fights and people attacking us in a way that doesn't, doesn't make any sense whatsoever because we fought against the, the memetic side of things in the service of actually running a healthy, profitable business. And I'll just give you A couple examples. When everybody was going to a digital inspection, MPI, I adopted it in a couple stores. I tried it. It was, you know, we were paying like $5,000 a month and I don't know what for ink and paper and doing, doing the process. But my hours per hour went down, my efficiency in the shop went down, and my expenses went up because I was paying for all this stuff. And I just realized that paper works way better. It was hard for the techs to go to a computer and do the inspection. Yeah. And then you had to wait for parts like that. And then you would email this estimate to the customers and the customers would just call around and shop it because it had the price. So you weren't selling any value. There were so many things wrong with it, but the manufacturers were pushing the dealers to do it. So I remember BMW specifically because I had a grip of BMW stores that I was working with. And I'd said, you know, I tried it in a couple of stores. It didn't work. And so I wasn't, I wasn't doing it. And BMW, uh, the first thing they did is they wanted to introduce me to the company that did the MPIs or whatever. I forget the name of the company that Les Silver guy owned it. Right. And so then, you know, I'm nice to them or whatever, but I'm just like, it doesn't work. And if you want to pay me to fix your thing, I'm happy to talk to you, but I don't know that I could fix it because it's just fundamentally flawed. Like, form equals function. Just the— what you're trying to do doesn't work. But the thing is, people in the car business love software. They love a Band-Aid. They love the magic pill that doesn't exist.

Yeah.

And so they— you know, we did an audit of my stores where we were doing it with paper and the stores with the MPI, and we were We were selling twice as much per hour as they were. Like, all the measurable shop efficiency, everything was better than that, you know? And so then it was like, well, then let's just attack Chris because, you know, we don't want anybody else on his program because even though they're making more money on his program, we're the manufacturer. We want adoption. We want more clients more than anything else, right? And, uh, yeah, the same thing happened with tablets. So I don't know how many times dealers are like, oh, we're getting tablets. And I'm like, what? Why? Like, what? Where's the proof that those make it a better experience for the customers or you sell more? Here's my experience with tablets. Your hours per hour go down. You got some— they don't work. Somebody's sitting there staring at a tablet and not interacting with the customer. Oh, it's faster. They're going to— customers are going to be in and out. Customers don't want to be in and out. Customers are saying they want to be in and out because the experience is so bad. Fix the other stuff and they don't, you know, they don't want, they don't want that. It's, it's the, uh, torture that we're putting customers through that makes you think that is the magic pill. It isn't the magic pill.

Yeah.

So tablets were that, um, the MPIs were that. I mean, there's just a, there's been a bunch of different examples where I've had to go toe-to-toe with the manufacturer And then the second one that I have coming off of that is the manufacturers do not care about the profitability of the dealers.

That is true.

So we have always been a company that is for the dealers and helping them be profitable. We really struggle doing anything with manufacturers because manufacturers want compliance whether it works or not. And I mean, I've, I've sat— I've been asked to talk at, you know, functions with manufacturers, and we'll get to the Q&A part. I remember this Ford meeting where there's Ford executives right there, and these guys are like, how do we make a quick lube profitable? And, you know, Ford is forcing at the time, forcing everybody to do these quick lubes. And the dealers are like, the more we adopt the quick lube, the more money we lose. And I'm like, yeah, it doesn't make any sense the way you guys are doing it. And I'm like, and I just said, like, if you guys want me to come to Detroit and explain to you how to do it right where the dealers can make money, they didn't care. Nobody called me from Ford. They're just like, don't have that Chris Collins guy back because they do not. They, they— some of the manufacturers, literally, I've been in meetings with manufacturers. They begrudge the dealers making money. They think the dealers make too much money. They're too entitled and they do not care about them running a healthy business. They care about compliance. Then the problem that happens is the manufacturers have so much turnover, it's a different thing every quarter, every year, that the dealers just get punch drunk.

Called flavor of the day.

Yeah, yeah.

And so it's this weird tension that happens where you end up pretending like you're doing the quick lube when the manufacturer's there, and then you go back to the thing that actually works.

And that's just how it is. That's just not healthy for even your— the teams and the culture, because it's like you're just trying to conform and whatever the, the next program is.

And that's— Yeah, nobody said— nobody will come out and say what is true. A quick lube is the worst experience for the customer. You have your least talented people touching the most cars. You're running them through like cattle. You have no— it's not set up for any sort of additional work. You're not mentoring those techs to become anything else. Your turnover with, you know, Toyota and these brands that really push the quick lube thing is something like 60%. With the quick loop techs in an environment where those techs are worth, you know, they're gold, they're gold to us. We, we want them to become technicians down the road and to stay with us. And the quick loop system doesn't, doesn't feed that. And nobody calls it what it is. And if you had a system where you mentored those guys to become better techs, where they became a C-tech in a year or so, and In 2 years they were, they were going flat rate. You had a better customer experience. You sold more. It was, uh, better for the customer because they're not all waiting in one line. You're, you're spreading it out.

Well, and it works like a lot of times, uh, when, when customers are showing up, um, when there's the separate express line and stuff like that, it's just a constant. It, it, so painful to watch because all day long they're shuffling customers because the customer's in the wrong line and the customer doesn't know, even if they've been coming there for 10 years. Like, I don't know what— last time you moved me to this line and like, oh yeah, well, we, you know, it's just, uh, yeah, the peaks and valleys.

It's like they're either super busy or they're dead.

Yeah, no matter what, you always wait a long time though.

Yeah, it's not the other one, memetic, that is funny. So We talked about tablets, about MPIs, about quick lube. A funny one is paying advisors on gross. Like, nobody can explain to me why they do that, but they go to a 20-group meeting and somebody presents that they're paying their advisors in gross. And then all the, you know, we keep going into these dealerships where they're paying advisors on gross and the advisors don't even know what gross is.

Yeah, yeah.

It's like the strategy is let's confuse them And what happens is we're telling the service manager, get us more gross, get us more gross. So it just seems logical that then you would pay advisors on gross, but you get more gross by paying advisors on sales. Gross is controlled by the way we dispatch the work and the techs that we hire and what we charge for it. That's what controls growth. We're doing that, not the advisor. We just want the advisor making friends with customers, connection. Communicating with them. Yeah. It's way, way simpler. And advisors perform better when they understand their pay plan. But everybody went to a growth, you know, growth, pay the advisors on gross. Nobody can explain why.

I think that's a lot of times when I have that conversation where the, where the flip happens in people's minds is, uh, uh, it's, it's crazy how many advisors you can go to in the industry. And you can be like, hey, I heard you guys had a great month last month. Like, yeah, it was a record month. I was like, yeah, I did, you know, I did think it did really good. And like, oh, what was your paycheck? Well, I have no idea. They haven't given me my wash sheet yet. And so like, if we know success is attracted to clarity, then like they should be able to, you know, take their pay plan and calculate their own, you know. But yeah, it's a funny thing trying to zoom out and connect those dots.

And another one is that we need more traffic. So we understand, like fundamentally, you could be talking to a dealer or a service manager and you could say, so in a Honda store, what should our hours per hour be? And they'll say, oh, 2-something. And what are we at? 0.8.

Okay.

What do you think we should do to fix that? Well, we need more traffic. What are you talking about? We need— we do not need more traffic. What we need to do is get to $2 a ticket and then maybe we need— but what happens is invariably every time they stop talking about traffic when they get to $2 a ticket, it's like, why would we want— why would we want to run faster, create more chaos, touch more? Touch more points, have more keys, we could lose like more lot damage. Like we just want more, more, more, more, and not just slow down and do it right and create something scalable. And that's another memetic thing is like we just think, well, more money is more traffic. It's not. Yeah, less traffic and do better with the traffic you have is the secret.

Yeah, in the system.

Yeah, the system for sure. Um, advisors are salespeople. So I, I think I have an idea how this came about. So I believe that at the beginning of sales training, there, there were a couple of main salespeople that were the sales trainers and somebody at NAD or somebody said, Hey, you're, you're not, uh, you're not that good of a sales trainer and we already have these guys we're going to endorse. Why don't you, why don't you, uh, train advisors? Because it's very clear, like the advisor training that I grew up on is sales training that is laid over the top of advisor training, but advisors are not salespeople. That's that. They're a hybrid. They're— if you think that an advisor is a sales— like that that is their only function as a salesperson. They're a communicator. Selling is the easiest part. Yeah. The reason why we don't sell in a service department is because of our systems and our communication. Whenever somebody says, hey, can you teach my advisors how to overcome objections? I'm like, no, but we can fix your system so there aren't objections. Like, the reason why people are objecting is because they don't trust you. You can't talk them out of that. You're If somebody needs breaks, they need breaks. What, what, explain to me how I would overcome that objection. You need breaks and you don't want to do your breaks. Yeah, like, what am I going to say? That what you're saying is, I don't trust you, I don't like you, I don't want to do it here. You might be saying it's too expensive, but that's rarely the case, but it does happen. But There's no overcoming objections. The more product knowledge and the more you talk about viscosity of brake fluid, the less you sell.

Yeah. Yeah. One of the best things that ever happened to me was during college, I got a job at an independent shop and, uh, you know, this, this husband and wife owned this shop. They were a part of the community in this small suburb of Fort Worth, Texas. And, uh, like, Uh, but I just remember, um, like as I started working with him and started doing a little bit more, he would give me a little bit more responsibility as I got better with certain things and got to the point where like at an independent, like, uh, everybody's everything. You wear every hat. You're a parts person, you're the technician. You might be working on something and the phone rings and you go grab the phone with dirty hands. Somebody walks in, you go greet the customer like everybody does., does everything. And, um, but, uh, that, that was one thing in presenting to, uh, customers was I was like, I don't know if I'm comfortable selling stuff. And he's like, you're not, you're not selling anybody anything. You're just telling them what their car needs and care that they get taken care of. Like, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Made it easier going into this industry was to get to view it from that lens, uh, first. Yeah, you're just there to take care of people and tell them you know, tell them what their car needs.

You're a matchmaker more than you are a salesperson.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I agree with that.

And so, you know, in that advisor training when I, when I was younger, where they're like, you, you ask it, the cash, you ask 5 times, it's like, I tried that and people hated me.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, and I'm like, this training doesn't— they don't understand what writing service is. It's matchmaking, it's not selling. Yeah, if they're not buying, it's because they don't like us. Or, you know, they're truly broke or they just, you know, when you're an advisor, you also do that. Like, okay, do you want to make an appointment for 3 weeks out when you get your paycheck? You know, you're an advisor, you're, you're facilitating more than anything else.

Yeah.

Yeah. Uh, another one is just that how important the financial is and nobody knows how to read the financial. Like it's the best kept secret in the industry. Even though it's how we're judged. Like, if you're a manager running a department, you are judged on the profitability of your department, and nobody talks about how to get profit in a way that makes any sense. It's this big mystery. It's like a trick bag.

Yeah, it really is. I thought we were getting better too. Like I've been saying, in, in these new client boot camps, um, the last couple years, it seemed like we were getting more and more people that, were getting to boot camp and it wasn't the first time they'd seen the financial. And I've been talking to him about that. I'm like, hey, I think we're efforting better in the direction of, of getting the, the financials for the respective departments into the hands of the, the managers that are running them. And, uh, but man, the last like few months, I feel like we've, we've gone backwards again. Like, there's a lot of managers, um, that—

and maybe I just had a, uh, you know, a bad read on it, uh, for a while, but you just the fact that I go back to things travel impacts the fact that the average service department barely breaks even in our industry tells you that they're not looking at the financials because there's so much talent. It's never a bootcamp in here and you're like, this guy's dumb.

Yeah.

No, it's like he does. He just doesn't have the tools. Once you give them the tools and they understand the financials, but the manufacturers don't care about profit. No. So the manufacturers aren't training anybody on a finance. Isn't that a crazy thing that the manufacturers don't train managers how to run a healthy, profitable department?

Mm-hmm. Well, even the definition—

that's proof in and of itself.

The definition of a healthy dealership, what I've came across is what an OEM might think of a healthy dealership is programs. It's not even the profitability of the dealership. 100%.

Yeah. Yeah. And then a lot of times when you're talking financials too, Um, it's a funny thing where they're like, well, well, Nissan— and not to pick on Nissan because lots of them do it— but like, uh, well, Nissan, uh, wants us to look at our CP, effective labor rate, um, without Quick Loop in it. Yeah, like, what is—

you can do that, but you got to look at it with it in there too.

Yeah, you got to tell the whole story both ways.

Yeah, it's interesting to look at it separately, but you, you want like In a pricing strategy, in a real system, you want something that drives traffic and then you want something where you hold the gross. So you have to have a balance of both. But if you just look at one, yeah, you're looking at the world through rose-colored glasses because you're like, oh, my effective labor, it's $250. But when I add in oil changes, it's $92.

Yeah. Like, yeah.

So I think that's the— keep doing the quick lube.

Right. And I'm like, well, can we look at your profitability without quick lube? Is that how you want to—

you're running 2,000 ROs and 1,800 of them are quick lube. That's working. You got to walk. If somebody wants something really done to their car, you got to walk them to another shop and hand them off to another advisor.

Yeah.

And that's time.

That's decision, like even entering decision fatigue. Like, yeah, client doesn't want to come over there. Customer's like, how do I stay away from the dealer? You give me an estimate, I'll run to the across the street. And as an independent, that's why they're eating their lunch.

A system is what it does.

Mm-hmm.

I love that quote.

So great.

The system is what it does. Yep. Like that's it. Um, okay. So on that note, talking about financials, that, that's going to be the start of the Service Drive Revolution Academy is helping you understand the financials, where the leverage is. And it's gonna be, you know, it's gonna be a lot of fun. Once again, if you're not in there, chriscollinsinc.com, sign up for on-demand. But we're going to now take a break and set up. If you are in the Zoom, you, you will, uh, we will just pick up. Maybe we'll play some music for 'em or something in the time being.

Yeah.

And then we'll start right at 11. If you're not, uh, hopefully you find your way to on demand on the website and get in there. We'd love to have you as a part of the community, but this is going to be a lot of fun. It's our— congratulations, gentlemen, this is our first live.

Yes.

Yeah, I have no idea how we did because I can't really see comments or anything. People could be like, oh, Adam, he's a drunk, Waymo. What kind of things could they try?

I don't know, we'll see.

They asked me, they were like, what, which chat do you want to see? LinkedIn or Facebook or YouTube? I'm like, I don't, I don't know.

It all depends.

We'll figure it out.

Yes.

That's going to be fun. Yes. We'll learn a lot from each other.

Yeah. Super fun conversation though. And we will, uh, we'll see everybody in the Zoom here in just a couple of minutes and everybody else. I hope you have a great week. We'll see you next time on Service Drive Revolution. Thanks so much for watching this episode of Service Drive. 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 833-ASK-SDR and we'll answer your question on the show. That's 833-ASK-SDR. For special deals on our books and training, head over to offers.chriscollinsinc.com. Com. Now that's offers.chriscollinsinc.com. I'm Chris Collins and I'll see you in the next video.