This is a Service Drive Revolution episode (Chris Collins with Don Rito and Jeremy) presented as a conversational Q&A transcript. Primary topics: how to attract and hire a service advisor for an independent shop (profile the personality you want, poll customers on Facebook, use Indeed, contact local shops/dealerships, recruit via lunches), practical recruiting tactics ("phone shop" competitors, target top five advisors), and operational advice for advisors (recommended RO/day range ~12–15, refill your "passion bucket" to improve sales). The hosts also address intra-team animosity when one advisor outperforms others, advising top performers to "blaze your own path," ignore negativity, and encourage management to hire more top performers to form a "Hitters Row." Closing includes distribution/subscribe call-to-action.
Chapters
Mr. Don Rito. How are you today, my friend?
Oh, I'm doing just fantastic, Chris.
The feedback has been unbelievable. People, people love you on the show. Everybody's rooting for the ex con to rehabilitate himself.
Oh, good. I'm trying my best.
You know, you don't. You haven't been selling anything to anybody who doesn't need it, right?
No, nothing. As you know, a part of my parole is that I can't work in any business.
You know what I always say, if you wouldn't sell it to your mother, don't sell it.
Well, it's a good thing that I am an anthropomorphic furball with no. No genetic bloodline.
That's a big community college word. Anthropopotic. Okay, what are the questions?
Don, today we got some great questions. Let me, let me get to the first one here.
Hi, Chris. I love all your videos. I would like to know, how would you go about attracting a service advisor for an independent shop? What are the best ways and places to host the ads to get in front of the right people?
Thank you for that. But I think that you probably want to address Jeremy because he's better at that than me.
Yes, absolutely. So finding a service advisor for an independent shop, number of things. First, you want to profile the type of advisor you want. So you want to know the personality that you're looking for.
Short, Chubby.
Yeah.
Stutters.
Absolutely.
Doesn't really like people.
Coughs. Right.
More introverted.
Introversion is great.
Yeah, introverted. Doesn't really like people.
Task oriented versus people oriented.
Doesn't like dogs.
Hates dogs.
More of a cat person.
Cat people.
What you want is a guy who has 12 cats. That's what you want. That guy whose house smells like cat pee.
Oh, my God.
Those make the best advisors at independent shops.
Yeah. Now, on a serious note, hit up your Facebook page. One of the things I would do is poll your customers and ask them who is the best service advisor they have ever dealt with. Find out who the main player is in your town and try to attract them. It took me over two years to. Yeah, took me over two years to find my guy. Michael's now at our shop in two months. And I look back at over the two year process of building that relationship to where the stars finally, finally aligned. For him to come out of a dealership and come into an independent, it's a big risk on his part, obviously.
You stole it from a dealership?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, wow. Took me two years to steal him from a dealership.
Well, I didn't steal him. He's not.
What has been his feedback coming from a dealership, going to an to your shop.
You know the Indy is a little bit harder just because you're dealing with multiple brands or you know, anything rolls up, you've got to work on it. So that's been about it. But it's a little harder. It is a little harder. Absolutely. But we're setting record months. It's great. So poll Facebook, find out who the main player is in your town. Maybe the top five, top five advisors you'd want to deal with. Also I love Indeed. Get something out there on Indeed. Get your resumes going or your job posting going and then real estate. Just talk to customers and then go shop people, phone shop people. Have you ever done that?
Yeah.
Yeah. Call the other shops and dealerships in town and find out who's good on the phone and. And then start recruiting. Take them to lunch.
It's good. Good question. What's the next one? Don?
This next question comes from Josh on YouTube. Hey Chris. I work for a Nissan dealership in San Diego and I write about 350 to 400 arrows a month. Jesus.
Holy moly.
Which is most than more if not all of other advisors. I've noticed my ELR and hours per RO have gone down recently. Am I writing too many ros.
Okay, so let's do the math here. Can you do that in your head?
So 15 to 20 cars per day.
15 to 20 a day on a 20 day Nissan. So I think Nissan, you're okay at 15 but 20 is too much. So I, I would, I would try to keep that around 15. I usually find that you can do your math with what would I make if my hours per row, my ELR and I sold more alignments or whatever it is compared to writing too many under delivering being stressed out all the time. The sweet spot is usually like one less you can do the two hour call. You can update, you can touch people more, spend more time with them. Usually is the magic. So I try to, I'd try to keep it around 12 to 15.
Yeah and I think make sure your title is spelled with an E not an O.
Little kick it Automotive news. The man with no soul.
Yeah you know it's the other thing too is think about front loading more of the transaction. Make sure go back, watch the pet the dog video. Get really purposeful and passion filled. Is your passion bucket filled for serving your clients? You because right now you're talking about numbers and transaction. You gotta get back into relationship with these customers and watch how the sales just roll in. Every time I get a slump in my sales, what do I do? I take some.
Go to your passion bucket.
I go to my passion bucket. Absolutely. And I gotta make sure it's full because when I serve people and I really feel confident about the recommendations or the concerns that we find on their vehicles, the sales magically follow. And I get a lot more of these on the paycheck.
I love it.
Yeah.
Awesome. Anymore, Don?
We got one more. This one comes from LinkedIn.
Hi, Chris. Just gonna start out by saying that you've helped me a lot in the past month as a service advisor. We love hearing that. Don't we love hearing that, Chris?
Absolutely.
I have a question for you. We have implemented a new pay structure at work and a new appointment coordinator. Since then, my numbers have really grown, but it's put a target on my back with the other advisors. How do I keep growing and collecting my customers to keep my numbers growing without the other advisors getting all pissy at me? Thank you, Elwood.
What I, what I, what I used to do when I was an advisor and I was a top advisor is I would walk by the other advisors and I would say, hey, you know why I look so good? Because you look so bad.
Stirring the ball. That's what I used to say. I don't know. I don't understand the question.
Well, he's worried about the animosity that's being driven in the drive and the team effort.
Forget about it.
So you're saying there is an I in team.
Well, I mean me. So the, the thing that happens is if you're a high performer, you're doing things different than low performers. Your mindset, your actions, your attitude, your focus is different. Don't try to be like them. They're not going to like you.
Okay. So don't be a conformist.
Most, most people will. Will revert to average and then they will try to pull you to average by making you feel like you're doing things wrong. The key to really succeeding is to blaze your own path. And don't set your barometer to under performers feelings on things. So they might give you attitude. They might not like you. They might, you know, say derogatory things. It doesn't, doesn't matter. Full steam ahead. It's all about the customer.
Yeah. Lead the field, set the pace. You're making them work harder and that's why they're having an issue with you. Just ignore it. Here's what I do now for Those of you that are on the podcast, you're going to have to go to the video and actually see this. But when you're at your desk and you're starting to feel this wave of negativity coming from your other advisors, just do this.
Jeremy is.
And go back to work.
Flying his middle fingers and rotating back and forth really well. Like the Tasmanian double.
Yes.
Of the bird that.
That works.
And I love your point is to go back and antagonize them a little bit, make them raise their game.
Oh, I just remember, like, they did so many things to mess with me when I was an advisor and could have cared less. It was all about the customer.
Absolutely.
I knew I was taking better care of my customers than they were and they were spending time worrying about all the wrong things. And you know, the other thing to that is like, management needs to understand that if you got one top performing advisor, you need to surround them with a couple more top performing advisors because a lot of times the underperformers are going to win. They're going to pull that advisor back.
Right? Yeah.
And so get more of top performers. Like a lot of stores, like I call it Hitters Row. Like you got Hitters Row, where they're all top performers, they all think the same and then they start to get along.
The opportunity right now is so huge. There's these cars need so much work, they're so neglected, they're breaking down and we're not maintaining them properly. So the opportunity is awesome to have heavy hitters on your service drive to bring in the sales that we need. And you know, the other thing too is your top performers will do things that make customers gravitate towards them. So for instance, I used to walk every customer, the cashier, go over the paperwork with them, walk them out to their car, and inevitably the cashier would come to me and say, hey, can you help so and so's customer out? They have a question on the repair door and I'd help and then I'd go get the car. Well, the next time they'd come in and ask for me and forget the other person. So the access to just keep doing what you feel is right and those customers will gravitate towards you.
Thank you so much for watching this clip of Service Drive Revolution. Now you can catch the full episode of on YouTube, iTunes or Spotify or wherever you consume your podcast. If you have any questions, go ahead and post them in the comments below. Make sure you subscribe and hit the bell icon so you're notified when we post new episodes. I'm Chris Collins, and you can find me on Facebook and Instagram at Chris Bulldog Collins. And I'll see you again on the next episode.
