What The Best Dealerships To Work For Have in Common | SDR #210

Welcome, everybody, to Service Drive Revolution. I'm Chris Collins. This is Chris Joan.

Hello, everyone.

And we have a special guest coach, Cliff, all the way from Carolina, North Carolina. You'll notice that a little bit in his dialect. Little Carolina.

I thought that was a Russian accent.

We asked him to sit in on this episode today. But what's really exciting is the episode that's coming next week because it's a fun announcement and a fun topic that's coming up, so you're not going to want to miss that. But today we are talking about what the best dealerships to work for have in common. Then we're going through the news and a couple other little fun things. So that and much, much more coming up on this edition of Service Drive Revolution.

So a lot of you that follow the.

That we moved into a new building, and we call this new building the Money Pit.

Because everything that could go wrong or be more expensive than it was supposed to is happening. But the idea is we have this leadership workshop that we are building an environment for and also a library. So a lot of people that came to our office previously, one of the questions I would get is, have you read all these books? Thing that people don't understand is that's just a tiny piece of the books.

I feel like I've actually asked that question.

We have, we have, we have more books, so we want to have a library that then we're going to do the leadership workshop in. Now, in preparation for that, we have developed a leadership workshop that we asked a couple clients. They were very kind to let us pilot it. Would you call it pilot?

I would call it a pilot for sure.

And so we're taking a workshop on the road that normally we'd have home field advantage. So there's a little difference. But we're trying to hit most of the beats that we can. And so we're doing it again. So our clients, Morgan in Florida allowed us, just because of our relationship and how nice they are, they allowed us to do it like they were lab rats.

What was funny? You know what's funny, Cliff, is both times. So it's a two day, right? Both times. The second day people would say, you know, I had no idea where you were headed with this.

They were.

But now it all makes sense. And so then they kind of even started introducing it that way.

Right? Like, yeah, that you're gonna feel differently about it.

Oh, yeah, you're in for something. You know, it's not gonna make sense until it makes sense, but just, I promise, go with it.

Like the MC of the thing introduced it that way.

It was definitely the theme that was kind of going around.

The.

One time it was the actual owner and then the other time it. I don't know, but it was, it was a.

It was a comment which I personally, I guess maybe because I'm too wrapped up in it. I didn't, I didn't.

I didn't feel that it was that abstract, but I guess it's pretty abstract. Yes, but the whole thing is, is like I had this, this.

Like wake up in the middle of the night, sit straight up.

Clarity in the fact that training sucks. And I want to create training that actually fixes the problem, not treat the symptom. And so in order to do that, you probably gotta, you know, you gotta throw out all the preconceived ideas of how things are done. And you gotta start with the end in mind. Like, if you really want people to change, then you can't. There's a lot of stuff you just can't dance around. Like, where a lot of times training is very, like, on the surface, you're dancing around the truth of, you know, maybe it's you. Maybe, you know what I mean, you're.

Hitting them with it.

You're like, there's a lot of dog whistles in a lot of the leadership training out there. That's, you know, we all use that coming up, right? But at the end of the day, it is more treating the symptom than it is the cause. So I'm trying to go out the symptom, which then.

You can't go right out the symptom. So I'm saying I'm trying to go at the symptom. But the truth is you can't go out the symptom because if you just tell somebody they suck, they usually put up a wall. So then you got to go around this long thing. But then what happens is by about one o', clock, they're all staring at their feet, which I do believe. When we do the leadership training here, Christian and I have talked about this a lot.

That I think we will end the first day at one or two o'. Clock. Like, I know, I know people think, oh, I'm gonna fly in from all over the country, come to la, and I'm go to training and I want to be in training. But just like the boot camp, when people come here, they've got. They're done by 11 o', clock, but we go until 4. But really what happens between 11 and 4 is way less effective. Than if we just let him go for a walk, you know what I mean?

Interesting, you know, because their brains like mush at that point.

Yeah. And so we're okay. You got. You came to la, we got to spend the day together. But I remember this happened to me when I was young.

There was a guy, a guru.

And the greatest guy still to this day.

He's had a huge. There's maybe two people that have had an impression on me. He's one, his name is Frank Kern. Have you ever heard of Frank Kern?

Not heard of Frank.

He was a big Internet marketer guy. But he's a great guy. Great guy. I've never spent money or had an interaction with him that I didn't feel like the value exceeded the cost. But.

I went to one of his events and like I will do sometimes with people, I said, hey, man, I want to. I want to buy a day of your time. And I just want to sit there. I have some things I want to talk about. And so he said, okay. And we made a deal and exchanged numbers and I paid him and I had my day. And he had me do a bunch of homework before I got there. Like, what are your numbers? What are your averages? What are this. By the time I got there, kind of knew half the answer, you know what I mean? Like, I had to do all this stuff. So the same thing happens with our clients is before they come to boot camp, they do all this stuff that they're like, oh, yeah, now that I look at it this way, maybe these things don't all work. So they kind of already, in their mind, have an idea, right? So I show up to Frank, I tell him what I have going on or whatever. And this note, this is when I had written I had finished my very first book, which took me forever to finish. Was really hard. It was like giving a baby. It clearly was. Was a passion of love, right? The irreplaceable service manager. And I told him, I have a booth at nada, which he didn't know what that was. National Auto Dealers association. And this books for service managers. And I want to promote it. And what. That was kind of my thing to him. And he said, let me tell you something. My grandfather was a car dealer in Atlanta. Owned a bunch of dealerships. I worked there. Car dealers are miserable. This is a stupid business model. Get out of this. And I go, what do I do with my booth? He said, I'd put up a sign that said, call 1-800-whatever. And I go, but I wrote the book he's like.

He's like, you're selling a book to middle managers that don't care.

To a dealer that doesn't. You know, if you wanted to do anything, get in the sales side, because the service side, you know, that was. And his advice is not wrong, by the way. If, if we put the effort that we put into this into other stuff, we would be bigger.

Agreed.

It just happens that we have a certain nostalgia for this industry, whatever it is. But he was not wrong. I don't think his advice was wrong. But here's the thing. All that happened, like, I don't know. Let's say I started at 8 and he had this really cool place on the beach in La Jolla, California. Let's say we started at 8. By 10 o', clock, we were done.

Like, I'd laid it all out, I'd done all my homework. 10 o', clock, I'd bought the day. We literally walked to lunch, we played video games and just talked, but we were done. And I, in that moment, I realized, like, sometimes.

You know, like, people will say, oh, well, your competition's advisor training is 40 hours and yours is only 20.

And I'm like, well, do you want it to work or do you want it to be 40 hours? Like, I don't know what that means. I don't. And so I do believe that the first day of the leadership training, if we let them go at one o' clock and send them to an art museum or on a walk or something, it will be more effective than if we keep trying to pound it in. Because it's supposed to be a day of training. Does that make sense now? I think it's five days. In the end, it's three days. They leave for two months and then they come back for two days. They need two months to process, try it out, you know, have some success, and then come back and then.

We can keep going. But unless they have two months, and I think the time is two months, but I don't know, it could be three, but we're gonna start with two.

Do you do the same stuff back over again? Or is it just an extended. Like, they go home and have to have homework, they have things that they've got to take care of, and then they come back.

Okay, so in it, I think you kind of understand this, right? Is it starts off, you have. You have feathers, and then you have creators. Then before you can be a leader, you have to master the creator. And then the next level after leader is God, the God part. And all that is the after, okay? Because they can't.

They can't grasp it at that.

They've. They're just gonna. Just being a leader is enough. And when I say being a leader, I mean like a real leader, not a manager. Like most leadership training is for managers, right? I'm talking about a real leader. You need some time to process. And in that time, I think maybe there's a call, a monthly call where they can talk about the success they're having and all that or whatever it is so we can touch them. But I think that they have to have that time in between.

Right? And then Kosher had a great idea is maybe we give them. Because we. We've been building this library in a virtual world also. Maybe that second meeting can be in a virtual world where. Because, you know, with VR now, we can walk around and sit at a table and talk to each other and all that. And maybe that's something that is the next part of it. I don't. I don't know. We been talking about that, but we're going to Florida to do two more of them. So our friends allowed us to do it. And then they had some success with it. And people wanted, you know, other people, I think, wanted to do it. And so we did. The first time we had a waiting list right? There was over.

So some of the people on this.

We'Re capping it at 40 per class, 80 people total. So we're gonna go back and do it. So now the pre game. So when somebody's going to that, they get a box. We call it the bento box of good luck. Those are going out now. There's also something new in that from the last one. It's all very. There's a lot of logistics to it. I've conditioned the office here that I don't even get weird looks anymore when I'm like, okay, here's the thing I want to do, and I want to send this. And whatever they've just resolved, like, what is it that happens to a prisoner that's being tortured? Like, at some point they just resolve to their fate. Like, they don't even try to Vietnam.

Thing where they have to write down one thing, like, surely America's bad.

Yeah, they're just resolved to. He's, you know, just let him. We're gonna mail it or we're gonna build it or whatever.

It is funny that you went to the Vietnam thing, because I went to this story that I remember of this lady once. She was three months pregnant and she went Into a coma, a really, really deep coma. And so she woke up six months later and she looked down, she's like, oh, no, I'm not pregnant anymore. So she goes to the nurse, she's like, what happened? And the nurse comes out, she's like, don't worry. You had. You actually didn't just have one baby. You had two. A girl and a boy. And then the mom's like, well, can I name them? And she's like, no, they've already got names. Your brother actually named the babies? And the mom is so frightened, she's like, well, my brother's an idiot. He shouldn't be naming kids. So she's like, well.

What did he name the girl? And the nurse says, denise. And the mom's like, well, that's a decent name.

We.

What did he name the boy? And the nurse says, da nephew.

Jeez, I don't even know that you're supposed to laugh at it.

He almost likes it more if you don't laugh. He loves that uncomfortable sound.

I feel like he likes the shock value.

He likes it too, that he's just interrupting.

Yeah. So now we have to figure out what we were talking about before.

No, I know. So don't you think it's. Don't you think it's interesting to my earlier point that people perceive training not by the effectiveness or how. How good you're going to be coming out of it, but by how long it takes. Like if, if, if I could. If you could pay me $50,000 and fly and meet me in, I don't know, let's just say Hawaii and I whisper two sentences in your ear that'll make you millions of dollars.

Is it worth it?

Yes.

But you wouldn't, you'd want to sit there for three days.

It's just funny. But what happens is then when you're creating training, right, so like we're creating soft skills training or we're creating this other training, there's this weird thing that you think training has to be long. That long equals value. Where. I think a lot of the reason. Reasons why advisors of all experience levels think our advisor training is good is because the older advisors don't feel like they're sitting through something. Like we're getting to the point, it's moving along. We're not talking to talk or whatever it is. It isn't about the time, it's about the value or the outcome, that sort of thing. But it is interesting in the training industry.

How long it is.

Is how they perceive value, not how Effective even in a world where most training is garbage.

So if you marketed it and said it's $100,000, but it's only for an hour versus $50,000 and it's eight hours, they would pay the 50.

They perceive the eight hours as more valuable.

But even though the time on the higher $1 is you're getting more.

They're not connecting that. The reason why I'm doing the training is to get an outcome. So they're not focusing on the outcome or the value. They're focusing on the length because people perceive more time is. And, you know, in some situations, maybe that's true, I don't know. But not definitely not in all situations. So, long story short, we're going to Florida to do the leadership thing again. I made a bunch of changes to it, which I'm excited about. It just gets better every time. I wish I could do it every month for a while, because right after we finish one, we have like all these ideas, but then we gotta wait again to do it. Right.

So it's good.

You wanna talk about the news?

I do.

So there's some really, really. I mean, I don't know how else to classify it other than it's funny. Okay, so just listen to this headline.

Cliff peeked at your thing earlier and he said, yeah, this is where all the good news comes without question. TMZ in the New York Post.

So this article says some Tesla drivers use kids as a prop to test full self driving feature. So essentially what they're doing is they're telling children to go out in front of the Tesla and then making sure. So the Tesla has the self braking on it and everything like that. So it's like, okay, so they put the kid out and then the car stops itself, essentially. So there's videos of this working correctly. And I just think that at first I'm like, oh, that's terrible. But then I realized that, that in 58% of these cases, they didn't use their own kids. They used the kid that keeps cutting through their lawn. So that made it totally okay. And then the rest of them didn't even actually like their kids that much. But it's talk about faith in technology.

So I think this gives a new meaning to go play in traffic. You remember how you say, go play in traffic. Go play in some traffic. Go play in the highway or whatever. Like, literally, you play in the highway, I'm gonna race towards you. Promise you the car's gonna stop.

Right?

I used to have an uncle when I was a Kid that would be like, hey, Chris, why don't you go out and dribble your basketball on the freeway?

That's pretty good.

So now we're asking him to stand in front of the car.

Yeah, that's so great. But I love that people are doing that. I think that's nuts. Also, I think these same parents next week will be allowing their children to put apples on their head and let professional archers shoot the apple.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I think we should try that.

What about catching a bullet with your teeth?

Yeah, that's the week after. Like, it just keeps elevating. So this is parenting, right?

What do you call that? Because you got helicopter parenting now. That's a thing.

Yeah, this is daredevil parenting. All right. And then.

It'S a gamble.

The roulette wheel of race.

Johnny probably won't make it to 13, so.

And then almost equally as stupid is a Tesla owner will never lose his keys again because this guy had his keys implanted in his hand.

We got to show a picture of this on. On YouTube. If you're listening, you should Google this, or it is hilarious. So literally, the. The electronic part of the key implanted, and the guy walks right up to the car and just puts his hand up and it unlocks.

So let me create a little bit of backstory to this, too, so that you understand just how much it has to be a publicity stunt.

So the Tesla, your cell phone is actually your key. So pretty much everybody has their cell phone on them at all times. In the event that you might not have a cell phone, you actually are also given a little thing that looks like a credit card that you can put up to the door. And then this guy as a third backup, like, who has three different backups.

Well, there is a key that comes to you.

Oh, so not on. Not on the three. So maybe it's different with different models.

But I got two keys with it, too. So you have two cards and then two. Two keys that are like a Tesla that, like, if you hit the roof and unlocks it, whatever. But they.

So I didn't get that. I only had my phone and the two credit card looking things, but this guy has the third thing. Like, it's almost overkill is kind of what my point is. But, like, I don't know. I'm not ready to endorse putting chips in our arms.

I guess maybe I'm a little bit confused because I'm thinking of a key fob in the sense that you have to push the unlock.

You took the Little circuit board from a key fob and put that in your skin.

Yeah. It's the same. It's the same technology that's in credit cards with the tap to pay.

Okay. I don't even know what, like, I'm trying to think of how you thought it. Like, how he thought that that was a good idea.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Let me take my.

That's what makes it funny.

I think it's crazy. But I mean, really, when you think about it over the last hundred years, I think that the invention of the dry erase board is the most remarkable.

Okay, you ready to talk about our big subject today? What the best dealerships to work for have in common. So you're fresh to this list? This is a list Christian and I have compiled together.

Yeah.

So we're.

Do we have. Is this a top thing or just a list? As.

We didn't number them.

Okay.

But we could have numbered them, but we didn't.

Should I rate them?

No.

Should I rate them? No. Okay.

What the best dealerships have in common. What the best dealerships to work for specifically have in common. Okay. So the first one is, if you were going to interview at a dealership, I would check the reviews because if they don't take care of customers.

They'Re not going to take care of employees. Most of the time, there's chaos. And the second one is, I would call and try to make an appointment. And if they're booked out three weeks, it's definitely not a place I want to work unless I'm a tech. But I don't want to be an advisor in a place that's booked out more than a week because I can't get the work done right. So if they have bad reviews and it's chaos, you know, you're writing too many ros and you can't get the work done. And if customers hate it, you're going to hate it because you're fading all that heat, and you're basically going to be put in a situation where it's like, hey, the systems are broken, but you're so good at what you do, you can still come out ahead. The next one is that people that work there have been there a while. There's a.

Retention.

I agree with that.

They've conquered the retention thing. There isn't constant turnover, which is something I would ask people there wandering around, and I also would ask in the interview, but employee retention, like, how long has that person been here? How long has this person been here? That sort of thing.

And if they're all like a week.

The other one is cleanliness of the shop and the drive. Like, you know, I. Not that long ago, I was at a dealership in the Midwest and there literally were cores waiting to be returned, like a transmission, whatever, sitting in the drive. Not good garb. You know, just if it's chaos, it's chaos. Same thing with the shop.

I think people too use the whole. My facility's old, but you can still.

Make everything you can have old and clean.

Yeah, you can clean it up.

The next one is they have techs.

There's so. And we're seeing so much turnover at service advisor, at the service advisor position because they're writing too many and they can't get the work done. And so if you don't have tax. And that goes back to being booked out. How far out they're booked.

The next one we had is they get CSI because they earn it, not because they cheat.

Oh, that's interesting.

So there are we. We have experienced a lot of dealerships where they cheat. They try to cheat their way into csi. It's never consistent, but that's not the spirit behind it.

I think there's some of the manufacturers who change in the survey for that too.

Oh yeah. There's a lot of things going on behind the scenes.

They're on to it.

Now you put this one, Christian, that the, that the leadership is their leaders, not managers.

Yes.

How would you tell that if you're going in to interview to be a tech or an advisor? So I would say, you know, the. How far out their book, the reviews, all of that.

Employee retention.

Retention. So all of those things would kind of tell you if they're a leader or they're just a manager.

Yeah. So let's say that I'm a tech. Let's say that I'm a, like a C level tech and. And I sit down with the manager and they're kind of going over what it's like to work for them. They've got like a career path progression plan for me. Like it's a. Here's what working for us does. Here's how long it would take to get to this level. And I've got a plan for you and I'll be a mentor. If they're using the right kind of verbiage as an advisor, I would want to know. They're kind of talking to you about, hey, so you come in as an advisor and here are the next levels of success. Like they're always thinking about. I think leaders are Always thinking about the next step for their people in progression, not just filling a hole.

Well, I think there's too a thing on that. Like oftentimes people go into somewhere and they immediately say, well, if you want to be a manager, this is the place to be. But they never talk to the individual. So it's kind of an empty promise. I think if you have a career path and a path set up, you can see what the next place is instead of just being an empty promise. And oh, I got this hope.

Yeah, yeah, the next one. And I, I did a strategy session yesterday in the, you know, family owned dealership. Dad is on, on the call, son is one of the sons is working in the dealership. But.

You know, just that I love the car business. We're passionate about our people, we're passionate about the brand, we, you know, we represent.

And so, you know, there's a lot of clarity and vision that comes with the actual person that owns it being involved. You know, there's something about that. Usually when somebody is involved in the business, they're also vested in the people that work for them and they're vested in the customers and they're probably a part of the community. So they're out to lunch and somebody's like, hey, you know, I took my car in for an oil change and it took four hours. They're hearing that in their circles because they're a part of the community, they're a part of the business. And you know, if a customer is like, hey, I want to talk to the owner, they're there and they'll take a phone call, you know. So some of the best dealerships are the ones where either the general manager, the owner, actively involved in the community and actively involved in the business. And it's not, you know, it's not delegated in that sense.

Somebody else.

You'll see when, when guys buy a bunch of dealerships or a general manager's in charge of three or four, which you'll see sometimes with groups that, that, you know, that.

Presence is gone. Like there's something to that presence. When somebody cares.

You can feel it as much as anything.

I think that comes down to when you're talking about the leader versus manager. I'm thinking of one dealer group in particular that there is a multi. The GMs over multiple stores and he's engaged in those stores. Like he's very visible in those stores. He's vested, he's got an interest, he's asking questions about it. So I do think that that's a portion of that, but then I think of others that are.

Yeah. And then the last one is just they have an overwhelming passion for customers. Customers, which then you have an overwhelming passion for attracting the right employees also. But there's a commonality between the number one dealerships in the country and that is the customer is right. They're not trying to win an argument with the customer. They're trying to figure out how to improve the customer experience. And so.

That'S a big commonality also passion for the customer. Now, are we trying who are we trying to help with this list? Are we trying to help people that are going for a job? Are we trying to make people that are there feel guilty?

A little bit of Catholic guilt. But I do think that we're trying to give a little guidance to those great people out there that are looking for a home.

Okay, well, everybody stay tuned next week because we have a fun episode coming up with Cliff that you are going to enjoy and you've been asking for for a long time. So we'll see you next week on Service Drive Revolution. Thanks so much for watching this episode of Service Job 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 8333, ask SDR and we'll answer your question on the show. That's 8333. Ask us to for special deals on our books and training, head over to offers.chriscollinsinc.com now that's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video.