What To Do If Your Pay Plan SUCKS (Service Drive Revolution)

We're gonna take your questions. By the way, if you post a question, we read it on the show. We're gonna send you some service Drive revolution swag, which means like a T shirt, stickers, coffee mug, all that trucker hats.

The voice of God is here and has many questions.

Question number one. I love what I do, but not a fan of the pay plan. It's all averages. I noticed some advisors avoiding customers at the end of the month because they've already hit their good averages. I actually love helping customers, but at the end of the day, a simple oil change hurts my averages. Any advice?

So I can't tell if this is communism.

Or averages.

Well, it's obviously in California. Communism in California kind of go hand in hand. Very close.

Your political jokes aside.

So I'm not sure if they're saying they average all the advisors numbers together because I run into that sometimes.

I think they're saying that they're paid off of averages. So average repair order hours per ro, those type of averages. So if he gets a simple oil change in, there's no potential to upsell. It's going to hurt his pay plan.

Here's the thing that I learned about being a service advisor and pay plans because I accidentally accepted a job once where I didn't understand, like they showed me the pay plan. I looked at the percentage, I did the math, and I was like, oh, this is a nice raise. And I took the job. And then I went to get my first paycheck in the. The. In front of me. The advisor in front of me that never got up to help a customer, never did anything. Goes something to the effect of.

I hope you never quit because you made me a lot of money. And I was like, what does that mean?

Wait, he got a piece of your.

I didn't know that they averaged all the advisors together.

Oh, man.

And so this guy's writing like 40,000 and I write a hundred and something.

Yeah.

And I got paid on like 80. Yeah.

Yeah. It made absolutely no sense. So here's the thing that I know about that and is they didn't want to lose my 150 to make the guy making 40 happy.

So they changed my pay plan.

I would have been like, fire him. Let me hire an assistant. And my team will do more than.

So performance drives your influence. So if you're putting up the numbers, then they're not going to want you to go away in that pay plans are negotiable.

And here's the thing that we're overlooking every service Advisor is a sales professional. We have to make sales every single day. If you're not happy with the pay plan, it is not written in stone. You just have to find a way to influence the powers that be to make a change for what you feel is right. So I would say tear it apart, come up with a better plan. Remember what's in it for the dealership. Give them the wins, but just look at it like a sales presentation. You just got to go in and.

Put up the numbers. Let your numbers talk.

Absolutely.

My numbers talk. So I got a. I got the pay plan that I thought I had signed up for.

Hey, he could join coaching, pay for it out of his pocket and tell them that he's doing extra work on his own and then that'll be another feather in his cap to actually get the pay plan change.

Oh yeah, get him in coaching. We'll fix your advisor pay plan because it sounds like it's terrible.

There we go.

Sounds like a pay plan from 1984.

Looks like we solved that one then, didn't we?

The voice of God.

Question number two.

I'm in Europe and I just finished high school as a technician. But I'm more interested in becoming a service advisor. My father owns a shop, he's a mechanic and he wants me to keep building our company. Should I go to college for a more technician related degree or management? I would benefit from either choice. But I would love to hear your opinion. What would you do?

I would move to la.

I'm not the right person to ask this question. Question.

It's. You're not?

No, I.

You probably have a great answer to this now.

What were you gonna say? Move to LA and what?

Join the. Get a coach and don't even go to college. You're gonna spend less money. You're gonna learn more through our coaching program.

Right.

And then go back to Europe in 18 months and you'll be slaying the driver.

True.

Right. I think the technologically side is going to change so much that I would invest my education in human behavior in management side of it.

Yeah, I think, I think if you, if you really wanted to there's, there's enough like literally you could go through our program and you would know more than you're ever going to learn in school honestly about that job. But I'm not big on, you know, two or four years. I'd rather work personally. I'd get to work and read books and do other things. But I mean, I mean I've maybe told you this before but I When I was single, I dated this psychologist and she said that I know more about psychology than she would ever know. And I never went to college. But I've read more books. Like I've read, you know, well over a thousand books and classes. One year I spent over half and half a million dollars on my own personal development.

Wow.

So dang. I don't know, I wouldn't do it, but I'm, I'm odd. Like I feel weird saying that to some people because they need college, they need structure and they're not motivated. So I, it's hard for me without knowing somebody.

I've got some kids coming up. I got a 15 year old, 12 year old and a 10 year old and are in our family. Our kids are going to go and they're going to get their bachelor's degree. That's just kind of what we have decided for our children. Now, whether you work in that field or not, your life changes so much from the time you're 18 to 22. And maybe one of my children will take till they're 26 to get their bachelor's, but that's fine. But at least you have that foundation. So in Europe does things a little bit different than here in the States as far as the education system? So if he's going to have to go to school for four years, I just think I would really look into your passion bucket and find out what you're really passionate about and then follow that. And he may hate people. Like, he may be like, man, every.

Time I tell you what a passion.

Bucket is, you don't know what a passion bucket.

What's a passion bucket?

Where all your passion is at? Like it's always full. Like, you know, good service advisors never.

Run out of energy, you know why think it's no. Why?

Because their passion bucket's always.

So you, you think that passion is important?

It is, absolutely. Okay, it is. Do you disagree? I mean, if you're in parts, no, it doesn't matter. But if you're in service or sales, yes, it does matter.

I don't know. I'm just hungry. Like, I grew up hungry.

Right? Right.

I grew up poor. I'm hungry.

I don't.

It doesn't. A lot of things that I do in the day, I have no passion for, but I do them because I'm hungry and they have to be done.

Yeah, but okay, so your passion is, is your hunger is part of that.

But I have drive. I don't, I don't need, I don't need the Passion, I think to answer.

To help this guy out. He's got a family business and he's got a technical road he can go down or a people road. He can go to the counter, run the business, or he can learn to work on cars. If you're gonna have to work on the cars and you love working on cars, then go follow that. If that's where your passions lie, go do that. If it's more on the office side of it, go towards the car.

I'll tell you this too. I've never met a really good entrepreneur or business owner that attributes their success to a degree in business.

Right?

Never. Never happened. In fact, I meet people with degrees in business that need my help desperately because they're doing it all wrong. They don't understand. And you, you can't learn that stuff in a, in a classroom, in a textbook.

No, the real world is way different.

It's good. Is that the end of the questions?

God, there's one more question. This one comes from YouTube. Passion bucket.

God, do you have a passion bucket?

God has a passion bucket.

Is God love or is God hate?

God is love, my child.

God has many passion buckets.

Do you have many passion buckets?

God has infinite passion buckets.

Wow.

Question number three. I have a question for you guys. This pertains to both advisors and service managers. What do you do and how do you handle a vehicle that comes into the shop under factory warranty with a drivability concern? Your master technician finds himself unable to track the source of the issue. After multiple attempts, he's followed technical assistants who are often slow in response and vague. The customer is restless and there's seemingly no end in sight. I feel like both positions at different times in the process. Both are bound to find themselves dealing with this issue. Assume also the customer's a good customer. He's been spending money and building trust in your drive for several years.

So you should have never put it in the shop without verifying it. The way I think I've explained this on the show before, the thing that I would say to a customer is, listen, there's a five mile dome over the, over the shop, and whenever you come within five miles, your squeak, your rattle, your runability problem doesn't happen, so we need to verify it. So I just set that with the customer. Like, because it happens to you doesn't mean it happens here. Then I go through, when does it happen? Cold, hot, going over a bridge in a rainstorm first thing in the morning, or when you pull in and park and Then run back out and get it. Like, when? When does it happen? Then? Then I make the technician drive the car home so I get permission from the customer. I'm like, it's not. We can't verify it, but can I have him drive it home a couple times? But because it happens first thing in the morning or something like that. So those are my tricks. But I wouldn't have put it in the shop without verifying it.

Absolutely.

Verification, listen, you probably can't verify it, but it changes the customer's perception because if they can't show it to you and make it happen, then they understand how difficult it is for the tech to find it.

Right.

That's all we're trying to do.

For dealerships, they've got to be careful because repair attempts matter. You know, limit law, buyback. If the car's under warranty, you've got to make sure that you're not, you know, 1, 2, or 3 on the same repair. Also number of days in the shop, so you've got to document it. And then I would enroll the customer, too. I've asked customers, look, you know, I want to fix your car, but I'm not just going to guess until it does it. We. If we can't duplicate your concern, there's no way for us to test it. So when does it do it? You know, where does it do it? And then I've asked them to, you know, have a passenger take out the cell phone, do a video of it and document it for us. And then that's helped us.

That's a good one. When I was an advisor, we didn't have cell phones.

Correct. Why had camcorders? We gave them.

I didn't have a camcorder. I was spending my money on drums.

That's good, though. Yeah. Just make a video of it.

Absolutely. Roll them in it.

Thank you, Boyce. To God. Thank you so much for watching this clip of Service Drive Revolution. Now you can catch the full episode 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 @ChrisBulldog Collins. And I'll see you again on the next episode.