Why Less is More For Your Service Drive (Service Drive Revolution)

Welcome, everybody, to Service Drive Evolution.

We have an exciting show for you today. We're going to talk about the greatest cars of all time. We're going to answer your questions, and we're going to talk about what we learned on our elite call that we just did a couple days ago. That surprises me, but will be a lesson, I think, for everybody listening. How are you doing, Christian?

I'm doing just fine. Happy to be here. It's going to be a great show today. I'm super excited about what we're talking about.

So Christian is coming in via Zoom because he is in Boston. I made the joke earlier, but have you considered walking around.

Boston with a Brady jersey? But the Tampa Bay one?

Yes, but, like a really long jersey with no pants. I feel like that's the most appropriate way to do it.

The important part of this joke is that it's Brady and he left the New England Patriots. Never mind. It's not funny if I have to explain it. Okay, first thing I want to talk about is jet skis. So I am in the market for jet skis, and it's a funny story, but I wanted to buy two jet skis and put them up in Washington in my grandfather's old garage. So when I go up there to the lake up there, I have jet skis because they're paying to rent up there. And I'm gonna spend some time up there this, this summer and have some fun planned. And I just think it'd be cool to have them up there. So I. I was fancying the sea dues. Have you. Have you seen these, Christian? The sea dos?

Yes, they are. They're pretty fancy machine, for sure.

So I want to buy two of them, right? So I call around and I. I get the dealership kind of closest to my. To where my mom lives, and I call him and I. I'm like, hey, I want to buy two. Two jet skis. Your website says you have these two in stock. And I wanted the sea do. It's like G T I 170 or something like that. So I wanted two of those. And I'm like, I just want. I want the 2 in a. How much is a trailer? And I kind of go through the pricing. They're like, well, a trailer for two is 2,500. I'm like, how much is it to license it? Like, it's a hundred dollars. And I'm like, okay. And then the. The salesperson or whoever, I don't know. It might have been a sales manager to get on the phone Says, you know, they're. They're discounted right now. They're normal. You know, we. We took 500 off, and now we just took an extra $300 off of these. These jet Skis. And I'm like, okay, cool, so let's do it. I want two of them. I'll wire you the money, and then I'll have somebody come pick them up. And he says, oh, we'd have to locate the other Jet ski. We only have one in stock. And I'm like, okay, well, do you want my number? And he's like, well, you have to put a deposit down to locate them. There's a shortage right now because of COVID The factories have been shut down, and nobody has Jet Skis, and so it's hard to find them. So you give us a deposit, and we'll see if we can find one. But there's a pretty good chance that nobody would actually, you know, deal or trade or give us one because they're in short supply. I'm like, okay, well, I don't want to give you a deposit if you can't find them and you don't think you can. And second of all, not to give you business advice, but why are you discounting something that's in short supply? And he said, the factory isn't going to open it up for another two months.

So it's summertime. Jet skis are popular during the summer. Obviously. Even I'm the moron than I am. I'm calling to buy Jet skis. Why would you lower the price and discount them another 300 when you don't have them in stock? Am I. Am I missing something?

No. Low supply, high demand should equal higher prices. I'm not. I'm not a mathematician, but I'm just saying if you don't have a lot of it, it shouldn't get cheaper.

Yeah. And you don't know when the factory is going to open up again and when they're going to start making them.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I don't know. So no Jet Skis have been purchased, but I'm going to try to figure that out. I might have to buy them here in California and take them up there, but I don't know how the licensing works on all that, but I got to figure it out. But that. It was funny to me because I was.

I was reading the story about General Motors and how trucks are in short supply, and I was actually doing a strategy session earlier today with the Chevy dealer in Canada, and I was like, is that helping Your grosses. And he's like, yeah, our grosses are back. Like the front end gross. And I just think, like, that it would be really nice if one of these American companies, like Ford or gm. I don't know. That Chrysler. I don't. I don't even know if we call them an American company anymore, do we?

No, I think they're pretty Italian for the most part.

Yeah. But if one of them would step up and fix their. Their whole supply chain. Covid is kind of a chance to reset. Why not flip your supply chain and compete with Tesla and start producing cars as people order them instead of giving these dealers all this inventory, the flooring expense, and the erosion of gross profit on the front end. Why don't you flip it right now? If they're. If they don't have cars, let's just get customers to start ordering them, hold the gross, and save the dealers the. The flooring expense. Flip the whole script. Because Tesla's advantage in the marketplace. We say it over and over again. Nobody wants to talk about it. Is they don't. They don't have flooring expense.

Yep. And then that, in scarcity, is a strong sales tool.

The fact that you might not get it if you wait till tomorrow is a very strong sales tool.

God, can you imagine if. If I was the CEO of General Motors, how many people would hate me? That won't work. That won't work. You don't know what you're doing. Meanwhile, I think I could. I could. I could give Tesla a run for their money.

Yeah, because you're willing to think differently.

Yeah, I really could. I don't think it would take me that long to fix it. I would just have to get. I would have to hire some people from Apple and Tesla and think a little bit different. Because the problem is, is Detroit just thinks one way. The one thing that would be really hard if you were the CEO of General Motors is those. The. The pension, union costs. That's a. That's a huge unfair advantage for Tesla. They don't have that.

Yep, That's a big deal for sure. Oh, I was gonna ask you. Hey, do you want to hear a construction joke?

Is it funny?

No, I'm still working on it.

Was that the joke?

I stepped in it.

You totally did. Both feet.

I like it. Okay. Top cars of all time. Christian. So our friends over at Car and Driver pick the top cars. There's only three on their list. The top cars. Most important cars of all time.

Guess what they are. I'm not actually. Don't even guess. I'm just going to tell you because you would never guess in a million years. The 1955 Chevrolet.

That's, that's the first one. The second one. These are top, most influential industry changing cars of all time. The 1957 Lotus Seven.

Wow. And then the last one is the 1960 Austin Mini.

Those are the three on the list. That's it.

I don't even know where to start. So we pulled a Lotus. It was to name the most obscure cars in history or the most most important.

Like, I get that the, the, the 1950s Chevy, like that was a, a game changer because of racing. Right. It was V8 and it, I think it won a bunch of races. It was Chevy's first victory in nascar. It was a big deal. And it kind of, that kind of propelled the Corvette. That's what that engine and all that became. The Corvette.

Yeah. So the Corvette, the Corvette would be on my list of one of the most influential cars of all time, for sure. And how do you, how do you rule out the Model T?

Well, how do you rule out the Model T and then how do you rule. Rule out the Volkswagen Beetle?

Oh, yeah, for sure.

Like that kind of flipped everything on its side. I don't know. It's one of those, it's one of those conversations that like, you know, greatest quarterback of all time or best album of all time? It's really hard to. To say because there's so many different ones. But I propose Everybody go to YouTube and find this episode if you're. If you're listening to it or if you're on YouTube and post in the comments what you think the greatest car is of all time. And we will, we'll pick one and we'll, we'll send you some swag Service Drive Revolution T shirt, mug and a hundred bucks. So go in there and post in the comments. We want to see what you think because we're a little stumped. If you just asked me that without this weird list, I could have come up with a bunch. But this list makes me question my questioning. It's weird.

Kind of interesting. Okay, let's go to the voice of God. This. This. He's blessed with the voice of God, unlike you and I. That sound all nasally. He's got the voice, this booming, booming voice of God and he's gonna ask questions from the audience. Remember, if you, if you're posting a question, sending us a question and we read it on the big show, we will send you some service Drive Revolution.

Swag.

The voice of God is here.

You scared me.

Sorry.

Glad that light's flashing at you.

Are we ready for some questions, gentlemen?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay, this first one comes from Jake. Hi, Chris and Jeremy. I've got a question for you guys. I work at a Ford dealership that also sells used cars. I've had a hard time getting my techs to work on anything other than a Ford. Any tips on how to get the mindset changed in the shop so we can get our customers taken care of? All your advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Jake, Good question.

That's a great question. It feels like something we talked about recently. You and I did.

Oh, we did.

Yeah.

I don't. I don't remember.

We were on it. We were on a call with, with a group in the east coast talking about the same kind of thing.

Okay, Here. What's the. God. What is. What is the name of the person asking the question?

His name was Jake.

Jake. Jake the snake I like.

Oh, did you say snake?

Yeah.

How do you measure a snake?

I don't know.

How do you measure a snake?

In inches? They don't have feet.

Okay, Jake.

Listen real carefully, Jake. Get your ear right up to the speaker. I'm gonna whisper in your ear.

Hire a used car tech.

Screw them.

That's it.

You don't need to get them to do the work. Hire a used car tech and lower your gross. If you run an ad for a used car tech, you'll get a lot of people that apply because it's a job. A lot of technicians want a lot of technicians. The technology's passed them by. But they're good at reconditioning used cars. You can pay like, you know, 20, $22 an hour. They'll, they'll produce and you. They also can take overflow from the shop so they can do other stuff. So I say don't try to convince them to do it. Hire a used car tech and save gross profit and then watch what happens. Like magic. They're gonna go, oh, we would have done that. Why'd you hire the other tech? We, we want to do it. And then you can maybe get rid of your lowest performing.

Pain in the ass tech. Maybe. I don't know.

Well, that's another thing too. Yeah, you never see that. Used car tech is always your top hour person. Like, the discussion completely changes in the shop. Is that not only did they do all the work that nobody else thought they wanted to do, they do it so efficiently that they out book everybody else. It's so fun to Watch.

Yeah, and it's the thing that. That's funny in that situation.

So we ran into this in Ford stores where they specialize, where, like.

If you don't understand what that means, like, there will literally be Ford techs that are just suspension, and they only want to do suspension. And if you give them an oil change or brakes or anything else, they're like, no, I'm only doing suspension. And they sit around and complain that there's no suspension work, but they don't want to do anything else. And then their wife's car breaks down, and all of a sudden they know how to do brakes and water pumps. And so that's what I always say is, well, if it was your wife or your mom's car, would you work on it? Well, yeah. Okay, well, let's just pretend all these customers are family and, you know, let's pretend all these used cars are family and let's get to work. But that's always a funny conversation. It seems like it's pretty much exclusive to Ford.

Thank you, Jake, for the question. We're gonna send you some swag.

Good stuff.

Okay, this next one comes from Brandon. Hi, Chris. Big fan of the podcast. I recently got my first dealership job in Knoxville as a service dispatcher. I'm still learning the systems and flow of the shop, but would love any piece of advice for a new guy coming in that wants to keep service running smooth between techs and advisors. I appreciate your content and hope to hear from you.

That's a good. That's a good question. So a dispatcher. How can a dispatcher make a difference? 1.

Go ahead.

I was gonna say that just the first step, except that it's not a popularity contest after that.

Don't want to. Don't try to be liked.

Yeah, like, that's not the name of that game. The game is about production.

Yeah. So that's kind of what I was going to say is a really good dispatcher. And I've never seen this before. So you could transcend. Like, it. Just the fact that you're asking this question is. Is amazing, but you could transcend. I would have a morning shift meeting. So if all the tech start at 8, at 7:45, I would have a little huddle with everybody there. I. I would make sure that you have a job for every one of them. Have the. Have the jobs in the cars pulled into their stall already before they get there. And then I would have a board up in the shop with everybody's hours, so their hours from the day before their total hours for the pay period and total hours for the month and update it every day. And it's about production. And then I would gamify like get some sort of trophy or something like that and whoever has the most hours or efficiency, however you want, you want to figure it give, you know, have a trophy where they're competing for something every month. Gamify it a little bit and talk about it at the shift meeting. Ask them how you can help them. But make the focus of everything that we do. How do we get more hours to the shop and take care of customers? Another thing you could do too is put pictures of customers out through the shop and remind everybody that there's a mom with a kid behind this car, there's a dad that take, you know, coaches, football or soccer, whatever it is, but that there's people just like us driving those cars. And never forget how important what we do in the shop is to, to their, you know, safety and you know, reliability of the car. So that would be one another thing you could do as a dispatcher is re rack some cars and make sure that the inspections are consistent. I've never seen a dispatcher do that.

Consistency there and then be nice to the service advisors, like communicate with them.

Know that the advisors are going to make everything a waiter to get it through dispatch.

Yeah. Learn the game, right?

Yeah, you're going to get gamed a little bit. So just call them out on it and you know, be, be honest, like, hey, I'm trying to be fair to everybody, so you got to be fair, that sort of thing. Good question though. I like that.

That's a great question.

Any other questions there?

That was it for this week.

Thank you. Thank you. Good job. Okay, so now let's talk about what we learned on the elite call. Actually, you weren't on that call, were you, Christian? It was just, it was myself and Steve. But so we, we have a coaching group and managers go through different stages, but once they've achieved top of the industry profitability, they have the best CSI around.

And they win our comp, which is our service advisor managers competition that we have, then they become elite, which is really hard to do actually. Oddly, the hardest one is to win the comp. That's usually the hardest one. That's where managers get stuck because they usually go through this process where they think, oh my market's different, it's not fair. And then they start to figure out that they can win if they decide to win. And then they usually do. But that usually is is the, the biggest hangup. So we, you know, we have a call every month with everybody, especially during COVID We've, We've, you know, been checking on everybody and seeing what the elite managers are doing because they're usually the best of the best. And the thing that blew me away as we were going through everybody's numbers and their dashboards and talking about it is how many managers have cut their staff by 20, 25%. And they're all doing bigger numbers than they were pre Covid.

They've cut like they've gotten rid of a couple texts that weren't performing. They've gotten rid of an advisor that wasn't performing. And with less people, they're doing more. It's incredible.

Yeah, they worked out during the, during the pandemic. They got, they got stronger, they got leaner, and now they're in business. Yeah.

And they're not, they're not going to bring them back. Some of them too, this was interesting. Some of them have been closed on Saturdays and they don't think they're going to bring Saturdays back until towards the end of the year because customers haven't expected it. I thought that was pretty interesting that customers kind of understand and because I think a lot of customers aren't consistently working or also a lot of the elite members really embrace the idea of going and picking up customers cars that Saturdays become less of an issue. So their expenses have gone down dramatically. Just their overhead by just covering five days instead of six. Nobody thought that that would be a trend that would continue past the end of the year, but everybody thought that it was good for now. It was helping with expenses now. But some of the, the net to grosses during this have been tremendous. And they're, they're actually making more than they were. Some are making more than they were. It just kind of depends on the brand in the market, in the state, because states have kind of dictated a lot of things. But that was the thing that blew me away is they don't plan on bringing back that, that other 20%. They see it as a chance to get lean. And then it makes me wonder like, how long we carry people that aren't performing. Like we, we just kind of get in this daily routine. Routine and we allow it. And then something like this happens and we end up figuring out that, you know, it's that old Tim Smith joke where people would ask him, hey, Tim, how many people work for you? And he'd say, oh, about half of them.

That's a good one.

Like there's there's people that just aren't productive. They're not adding gross, they're not adding anything to the equation, but we're allowing them to still be there because we don't want to make the hard decisions. And these sort of things come up and they make the hard decisions for us. And just, you know, think about what is the lesson in that, how long are you going to carry dead weight? Because you know, things will come back and next year we'll forget about this. But maybe that's something that we don't forget about is let's run leaner.

Yeah. I think that one of the things that I've caught, I got asked this pre Covid but definitely a lot over the last couple of months is that how do I decide if I need someone? And really it comes out to two things is what I always tell them is that they need to either enhance the customer experience or they need to enhance the bottom line. And if you can't say that the person that is on your payroll does one of those two things, you really have to ask if they're valuable.

Member Well, I would go as far too on that Christian and say is if you're wondering that you don't have a system because in the system that we have and we, we teach everybody, it's very clear when you need to add a tech or, or an advisor.

Yeah.

Because you have a scalable system. And so if you're thinking that you don't, you don't have a very good system because it's very obvious if you have, you know, a system for how many advisors to how many techs, how many ros per advisor. If all of that math is worked out and it's working, then it's really clear that if you're booked out three days or four days, you need to add, you need to add more and you find the soft spot. And that depends on, on your market because some markets are seasonal and it slows down in the winter a little bit, but for the most part it, it works, you know, pretty seamlessly.

Yeah, I agree.

That's fun. Okay, so reminder post, post in comments on YouTube what is the, the most industry changing car of all time? And we got a contest for 100 bucks and some revolution swag. But I'm gonna read them on the show. I'm curious to see what, what you guys think is, is that, you know, revolutionary car that, that changed everything. I was gonna say the Chevy Citation because that was my first car.

And I just, you know, I did A lot of bad things in the backseat of that car.

What a great first car though. That's awesome.

Well, it was my mom. So my mom worked for the post office and she would sit in the middle. It was one of those cars that had a bench seat.

That's right. And she could hit the pedal on with her left foot.

Yeah. And so it had died. So the transmission burnt up on it was just sitting in a lot, rusting it also, I don't know if you knew this, but they recalled the paint on all those because the silver was peeling off. So it like had leprosy. Like the silver was peeling off. And my mom, when I, when I got my license when I was 16, my mom said, you know, you can have that Chevy Citation if you put a new transmission in it. So I worked all summer and I saved up and I think I saved up about $800 or so. And then one of my grandfather's friends who owned a service shop, Bud was his name, put it in for me, got me a used transmission and put it in and then I was off to the races. I was so excited.

Prove to you that you know you can, you can get a girlfriend in a Chevy Citation if you're funny and as good looking as me. You have a nice beard.

I had this beard in high school.

It's also remember too that when you have the Chevy Citation you're competing against people on bicycles like you still have a leg up.

Yeah, there were kids that were a lot cooler in high school than me. But that would be my life changing car was the Chevy Citation. I learned all kinds of things with that freedom, got into all kinds of trouble. But so post that. We're excited to see, see what you put and we'll see you again next time on Service Drive Revolution.

Thanks for watching this episode of Service Drive Revolution. 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 you 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.