Winter Slowdown & 2 Advisors That Don't Get Along

Foreign.

Welcome everybody to Service Drive Revolution and your Friday drive by. A little something to think about. So we have two great conversations we're going to have today that are answers to questions from our Facebook group. So one is about what to do with two advisors that don't get along and the other one is how do we prepare for or overcome the winter months when things slow down. Right. Great questions. So this question was actually posted today and one thing that I think is very funny and it was posted by Dennis is he said how is everyone handling the February blahs? Dennis, it's March. You posted this today. It's March. We found that every year we have a drop off in February into the first part of March. Are there any tips on increasing sales or is this just we must live with.

So great question. Here is how I think about this and approach it is if you look at a year, it's a 12 round fight. There's 12 months in a year and we know depending on our location that there is seasonality and there are peaks during the year and there's drop offs during the year. So. So it's all about planning. It's all about planning ahead. So six months out from knowing that it's going to slow down in February and March, I would one is I would be telling everybody that that's a great time to take a vacation. Now I remember growing up in Seattle, I would have to remind myself in February, hey.

It'S not too bad. You're not going to die. There's no reason to be so depressed. I would have this is the conversation going on in my head because I would get super depressed because I hadn't seen the sun in six months. And by the time February rolls around in Seattle it's just been raining and cold and dreary for so long. So what I started to do is I started to take a vacation in February. A lot of times we should be pre programming our employees and text, hey, a great time to go to Hawaii or take a vacation or go to the sunshine is during the slower months. Now that's the employee side, right? Programming the text that the best time to take a vacation is when it's slower and when you can do that. Now some techs have kids and they can't do that whatever. But it is a great thing to talk about. Now the other thing is start planning in November, your marketing. So we need to up our marketing. We might spend more in marketing in February and March than we will in any other months the rest of the year. We need we need to market, we need to go pick cars up, we need to call customers that are inactive, that are due for service and remind them that they haven't been in. We need to dramatically up our efforts to get customers in the door during those months. But it starts in November. You can't just decide in February. Oh, hey, it's slow. What should I do? Is something you want to plan. Like I said, it's a 12 round fight. And you know in boxing that there's certain rounds where you're going to have peaks. You know that the later rounds in a fighter when, when you can steal a fight because the judges might give you something they wouldn't normally give you at the end if you end strong, right, you can steal a fight. It's the same thing in our business is we gotta plan ahead. We gotta kind of look at the 12 months and say, hey, here, here was our, our customer count month by month throughout the year and we peak here. Also. The problem with February is it's short days, right? So we have to, you know, really double our effort and our attention to detail and our marketing during those months. So plan ahead, get ready for it, start planning now for next year and that'll help. So I hope that that gives you some ideas. The next question. And I love this question. So Sean, but Sean. S H A U N not S E A N. Very interesting the spelling there, Sean. I have a brother, Sean, but he spells it the other way.

Advice for two advisor team and they can't stand each other. At first I thought it was good that they were so competitive, but it is getting out of hand. Okay, so here's the question. Sean with the U.

What are the most important outcomes of our business?

Profit and the customer experience. Right? And they go hand in hand. If we have a great customer experience and we price things right, and you know, we're good at managing all that. We're, we're going to make a profit and customers are going to come back, which lowers our marketing cost, increases our retention and it's, it's an overall healthy business. Now where in that does it say that we have to get along?

We don't. I think that one of the things that that happens in leadership is that we for some reason.

Feel like average. Everybody getting along, everybody feeling good, everything being lined up, no change whatsoever, no emotional pressure, no drama equals success. But the truth of the matter is, is success usually comes out of strife. Pain liken it to going to the gym. If you go to the gym and you want to get in shape. You're going to have to change your habits, which is going to be uncomfortable. You're going to have to work out and you're going to be sore. You're going to have to get up when you don't want to get up. You're going to have to be consistent and dedicated to it. You're going to have to learn new techniques because your body's going to plateau about three months into it. And so your cardio and your weightlifting that worked before isn't working anymore and you're going to have to change it up. All that stuff is a pain in the butt. And it's the same thing with businesses in leadership. We judge success by how well everybody's getting along. But the truth of the matter is I judge success by how well the customers are taken care of and our profitability. And I don't care if people get along. I really don't. I'm going to create a culture where the customer is the priority and performance is the priority. If you can take care of customers and you have a passion for taking care of customers and you run a good business, you have good numbers, good measurables, and you perform, I don't care if the two advisors get along at all. That's more of an internal need for you that maybe you're a middle child and your siblings fought and you don't like fighting and you don't like that sort of emotional pressure and chaos. But the truth of the matter is, doesn't matter. It's irrelevant. Tell me about your numbers. Tell me about the performance. Right. I find that the leaders that are the least effective are the ones that don't have anybody that hates them. Let me say that again. The leaders that are the least effective are the ones that don't have anybody that hate them. So if you're a leader, you want people to love you, you want people to walk through a wall and die for you. That's important. And the more people that you have that will do that, the better. But the people that are indifferent are the ones that are going to kill you. You're better off to have them hate you than to be indifferent. Because that fuzzy, average, middle, non emotional, non inspired, non performing is the death of you as a leader. So I would much rather have two advisors that didn't get along that are performing and I would get over the way that I handle it and I process it. Because you can change the way you see it, you can change the way you react to it and you'll find that if you elevate yourself a little bit, you can harness their dislike for each other into performance, into passion for the customers. Right? Because there's nothing easier. Like, I don't know how many times I've gone into a dealership and we have this software, right, where service advisors are competing against each other across, you know, our coaching group. So let's say I go to a Ford store in, you know, Alabama, and they're in our competition and there's a Ford store in Texas. I will tell the advisor that is the highest performing one in Alabama that the guy in Texas said something about his mom or said his girlfriend was ugly or something. But I will purposely create some sort of tension between the two to make them compete against each other. And then I'll do the same thing in Texas. They'll say, oh, I was in Alabama and I was telling him, you know, about your numbers and blah, blah, blah. And I will somehow create friction. I'll do the same thing with managers because it's fun. It's fun when you have something to shoot for. It's fun when you're paying attention to your performance and you're giving it a lot of energy. Because all I'm doing right there is I'm gi. I'm putting their energy and focusing their energy on their performance. And when their energy is focused on it, they're paying attention to it, they're driving it, they're trying to improve it, and performance is growing and getting better. Right? Because they're trying to beat somebody that they perceive as an enemy or competition. So I would say it's a gift. It's a very long winded answer, but we kind of went around the cul de sac and we came back. I think that the only thing you need to change is your perception of it. And when you change your perception of it, you will see an opportunity to use it to your advantage and have fun with it. Don't let it affect you emotionally. Don't let it get on you. Just get up a little bit and look at yourself as the puppeteer, not as the puppet. So great stuff. If you're not in our Facebook group, I would encourage you to go to Chris Collins Inc. On Facebook and request to get in there. But there's some great conversations. I made a couple videos today that I only posted in there, but some of. Some of the. The questions and the conversations are very intimate and sincere and the. The community that's going on there is really fun and exciting to. To witness and be. Be a part of it. So if you're not, you know, I encourage you to go there, ask, ask to be accepted into the group and I will see you in there. So fun stuff. Thanks so much for, for posting these comments. Dennis and Sean with the U and everybody have a great weekend and I'll see you next time on Service Drive Revolution.

Next week on Service Drive Revolution, you get to be a fly on the wall for a conversation between myself and Professor Daniel Crane, who is an expert on on consumer law and a writer for Automotive News. Now what we're talking about is the changes in our industry and how Tesla kind of created the crack in the dam going direct to consumer. But now manufacturers are actually turning their backs on the dealer body and so is UAW and siding with Tesla in the hopes of going to direct to consumer themselves. It's a fascinating conversation that it's insight into the future and where we're headed and a must. Listen, thanks for watching this week's Drive By. I hope we gave you something to think about over the weekend. 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 83333 Ask SDR. For special deals on our books and training, head over to offers Chris Collins Inc.com now that's offers.chris collins inc.com I'm Chris Collins and I'll see you in the next video.