Your R.O. Counts are About to Drop

Welcome, everybody, to Service Drive Revolution. Today we are going to talk about the impending doom of future RO count dropping. We know that the RO account is going to drop over the next 12 to 24 months. But why? And what can you do to get ahead of it?

You know what that reminds me of?

I'm Chris Collins, and this is Chris Joan. Hello. Everyone jokes.

I do. How do you. How do you get friend. How do you get rid of a friend you don't really like?

How?

Loan him money, you'll never see him again.

Finally.

Finally, when I get.

So we're going to talk about that and also heavy metal music and much more. Coming up on this episode of Service Drive Revolution.

I'm always thinking about songs for shift meetings, like, songs that, like, lift. Lift the spirits of people. But you came into the office over there. Well, I guess you could call that my office.

Definitely your office.

My office. And you made the comment when you came in, you're like, oh, I never know what kind of music I'm gonna hear when I walk in here.

That's right.

Now, why would you say such a thing?

So I would say that you have the most diverse ear for music that I've ever of, anyone I've ever met in my life. And it just happens that as I entered your office, I literally thought there was a seance going on in the background.

A what?

A seance or something.

A seance?

Yeah.

What's that?

Like, where you try to summon spirits and souls of death?

Oh, I. I think more like what you experienced is like a car hitting a wall over and over again as fast as humanly possible.

That's pretty good, too.

I wish I would have thought it was just violence.

Yeah. I. I'm sure that my blood pressure.

So I want everybody. And I don't know if we'll be able to play the clip for you, but I want everybody to kind of look up in your spare time, look up a band called Cannibal Corpse.

And then.

Take a. Take a gander at the song called Hammer Smashed Face, because that's the song we were listening to when you came in. So it's Cannibal Corpse, Hammer Smashed Face. And there's, like, nothing makes me feel old than music that makes me feel super out of touch. So, like, I remember listening to, like, Anthrax or Slayer when I was a kid.

Yeah.

And my grandfather.

Being like, what is this noise? And I would just. I would be like, oh, grandpa, you don't get it. This is incredible.

Like, you know.

And it's so funny. Because now you listen to this music and there you couldn't find a melody. Like Anthrax is like Tony Bennett compared.

To what we listened to today, for.

Sure, it is just straight violence. And the other thing. So if you've ever been in a band, like, if you've been a musician in a band and only people in bands really know this, like, it's kind of an inside.

Type of scenario. Is that what happens in a band is your singer is usually a little.

I don't know, a little douchey. But what you will experience over time if you're in the same band with a singer for a while is the way that a singer gets girls is that they tell girls that they wrote a song about them.

That's right.

So you will, over time there will be like, you know, three or four different girls that believe that a specific song is about them. Which is why when you hear bands interviewed, often, they don't ask the question of what's this song is about. Because I don't care if it's Jon Bon Jovi or, like, I don't know, who else would it be? Like Harry Connick Jr. Whatever. They've told girls that the song is about them.

Right.

And so if all of those girls are watching the interview, they're going to be like, what? No, it's about me. Yeah. And so when you're listening to a song like the song we were listening to by Cannibal Corpse called Hammer Smash Face, is that singer telling a girl, like, is there a girl out there that's like, oh, my God, he wrote that song about me? Yeah, for sure. Hammer Smashed Face.

And then she's going off to her friends, hey, you know that he wrote.

That song about me.

Cannibal Corpses. You know that song Hammer Death Punch? Yeah, that's about me.

You just changed the name Hammer Death Punch.

Let me go through some of these song titles.

My favorite one, you can't read.

I can't read your favorite one, but Code of the Slashers. And then Make Them Suffer. Inhuman Harvest.

Evisceration Plague.

Oh, that's for Brittany.

Scourge of Iron and Murderous Rampage. And then Only One Will Die. And Red Before Black. I mean, how great. Like, there's a girl out there going, oh, that song is about me. It's, ah, he's such an artist. He's such a poet. Meanwhile, it just sounds like.

There'S no melody. Like, I wonder. See you. Like, we were listening to it and I'm like, do they ever. Like, is there a producer that's like, no, you gotta do it again. It's not angry enough.

Yeah, it needs more.

Like, that's all it is.

It's a soundtrack to a. Soundtrack to a smashroom.

Yeah. You guys check that out. Like, I would highly suggest you play that in a shift meeting. Your sales, your alignment. Sales are gonna go through the roof. Cause nothing motivates advisors more than thinking they're gonna die.

First thing in the morning. 6:45.

Better than. Better than any coffee you could ever have.

It was so unbelievable.

It is funny, though, that people have this perception of me. Like, there's probably people out there. They're like, oh, Chris. Chris is into country music. Or Chris is into what you're into.

Everything.

You would never know what I'm into. Classical. Whatever. I listen to so many different kinds of music.

Oh, music. I remember one time walking into your office and it was like, beep, boop.

Like, there was like the weird noises in the. You know what I'm talking about?

No, but I, I.

It's like a white noise kind of sound.

Oh, yeah.

Record.

My chick hates that album.

Me too.

There's one. There's one album I have. I have it on vinyl. It's just tension. Like, it's just like. It's the craziest thing ever. Nobody cares about any of this, do they? But I will.

The girl that had the song written.

About her name of the album, because it is. It is an interesting.

You know, so even that, that heavy metal that we were listening to, I don't really. I don't enjoy it, but I make myself listen to it because I'm trying to understand, like, what is. What is it that I'm like. Just because I don't like it the first time through or whatever. Like, I try to listen to something five times before I decide.

You know? Well, I just think.

I just think that's kind of a testament to where you think too. Like, I could never imagine you saying, I only like country music.

Just like this album doesn't really have.

Really recognizable sounds. It doesn't have a name that you can say either.

Of course.

So the album is by Alvo Noto, but what would you say that is? Hyber Di.

Hybrid.

That's what that says.

It says Hybrid one would be my guess.

Okay, well, I think that's the album you're talking about, but it's just pure tension. And I don't. My chick hates it. She hates when I put that on, But I don't know. I'm just trying to understand what people Are thinking, just tell her song three.

Was written about her.

I feel like doing things that you don't understand or don't like help you expand your thinking. And so I'm not always looking to be comfortable.

Yeah, that's the part that I really respect.

I have art in my house that makes me super uncomfortable that you would never imagine that I could never show you because you couldn't handle it probably.

Oh, you got some pretty cool stuff in there too, though.

I know, but there's one that.

Have I seen it?

Nuts. Probably not. It's nuts.

That makes me even more.

It made me uncomfortable. That's why I bought it.

Who's it from?

So here is it the British guy? Have I ever told you the story about when my mom came over? I'm sorry, we'll get to the topic. But this is a fun, a funny story. So I. This, this painting came from this couple in Italy. And it's a. It's kind of a disturbing image, but there's also a part of it that's really cool that there's actually a Rothko in it. Like a Rothko painting in the painting. I just lost everybody again because most people don't know what a Rothko is. But I had it in the. In the spare bedroom, like the workout room. And when my mom came down for some holiday.

She asked me, she goes.

Honey, can you put a chair in that room so when I get up in the morning, I can go in there and pray and read my Bible. So that that room is across from the guest bedroom in my house, right? Directly across. So I carry this chair, this heavy ass chair up the stairs. I put it there with an ottoman and a pillow for her, thinking, okay, my mom gets up, she's going to pray in that room or whatever. So I don't know, she's been there a few days. And I said, I go, mom, is that chair working out okay for you? Like, you know, are you doing your thing in the room or whatever? And she's like.

Honey, I just do not understand how you would expect me to pray with that thing on the wall. I never thought how disturbing that painting would be with.

So you put it in there. It felt so bad. So immediately, you know, what I did is I took it and I put it in my bedroom. So it's now in my bedroom because I can't put it anywhere else. It's just stuck there.

You have not told me when you.

Come over, I'll show it to. Coming over later today? Yeah, I'll show it to you.

I can't wait to see it.

And you'll be like, oh, like, that's. That will be your. Your reaction will be like, oh. Huh. But it'll make you uncomfortable.

Yeah.

I haven't seen anything like it in my life. Like, never seen anything like it. And it's. As much as it makes you uncomfortable, it's beautiful. Yeah, it's a weird, weird thing. But I don't. The same thing with music or whatever. Like, I think too, that that helps you not judge people.

Great.

Because, like, you know, when you meet people and they. They lead with their trauma or their anger, their terrible attitude or whatever it is that they're projecting, I think that being open to other things helps me not judge them in the moment.

Yeah, that's one of my. Yeah, that's one of my favorite Chase Hughes lessons.

If you judge, you lose.

Just let him be. Just let him be them.

If you judge, you lose the genius that is Chase Hughes. Okay, so let's get to the topic for today. And so we are in a scenario where we can sort of scientifically predict that the RO count is going to drop over the next 12 and 24 months. No doubt RO accounts are going to drop. And let me kind of explain why. Now, whether you disagree with this or not, just keep an open mind because you might look back on this and be like, oh, hey, I, you know, I would rather you be prepared and were wrong than not be prepared and be blindsided.

Yeah. The best thing would be we're wrong. Yeah.

But.

Still very slim chance trying to give that hope that we're wrong. Okay, so the first thing that is an indicator that they're going to drop is, is gas prices being so high. So what happens is we're going into our busier months with. With summer. And typically during the summer, people will drive more because they're going on trips, vacations, they. They're getting out because the weather's good and people want to be out. They want to go visit family, they want to go visit parks, they want to go to experiences, whatever it is, they typically drive more. But when gas prices are as high as they are historically, the people stay home and they don't drive because the, you know, for a lot of people, that added expense is cutting into their fun budget.

That's right.

And so with gas prices as high as they are, traffic is going to be down. People are not going to be driving as much, which means vehicles aren't going to break as much, they're not going to need as much maintenance. So, and we're going to talk about here some things that you can do to get ahead of this. But we're just going to paint the scenario and then we'll talk about what some, some ideas would be for you, for you to jump in front of, in front of this.

The other thing, a little thing here. But more and more people are working from home and they're not commuting to work. So that's having an effect on how many miles people are putting on cars.

With the, you know, Ukraine and all these other things that are going on.

Morale, you know, you come through Covid.

And people are isolated. The things that you hold dear taken away.

It psychologically has an effect on everybody and society. And then you come out of that and now you're being bombarded with bad news with Ukraine, war, nuclear war. It's, you know, it in a sense is conditioning everybody to want to stay home and play it safe.

Yeah. How many times can you get hit? And they got back to, back to back.

Yeah. And so people are glued to their TVs, ratings are up. And so that means people are at home and they're, they're watching tv.

People have less disposable income because we have stagflation. We have inflation going up, so interest rates are going to go up. People are, their wages are not increasing to the degree that prices are increasing.

Oh, it's going the wrong way really fast.

So they don't, they don't have disposable income. So they're going to drive less and they're going to spend less on their vehicles. They're uncertain about the, you know, about the economy.

And the other thing is that we have been selling less new vehicles into the marketplace, and that is going to start affecting. So when everybody was panicking during COVID I said over and over again, the, the work is there, it's pent up. And sure enough, the work is there and it's pent up. And we're experiencing that right now. But once we're kind of through that, we're gonna experience the drop in new car sales in the service drives. So there's less new cars going into the market. And even though we're selling the cars for more.

They'Re not as many going into the marketplace. So when sales are, are lower, the RO accounts follow, usually 6 to 12 months behind that. So you have a lot of different things going on that are going to contribute to the drop in RO account. Did I miss anything?

No, that's pretty good. I think that did I paint enough.

Of a doom and gloom.

It's a good one. There was a.

What's that. What's the name of that band again?

Cannibal something. Yeah, Cannibal. Cranium Crushers.

We should have them on. I wonder what they drive. Cannibal Corpse.

So close. I knew there was alliteration in there. But there's no way they don't drive Toyota Tercells. Remember those little. Those little things?

You think so?

Yeah, probably.

They look like they're driving pickup trucks, but I don't know.

Oh, maybe.

You judge, you lose.

That's right.

Now how do we fix it, Christian? That's the problem. Like. Okay, everybody. Everybody listens. Going. Okay, Chris, thanks for the bad news. Thanks. Now I'm scared. Now I'm scared. Nuclear war. Now this.

That's right. People just started building their fallout shelters. Wait, there's more.

I gotta buy rice and beans.

So much rice and beans.

How do we fix it?

A lot of possibilities. Okay, I can think of at least six.

Yeah, there's at least six on here. So the.

I'm not going to do these in the order we have them, really. But the. The first thing that you want to think about is.

A drop in RO count should mean one thing and it usually doesn't because we're not thinking this way. But if you think this way now, it will mean this one thing, and that is that when the RO account drops, your average per ticket should go up.

Just makes more sense.

So if we get good at selling alignments and tires and our inspections and our systems and our processes now.

Then we will be okay when the ROS drop because we'll be making more per customer. And some of these things that we're going to talk about are going to help with that. Like we dramatically see an increase, an average per ticket when a couple of these things happen. But you want to focus on your systems and your average per customer before you focus on RO account. How good are your systems and what's the outcome of your systems? Do you have a high average per ro? Are you selling what's needed to be sold? Are we inspecting and are we converting on those all those things that increase our sales per ticket? The second thing is start thinking now about valeting cars, going to pick them up and mobile service. More and more we're having clients having a ton of success with mobile service. You want to speak to. That is something you're really excited about.

Yeah. So I think mobile service is the wave of the future. And I think that it was Maybe two episodes. We had a.

Two episodes ago.

Two episodes ago it was in the news about.

I don't remember what happened yesterday.

Oh, I've got a. I've got a little library in the noggin. But we were talking about a company that.

Was mobile tire service. And I think those things are kind of taking off, but the thought for a customer that we can come to them, because, I mean, think about it, like, let's go crazy. Worst case scenario, let's say that gas is 12 bucks a gallon. Like, literally, someone's contemplating whether or not they should drive to a point. So why not take that away from them and make it really, really easy? I think mobile service, for the most part, there's so many things you can do out in the field that would just make people's lives easier and endear them to you. Right. So I think that there's that going on, but essentially.

It'S just saying, how easy can we make it for our customers to do business with us?

Yeah. And whether, whether you're running a heavy duty truck service department or, you know, car, Toyota, Nissan, whatever. The key to mobile service is you believing in it, not whether it works or not. Because I've literally been in truck dealerships that say that it can work and it's working incredibly well, and ones that say that it can't work and it's not working. And same thing with car dealerships in the sense, like, there's a Honda store, Honda comes out with a bunch of recalls. They decide to start because they can't handle the capacity doing mobile service to do recalls. And then they learn that customers love it and they can, you know, do a lot that way. And so it's just believing that it can work and not throwing the baby out with the bathwater that makes it successful. So keep that in mind. Yeah.

I would say, though, this doesn't happen all the time, but I think that truck is actually doing a better job of adopting that.

Yeah. But there are still some that like, just kind of like the guy that was like, we don't sell tires, we don't sell tires.

Ow. That's about how hard that was.

Okay, next thing. And I know most service managers don't think this way, but it's going to flip. And in the future, you're going to want to identify yourself as a marketer. You want to start understanding how to market social media, how to control a narrative and put a message out there that isn't just buy three tires, get one free, but really how to tell a Story how to separate yourself in social media from everybody else. I'm spending a ton of time on this in our new so we're redoing service manager university on our platform and I'm spending a ton of time on marketing because I know that that's going to be something that is really, really important in the future and you want to start identifying yourself as a marketer. And just because you haven't had to up until now doesn't mean that it isn't a good idea in the future. Because if you're effective on social media, there's no easier way to build a tribe of loyal customers than by, you know, being the leader of that tribe on social media. Right. And understanding how to do that. So think of yourself as a marketer and then, you know, under marketing, like reminder letters are you doing reminder calls, emails, postcards, like just one thing isn't going to work right? What are you doing with your inactive customers? And then when you talk about inactive customers, one thing I want you to really think about is when customers are driving less, they're not due for less service, they're just programmed that services on miles, not time.

So you're going to have to do an extra good job of reminding them that it's time and mileage. So you want to start reminding customers that they need an oil change on time just as much as mileage and conditioning them and getting them to think that way. But you need to educate them and that's part of marketing. It's controlling a narrative and telling a story. And so that's going to be a big key to your, your success going forward. The, the next one is batteries, tires, alignments, fuel system, like really hitting the things that drive traffic and matter. Right?

And especially right now, like if you can't explain the benefits of an alignment in a fuel system and what it does for fuel economy, like who's not paying attention to ways to save gas? That's, that's shooting fish in a barrel.

And so all of your systems need to get better, like making an appointment, the process of ride up pickup, all of those are going to contribute to your retention and, and customers wanting to come back. So every customer you touch today is an opportunity to make sure they come back in the future. You have home field advantage. It's just what are your systems doing? What's the outcome of your current, as they would say in Canada, process.

Nice process.

And then the last one we have is events like so cool service clinics, events, any excuse to get customers to come in and See your, your service department in a different light than just oil changes and spark plugs. Like connecting with them on a different level. Having, you know, guest speakers come in, having events, art shows, wine tasting. There's nothing better than getting them a little liquored up and then going for a test drive.

That's right.

I'm joking. Do not do that. That's not legal. That was totally a joke. But having events and collaborating with other businesses in your market also. But clinics, events, that sort of thing.

Big part of a live music event with the Cannibal Cranium Crushers. Yeah.

Have them come.

How'd that go over?

Yeah, sales would go crazy.

If not.

Whatever it takes. Just make it stop.

Whatever it takes.

At the very least it would be.

Can you align it twice?

Right. At the very least, it'd be an increase in the amount of assault with bodily intent or bodily harm intention.

Kind of. In closing here too, I want to say that there's a lot of you out there that are going to try to navigate this on your own and that's okay, but you don't have to. We have a community here and we have a lot of talented managers in our group, a lot of talented coaches, and we have fresh ideas all the time that not only will work, but they'll just inspire you that there's new ways of doing things. And you're not alone. Right. Because the, the worst thing is to try to navigate this and learn the hard way and feel, feeling like it's just you against the world. That is not the case. So, you know, should you feel that way, reach out and, you know, let's have a conversation. But our coaching group is as much a community as it is a coaching group. We learn from our clients and share those ideas as much as what we already know. It's definitely a two way stream and you're not alone. So don't go at it. If you feel that way, get in our community and let us help inspire you and help you see things in a more positive light. Because it is getting bleaker and bleaker. But there's a lot of people taking advantage of the opportunity and you want to be one. So thank you so much for tuning in. We appreciate you watching and we will see you next time 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 SDR. 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. Sam.