#181 - Gamification with Chris Collins

Foreign.

Welcome to the Independent Dealer Podcast with hosts Luke Godwin and Jeff Watson. A podcast by dealers for dealers.

Here we go.

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Independent Dealer Podcast. Luke. Today we have got an amazing, amazing guest. He's an upcoming keynote speaker at NIADA 2021. Mr. Chris Collins.

Yeah, it's an amazing guy to get on the Independent Dealer podcast. We're super excited. Chris, please introduce yourself to the independent dealer community.

I am Chris Collins and I'm a beard model. How about that?

Beautiful.

I'm gonna just show up and I'm just gonna stroke my beard and then I start to have really good ideas after I do that for a couple minutes. No. So I mean, I'm Chris Collins. I've. I've written numerous books, mostly in automotive, but I have one book that is for general business called Gamification that still sells really well on Amazon. But my passion in life is fixing stuff. From a very early age I went around and was fixing car dealerships and I got addicted to fixing stuff. I get bored when things are fixed. I like to solve problems. The harder and more impossible, the more fun for me to do it. And so I fixed everything from doctor's offices to car dealerships and a lot of things in between. When you talk about fixing businesses, probably the most important part of it is psychology. It has very little to do with numbers. Warren Buffet says numbers are easy. It's the people that complicate everything. And I find that to be very true. In fact, years ago when I was single, I dated a shrink and she said that I knew more about psychology than she would ever know because of the automotive industry and what the people I've dealt with. But yeah, I'd love to fix stuff. The harder the problem, the more excited I get.

Well, it seems like in automotive we have plenty of hard problems and stubborn people to fix. Is it any worse to try to fix car dealers than it is doctors?

No, no, they're the, I mean you're just, you're talking about in those situations. The first thing that popped in my mind was ego. When you talk about dealers, when you talk about any entrepreneur that is, you know, really has it on the line, most of the time there's, there's an ego involved because it takes a certain ego to believe that you can go out and start something from not, you know, there's, there's a lot to that and you have a lot on the line. So you, you have to have some sort of self esteem and ego. So most of the time ego Is, is a part of what we're managing, right?

Sure.

And so much. And dealers especially we're guilty of this is we think we know how to do it perfectly. We've been at it for 15 years, or Grandpappy's been at it since he was a kid and passed all of his great, horrible, you know, ideologies down to us. And we just think we know exactly how to do it. And we don't always reach out for help. You know, we don't look around at the guys around us that are doing it different or better right now. Chris, I hope you'd be able to figure out how to solve some of our problems. Like, you know, we got problems with inventory right now. We got problems with hiring, you know, the right people at our dealerships. We do have a lot of problems right now. And you're telling me that all those problems that I see are problems outside of me are actually problems with me?

Well, I mean, let's just talk about the hiring problem because I hear this constantly in every industry when we're talking about how difficult it is to hire people and then let alone good people. Right. It's getting harder and harder. And so I think the first step in that is that we have to stop saying that it's hard because it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, like we're confessing to something. And then oftentimes this is how the conversation will go. And so let's say I'm talking to a dealer and the dealer will say something to the effect of it's impossible to hire technicians. And it's more just a statement of facts, right?

Yeah.

And so then I will just ask a simple question. And I'm not, I'm not trying to be funny, but it does in the moment kind of bite a little bit, is I'll say, okay, well what have we tried? And then they'll say, well, we ran an ad and it didn't work. I'm like, okay, so let's just recap really quick. So it's impossible to hire techs, but the only thing we did is we ran an ad. And at the same time they're telling me this, I'm always googling their ad to try to pull it up. And it's written by an HR department that basically it says, you know, we need a technician. The job of a technician is to, you know, be responsible. And it sounds like an HR anti ad than more like an ad that would attract somebody. They're placing. You know, a lot of their strategy is wrong in how they're doing it. But the reason why I know of a strategy that works to hire good people and is because I never said that it was impossible. I tested and thought of it as a feedback loop. And then when something, you know, if you put up an ad and you don't get candidates in the first 48 hours, you got to change the ad and you got to change what it says, where it's placed. You know, we got to try something until it works. So for us as, as an industry and for our community here, we want everybody to think that it's hard to hire. We. We want everybody to think it's impossible. We want them to be stressed out about it. We want them to be focused on it. We want them to feel defeated. We want them depressed, maybe suicidal. I want my competition suicidal. Believing that they can't hire good people. That's what we want. But we need to be on the other side of that, and we need to have a different strategy and we need to have some tools in our toolbox that while we're feeding to the idea that it's hard, we're actually doing things that are successful and having the pick of the litter because there is somebody out there successful, and why can't it be us?

That's interesting, because when we have a car that we can't sell, we figure out a way to get it sold. So we change the ad, we change the price, we change all of this. But when it comes to hiring, we don't think about that. I mean, there's gotta be some correlation there that why aren't we doing what we know how to do when it comes to hiring?

I think that's a perfect example. Like, it's all in the mindset when we stop saying that we can't sell the car and we start trying different things, eventually, you know, we get to something that works. Like, I don't. We'll just. Because the technician thing, maybe that's the hardest, you know, and most relevant, even though everybody doesn't have technicians, but they can understand. Cause salespeople are hard to hire, but technicians might be the hardest, is oftentimes when a client will change their mindset and their approach. And then they're like, oh, I hired five technicians. And I'll be like, oh, where did they come from? Like, well, two just walked in and I don't know. There's something that had nothing to do with the ad. We just got lucky because we stopped projecting this statement of facts that it can't happen. And so there's Something to that. I don't know that I totally understand how that works in the bigger spiritual side of things. But there's a power to stop saying that it can't and start trying things, and you get lucky.

It's so interesting you say that because it's been such a theme of when you say it's impossible to hire, it's like, well, it's just. It's impossible to hire the way you used to hire. And you're still trying to do these things. You're still trying to hire. You're still trying to source inventory. You're trying to get people the way you used to do it. And it's not working now, but you still do it, which is, you know, they talk about the definition of insanity. It's like, well, yeah, of course you're going back crazy because you're trying to do it the same way you always did it. Why wouldn't you change it up? And does that come down to mindset, Chris? I mean, is that just, like, do we get stuck in these, like, ruts of mindset? Well, I always go to the auction and raise my hand to buy cars, and now I don't. I can't do that anymore. So I just don't have any cars.

Yeah, I think it's easier, in a sense, to say it's hard because we're, you know, we're making an excuse for ourselves. And a lot of times, too, I think it's fear of. It's fear of success also. Right. Like, for example, I was in a situation with somebody who owns a bookstore the other day, and he's got millions of dollars in books that are in warehouses that aren't up online for sale. And so nobody knows about these books, but it's tying up cash in the business. Right. And so I just kind of, you know, because I understand people and I like, in theory, it's so easy to hire somebody to start scanning these and putting them up on a website. I mean, there are some nuances to ones that are out of print and that sort of thing, but it's something that can be figured out pretty easily. And so I stopped and I just looked him right in the eye, and I was like, do you want to sell these books? Like, are you sure you're not emotionally attached to this as a collection? Cause, you know, it is a collection. And, you know, just understanding that human nature, sometimes we're sabotaging ourselves. And there's another thing working behind the scenes in our subconscious that maybe we don't want to sell the books.

Right.

Maybe we wanna hold onto them and we'd rather have the pain of cash flow issues then get rid of something that represents something else. And so a lot of times, what we say and what we mean, there. There isn't a lot of congruency in that. And I wanted to say one other thing. When we talk about when we make the statement that it's. That it's hard to hire or impossible to hire, what happens to your business when the people that you have, you need them more than they need you? What balance of power happens in your business when you're convinced that you can't hire good people?

Yeah, it's broken.

Yeah. Now all of a sudden, you're really.

And you deal with it. You just deal with it.

Yeah.

So now, well, I can't replace him. I'm gonna keep him around.

He's late. He's a cancer. Like, I don't know how many times I hear that from business owners when we're going through, like, who's in their business. They're like, I, oh, well, he's a cancer. And I. And it's like, well, he's been here for 10. Did we know 10 years ago that he wasn't on board, didn't really care. Like, you know, and so that's the other thing is if we don't figure out. When everybody else can't figure it out, if we don't figure it out and have a different mindset, there's other problems that stack up against us that really make it hard to. To function day to day because we're held hostage with the current employees we have. If. If they don't understand that we have other options. Right. A lot of times when I go into a business, I will interview and I will have everybody see me interview just so they know that I have options. I've literally interviewed people like, have you guys ever ran an ad for a position? Like, let's say I run an ad for. For a salesperson. And, And I get people that have nothing to do with sales, like they've been in janitorial or whatever. And they apply. I literally will interview them. And when they leave, I'm like, oh, he's really good. I'm really excited. Just to change the balance of power psychologically. Because if people understand that we're a wounded, you know, wounded Giselle or whatever. Giselle. They have the advantage. And so that's a part of leadership too, is balancing the emotions and the propaganda.

In a sense, that's very interesting because I have felt it's been impossible to hire lately. And it partially is my mindset or fear, almost like a fear of growth. I mean, how big do we want to be, how fast we want to get there? And then when we start losing employees, I feel like I'm in trouble because now my other employees are like sharks in the water and I'm leaking blood and they're about to attack. I mean, that's a real thing. Apparently, then.

Yeah. And so when we say it's hard to hire, that's what we're creating, that scenario. There's just, there's all kinds of fringe, negative benefits to not being able to hire. Right.

Chris, Is it in that situation when we say hard to hire, is that because my dealership is hard to work for? Is that my culture of my dealership? Like, if I had, if I, if I worked as hard on my culture of my dealership as I did on buying cars or making money, would those people just come to me? And my current employees would tell their friends and the word would get out that this is a place you want to work. This is a great, you know, it's almost like some of those places that are real class A joints to work at, even in the fast food industry. I look at them and they don't ever look like they're asking to hire because people are coming to them to get jobs.

Yeah. And I think that's a part of what we battle with as an industry is we've done things the same way for so long that we have a hard time breaking that cycle. I was talking to somebody the other day and they were talking, they're younger, they're in their early 20s, and they were talking about how my generation values working a 70 hour week and how we hang our hat on that. And that's like, you know, it's a badge of honor. And they see that as being very unhealthy in a sense. Right. So, you know, I have, I came up in a, in a world where the harder I worked, the more money I made and the more successful I was. And because I grew up so poor, to me, that was my way out. So I never was complaining about working a 70 hour week. I was just so excited that I had a way out of being poor and, you know, irrelevant and I could become, you know, successful and relevant and have some freedom and some choices. So the 70 hours provided that for me. I never thought of it as an out of balance thing. Well, that's kind of more our generation. Right. The younger generation Sees that as something completely different. And it, you know, it's, it's completely against what they believe in and their thought process. So I had to, in that moment I have to look, I have to try to see it from their point of view because they're the future and I might not be able to change them. So I really have to go to work to understand, okay, how can I take that and leverage that to get them to be more committed and want to work. Right. So, you know, there's a lot of things that we can do as employers that we just don't think that way. But it, it, it's a nuclear weapon in a sense. Like take for example, a 410 work week. Like if, if I go into a lot of businesses and I create four, 10 work weeks, I can recruit like crazy. People are lining up and the only hang up there is my ability to create a schedule that covers everything. Or the fact that I am old school and I think of that is, oh well, that's a shortcut or that, you know, that's not how we do things. But if it works and it's effective, maybe I need to change. And that's the conclusion that I've come to is I am going to have to change because they're not going to change for me. Right. I got 25, 30 years of experience working against me in that scenario.

How do we change that mindset? I mean, that's what, you know, what can we do? Or is that something you're going to tell us at convention? I guess.

Well, I'm going to, at the convention I'm going to talk about the secret to everything, which is going to blow everybody away. But I would say just in that sense, a really easy thing to think about. And I'm constantly trying to train my mind to think this way is, well, is the outcome what I want? I have all these opinions and I have all these habits and I have a natural automatic reaction to things. But is the outcome of that what I want? And if it's really hard for me to hire, or if I'm not selling what I, what I want to sell, or I'm not hitting the goals or my customers aren't happy, I got to step back a second and acknowledge the fact that my patterns are not creating the outcome I want and I need to look at it in a non emotional way, put my ego in my pocket for a minute and think strategically about it. Does that make sense?

Totally. I've never thought about listing what I want the outcome to be and then backing into it, because, I mean, that's what we do in our mind every day. But not when it comes to building culture and hiring people. I just hadn't thought about it.

Yeah. And I mean, all of us are guilty of this. I have here in the office, I have a big art piece, and it's a jar. And it says on the label, the jar, it says, you can't read the label of the jar you're in. And I mean, so it's, you know, it's easy for somebody to come in from the outside and look at my business and have a fresh perspective. But I'll tell you all day long why things are this way or that way, because I'm in it and I'm in the jar. Right. And so there's a certain advantage, too, to being in a community with other entrepreneurs and sharing ideas and helping each other and giving each other constructive feedback in the spirit of us all getting better and moving along together. And the industry changing with the consumers, because the consumers and technology are changing at a rapid pace. And we seem, as an industry, to change a little slower than everybody else.

I agree. And Covid has sped up that change. Have you seen what Covid has done to culture and businesses as a whole? Do you notice anything different?

Yeah. So, I mean, let's just talk about what culture means for a second, and then we can talk about how Covid has affected that. Cause I think it has. But I think that for a long time in business, what culture is has been misunderstood. So I will have somebody come to me, and they will say, I just want my people to be happy. I just want them to be happy. My culture isn't good. And I'll say, okay, so the idea of a good culture is happy people. And that is not what culture is at all. What culture is, is the opposite of chaos. So, like, take, for example, like, we live in America or Canada. Could be the same. I grew up in Mexico as a missionary's kid, and I grew up in Tijuana, Mexico. A really, really rough part. When I was five years old, my mom and my stepdad used to role play them trying to stuff me into a car and getting kidnapped. And they wanted me to bite, kick, scratch. But the thing that was embedded in me is if. If they get you in the van or the car, we'll never see you again. So let them stab you, let them shoot you, but do not get in the car, because what would happen there? And it happened many times, somebody would get shot on the street. Nobody came and Picked up the body, nobody investigated that. And so the reason why we're so lucky in America is because murder is illegal. And if somebody is shot here, they come and investigate it. And for the most part, somebody is going to be held responsible for that crime. And so there's a basic understanding here that if you commit murder, there's a consequence for it. And that's culture. Right? That's the culture is that we have the freedom to walk around and nobody's going to shoot us because we cut them off in traffic. Imagine a world where if somebody cuts you off or upsets you, you can just shoot them. Right. It would be chaos.

Chaos.

Right. And so it's the same thing in our business is we perceive culture to be making our employees happy. But you can't make employees happy. I've never been able to make anybody happy. But I can recruit people that are happy, I can recruit people that perform. And so, you know, it's like with a salesperson, if you hire a salesperson that's selling two cars somewhere else, there's no reason to expect that they're gonna sell 20 cars for us. But if I hire somebody that's selling 20 cars, there's a pretty good chance they'll sell 20 cars for us because that's their self esteem, that's how they see themselves. Right. So if you give me five salespeople selling two cars and you're like, Kris, fix the culture, make them happy. Well, why, how much work is it for me to make two car Sam happy?

Yeah.

Full time job.

Yeah. And it's a bottomless pit. And so culture is about having standards and rules and attracting people that perform into those standards and rules. If I bring, if I have group of salespeople that are all selling 20 cars a month and I bring in somebody who's selling two, there's a chance that that two car Tim or whatever is gonna poison my well. Right, sure. And I would hope that my culture's strong enough that he just wouldn't fit in and they would run him off. I mean, that's really what a culture of performance is, is that the culture is so strong that somebody who won't perform goes away in 30 days because they can't hang. And so culture is about having minimum requirements, about having standards, about having boundaries for what we're willing to accept and being good at recruiting people into that, that that's already how they think or they're a natural fit for that. And so a lot of times you come into an underperforming Business. And I don't care if it's a restaurant, a doctor's office, a gym, whatever it is. If they're losing money and underperforming, there's a good chance that, that I'm not gonna be able to convince everybody that's there to pick up a shovel and start digging. Cause they're too self involved and they don't care. And if I'm just focused on making them happy, I'll never fix the business. So what I have to do is I have to come in with some standards, some self esteem for what I expect, what we believe we're capable of, and then build from there. But that's where I think that we get culture wrong, is we don't understand that the opposite of culture is chaos. And culture is really about attracting people that have the same beliefs, the same work ethic, the same values that we have for performance. And then building off of that, not trying to shove somebody who doesn't share that into our beliefs. Because it's, you know, that happened when they were kids, their parenting, their childhood. If they have a different makeup and trauma and all the things that are working against them, I can't fix that.

Yeah, I mean, are we just beating our head against the wall to think that we have an employee or someone that we can change, that we can change their comp plan, change their motivation, change their stuff? Or you're saying we just need to accept the fact that you gotta cut bait and move on.

So my approach to fixing things is always that I give everybody a chance. So I come in and I explain to everybody where we're at. I'm a really good communicator, I'm a pretty good storyteller. And then I put minimum requirements in place. And most of the time you would be surprised just putting minimum requirements in place. The guy that's selling 6 cars sells 10. Because now they have a standard that they have to perform to or they lose their job. And then I go, well, why don't we just go to 12? And then we go to 12 and somehow they figure out how to get to 12. Because I'm very clear in what the expectations are and how you get there. Right. And so I'll give them training, I'll give them encouragement along the way. But I have to have boundaries. Murder has to be illegal. And I call it the murder line. You have to have a murder line.

That's interesting.

And so then they fire themselves. And that's what I prefer because I hate to fire. I don't like to fire anybody. I'd much prefer that they fire themselves.

I do, too. It always makes it less messy, right?

Yeah.

So back to now we know what culture is, what is Covid done and the environment we've been living in for the last 16 months. What has it done to affect our culture in general in business?

Well, so let's say that you previously had a culture of underperformance and entitlement, and then you bring Covid into the equation. You have people that panic, you have people that get depressed, they overreact. Right. We lose focus of the customer. And in Covid, a lot of businesses gained market share because they were a solution to the customers. They could adapt because their focus was performance in the customers. And so you. I thought. I think you saw a real divide between the strong cultures and what they offered and how they grew market share during this. And the ones that had cultures of entitlement and how they constantly were closing, people weren't showing up, and they didn't have a lot to build on because they didn't have the right people to begin with.

That's. That's very interesting because I. I believe that you see that in every business that you've gone to, where great businesses gained market share and the ones who were just kind of on the fence got worse. I think the longer this stretches on, though, it's starting to really put a stress even on good businesses. You think that's the case or no?

Well, you know, I think that we're in a unique situation that I've been reading a lot and trying to understand. And I would be curious what you guys think of is that what I'm noticing with the businesses that have survived and that are gaining market share is one thing that's happening, is they're dramatically raising their prices. There's a layer of price elasticity that's happening right now. That's a layer of inflation that I don't think shows up in the inflation numbers. I mean, I'll give you an example. Is there. There's a restaurant here in LA that, you know, Michelin Star, one of my favorite restaurants. And I went in there for dinner the other night and like, you know, a $60 bottle of wine that there was 120 before is now 500. And just the prices of trainers and gyms, and they're realizing that they have an advantage. And if the gym is the only one that's open, then they can charge more, and they're charging more. And, you know, that's a business strategy.

But.

It is creating a scenario where to hire the best people. They're charging more and paying people more to get them to show up. And it's an interesting thing to watch in restaurants and gyms and in retail when, you know, it might be easier to order something on Amazon. A lot of retail, you know, clothing department stores are trying to navigate and figure that out. And one part of it is they're dramatically raising their prices and their margins are going to be higher. But I think they're spending that on personnel and on the. Some restaurants here in LA had to build outside facilities. It was hundreds of thousands of dollars. The consumer's gonna pay for that in the end. But the ones that had the culture of performance and a real team that was in it and used to challenges, used to taking on new, you know, new challenges and endeavors, definitely you can tell that the mindset has gained them market share where other businesses I've seen close and come and go and struggle. And I do believe there are a lot of businesses that are barely holding on, that are going to go away more than have already.

And we have so much of that issue in the used car, in the independent space, because, you know, our cost of car is going up, our cost of labor is going up, parts going up. You know, we have a lot of costs that are going up, and we're trying to, you know, keep our gross margins. And we can only increase our sales prices so far because we fight against, you know, the book values and all this other stuff. But it seems to me like when you go to those premium places, it's a Michelin star, it's this, that or the other. You're okay paying that premium if the customer experience is there. Right, Chris? It seems like as dealers, we can be a premium quote, unquote, price on our product, and we're going to deliver exceptional customer service to back that up, because we're going to have the people that have the culture and are happy and want to be there. Right.

I think there's a balance of that. I mean, I didn't order the bottle of wine I would have normally ordered.

But will you go back to the restaurant?

I'm not going to pay $500 for a bottle of wine. I can get for 65 at the store. You know, so I wonder, like, I'm, you know, I'm curious and I, you know, I will come back around and poke my head in there and see what's going on and try to get, you know, some insight into the numbers. But I think that the thing that happened pre Covid that really, you know, is showing right now too is, you know, for a while there we were going more to an experience economy and it was more about being a part of a club and being a part of something or experiencing something or getting a selfie that you could post on social media in events. Right? And I think now more than ever the consumers are pent up and that's where they're going. They're going to the places that are having events that they can take a selfie and share and so understanding who your customers are and understanding how to market to them and attract them. I think that the thing that's missing in the automotive industry that we're not understanding is people don't, don't see the things that we see as different.

Right.

They don't see the sale of it, the maintenance of it. They don't see those as different things. And they want something all inclusive and they want there to be perks and they want there to be benefits of. And so it might not just be about the price, but it's definitely about how they feel included and how it resonates with who they believe they are and their identity.

Again, that's one of those things that's gotta be a changing mindset for the dealer community because it's not something we were used to, but it might be something we have to become used to in the future, right?

Yeah, I think we've taken that for granted for a long time and now were, you know, to. What I kind of mentioned earlier is we're going to have to change because the consumer has changed a lot and we've been able to do things the way that we've always done them. And now the market has been turned upside down with. And you know, like you mentioned, Covid kind of was gasoline on that fire. It made everything move quicker.

You know, when you talk about events and being in a community, that is exactly what we look forward to. Right. In San Antonio on the 25th at 9 o', clock, Chris is going to be giving his keynote speech. We're all going to be there. Hopefully everyone listening is going to be there. Chris, is there anything else you can share with us? Little tidbits, teasers you can give us from that keynote that's going to make everybody be in their seats, on the edge of their seats, taking notes?

Well, I mean, the first thing is what's great about events like this is we are a community and a lot of times you get as much out of the breaks and the lunches and networking and just being around others that almost can finish your sentence, right? Because we're all in this together. And it doesn't matter if you're in Washington state or in Virginia. The market is challenging and we can all help each other and learn from each other. So just the fact that you're there in the room, you're going to get solutions and you're going to make friends and network and have somebody that understands from your perspective. Because it's a lonely world being an entrepreneur like it is. You can't talk to your employees about what's going on. Sometimes you can't even talk to your spouse because you don't want them to worry. This is the one safe place where you can do that. And then when you come in and watch me talk, I promise you're gonna leave different than when you walked in. You're gonna have a new insight and some tools that are gonna be scalable. And then you're immediately gonna be able to implement and see results. And so, you know, it's gonna be a fun, exciting time. And this might be something that we all look back on and see as the flip, right? We're the flip. And the balance of power, because that's the goal, is that we leave there with some new tools that we feel encouraged and empowered. And you know, if you. If right now you're sitting there and you're like, I don't know why I'm doing this anymore and I'm beat up and you know, the things I try aren't working, that's going to change. You're going to have some new ideas and a new path and you know, it's going to help your self esteem, it's going to help your confidence, and that's gonna breed new things, new opportunities, new mindsets, and it's gonna change the dialogue in your mind to be more positive. Cause it's hard to be alone right now in these market conditions. You need a community.

I totally agree. And I guess it's the secret to everything, right, Chris?

Yep, that's it. It is the secret to everything. My new book, the COVID is a normal cover and I won't tell you the title, but when you open it up, there's like a Fabio on a horse with a sword. And it says that, you know, the real title is the Secret to Everything because that's what it is and that's what we're gonna talk about. And you will see things different when you leave. You'll have a new perspective that'll be empowering.

I can't wait either.

Yeah. Thank you, Chris.

Yeah, thank you.

Thanks, Chris.

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