#186 - What We Learned From NIADA 2021

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Welcome to the Independent Dealer Podcast with hosts Luke Godwin and Jeff Watson. A podcast by Dealers for Dealers. Here we go.

Welcome to the Independent Dealer Podcast brought to you by Buckeye dealership consultant Jeff. We finally made it back, buddy.

Yeah, back again, man. Back again. Convention was awesome. It was.

It was great to see everybody. I'm past the COVID window, so I think I'm okay. Jeff, you got a call for a sneeze or any.

I think I dodged it all out there. I don't know. I haven't heard anyone else that did.

Well. I think everybody got Covid a few weeks prior at other conventions.

Oh, okay. Great timing for this one. So we had a really. I mean, just a great time, man. Seeing so many familiar faces and names that I'd never put faces to from the Facebook group. I mean, I really do like everyone who didn't attend. I hope you've got a strong dose of fomo, because you really did miss out on a great time this episode. Luke, let's just share with everyone kind of our highlights, our takeaways, just so those that didn't attend can maybe get a little bit of education. Of course, I think you can go back to the website, and I think maybe they recorded some sessions. I don't know. I'm not sure this is on the.

You may. You may have to wait a few weeks, and then they'll. If you're a member of nida. Well, they got a new website, so who knows exactly how, but you should be able to sign in and then, you know, watch some sessions. But they do a great job of recording it and it's there. And if not, you can listen to the previous podcast that we did. We tried to go over some things. We. We had some dealer interviews from vendor episode. So, yeah, you know, it's there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we'll give you guys our Cliff Notes. Our takeaway for me, I mean, meeting the dealers and the dealer community and rubbing elbows and seeing and talking to everyone. The conversations in between sessions and at dinner and during lunch, those are the highlights for me. But as far as the agenda goes, I really think Michael Irving just. He really hit it out of the park, man. That guy is.

That was a powerful, powerful speech.

Yes. When you. When you hear the word keynote, when you hear the word, you know, motivation, rah, rah. Everyone's kind of like, well, what does this guy know about car dealerships? Blah, blah, blah, whatever. No, but being motivated, like, man, he's. He's fine. He's polished. His trait man, he is good at speaking.

You know, it's. You know, it's one of those things. The guy was one of the best wide receivers to ever walk the planet. Right. And so he's got something that. That we don't have. And you know what? I wrote a list of notes, but one of the things that I thought that was just. I think was. Was his base was you can master anything as long as you can master yourself first. And it was just interesting to hear him say that. And so many of us, you know, fight demons or whatever, but as long as we can get ourselves, you know, going in the right direction, we can typically sway others, and we can, you know, we can be leaders. And I think a lot of us that. That were at the meeting were leaders. And it just. It was great to hear that extra thing that we could do maybe to get better. And he's still working out every morning at 5am and the guy looks like it, right?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He had the energy. It was crazy. It's really how you expect every speaker to sound and act and that motivation. And he also said his other kind of tagline was, I must do what I have to do before I can do what I want to do. Right.

That was awesome. Yeah.

You know, and again, super powerful. So he was probably the highlight of the week for me as far as the speakers go. Of course, Chris Collins was great as well. Came out and taught us a lot. And then some of the breakout sessions, I can't name them all, and I know we can't name them all because there were so many great ones that we don't want to leave anybody out, but a lot. A lot of great education and breakout sessions. I learned a ton from Tracy Meyer's breakout, Jonathan Dawson's breakouts, Joel Escotas. I mean, there were so many.

Yeah, there was. There were a lot of good sessions. Sometimes, I mean, to me, it felt like there were too many sessions, Jeff. Four and five at a time. I'm sure there were rooms that were slightly empty. Maybe not. Maybe all of them were full the whole time, and I just didn't see it. But there were several sessions I wanted to go to that were stacked on top of each other that I did not like, but, you know, that's the way it goes sometimes in these conventions.

Yeah, yeah, let's get it. Let's. We'll get into our takeaways and some more of our notes, but on that, to write on that. Yes, obviously, you know, the feedback that we have or that we've heard from dealers is maybe a few less sessions at the same time. You know, some maybe need to be shorter, some maybe need to be longer. My big, the big rub for me was every single session was taught by a vendor.

Every single one of them.

Yes. So I know and some of them were blatant pitch sessions and I won't call anyone out individually, but they were blatantly pitching their product straight up. Here's my website, here's how you get a hold of me, here's my product, here's the screenshots, here's how it works. You, the title of the breakout is only achievable if you have their product. And that's the issue I have.

Now there was one that I enjoy because I use the product. But yes, but yes. And I think there, I think there's room for that and I think there needs to be a track for that. Yeah, but making a general session might not be the right way to do it.

And here's my idea that I would put forward is I think there should be a specific track throughout the whole week that is just for vendors to pitch their product and they can pay for it or they can sign up for it. But yes, I would like to attend a 30 minute or a 60 minute session on, you know, the way this specific product works. You know, I'd really like to dive deeper into vinq or I'd like to deep dive, dive deeper into Neo, dealer.

Socket or Neo or yeah, so great.

I'm interested in their product. I don't want to go to the booth and make them pitch me or make them pitch three dozen dealers all week long. But one time, half hour, 45 minutes, give me screenshots, give me all the things and you can pitch to a hundred dealers at once and then we can follow up with you at the expo later. But that could be a separate track. Either it runs at the same time as the expo hall or maybe it runs in the evening, I don't know.

But yeah, I think Niada is missing a lot of money by not doing this. Maybe, maybe you and I should have a convention. I don't know. But if you bring in, you know, products that a lot of people use and do that, I think it's so much value to the dealers because, you know, I was on a zoom call this morning for an hour. So how many times does a vendor have to do that same training? If you could just know if you're getting to convention, you could do that training right there. I think vendors would pay a Lot of money for that. And then as dealers, we know what we're walking into and we don't get pissed, you know, that it is.

Or even a straight up sales pitch, man, sales pitch. 50 dealers in one room. Give us the overview of how your software works, show us all the screenshots and the features, and then I'm going to come sign up at the expo hall.

Sales rights, sales, sales rates for vendors at the convention would go sky high then and it would be a true, you know, payoff for the vendors there. So I think, I think there's.

And you go in the dealer, you go into it knowing, you go into it knowing that this is a pitch session. I want to learn these guys products. I want to be sold on it. I'm going to attend this one. So instead of getting kind of blindsided when you think you're going in to learn about, you know, technologies of this thing and it's just screenshots from their software the whole time. So anyways, that, that's my rub along with that. Luke, I think you were kind of talking about having a more reliable schedule, you know, like maybe shorten it down maybe. It did seem like it was kind of all over the place. You didn't know if it was session time, you didn't know if it was keynote time, you didn't know if it was Expo hall time.

Yeah, I think, you know, in years past, the, I guess the general session at Open was first thing in the morning. I think Dave Anderson did it a couple of times or, you know, if La Scota was doing it. But whatever it is, is like it's the first thing in the morning. It kicks it off, it gets you running. You go straight into general sessions. It seemed a little choppy. I know it's. I know it's the staff's first year, so I'm not criticizing. I'm just, we're just giving feedback here. If, if you can just structure it a little better. I think it do a lot for people. And honestly being out there a whole week is too much for me. It's just, I, I don't have, I don't have time. I don't want to have time. I don't want to be away from my family. I don't want to be away from my office. It was just for sure.

And you hear that from dealers like 4 days +travel on both ends. It's just way too long to be out. As a small independent dealer, we know the importance of putting that time aside. But yes, four to five Days becomes a little burdensome on your work and your family life.

You're up too late. You're up. You're way too early. Well, I mean, it's. If you're. If you're networking and you're talking to vendors, you're going to dinners and it's just. I mean, one night we didn't leave the restaurant until 12 o'.

Clock.

I mean, that's. And that was one o' clock for me. Well, I'm dead. So I wake up the next morning and I can hardly get going. And then they were starting sessions at 8am some mornings. It was just too much.

Yeah.

You had mentioned the paper agendas. I don't know what the app steel was. The app was very hard to see what was going on. I don't know if that's just because it's such a small screen. I don't know if anyone else had that problem, but I don't feel like I could always follow what was happening and when.

Yeah, it was like, I'm just old school. No, it was just the way it was. You had to kind of scroll down and see what times they were and.

Yeah. Or change the view and then click into it. It was, it was on.

It was. It was weird. So I think there's. I always like having a book with the agenda so I can look through it with the session titles. I like, I like having the app as well because if someone did submit their pd, their, you know, screenshots, you could go in there and save them and it made taking notes really easy and really convenient. So really good things about that. Yeah. But then on the other hand, the agenda wasn't good. Was it set up properly?

And that's a good point, Luke. I think if you download the NIADA app, you can load the agenda from two weeks ago and you can go into each speaker and see their PowerPoint if they uploaded it. Yeah, you're listening to this and you guys want to go back and see what Jonathan Dawson or Tracy Myers talked about? Just download the app and go grab their PowerPoint presentation. Right. I think anyone can do that.

Oh, yeah, they should be able to. I didn't have to sign in or anything.

No, I think that's just. It's there and available, so I don't know if that's allowed or if that's a sneaky, sneaky way to get those screenshots or what, but. Hey, guys, interrupt the podcast real quick to plug our sponsor, Buckeye Dealership Consulting. They are great group of guys standing behind the dealers standing behind Buy here, Pay here dealers very firmly and launching some new products in the upcoming weeks. We're going to hear about.

Yeah, you know, we've got a little thing to go to down in Sarasota. Their dealer performance groups is coming up here in September. They are the go to for reinsurance companies. Jeff, you and I have talked about endlessly about reinsurance and it's the way to go. It's the way to build wealth. They have some interesting products. If you're not a buy here pay your store. VSI is for Buy here, Pay here PSI is for anybody, anybody who buys cars at the auction or off the street. We need to make sure that we're keeping as much money as we can. And Buckeye is a group that can really help out Jason and Brett and so many others that can help us there. And now we've got some of the old moderators there that can help us run our business better.

Yeah, yeah, of course we know that you can always learn. There's always great places to learn from. So. So being involved in getting education is never a bad idea, no matter where it comes from, right?

That's right. So, yeah, sure, yeah.

If you want to learn more, you want to become a Buckeye client, contact the guys and get involved with some of their upcoming exciting stuff. And some of these great products are going to help us save tax money. So back to the episode along those lines, Luke, what were some of your key takeaways? Let's get into some of the real meat of what you, you took from last week.

So, I mean, you know, Jeff, because I was kind of in crisis mode there for a lot, but I was dealing with a lot of, you know, shop issues. And we've talked about this before, but 80% of my headaches come from my shop. And so I made sure that I went to a lot of service track sessions and they were really good. I want to commend the niada and I think Luzoneski has, you know, really brought that to the forefront that we need more service at the convention and they were really well attended. It's the same questions we've always been asking. So I was worried about hiring techs because I lost another tech last week. So one of the first things that I took away was you gotta think like a tech when you're hiring one. And none of us are techs, probably. I mean, I don't know, independent dealers, maybe one in a hundred or past techs, maybe it's one in a thousand. I'm not sure. But we think like salespeople, and technicians don't think like salespeople. So we gotta go, what makes this guy tick? And we all know that technicians are a little off. Not really, but they're different. They're different than we are. And so, you know, you've got to think what, you know, what's going to make them tick, what's going to make them happy. How can we advertise that? Just the same way as we're advertising to cars. You know, I think somebody said, I don't know if it was here at Texas, but it said if you kept advertising cars the same way and you weren't successful at selling them, why do you keep posting the same tech ad if you're not successful at hiring? Right. Yeah. So the reason is, is because we're not thinking like a technician.

Right. We're also not thinking like we think. Same with car sales. You think you could just post your Dodge Charger for sale and people are going to come flocking in and it's like, no, no, no. We know that it's more about branding at our dealership. Right. We know it's more about being a place they want to go. It's about having a good reputation. It's about, you know, the image of your dealership when you're trying to sell a car. It's the same thing. The image, the branding, the reputation of your dealership when you're trying to hire somebody, whether it's a tech or anybody.

100% use video. I think that's one of your takeaways. Use video in your job postings. And that's what, you know, we do that in cars, right?

Well, it's huge. Like, have you. In your, in your tech posting, do you record where they're going to be working? Do you show that on a video? Like, hey, here's your coworkers, here's your service writer here, here's texts that currently work here. Here's how clean and neat and open our shop is. I'm going to post a video of that so that that guy could see it and kind of be drawn in by the fact that he sees exactly what he's stepping into. Assuming that it's not a dungeon or a torture chamber. Right.

Well, they broke it down like this. 73% are not happy right now with their job. Right. Of text and, yeah, I think that's probably about right. 2% are always looking and 25% are employed and happy. So we've got to focus on that. 73% and then pay still number one. That's all. I mean, you really and truly pay is all it's about with technicians is what the first thing. And if, if you're willing to pay the same amount, then what else is there? Yeah, so, so it's, they want training, they want transparency, they want to see is that place I'm going to work. Are they, you know, are they really, do they really care about me? So again, it's bringing them into, to your dealership, walking them around the shop. I interviewed a guy Saturday. Well, hey, can I go look in the shop that I'm going to be working in? A hundred percent? You can, let's go, let's walk through it. Let's do all these things. So it's, it's the same things we want, but, but they want to see what they're going to look forward to.

Yeah. And I think a lot of that comes down. Like you could get salesmen to come work for you because you have a great sales manager or you're a great dealer. Again, is your service writer or your shop manager attracting those people? And one good point that Chris Collins made was if you're hiring a service writer, a new one, he should be bringing techs with him. He should be that good of a service writer that these techs are loyal to him and, and they're following him wherever he goes. That was really an eye opening thing.

You know, it is a, it is eye opening. But, but then let's think, let's dig into that. Why is that the case? And the reason that is the case is because good service advisors get approval quick when their technicians sell things. Right. They know how to sell the product so that the tech's getting a lot more hours and they're getting easy hours at that. Number two, they're making sure that they get the parts quickly to them.

Right? Right.

And number three is they're not giving them garbage work. And so if, if you go out and hire a rock star service advisor, you can say, hey, you know, the best way for this to work for both of us is for you to bring your, your people with you.

Yeah.

You may have to pay that, that service advisor $85,000 a year. You may have to. But he may be worth how many dollars in sales? Maybe worth a million dollars in sales. You just don't know that yet.

Yeah, I think that's when you talk about the pay dollars. I think it's a shift again. I mean, we're paying everybody more all the way around the store, but also technicians the shop, specifically, is becoming more and more of a rare asset to the dealership. Right. We've talked about this in previous episodes. It's harder and harder to find them because 10 years ago, you would just pay them whatever the minimum you could get away with. You know, it was like bottom dollar, minimum wage, and that's just not going to be the case moving forward. I don't think it's crazy that you'd pay your salesman 100 grand a year or 120 a year to be a rock star salesman, but your rock star techs are making 50. You know, it's crazy.

Yeah. Somebody, you know, somebody. One class I went to, and they were. Their argument was the. I mean, the. The service department should make, you know, it should be more profitable than your sales department. Well, I. I don't agree with that at all. And maybe it is in some dealerships.

In a new car store. Yeah, quite possibly.

I mean, it's. I mean, I still think if that's the case, you're not doing sales. Right. That's just. That's probably true, but I think. I think it's gotta be. We've got to run it more like a business. It can't be an afterthought. And a lot of us, it's an afterthought. It's just an advantage to have. But I think we're losing money thinking of it that way, and we got to be better.

Yeah. So shifting gears. One of the things that always I take away from being around Tracy Myers is that the car is a commodity. Your dealership is the asset or the flagship or the unique selling point. Right. It's just. It always comes back and hits home so hard for me to be like, my cars are the same as the dealer down the road. Right. We all have a 2017 Hyundai Elantra. Like, if there's nothing different. And sure, like, you could sell your financing options. Maybe my interest rate's a little bit less. Maybe I offer this warranty or that warranty. But really, the distinguishing point is how the people feel at your dealership. Do they like being there? Do they like your salesman? Do they like the environment? Were they treated well? Are they friends? You know, is this a situation where your salesman sells a car and the next day the people are bringing them, you know, cookies? You know, they're that tied into the salesman that he just made a lifelong friend with this person because of the level of service, the caring, the, you know, rapport that they built. It just hits home to me.

It does. And Tracy is a genius at that branding and that customer experience. It's. It's really neat. You know, some people love what he does. Some, you know, some people don't. Some, I think, customers. But he's really good at it. And.

But I think you don't have to go to the. I don't think you have to wear a pickle suit and you don't have to yell and scream at the camera, and that's fine. And that's his style. And that gets attention. And getting attention, I think, is different. But what Tracy does after he gets their attention is then his salesmen treat them right. From everything. I know, right? It is your friend. He's your buddy. It's a fun environment. His dealership has got a lot going on, and it's a fun thing to be there. It's like Disneyland in a little dealership. Right. That's what we want. We want to enjoy the process.

We need to enjoy the process. Our employees need to enjoy the process. And if that happens, and I believe customers will see that we all enjoy selling them a car.

Yeah, we've all been there where it's like the salesman. It's so awkward. Both the salesman and the customer are just dying for the second they can get out of the dealership and move on. And I'm just sitting back here with that awkward tension, just watching it, and I'm like, what is going on, man? Like, I can't tell if these guys are going to get into a fist fight or take a picture with the car afterwards. I don't know what's going on, but that was painful for everybody. So that kind of stuff, I think, has got to be taken out. Um, and to get to those areas. He also. I don't remember who talked about it, but, you know, the employee interviews and that employee feedback of how is the culture at your dealership? How are people doing? And one of the questions that really stuck out to me was he said, when you interview your employees, which you should be having regular sit downs. Right. Ask them, what would you do if you. What would you do differently if you owned the dealership? You know, ask your text that, ask your salesman that, ask your receptionist that. What would you do differently? And if you owned this dealership?

Yeah. And you're going to get, you know, crazy answers.

You're going to get crazy answers, but hopefully you're also going to get stuff that you can take to heart and be like, oh, yeah, I didn't realize that there was a lot of this going on or a lot of undermining or insecurity or, you know, whatever is causing you issues or angst as a salesman or an employee.

Yeah, you do have to have sit downs with your employees and twice a year is probably where you need to be. And you do have to ask those questions because you may think you're doing it right and your employees probably think you're doing it totally wrong. And then, you know, take it to heart rebuttal. And if they're right, that's fine. And if they're not right, then you need to let them know why you do it that way. Because sometimes people just don't know why you're doing it that way. Well, this is why we do it this way.

Exactly.

Oh, okay.

But you're going to calm down. They've got something. They've got some sort of a little bee in their bonnet. So yes, you can either talk them out of it or let them know. It also is interesting. You know, Chris Collins talked about, we come back from these conventions and I think everyone gets so much anxiety about all the changes we want to put in place, you know, and new policies or if you revamp your shop. You know, that's what I was thinking about. I've got new policies and new procedures for my repair shop because nothing was being followed. And I worry about kind of the uptake, the adoption. Are people going to get on board with this? Are they going to follow through? Is it going to become a pushback? So Chris talks about his big thing is to gamify it, right? Create some sort of game at the launch that says, okay, you know, we're going to have a 24 hour inspection mandate. Every car that hits the lot from the auction, we're going to inspect it within 24 hours. And every time that happens, here's the prize or here's the thing that we're going to do for the first month, you know, whatever that goal is or whatever that policy is you want them to change, turn it into some sort of a lottery or a game or a spiff or a something for a period of time so that there's an uptake and an adoption and then it becomes the normal.

Yeah, I think that's very interesting and I would like to. I think he gave out some books to some people that I got that when I went into one of his sessions. And I would like to, to do some more research on that because the thing that I found I've done in the past, which is not the right way to do it, is you kind of create A game and then that game turns into an expectation or there's no buy in to the game. And so I believe that if it worked for him, he's very successful, then I'd like to see what were the things he did to make it work better than the one what I've done.

Yeah, I think, you know, and to me the key points that he made were obviously it's a, it's a spiff. It's not built into the bonus plan, it's not expected, it's out of the ordinary and it's big enough that it actually makes a difference. If you're like, hey, everyone gets $10 when this thing happens, maybe that's not a big deal, but if you. He'd use the example of maybe like a barbecue grill that you enter a raffle ticket for. You know, every time this thing is done, those become a little more exciting, a little more of a game. And I think it kind of rallies everybody to kind of be excited about.

Something that's actually, I like that. A monthly giveaway of maybe a TV or whatever to employees. And each, I guess each portion of your dealership could have a raffle ticket for whatever that game you made for their front side and for the, you know, for everything. So I think.

And it's a win win because people buy into your policy or your policy change and they also ra. You know, and they have fun and you're incentivizing them. You're giving away something cool that they're kind of going to be endeared to you because you did something nice for them. So I think it's a kind of a win, win, win all the way around. We're always looking for ways to kind of make our employees have a little more fun being a little more excited to be at the dealership. So I do think gamifying some of these things can get you there.

Yeah, I like that idea. Back to fixed ops for a little bit.

Yeah.

Something that Chris Collins also talked about, I thought that was interesting, was the four day work week for technicians and 10 hours for four days. I really like this. I think that it may set certain people apart from others and may allow us to hire techs that we haven't been able to hire in the past. I don't know, might be something I try if I can't get anybody hired in the next little bit.

Yeah. So for those that don't know what the 410 is, it's basically saying you're going to have a technician that works four Days a week, ten hours a day. So like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, they get Friday, Saturday, Sunday off. And that would attract a technician to be like, oh man. Yeah, I get a three day weekend every weekend. Like that's great for me because working an extra couple hours a day during the weekday is not crazy. I mean, I have a lot of techs that end up here till 6 or 7 o' clock anyways, finishing a job. So to, to, to have a shortened lunch or to do something. And really, Luke, the point is to get them to 80 flat hours. Right? So if you're a flat rate shop, they could probably accomplish that even in less time than a full 10 hour workday if they were just shooting for.

The, you know, that's the key. That's the key. Flat rate. I tell you, I've been fighting it for years. So don't go. Don't do, don't do what I've done. The mistakes I've made, mistakes I've made for the last eight years is not paying my tax.

Flat rate.

And it makes them lazy. So let's just think about this right now.

Yeah.

If I'm paying a technician $20 an hour and he clocks in for 40 hours a week. Right.

Okay.

He's making $800. Right.

Okay.

Okay. But he's only 50% efficient.

Okay, so you got a lazy tech, it's making 20 bucks an hour.

Okay, that's right. So I'm actually paying him $40 an hour.

Right. His flag to clock rate is half of. What?

It's half. It's half. Let's just say it's even. Let's say he's at 75%, which. Okay, 75%. That means you're paying him $30 an hour. Yeah, well, how many really good techs can you hire for $30? A flat rate. And it's taken me so many so long to get this through my thick skull. Marshall and Eric have been beating me over the head for years. Matt McMurray, all of us said you're being an idiot, but I'm done. I'm done. Because. Go ahead.

So you're saying that if you had a tech that was a good tech, I mean, 75% efficiency, you're not going to fire an hourly tech over that, right? If you're tracking. Because even if you have hourly text, you should still be tracking their flats, right? I mean, regardless, guys, you've got to be tracking flats even if the guy's out.

You know what? I would kill for 75% right now. And so but it's, that's the wrong way to look at it. He should be 100% efficient.

Okay, he should. But you're not going to fire him over 75. So you're like, okay, he's 75. I'm just going to keep him because he's only $20 an hour. No, no, no, no. He's $30 an hour. Now do you keep him or can you replace him with a flat tech at 30? That is, that's going to get you. Instead of just flagging 30 hours a week, he's flagging 50 hours a week. You're getting twice as much stuff done.

And we may say, some of us may go, well, we got eight techs and they can't get my, you know, 80 cars a month done. Well, are they 50%? Because if they're 50%, you could get rid of half your staff and still get the same production if you, if you take in a flat rate. Right. So there's so many things to think about here. And it's, it's not only that it costs you, it costs you more per hour, it costs you more for taxes, it costs you all that. Your, your workers comps higher. All these things are higher that we totally forget about.

That's true, because you got a higher head count, your lot insurance. I mean, think about it. I know every time I get an insurance on it, they want to know how many full time employee equivalents I have and what's the head count. And a technician is way more expensive than on my lot insurance than any other employee. So you're right.

And the last thing is this. You know, when we're selling cars, we know what our inventory is, right? Inventory is the cars. We don't have inventory. We can't sell it.

Right.

Get this through your head. Everybody in fixed stops hours are your inventory at the beginning of the week. You start with this with a certain amount of hours. If you don't sell all those hours, you're just wasting your time. Or if you're not efficient enough during those hours, you're losing inventory. It's like, it's like dollars just sitting around that you're not, that you're not using.

Yeah, yeah. If you're paying these guys to stand there because it's like parts walking off your shelf or like we talk about turn time on vehicles. Well, it's not really a, it's not like a hard cost that you've got this holding cost of your car. But you know that for every day that it sits back there it's costing.

You how many times before you get.

It to the front line. So it's the same thing with your techs.

How much money is it costing you if you're not on flat rate? How much money is it costing you a year for your technician to make a call to his wife three times a day or smoke a cigarette four times a day or whatever it is? It's, you know, they're really stealing from you is what they're doing.

Yeah. And I think all of this comes back to the first of our conversation on this is it's really again, the shop manager, service writer, parts guy. Whatever layer of management you have is the key. Right. Because sometimes it isn't the tech's fault. Sometimes the tech would work and would be 100% efficient or better and beat the book. But. But their service rider is not efficient or the parts guy is not efficient. And so they're standing around with vehicles up in the air waiting for a seal that wasn't when it should have been.

That's right. But that is a, that's an excuse. Because if you're like me, Jeff, and I think you are, I can look out my back door right now and I see 20 cars waiting to be inspected for my dealership to sell. So.

Mm.

I know this, that I could give that technician five keys and even if he is waiting on a part, he could be doing something else.

Yeah, yeah. He's doing your pre. Your pre inspections and there's always something. So making sure your shop's running efficiently, no matter what the hangout or headache is parts, blah, blah, blah, this, that or the other, there's always something. And again, that comes down to your service writer, though, I still think.

Because I think it does too, because he didn't get the keys. I agree.

Yeah. It's his job to line that guy out and say, hey, man, I know you're waiting for this seal. That's going to take two hours. Go knock out these two inspections.

You know, at the end of every night, you should have preloaded and you should also have your tickets for your tech for the next day. So they're never, you know, the worst. I think one of the easiest ways to lose a tech is not to keep them busy for sure.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I almost did last week. I got wrapping this up. Luke. Anything else? Your takeaways from convention.

I think that's it for me, Jeff. I do love seeing everybody and we do have a new regime at the niada.

Yeah, I know. There was a good looking guy that got up during the business session and kind of ruffled some feathers.

Yeah, I missed out on that. So some. Some guy.

Maybe I'll post that audio at the end of this podcast. If I can strip it off my phone, that'd be a good one.

You know, this is what I got to say about that. There needs to be change inside of our association. And it comes from us to start with, comes from every dealer that's a member of the association. We need to make sure that we get involved. And if you're not a member, you need to become a member. You need to stay involved. You need to go to meetings, you need to push back when you think something's being done wrong. You need to call your VP of your region. You need to call your president of your state association. If we're not involved, then what happens is we. We don't get heard. So I think it comes from. From everybody. I think it's leadership on the board has to be more transparent on what they're doing. I think dealers need to be more proactive on what we're doing. And that's really. If we do that, we can be a really great organization. Yeah.

Amen.

Yep.

All right, brother. Talk to you next week.

See ya.

So glad you joined us. Please take a minute to leave us a review and share this podcast with a friend, the Independent Dealer Podcast Dealers Helping Dealers.

Hemi, thank you for your service. Thank everyone for your service. I really, I have a lot of friends on board and I just think we can all do better. Members of board of Directors and all members of NIADA arise today to express some concerns for the direction of niada. These concerns are not just mine. Many members of the NIADA across the country country have expressed the same concerns to me. Let me also say unequivocally that these concerns are not new. They have ex existed for a long time inside Niada. NIADA is a member owned, member governed organization. Every member should have the opportunity to be involved. Unfortunately, that's not always the case. Members can't attend this meeting and cast their votes for the members of the board. The problem is membership is force fed who's able to be voted on. It is the board who publishes a slate of officers. But there is no process in place for general membership to stand up and say I want to run for office. The perception, I dare to say reality is that being on the board is part of a good old boys network. You have to be in the good graces of a certain few to be able to be on the Board. It should not be that way. My first concern and that of so many others is that we may need a fair and open we need a fair and open and most of all transparent election process where any eligible member of NIADA can run for office. The second concern I and so many.

Others have is the length of time.

The members of the Board stay on the Board. I look at many of you and some of those who have recently finished the Board and I see that people have been on the Board for over a decade. I asked why is that the decade plus terms further leads to the feeling of a good old boys network. It appears that many to me that the Board has been hijacked and new ideas are stifled and new faces are stifled. While experiencing can be beneficial, the opportunity for new ideas and ever changing industry is needed. So how do we address these concerns? As a member of niada, I move that the Board of Directors creates a Bylaw Review Committee or Board Governance Committee for the purpose of considering the following recommendations for changes to the Board and Officers election process and associated changes to the Bylaws. Make it more transparent and inclusive to remit any eligible member to run for appropriate NIADA board positions. Recommendations 2 Recommendations for changes to the Candidate Review Committee and its guidelines to ensure that any eligible member can run for appropriate NIADA Board positions. Revise the bylaws to create term limits for members of the Board to serve a sum total of no more than six years. Because I and so many others feel these changes need to be discussed, I am offering myself up to chair the Committee at the President's pleasure. I firmly believe that the NI88 board members have an amazing amount of institutional memory, but I think it would be better served by more frequent infusion of diverse talent and engagement. Addressing these issues will help the Board and membership at large connect more effectively while bringing in new Board candidates to serve. I believe the officers should holding office because of their skill. I look forward to working with you to address these issues.

Thank you.