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Ep 26 - Coaching Call #4 | Role Play at the Repair Shop?
236 Plays14 days ago
In this episode, Matt challenges Mike to maximize his top-performing store without neglecting the fundamentals, like building stronger staff relationships. Ouch. That's what shop coaching is for, though! Sometimes, the toes need to get stepped on.
Learn more about how Tekmetric can change your shop HERE
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00:00 Self-Reflection and Accountability
05:10 Streamlining Shop Management with Tekmetric
08:59 Streamlined Estimate Notification Service
10:11 Boosting Tire Sales Strategy
14:21 Manual Process Checklists внедрение
18:11 Professionalizing Customer Experience
22:00 Improving Listening in Relationships
23:12 "Balancing Work and Family"
28:54 Tekmetric Sales Tracking Insight
32:03 Understanding Sales Cycle Timing
36:01 Increasing Sales Through Advisor Practice
38:28 Efficient Client Follow-Up Strategy
42:58 "Enhancing Phone Skills for Sales"
44:28 "Never Write NVH Without Test Drive"
47:44 Revenue Goals and Projections
53:00 Understanding Business Break-Even Points
55:19 "Broadening Perspectives at Events"
57:41 "Reconsidering My Words"
Recommended
Transcript
Challenges in Personal and Professional Listening
00:00:00
Speaker
but I'm not really good at listening to the people that I'm closest to in my life. And I think all of us are probably guilty of that. We focus on the numbers, opportunities for improvement. you know Not that we dehumanize them when we're in front of them, you know like like we treat them bad. We don't really know what makes them tick and what makes them drive.
00:00:19
Speaker
The following program features a bunch of doofuses talking about the automotive aftermarket. The stuff we, or our guests may say, do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of our peers, our sponsors, or any other associations we may have.
00:00:33
Speaker
There may be some spicy language in this show, so if you get your feelings hurt easily, you should probably just move along.
Light-Hearted Automotive Talk with Mike
00:00:40
Speaker
So without further ado, it's time for Confessions of a Shop Owner with your host, Mike Gallen.
00:00:52
Speaker
All right, here we are. Another month has passed and it's time to flog Mike for his failure to follow through on all the things that he's done or not done, I guess.
00:01:04
Speaker
Interestingly, i I just listened today to the episode that I did with Todd Westerlund at Vision and I made fun of him on the episode for talking about himself in the third person and then I just did it.
00:01:15
Speaker
So I'm just starting off on the right foot. How you doing, man? I'm doing great. I do have a quick question, though. Okay. How long is this episode? This particular episode? I'm going to go with ah six and a half hours. Why do you ask? I was going to say, you're going to have to give us some time if we talk about all the stuff that you haven't gotten done.
00:01:37
Speaker
ah Real, real nice. ah and you know The store is doing pretty good. the store The store in question is doing really good. It's my best store in a lot of metrics.
00:01:50
Speaker
um And any of the limiting factors that are in place ah are all named Mike Allen. so Sure. Yeah. Well, that's what we're going to talk about today. Because what I don't want you to do is is take your eye off of the cash cow.
Advice on Responsibility and Financial Review
00:02:05
Speaker
while we're trying to fix some of the, you know, some of the other stuff elsewhere, because it's easier to make something better than it is to. It's easier easier to give a push than it is to give a pull. I can get behind that.
00:02:18
Speaker
Actually, um when my father decided he was going to get married to my mom, ah they 18 and 17 years old. and he went and told his dad and his dad said, it's your little red wagon. You can push it or pull it.
00:02:35
Speaker
And just one them's easier than the other. So I don't have a clue what he meant by that, but I'm sure that it was something to do with that. Well, my dad used to tell me all the time, an ounce of push is worth a pound to pull.
00:02:49
Speaker
i didn't ever knew what that meant to either. And yeah, till I was older.
00:02:56
Speaker
Um, all right. So I am logged into our reporting sheet on one side and QuickBooks on the other. am prepared for my flogging, sir. Where should we begin?
00:03:07
Speaker
Perfect. So, yeah. So when we ended off in February, um, and I know um we're going to keep going back to our original goals and our original notes here. So we have the original goal of trying to get to 1.6 million, 20% net.
00:03:23
Speaker
and ah So the first question is, is how was March? March was really good.
00:03:34
Speaker
Top line revenue wise. It was a five payroll month. So we had payroll on the very last day of the month. So that threw off the bottom line numbers a little bit.
00:03:46
Speaker
Yep. But, you know, April will reflect the gain on that. So, um you know, hang on. I'll, Open TechMetric as well.
00:03:59
Speaker
The best point of sale software in the industry, bar none.
00:04:05
Speaker
And I can just pull up last month. I'm not supposed to have an opinion on that, but I do like It's so okay. I can have enough opinions for both of us. Let's see. So reports last month.
00:04:22
Speaker
So from TechMetric, the reporting shows 150 at $771 piece, tax 115,000 with little over 70,000 in Okay. Um, that was, gp ah total revenue ah not counting tax a hundred and fifteen thousand with a little over seventy thousand in gp yeah so that was yeah That was not quite our best month ever, but April will be our best month ever because we're almost at that number right now. And we've got a week left as we record this.
Staff Management and Operational Improvements
00:04:54
Speaker
Okay.
00:04:55
Speaker
Awesome. So we're going to talk about staff because I know that was kind of one of our limiting factors that we had talked about at the last meeting. Running a shop for 20 years teaches you a lot, like how outdated systems can make your job a lot harder than it needs to be.
00:05:11
Speaker
I used to deal with slow check-ins, clunky estimates, wasted time chasing down updates. Then I switched to TechMetric. It's all-in-one cloud-based SMS that lets me run my shop from anywhere.
00:05:22
Speaker
streamlines my estimating process, keeps customers in a loop with real-time updates. I'm not telling you that it was all TechMetric, but I'm telling you that TechMetric was a big part of it. Since I switched to TechMetric, my average repair order four years ago was $293, and right now it's $916. That's Not luck.
00:05:39
Speaker
It's better processes, faster workflow, speed of service that's facilitated by this technology helps me get higher and better authorizations for my customers.
00:05:50
Speaker
If you're ready for a shop management system that actually works for you, tap the link in the show notes and check out TechMetric. You're going to like what you see. Here's the deal. i I like to think that I'm pretty good at running an auto repair shop.
00:06:01
Speaker
It's what I've done for 20 plus years, but I'm not good at managing a marketing budget and all the different facets of a truly well-rounded marketing plan. There's mail, there's local advertising, there's website, there's Google AdWords, there's you know, all the different things that go into that.
00:06:19
Speaker
And it's just not what I'm good at. So what I've chosen to do is to buy myself the time to focus on what I am good at while having someone else execute on all of those things at a way higher level than anything I could ever do.
00:06:34
Speaker
That's what turnkey auto marketing does for me. So if you feel like you could use some of that same magic, I'm going to recommend that you go to turnkeyautomarketing.com, get a free consultation. Tell them that I sent you.
00:06:47
Speaker
ah Tell them that Confessions of a Shop Owner sent you. You won't be disappointed. Essentially, what we talked about was is all your baseline numbers are ah pretty spot on. So, you know kind of the idea is, is how do we, you know, how do we maximize the footprint? How do we add staff and keep all the average numbers the same so we can we can maximize top line?
00:07:07
Speaker
um still hold on to the the GP numbers that you're currently getting and get to that $1.6 million dollar top line number with the 20% net. So we we identified that we needed to potentially add some support staff at the counter to be able to to maximize some of the intake processes that we had talked about.
00:07:32
Speaker
Where are we at with adding staff. We've done a lot. um So if you recall, when I talk about my two Raleigh stores, I kind of treat them as kind of one entity in a lot of ways. And I have one shop forming across both of them.
00:07:47
Speaker
um, Hillsborough street, the store that we report for this podcast, um, for these calls, uh, the smaller store, but has ah borderline unlimited car count because of the location and the traffic.
00:08:00
Speaker
And so we actually transferred him to that store and he, he sold his toolbox and bought a smaller triple bank toolbox. So it would fit in the small store, um, kind of shoehorned it in there for him.
00:08:14
Speaker
And, um, So he's there and we added a technician to another three total technicians and the three and a half bays there. um We brought um an advisor who's kind of an advisor assistant and paperwork assistant and estimating and and intake ah over also from the other store moving there. So essentially what we have now at Hillsboro Street is we have a selling advisor, kind of an administrative advisor and three quality technicians.
00:08:47
Speaker
um And yeah know that's why we're yeah going to hit that pace for 1.6 this month. That'll be the first month we've ever had that pace. Awesome.
00:08:59
Speaker
We also have signed up with HubShop Solutions, which is um software that yeah and it wasn't a software as a service that integrates with And through Slack, they have a webhook.
00:09:15
Speaker
And anytime one of my technicians marks a DVI complete, they are in a Slack channel and they get that notification and they build the estimate. Parts, labor, everything. And so they so they Slack my guys within 15 minutes of the DVI being complete and saying, hey, estimates ready to rock.
00:09:31
Speaker
And I mean, we still own the estimate. We've got to look at it and review it and make sure that it's legit before we make the outbound call. But the return time is really improved in that capacity. So I've got ah kind of the administrative advisor who's being a smiling face, taking keys, checking people out, receiving parts, sending returns out.
00:09:51
Speaker
just to kind of help them with dispatch. And then I've got the sales guy who's just loving it on people and building relationships all day, making sales.
Sales Process Enhancements and Customer Experience
00:09:59
Speaker
And that seems to have struck a really good balance.
00:10:03
Speaker
So we'll see. I mean, I know that April is to be our best month ever. We'll see if the increase in revenue outpaces the increase in expense. Right. And I know, i know we talked about the last time,
00:10:18
Speaker
maybe looking at the the mix of tire sales that you have and and trying to increase some of the tire sales out of that location, just because you do have such a great car count. um And i know we were one of the barriers that we had there was just with John being the only person there at the counter,
00:10:34
Speaker
it was difficult for him to do a ah good walk around process and, and catch some of those things on the front end without, without everything going through the DVI process. Correct. Now that we have some additional staff, have we made some of those adjustments in the intake process to try to capture some of those?
00:10:53
Speaker
So we, uh, Steven and, uh, he's my manager. Blaine is the shop foreman and I put together a customer intake process.
00:11:04
Speaker
and built out, you know, here's, here's what we're doing on the walk around. Here's how we're taking the keys and that kind of thing. We flesh that out and agreed that it's good to go, but we haven't rolled it out in a, in a team wide meeting and started to kind of, inspect what we expect, I guess.
00:11:23
Speaker
Um, I'll tell you that that store sold 54 tires last month. So not a lot. Right. So, uh,
00:11:35
Speaker
What's that? 12 and a half sets, 13 and a half sets. So, um, there's definitely some room for improvement and that was on, what did I say? 150 cars. Yeah. and So, you know, one set per 10 cars. I'm not sure that that's taking advantage of the opportunity that's there.
00:11:53
Speaker
Yeah. And like said, we, you don't have a lot of real low hanging fruit. I'm just, you know, we're trying to, we're trying to pick off the middle of the tree at this point in time. So I still, I still believe that with those numbers and especially, you know, with the added staff and, and you're going to be able to take on more cars, um, that I think you have the opportunity to add a little bit more, little bit more tire sales to the mix.
00:12:17
Speaker
Absolutely. and And then just some of the some of the easier sales before they get back to the DVI process, wiper blades, bulbs, the easy stuff to sell that in in the walk-around inspection that always gets declined if you do it in the DVI process. Sell it while the keys are still in the advisor's hand before it even goes back. Yeah. That's right.
00:12:43
Speaker
um So just recheck that, you know, go through that intake process again, see if there's any touch points in there for some of those things that, you know, that might need to be tweaked and adjusted, you know, see if we can take advantage of that.
00:12:56
Speaker
um And then your, your intake process, is there anything, when I say manual about it, is there anything, is it just a written process or is there some sort of a checklist that you have for the intake that the advisor can follow?
00:13:11
Speaker
Well, let me just pull it up. So it is a bulleted list. It's a 10 point list um that starts with the customer walking in the door and finishes with the key being put on the dispatch board.
00:13:26
Speaker
Um, and you know, there's the, the greeting and information gathering process. There's the labeling of the keys. There's, uh, the client writeup, there's the walk around, um, there's the setting of expectations.
00:13:41
Speaker
Um, you know, there's some data checking, making sure that the tag and the VIN decode and match one another, um have timing considerations there. That's one day, one day, expecting their car back when are they expecting a call set the the expectation of them when they're going to get a call. Um, and then documenting those expectations in the repair order, uh, and then initial ah authorization for whatever they've dropped off for, and then the dispatch keys.
00:14:07
Speaker
So is there any physical documentation of vehicle condition? ah Well, in the vehicle walk around. you are doing a vehicle walk around at that time. We're not doing it yet, but that's part of the process that we've all. gotten into so I got you. Yeah.
00:14:22
Speaker
So one of the things that um one of the things that I like to do when we're introducing a new process like that is to make something manual that I can check easily.
00:14:34
Speaker
And again, you kind of suffer from the same affliction that I do is you're not in that store all the time. So there needs to be some sort of a way for you to be able to audit you know that process to make sure there is at least the attempt of it being done and and try to help them through it if if it's not. but So i would take that I would take that intake sheet that you have and change your bullet points to you know some open squares, you know give them some check boxes, laminate it.
00:15:04
Speaker
let them go out there with a check board and a, you know, and a dry erase marker and then take a picture of it. And it goes into the intake in, into the check-in inspection. Okay. Inside of tech metrics. First picture in the DVI is that it's been checked in completely. That's exactly right. at we randomum top That's right.
00:15:21
Speaker
And that way, you know, i mean, the answer is yes, they can pencil whip it, but they had to at least put the effort into it to lie to you about it. You know, I get that. And the dudes that I've got there won't do that.
00:15:34
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. and And most of the time it it takes just as long to fill it out and, you know, incorrectly as it would to do it. So um after about the second or third time you ask them, where's the picture of the intake form?
00:15:46
Speaker
They'll just start doing the intake. Right. I like that. Was that your idea did you learn that from someone else? that was really smart. So. I would say almost all of my ideas are poached from somebody else. Somebody told me a long time ago, why, you know, why, why create a path when there's already been one cut?
00:16:08
Speaker
Call that R and D right. Rip off. Yeah. You were at our ignite event earlier this year and I had a chance to stop Steven Mackey in the hallway cause I had to speak after him. Mm-hmm.
00:16:20
Speaker
later that day. And I, I admonished him for doing such a great job and me having to follow him up. yeah He said, no, man. He said, he said, here's what you do. He said, you take some of my lines.
00:16:31
Speaker
And he said, this time you say, just like Steven Mackey said. And he said, the second time you steal my line, he said, you say my friend, Steven Mackey says, and he said the third time you say, I said, i said, it becomes your line. just The third time you steal it, it's your idea.
00:16:47
Speaker
I love it. That was a great event, man. I probably assimilated some of that as, you know, it's my idea, but somebody somebody gave it to me three or four steps ago. Well, hopefully a lot of the folks listening are able to rip off and duplicate some of the stuff we're talking about, right? That's the yeah that's the idea.
00:17:06
Speaker
And, you know, we've talked about this time and time again. The automotive industry is largely been the same for the last 100 years.
Coaching and Learning from Other Industries
00:17:14
Speaker
Hey, everybody. I want to take a minute to tell you about the coaching organization I've been involved with for, gosh, over 20 years now.
00:17:23
Speaker
Elite. Elite worldwide, they don't give you a one size fits all solution. They tailor the coaching specifically to you and your shop. They pair you with an experienced coach who is either a current or a former shop owner, and they turn strategies into actual action and accountability and results.
00:17:40
Speaker
Whether it's improving your service advisor's sales, growing your shop, growing to multiple locations, they really have you covered. Clients of Elite really see results. Higher profits, stronger teams, a better work-life balance.
00:17:52
Speaker
If you're ready to take the next step, visit EliteWorldwide.com to schedule your discovery session. That's EliteWorldwide.com to start working on your business rather than in it.
00:18:03
Speaker
Tell them that you heard about them on Confessions of a Shop Owner so that I get a pat on the back or maybe a box of chocolates or something. That would be awesome. Thanks. And the only thing that we're trying to do now as an industry is make it more professional and put the customer experience at the forefront.
00:18:18
Speaker
And a lot of those concepts have been active and in place in other industries for the same 100 years. So this isn't groundbreaking information. It's just how do we take it and apply it and and use it on a day-to-day basis and, you know, get better at doing it ourselves.
00:18:35
Speaker
Because just because it's easy, just because it's easy to know doesn't mean it's easy to do. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's, it's like, it's like playing poker, right? And it's really easy to learn how to play poker. It's really hard to be good at it.
00:18:49
Speaker
That's right. Yeah. don't know why I got to go to different forms of degeneracy for all of my examples. that That's where I go naturally. So,
00:19:00
Speaker
um, So on the intake process, and um I know we talked about this in one of our original calls, you guys are implementing speed of service. um is Is there anything that you have in that process right now where you have some a sense of urgency from anybody in the staff to greet to greet the customer when they come in?
00:19:23
Speaker
Well, that's a big part of the administrative advisor's gig is that he is there to, you know, if the sales advisor is on the phone selling, ah the other guy needs to be Johnny on the spot, ready with a smile and a handshake, you know, meet him in the parking lot if need be, whatever else.
00:19:41
Speaker
And he's really good at that. He's got a really chill personality. I mean, they're very good yin and yang. and They complement each other really well. So think they've become a pretty dynamic team and in a very short order.
00:19:53
Speaker
Awesome. So we have a lot of new staff and I know one of the original conversations that we had was making sure that we had dream sheets, solid job descriptions, and then some good expectations for everybody on what the MLAPs are.
00:20:11
Speaker
And I will not assume that minimum levels of acceptable performance, because I know we got a lot of questions about that, but, yeah um, so do we have, do we have all that in place for the new staff?
00:20:24
Speaker
So we've got clear M laps for everybody. um i have not done dream sheets with the new guys. ah I always struggle with that type of of stuff. It's just outside of my comfort zone, but I know I need to get better at that. That's... that's like I think that's a key component to creating culture. and And I just need to stop making excuses and make it happen.
00:20:48
Speaker
So... Well, it just...
00:20:53
Speaker
If you think about it this way,
00:20:57
Speaker
you haven' an you have a process for an external conversation to a customer to create an experience for them that makes them want to enjoy your product and pay for your service, right?
00:21:08
Speaker
um And we set a lot of that up by emotional you know by putting into the emotional bank account with the customer and developing rapport. We often take advantage of the people closest to us you know, in that regard and leave that emotional bank empty.
00:21:26
Speaker
you're You're familiar with Simon Sinek. I know um i was listening to a podcast with Simon Sinek one day and he said he was, he was talking to his, it was his ex-girlfriend now, but he was talking to, to a girl that he was dating and and she told him that he was a terrible listener.
00:21:43
Speaker
And, and he said, he said, my response to her was, do you know who the hell I am? said, I'm Simon Sinek. He said, literally speak for thousands of people teaching them how to be better listeners.
00:21:55
Speaker
And he said he said, it kind of really pissed me off when she said it, but he said, it made me sit down and reflect. And what what I found was after a couple days of reflecting, I'm really good at listening to other people that I don't know, but I'm not really good at listening to the people that I'm closest to in my life. And I think all of us are probably guilty of that.
00:22:14
Speaker
And from a business owner standpoint, we're definitely guilty of that with our team, right? We focus on the numbers. We focus on, you know, the areas, opportunities for improvement.
00:22:25
Speaker
And, you know, not that we dehumanize them when we're in front of them, you know like, like we treat them bad, but we, we don't really know what makes them tick and what makes them drive.
00:22:36
Speaker
And while I think everybody has a, as has has a, an element of money motivation to them, even, even the most money motivated people out there have reasons for the money being important.
00:22:49
Speaker
And I think that's where, that's where that dream sheet really helps is you can tie the money to something tangible.
Managing Multiple Stores and Staff Trust
00:22:55
Speaker
And, you know, when you do have those sit downs with them, you can, you can bring it back.
00:23:01
Speaker
It's, you know, it's a humanizing process and allows us to remind them that they're, they're working for something other than,
00:23:11
Speaker
an hour's goal. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Copy that. Makes sense. I just gotta, gotta get comfortable breaking out of my normal headspace. And you know, it's like a teenager doesn't want to hear it from mom and dad, but if somebody else that they respect says the exact same thing, they receive it, you know, differently.
00:23:31
Speaker
Um,
00:23:33
Speaker
I mean, that might not be a good example. I guess probably more like how I give my best to customers all day long and I get home and the leftovers are what my family gets sometimes. thats Yeah. Yeah.
00:23:45
Speaker
Yeah. That's a hundred percent of what it And, you know, and that's just, and the bigger we get, you know, the, the easier that is, you know, you're in a situation with three stores and a lot of employees across different locations and,
00:23:58
Speaker
It's going to be difficult for you to make that personal connection without having something like that to tie back to, you know, from time to time. so Well, and, know, that was ah part of the conversation i had with Steven today. we sat down for a while and reviewed P&Ls that kind of thing was –
00:24:18
Speaker
I'm in Raleigh way less than I'm at Garner. And I, you know, it's not because I don't love you guys. It's because ah trust you guys to to do your thing. And I don't feel like, you know, you need handholding. And I'm more heavily engaged at the big store right now because it's so far down the path of this evolution.
00:24:39
Speaker
And we haven't started down that path and the other stores. And I know that that was one of my first quarter goals was to start Rack Attack in ah Raleigh. And we totally have not done that. and Absolutely have not done that.
00:24:51
Speaker
um But I know like I'm going on my anniversary trip with my wife next week. right I've got faith that all three stores will run fine.
00:25:04
Speaker
I expect I'll get a call or two from one store, but not any from Raleigh. Right. So, you know, it's not me not caring that I'm not there frequently. It's more. It's a trust. It's a trust factor that you have. Yeah.
00:25:19
Speaker
Yeah. So anyway.
00:25:24
Speaker
All right. So we have some, we have MLAPs in place. We have clear expectations. We do need to get the dream sheets, uh, the dream sheets done with the new staff members and try to tie back, uh, some of their comp plan to, to their, what they want to get out of their dream sheet.
00:25:45
Speaker
Um, I know we talked about about, and I know, I understand car counts, not really an issue for you there. Um,
00:25:55
Speaker
I mean, it's going to have to go up now that I've got three techs, right? Well, that's that's what I'm looking at is as we build the staff out, you always want the demand to be more than what you can physically handle. So I know and i know he said and know we talked about tires, and tires is a great car count getter because just like oil, every car needs tires. So then we talked about maybe getting some tire stacks, and I see you' a little ah see your little guy back there. We talked about getting one of him.
00:26:25
Speaker
Yeah. and And I know you have a really good really good road frontage location there, good slow-moving traffic. um So some temporary exterior signage might be your cheapest cheapest way through getting some of that extra car count.
00:26:42
Speaker
Absolutely. So you're I'm assuming you're still somewhere pretty close to that two and a half to three hours per RO? um Yes, very close to that. So let's just see...
00:26:54
Speaker
where we were, you want to talk about where I was in March or where I am month to date in April? Well, it's so March you were at, you were at 2.5 hours per hour row in March, but we have three technicians now.
00:27:17
Speaker
month to date this month we've done 408 hours and that's on across 142 repair orders so that's 2.87 per repair order so we're getting pretty close to that three so let's just use the three there so i mean we're we're looking at three cars a day per technician so we're looking at nine cars a day is kind of what your what your max output can be do you have some i idea i mean i know you can probably get a little bit more than that out but um Do you know what your site, when I say output, I mean, closed out completed.
00:27:51
Speaker
um usually we see about to get 10, we probably, you know, to get 10 closed out, we probably had 15 or 20 in the middle, if that makes sense. You know, um, we tend to carry about at that store somewhere between 10 and 20 hours over from Friday to Monday, most weeks.
00:28:12
Speaker
Um, you know, that that number is getting larger as capacity gets larger, you know, ah right now, if I look, uh, on the job board,
00:28:27
Speaker
there's 22 open repair orders with 13,000 and approved sales. So that's lower than our average repair order. So maybe we might have some swings and misses out there.
00:28:43
Speaker
22 is a lot of open tickets to have at that store at one time.
Improving Sales Accountability and Techniques
00:28:47
Speaker
Gotcha. But it's also a Thursday afternoon when we're recording this. So yeah, they'll clean out a lot tomorrow. So I know you're a big tech metric user and I might be, I might be preaching something that you already know here, but I know that you've put a lot of service advisors through the master's course and they come back with the ADS sheet um that they're supposed to fill out every day.
00:29:10
Speaker
The shop dashboard inside of tech metric, like I said, you might already know this. This is just something that I stumbled across the other day, but I've had my advisor start doing this and some of the clients and it's worked really, really well for the sales goal to keep up with what they're, what they've sold for the day, but not necessarily what they have closed out for the day.
00:29:34
Speaker
Right. Um, so if you go to the shop dashboard and you go to where it says jobs created,
00:29:42
Speaker
Uh, where am I seeing jobs created? So the top left where it's on the toolbar, where it says shop dashboard. And then you go over to the right hand side where you can change the date.
00:29:55
Speaker
Uh huh. You see right beside it where it says jobs posted plus board. I never look at that. I always just do job job board plus posted or just job board. So jobs created. Yep. So if you go to jobs created, and I'm in the same way. So I just, this might be something new. I don't know. But this is something that I found out the other day. But this works really good for the service advisors for their sales goal for the day.
00:30:17
Speaker
um Because this will only show you what added sales they did for the current day.
00:30:23
Speaker
So it won't show anything that was sold yesterday. it'll just show It'll just show sales that were approved today. um So I know you probably have a daily sales goal for your service advisors.
00:30:39
Speaker
So I get them to track that through this you know through that shop dashboard feature right there, setting it up that way. And then at the end of the day, they have to write down what that total was.
00:30:51
Speaker
and then subtract it from the daily sales goal and whatever is left over gets added to the goal for tomorrow. That's savage on a bad week.
00:31:02
Speaker
Yeah. oh But I get it. But I mean, it's, it's what has to happen because if we're not filling that funnel every single day, we're going into a sales deficit. And even though we're closing out good sales, you know, we're closing out good days today, we're losing sight of the fact that we're getting ready to have a bad week next week.
00:31:20
Speaker
Yeah. You know, that so that's and that was really the whole point of that ADS sheet that that elites pushed so hard through the master's program for so long.
00:31:32
Speaker
And it's it's still valid. It's just really difficult to get a service advisor to manually fill that out all day. And thankfully now through better shop management systems, we have some tools here that we can get the same result from the advisor without them physically having to to write it down all day.
00:31:51
Speaker
You have learned me something today because I was not aware of that feature. So there you go. Just don't feel just another way that TechMetric is amazing.
00:32:03
Speaker
So I actually i figured that out three weeks ago, so don't feel bad. i haven't. It's not like I've known about it for a year, but when I found it out, i was like, oh that's that's how we're doing our. That's how we're doing ADS. so um But it's it's been a but that's that's a really cool little tool because, again, they they'll get really hyper-focused on what closed out today and not keeping in mind that what closed out today was something they sold three to five days ago, and it just finally worked its way through.
00:32:30
Speaker
And we get all excited about our $10,000 day, and then we didn't sell anything today. And then we wake up tomorrow and we wonder why we have an $800 day today. and so Yeah. don't want to, I want to talk about what, uh, the jobs created for today report says, ah it definitely does not say 10 cars with $10,000 in pending sales and $600 in approved sales.
00:32:59
Speaker
Yeah. Definitely does not say that, does it? Yeah. Yeah. 5% closing rate. um But I mean, maybe he'll sell a bunch of that pending 10,000 tomorrow. I don't know. And that's, and that's the thing. So some of that will roll over to tomorrow and that pending. So the car count's always going to look really high on that. Um, but it does show you what your daily throughput is to be able to get that closed out number. Right.
00:33:23
Speaker
Um, yeah. Oh gosh. she's got He's got, he's got $20,000 and waiting for authorization wrapped up in seven cars. So see how that goes.
00:33:36
Speaker
anyway Yeah. And that's another thing. So you you have the, that would be another conversation there. cause you do have the service that's going through and, and presenting estimates for you within 15 minutes. So the idea there is you get an estimate in 15 minutes present right away.
00:33:52
Speaker
um so, you know, just, you're probably able to get estimates put, put into the queue a lot faster. Now, are we, are we getting cars processed and estimates queued faster than they can,
00:34:05
Speaker
call and present. I don't think that, so these are not ones that he hasn't called and presented. These are ones that he's called and for whatever reason, they haven't said yes. And he's, gotcha.
00:34:18
Speaker
I feel like if you allow somebody to say, I'll call you back before they make a commitment, then your closing rate tanks. Yes. because that's, I'm going to call around and price shop you yeah without understanding, you know, the apples to apples comparison.
00:34:33
Speaker
um So, know, I can dig into that a little bit further in the morning. So that does bring up a good question there.
00:34:44
Speaker
our closing ratio for the first quarter for that store is 34.5%. our, we have done $806,000 worth estimates. So I'm for lot of so i'm for a lot of clients i'm not a big fan of of pushing closing percentage on service advisors just because it's such a manipulatable number.
00:35:10
Speaker
um But you guys have a pretty solid understanding of discovered services and you have a you have a standard for discovered services. So in that case, i'm I'm not worried about you guys making having some conversations about improving closing percentage a little bit.
00:35:25
Speaker
with the caveat that we still need to maintain our $2,000 goal of ADS. Right. Um, but when I look at that and I say, if our closing percentage went up 4%, so if it went from, they know that the target is 40% on close.
00:35:44
Speaker
Okay. So let's just say if it went from the 34% that it is, let's give it 6%. we had 806,000. Yeah, that would be another $52,000 in top line sales. Just 6%. With the same amount of car count. Yeah.
00:35:56
Speaker
just for six percent with the same amount of car count yeah So one of the things that i like to really do is I like to back that into the advisor pay you know pay plan and just kind of show them what they're missing there.
00:36:11
Speaker
And especially now that you have additional staff, it should be easier to get that additional 6% because going to be able to have more time to present. We're going to be able to have more time to overcome objections.
00:36:24
Speaker
Um, one of the things that we just implemented in our store and I'm, I'm very aware that you're going to be familiar with this concept, but it did make a huge difference in a short period of time for us.
00:36:38
Speaker
I won't allow my advisors to present the sale unless they practiced it first. So now that you have two people there, I mean, before it would have been really difficult for John to practice because he would have been talking to himself.
00:36:52
Speaker
Um, Well, this this episode is going to be published on Tuesday. um And I know that Steven listens to them the day they come out. Steven, can you see John and Kit role playing sales calls ah before they actually make it? Because, um man, I cannot see John doing it, but we'll see.
00:37:15
Speaker
It's worth a shot. And I get that it's a challenge. to get them to do that. Nobody likes doing role plays. Yeah. yeah um Yeah. So the the two conversations that we had internally and in my personal store that really helped us get past that were, we had that conversation about the 4% of what we wrote in service if we would have actually sold it.
00:37:38
Speaker
Right. And I backed that into the pay plan and showed them, you know, what what they had left on the table. And I said, Hey, do you think that maybe there's a chance that you know, there's a few conversations here and there that if we would have had a different way,
00:37:53
Speaker
we might've been able to sell it and they were like, well, yeah. So we listened to a bunch of phone calls. And, and what I found was, again, when we start adding volume and you're adding volume right now, what happens is the customer, we send out the, the, um, the inspection report through tech metric, the customer calls back whenever they feel like calling back and they catch us by surprise.
00:38:13
Speaker
And you're in the middle of 10 other things. And that service advisor is distracted. And then he tries to pull up the ticket and he tries to gather his thoughts and, and get into his presentation and it's,
00:38:27
Speaker
Yeah, it's less effective. It's just clunky, right? So um what we did there was we adopted the, hey, listen, let me call you back real quick when I get back to my desk and I have all of my information in front of me.
00:38:38
Speaker
And and we can we can go through all this together. And they they take a minute. They get all their stuff together. They're not allowed to send the inspection report and so they' until the estimate's complete. They have their benefits list. They have their consequences list.
00:38:56
Speaker
They have their priorities, you know, of, you know, this has to be sold today, you know, items, the urgent items, and then downsell option.
00:39:08
Speaker
And so they've already done the work there. Now when now when they send the inspection report out, when the client calls back in, the plan there is, is that if they're not already thoughtfully prepared for that particular client that they press pause, get their stuff together, review it, and then call back when they're ready to make the presentation.
00:39:29
Speaker
Um, and that's, that's had an immediate impact on closing percentage, um, for us. And now that you have some additional time there, that might be, that might be an easy way to, to drive some top line sales.
Setting Sales Targets and Process Refinement
00:39:42
Speaker
So, um,
00:39:47
Speaker
you're doing that at your shop. How hard was it to implement that at your shop? Um, what we did,
00:39:58
Speaker
um
00:40:02
Speaker
like any implementation, I don't want to say that it's a hundred percent and a hundred percent implementation is not attainable, you know, really with anything. Um,
00:40:13
Speaker
I would say there was a little bit, anytime we start talking about doing role plays and stuff like that, there's pushback on the front end because nobody likes doing it. Yeah. Again, when I, when we talked about the, I'll tell you, I'll, I'll, my service manager went on vacation and we had gotten a kind of in our store, got caught up in the rut that everybody else got caught up in. And over the last two months, you know, with everything that's going on is, Oh, all the customers are broke. Nobody has any money. Nobody wants to buy anything. And we just started, you know,
00:40:42
Speaker
we started eating our own, drinking our own negative Kool-Aid. Right. And so when she was gone on vacation, um, I had to go work the counter and not that I did anything spectacular. So I am not, this isn't a mat pat on the back session here, but we started, i knew that we need to do, so do some training with our, our second service advisor. And so we started doing the role plays with each other, uh, like that just cause I was there.
00:41:07
Speaker
So and we had a killer week. Like we just knocked dust and, So when she came back, she's like hyper competitive and she was really pissed. She was like, I want to know it. Cause it was, it wasn't sales that closed out that were done prior to her leaving.
00:41:23
Speaker
So it's not like she had a bunch of work pent up and then it just all closed out. We just, we sold our heinies off for five days. And so she came back and she was like, I want to know how you did it. Cause she knows I hate working the counter.
00:41:37
Speaker
And because he told her and she was like, I'm on board. if that's what I got to do, I'm on board. So that made it a little bit easier. Everything prior to that, it was ah like pulling teeth.
00:41:50
Speaker
So, I mean, it's not like this is the first time we've ever had a conversation about, about doing role plays. Um, she just doesn't like to lose. And so she lost and she doesn't want to lose again. so competition driver, I got you that, that made it a lot easier. Um, and then there's been,
00:42:08
Speaker
you know So they've done a really good job of stopping me before you know before they get a sale that they're a little bit unsure about or if they get that customer that they know is calling around and asking other people. um They pick up the phone, they call me, we do a quick role play on it. And and that's it it's worked really, really well.
00:42:26
Speaker
good good and And I know you can't do that with everything, ah but if if you can get a little bit of that implemented, and especially since you have two of them there and Stephen's there from time to time, it again, if you just pick up 4%. Well, I mean, between the two advisors and Stephen,
00:42:45
Speaker
And Blaine and myself, I mean, there's an opportunity to be able to have those conversations and those practice calls if they are willing to do it, right? yeah If they believe in the value of it.
00:42:58
Speaker
So... So when we were at the pro service meeting ah for elite, which is our peer group with elite worldwide and, uh, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, a couple weeks ago, that was one of the topics that they brought in from an outside perspective was, uh, phone skills.
00:43:17
Speaker
And one of the things that he brought up was the exercise that we just did, which I had already done, which was the, what is your total written sales? what is your closing percentage? If you increase your closing percentage X amount, you know, how much would that drive to your top line revenue?
00:43:32
Speaker
And so, but it just drove it home. You know what i mean? You hear the same, you know, you know, all this stuff, but you hear somebody else say it and we're the same way as our employees, right? So we, we did that. And that's, that was another thing that kind of clicked there.
00:43:45
Speaker
And, and we did phone, that that our topic was phone call reviews. And so we all had to play our phone calls. And so we we came back and got pretty hot and heavy on, you know, doing phone call reviews again.
00:43:57
Speaker
and And again, picked up a lot of that's lot of that focus, um you know, just over the last couple weeks has reignited the counter.
00:44:09
Speaker
Well, I mean, it sounds like a cliche, but... Every time car count is down, every time closing rate is down, every time sales are down. you go listen to the phones, you'll hear why. Yeah.
00:44:20
Speaker
Sucks. If your marketing is in place and it works, phones are ringing. You guys are just screwing it up. Um, yeah. And I was the worst offender of them all in that capacity. out This week I had to write, it um yeah We were having a really active morning sales meeting and where I sit, I can see the advisor pit and the front door.
00:44:44
Speaker
It was 730 and they were having a really in-depth breakdown of a role play that we had done. ah saw a customer walk up. So I just hopped up and went out and unlocked the door and turned the lights on and welcomed him in.
00:44:55
Speaker
ah started writing him up and he was in for vibration concern. And I'm like, look, we are never, ever, ever, ever, ever ever ever ever ever ever ever going to write up an NVH concern without test driving with the customer to duplicate the concern.
00:45:13
Speaker
And so I wrote him up and I went out into the car and got the mileage and the tag and everything. Got his keys and sent him on his way. Yes, I did. And Xander walked up right as the door was closed and said, Hey, I got the tech on the way up to go ride with him right now. And just stared at me because he fucking knew what I did.
00:45:33
Speaker
And so I was definitely feeling a little convicted about not practicing what I preach. um I'm sorry, that was a tangent. I apologize, but. No, but I mean, those are, I like those moments too. um I don't work the counter very often, but I am really bad at, you know,
00:45:52
Speaker
A lot of that little, you know, practice, practicing what you preach on some of the little stuff like that. But um honestly, and and Mike, you're good enough at self-deprecation because I've been around you long enough that I know that. So but use those opportunities, you know, to let them critique you because that proves now that they know the process. Right.
00:46:11
Speaker
Yeah. um a lot of times nobody likes nobody likes the the feedback self-feedback right yeah um or the third-party feedback on themselves but uh every now and again i'll take calls for myself and get them to you know do call reviews on me you know because the idea is it's it doesn't matter who the call review is on it's the teachable moment right so i make mistakes on phone calls just like they do and know every now and then it's good for them to return fire and shoot it back at me sometimes, you know?
00:46:42
Speaker
Sure. Sure. Sweet. What else got, man? Well, what is going to be our target? And I know we're talking about, know we're talking about March and April at the end of April. So what is our target for April and sales? And what is our target for many?
00:47:05
Speaker
I think, uh, one 35 April. Um, um You know May. How many working days we get in May?
00:47:16
Speaker
There's a holiday in May, right? Is there a major holiday in May? You don't believe in holidays, Mike. Your people work seven days a week. Come on, man. Not at this store. At this store, we're still humans. um So the 22 working days, unless there's one of those Monday holidays that I can't remember.
00:47:33
Speaker
We'll count it to 21. 21. Okay. So, uh, I think if we're looking for nine hours per tech per day, we got three texts, right? Yep. So nine times, I think we're at two 85 per hour right now, times three times 21. Holy shit.
00:47:53
Speaker
holy shit That's $161,000. I don't know if we're get to one but I think one is a good number. um mean
00:48:05
Speaker
I mean, the 1.6 pace is 133 month. um And I think yeah that's got to be the the low goal right now with the crew that we've got is the 1.6 pace.
00:48:18
Speaker
um I like 150. I think 150 is a fair number. You're coming into AC season. We're here, baby. Finally got that store 1234YF machine month. I've been dragging my feet forever.
00:48:33
Speaker
They print money, don't they? Hopefully. We'll see. love them. Yeah.
00:48:43
Speaker
Okay. So we got, we got a 135 pace for this month. We got a 150 goal for next month. What do you need to do?
00:48:54
Speaker
So we know, we know we need to put a little bit of focus on tires. Um, we know we need to do some, um, temporary signage that you can put out there to maximize the ability for car count through your throughput traffic.
00:49:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:14
Speaker
We know that we need to. I feel like if I got a waving arm tube man that I might get some hate mail from the neighborhood for that. Probably so. but But some flag signs that we take. Classy classy temporary signage.
00:49:26
Speaker
ah Classy temporary signage, Mike. Classy temporary signage. Got it. um
00:49:34
Speaker
You've got your. intake intake form that we're going to work on for the consistency of the intake. We're going to do some role play practice. Do you have a particular dollar size of an estimate that you would like them to role play?
00:49:51
Speaker
Well, our average written repair order is around $2,000. So that's kind of where it sits. so So anything $2,000 or more, you want them to role play it?
00:50:04
Speaker
I think that's fair. Okay. yeah So role play estimates, 2000 or more. We're looking for a 40% close ratio next month while also maintaining our $2,000 discovered services.
00:50:20
Speaker
So that would be an $800 average repair order, right? But, um, you know, month today, they're at 792 with a 35% close ratio. So maybe the average written repair order higher than I thought it was.
00:50:33
Speaker
So, Yes, I mean, that's these aren't unrealistic numbers. Yeah, for sure. and I mean, look at it this way. If you shoot for 40% close ratio and you wind up at 38, you're still at a net gain of 3%, you know?
00:50:50
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. We'll we snap our fingers and try to get the next 2%, you know? Copy all. I like it.
00:50:59
Speaker
think that's a good list, sir. So that covers the numbers, and then get your dream sheets done. I got it written down. You've only been harping on me about that for three months. So I got you, boo-boo.
00:51:12
Speaker
All right. By the sixth month when it hasn't been done, we'll have to start playing a drinking game about the listeners have to take a shot for every single month that you haven't gotten your dream sheets done yet. I'm going to be posting online. Hey guys, I'm going to do the dream sheets today. And they're going to be like, no, don't do it. We're drinking tonight.
ASTA Event Details and Listener Engagement
00:51:33
Speaker
All right. So, you know, we were ASTA management and everything. We were together today. We went and toured the convention center ah in downtown Raleigh, which is where we're having the expo this year.
00:51:46
Speaker
It is so much better than anything we've ever done. It's going to be so awesome. And we were reviewing classes and Elite's got some awesome classes and you've got a couple of classes.
00:51:58
Speaker
ah So I'm excited about sending some of my people to that. um Do you know off the top of your head what some of those classes are? So do you want to toot the horn or anything like that? Yeah. So i I know what my class is. So we're calling it the Shop Owner Silver Bullet series for mine. So this is essentially what we're going to be doing is covering the...
00:52:19
Speaker
the financial rules of thumb on the, you know, the so the P&L KPIs. um And then some of the, you you know, the general shop management system KPIs that we should be looking at. So I know that, man, the first couple years that I was in business, you get the P&L.
00:52:39
Speaker
um I was not new to business when I started my business. but you don't know the industry standards for stuff. Right. And so a lot of our shop owners out there have no idea because they've never looked at a PL.
00:52:52
Speaker
So great class i mean shop owners that are just getting out of the shop and starting to work on the business. Yeah. Or they're just opening and want to start it off the right way. Yep. And I mean, once I, once I learned those things and I was able to look at the end of the month and go, man, my payroll is 48% of my sales.
00:53:11
Speaker
You know, no wonder I'm not making any money. um You know, so just so some of those silver bullets there as far as, you know, what are the rules of thumb? What are what are the guardrails? um Where do we need to be to, you know, to have a chance to be successful?
00:53:25
Speaker
Going through those, how to how to build a break even. um So we can, so we can create goals because everything starts with the break even and, and being able to get past our overhead. So that's, that's really what, that's what my class is about. I know, and I know that we have some great classes between Darren and Tom and Sabrina and, and some of the other, some of the other elite, elite team as well. I'm not a hundred percent sure. I don't want to speak on what their courses are because I'm not a hundred percent sure what they're,
00:53:56
Speaker
Well, Sabrina is definitely doing an advisor class was submitted. Darren's got a couple of owner classes that were submitted, I think one one was him and one was him and Joe, maybe. Yeah, but there were four or five classes that he also submitted. So I'm excited about it.
00:54:10
Speaker
And man, this is going to be such a killer facility. And i mean, you've been to downtown Raleigh plenty, but it's yeah, I i love I love ASTA every single year. It's it's one of my favorite events. And I'm i'm not just saying that because ah because it's so near and dear to you. I really do enjoy it.
00:54:26
Speaker
um And i've I've gone as a guest every single year, except for this year. This is the first time I've ever you know done any type of presenting or working. um it's always I've always just gone to enjoy it.
00:54:39
Speaker
yeah But I mean, the content's always great. The turnout's always fantastic. if you guys are you know If you guys are on the fence in the industry about you know coming to trade shows or coming to training events and whether there is ah ROI on it, we shut our shop down and take everybody.
00:54:56
Speaker
Um, and it sucks. I mean, it, it, it does. I mean, it's, I'm not going to sit there and say it's a fun paycheck to write for those, uh, those three days, but we always get so much out of it.
00:55:07
Speaker
Um, the learning that we get out of it is incredible. Uh, the morale boost that everybody gets to be able to go and and do those things as a team and a group is incredible. And, uh, You know, and it's, we live inside of our own little fishbowl, you know, so much. It's nice to get out there and see that, you know, there's other people out there that are trying to do things the same way that we are and pick up those one or two little nuggets, you know, whether it's the technician that picks up the one or two little things that they're going to take back and not struggle with, or the advisor that picks up the one or two things and,
00:55:40
Speaker
It doesn't matter what event I go to, even at the you know even with all the stuff that I get saturated with on a day-to-day basis, I still pick up. I sit in on the classes and I get stuff um you know on the owner side and on the advisor side. So it's it's a great event. Always have great trainers there.
00:55:57
Speaker
um The participation with the the attendees is always phenomenal. it's always well run and and clean and orderly. So you guys, and ill I'll also tell you that, uh, can confirm I inspected today, personally a quality assurance inspection, the hotel lobby bar, really good whiskey selection.
00:56:19
Speaker
So that's always a plus too.
00:56:23
Speaker
All right, man. Well, uh, thanks for the conversation. i appreciate it. And, I'm sure that we'll talk again in a couple of weeks for the April report. Yeah, absolutely.
00:56:34
Speaker
Thanks for listening to Confessions of a Shop Owner, where we lay it all out, the good, and the bad, and sometimes the super messed up. I'm your host, Mike Allen, here to remind you that even the pros screw it up sometimes. So why not laugh a little bit, learn a little bit, and maybe have another drink.
00:56:48
Speaker
You got a confession of your own or a topic you'd like me to cover? Or do you just want to let me know what an idiot I am? Email mike at confessionsofashopowner.com or call and leave a message. The number is 704-CONFESS.
00:57:03
Speaker
That's 704-266-3377. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, or follow. Join us on this crazy journey that is shop ownership. I'll see you on the next episode.
00:57:42
Speaker
Yes.