Hey everybody, welcome back to the dealership.
Fix it podcast, you're listening to episode number 60 and I don't
know what day it is almost or what month here, we sit in the
middle of covid-19, the coronavirus of 2020, a lots
changed. My last podcast was looks like
about a month ago, shockingly. And I've been busy homeschool my
kids and working. So as you all know, I do this on
this side and I'm here to have Great conversations with
industry veterans guys, that really bring a lot of value to
you and these conversations and I got to chat with Kurt Von Ahn
and again, offline. And I asked him to come back on
if he would been really pleased with the sort of conversations,
he and I have had and see what he's doing out there and the
things he can do to help some dealers out.
But great conversations, I think I see him having and I wanted to
tap back into him for perspective.
So Kurt, welcome back to the dealership, fix it podcast.
Brian, I appreciate it. I do.
I like adding value to your audience and you know, just just
a side note for you when I actually do get to reach out and
talk to dealers one-on-one. They've all, you know, it's not
all, but most of them listened to your podcast and have really
positive things to say. So I was super amped to get to
get back with you and you know, kind of pick up where we left
off. Well, you know, I'm really, I'm
glad to hear that. It's funny because I've never
built this. Being I just always thought of
something that should Exist. So I figured I would just do it
but I haven't kind of wrapped my existence to it which is kind of
why you see this Gap like a month.
I get busy in a month goes by. I'm here to jump on with guys if
it's something valuable not just trying to fill space in the air
and maybe if I were trying to build the brand a little better,
I would do a better job with that but I'm just trying to I'm
just trying to be here if it's can be relevant and good
conversations for you know. Like I said I picture myself at
dealerships and other guys have met through the year.
So thank you for that. I'm glad to hear.
I'm glad to hear that, that people know of the podcast.
They don't have to know who I am or anything else.
Just as long as I'm bringing, you know, like I say guys like
yourself on and and kind of get them thinking get them moving.
So what? Yeah.
Well you know, Brian at this time, I mean you mentioned
covid, read it, beginning in your introduction and for me
this coded things this whole thing has just reached of
opportunity. And in fact I wrote a blog post
about it almost a month ago. A point that said hey anytime
There's A disruption you know that disruption can be an
obstacle or it can be an opportunity if it's how you
address it I started making content.
In that light and trying to follow some some, some core
examples of people that were as opportunity you know rather than
an obstacle and it's been interesting to see the outcome
and you know I would say that service leadership in a crisis
is it's a big deal not just for your employees but you know, in
your community. And so it's been really
interesting to watch this happen is this covid thing is a
horrible deal all the way around.
You know, I feel bad for people that are sick, I can empathize
with them. There's you know, if you've got
The check, this is not statement, you know, against
that or to say that, you know, I don't care about it.
But man, we have made a great deal of sacrifice in this
country for this incident. You know, you know, more people,
die in car accidents, more people die from drunk driving,
more people, die from the regular flu.
And so, a lot of people are having a hard time dealing with
this and when it's, when it's your company, when it's your
business that you voluntarily kind of shut down that, that
that's hard to say. Comic.
And so, I wanted to find a way for, for businesses, especially
in states, where they're deemed essential, to find a way to find
Success Through the muck, you know what I mean?
I think you certainly, you know, sometimes the worst of times or
the worst things a person or a family or in this case a nation
or world can go through. There are people who will not to
make it sound negative, but they're people who capitalize on
the opportunity because they know there's always an
opportunity. You know, obviously if it's
batten down the hatches because your local government has told
you, you will not be opened and you will not do business.
Well you know, you might have a timetable set up.
I'm sure and looking at that and maybe got a certain window of
time where you say I can come back or my business folds by
then. But in the meantime, assuming I
can come back in and 30 days or you know, whatever the governor
or whoever is saying in that time you know, that's the The
conversations I've been having with with my clients has been,
okay? So you know, case, you're not
close. Okay?
So sales is closed but service and parts are not okay.
So what is, you know, you know, if the tell me your plan
obviously they've got a lot of planning they're doing but if
they're sharing with me what they have going on, I start
thinking about all these processes and all these pieces,
these parts of the equation where they haven't been able to
touch it, and massage it because they're, they've been just busy
enough to not have to. And then it could of course, to
me, that's the opportunity has presented.
Ended itself. You've got all the time in the
world. Now what do we work?
What do we tackling first? And what's your plan?
Yeah, you know, it sounds like you.
And I are so much on the same page for me.
Personally, you know, my almost one of my favorite phrases as
become, like friction point, right?
So I try and think of like, think of your dealership think
of your business, whether it's not Powersports Marine day,
can't be bicycles, right? Cuz there's a diverse crowd,
listening to your content. And I know that your focus on
Power Sports but so much is applicable.
Elsewhere and And how many people like going to the service
department at your facility, you know, and then you start
thinking, what will why do people not like coming to my
service department? And you start looking at those
friction points and right now is a prime opportunity to be able
to kind of re script that experience, right?
So from an objective standpoint, why don't people like coming to
my store? Is it?
You know, is it the parking lot? Is it the building appearance is
their confusion as to, you know, where to take your product to
get it serviced at my facility, you know?
Is it the people who I have the wrong guy on the service
counter? Do I have the wrong people
answering the phone? Do I have the wrong people?
You know, bringing the motorcycle back up from to be re
delivered to the customer for active delivery.
You know, and it's, this is a, this is a really good
opportunity for these businesses to be introspective and go.
Hey, wait a minute, I do have some friction points that I can
alter. I can fix, I can eliminate and
in the end that might not create Revenue this month.
It will expand the opportunity for Revenue when they open back
up. And so I think that's huge, you
know? And then I hear all these
success stories, about curbside, delivery curbside drop-off and
all these things that people are implementing that is again, you
know, it's trying to lower the friction point for the consumer
which I think is huge. It's, you know, as you're
describing that in my brain, I picture, I guess, I think
visually, right. So as you're saying friction
point, I think about you've got this, it's outside force, and
this Inside, Force the to, you know, a customer that employee.
Let's call it in the, in the client or the customer.
The two are trying to come and be in the same place and
interact together. Right.
So is it is it a level of friction that just requires a
little bit of high-quality grease you know, or a little, a
little Lube on thing or does it require okay?
No, no, it actually inquires requires a grinder to grind out
some of the rough edges. And then we'll polish, right?
Or is it one of those where it's like, no, no.
We gotta scrap the Mechanism as it is.
So, you know, I just think back to the days where I worked at
dealerships and did service writing, you know.
And, you know, sometimes it's sometimes it's the guy always
supposed to go to the parts counter and that's where he
checks his bike and for serve as well.
How's that work? You know, I mean not that you're
not that a dealership has to change that, but I've worked at
several that were set up that way, you know, kind of one size
fits all. And, you know, I've also seen
some that went that way and changed it through.
The busy times, here's your opportunity.
T. You know how big a friction do
you got going on? And what level of change is
required? If you could rewrite it right
now? You know, and each of these
businesses is different, they're not stamp.
You know, what I used to do the in-person training with
dealerships for other corporations, I would give them
the excuse, I'd give them the out, you know, I'm like, I get
it, you're not Home Depot, you're not, you know, every Home
Depot set up the same, right? One end of the building is, you
know, where how you make a foundation, and the other end of
the building is like, gardening and Landscaping.
And then the score is assembled in the order that you build a
house. So when you go to Home, Depot,
whatever, Home Depot, you go to, you can always find what you
want, because, The store set up in the same order, the truck the
same, when you go to a motorcycle dealership, right?
Each of these businesses is an independent franchisee of some
of the brand or combination of brand.
And so, like you said, you know, as a service writer, maybe you
greeted the customer, maybe you didn't, when a customer came to
get the motorcycle, maybe they pay the service writer, maybe
they pay the parts counter, maybe they pay a cashier that
works for both service and the parts count.
But the customer doesn't know that and doesn't don't have a
familiarity with the business, you know, their first reason
second visit there and so that that causes some of that
friction, that causes some of that uneasiness that the
customer has Whipple's, do you, do you imagine?
I, I like to think of, you know, if we're talking about
leadership, do do you think that enough people that are the
leader of an organization? That's called the dealership
owners and management. Are they preparing for a lot of
these scenarios that are about to start taking place, right?
So you got, you know, depending on where you're at and what the,
what the laws and orders require or don't allow do those
leadership? Are they having conversations
with everybody in there? They are.
They Gathering them all together to have this great conversations
and say, hey, just so, you know, here's what we're doing social
distancing, right? That's in the general sort of,
you know terminology. But if a Walks in and they're
totally not on the same page. How does your staff react?
I'll give you an example. I went and bought a from Ace
Hardware in town over here. I need a wheelbarrow because I
got this gravel and I'm doing some stuff outside and this is
what I'm doing when i'm not teaching my kids from home and
and actually doing work during the day time.
You notice the evening hours is we start to go into the later
day. That's what I'm doing.
So, I went bought myself a wheelbarrow.
I hadn't had one in years and I walk into this Ace Hardware.
And it's retired. Guy comes Trucking up.
I'm gonna help you sir and he walks right up.
I mean the guys like a foot and a half from me, I'm immediately
thinking like, well I'm not uncomfortable because I
immediately, if you do I'm not wearing a mask, he's not wearing
a mask. He walks right up next to me, I
took kind of a little bit of a side step and leaned on one of
the shelves to be like, hey, I'm looking for a wheel barrel and
some whatever, you know, but I immediately thought, wow.
Okay so this guy just, if I were a sensitive person Then I saw
people walking out with masks on, so either they're sensitive
or they're sensitive, you know, in their idea of what they think
they could put on someone else, right?
But I started thinking well there's all this perception that
we're in this big soup of random mixture of perceptions.
You know, is a leader training. Their staff on, how to react to
somebody who doesn't kind of play ball.
You don't want to be like, hey, mister back up, you know, if
your, if your customer comes and gets in Interior space.
I just wonder if you feel like that's something that is being
focused on or is that part of? I mean, we're not that sad,
obviously, the small grid granular end of it.
But are those the sort of, you know, and then it, you hit so
many things on the head. With just your Simple Story.
They're growing in the question and that, and I'm going to
favorite sounding lie. No, they're not.
They're not disseminating information down through the
ranks and that's what the customer is, experiencing, you
know, not just at Ace Hardware. We're but, you know, at a lot of
these different facilities, there are guidelines that get
pulled out by a local municipality, right?
This is how, you know, if your business is deemed essential to,
these are some of the things we'll have to put in place.
And in a lot of cases, upper management, you know, CEOs CFOs
HR Representatives. I mean, you go through whatever
the size of the businesses were talking about.
That person will say, okay, well, I'm going to print out
this Memo from the municipality and I'm going to give it to you.
No could be the leads, right. I'm going to give it to the
shift. Bleed, that's over these 12
people. And they say, what?
Here's a copy of your information, make sure everybody
reads us an initial, but right. And it's going to be by the time
clock and and people will just glance at it and initial it
because they want to get to the next shift.
People aren't experiencing leadership in the way that I
Define leadership sharing copies of memos and saying initial
those, you're responsible to know it.
Now, that's not leadership to me.
Leadership is You know, taking the time to walk amongst your
people, you know, maybe maybe show them leadership by Leading
The Way first and then, you know, walk with them in their
shoes for a little bit and in some cases you got to get behind
them, you know and give him a little shove sometimes to find
success. And then it next to them again,
you know, take their temperature, see how they're
doing, right? Kind of Monitor and and see how
they're growing, or how, they're accepting, whatever the new
standard is and then go back to what you You perceive as
leadership, right? Go back to your office and catch
up on the things that you need to do.
But leadership in today's day and age isn't the same as
management and and I think that's where I think there's a
disconnect is that especially in power sports people that you
know, own dealerships generally are they might be great sales
people or they might be super Enthusiast or they might be
there's all these things where we do, they're really great at
this, great at that. But when it comes to Two leading
people and growing a business that a lot of them didn't have
formal training in that. And so it's not that they don't
know or it's not that they're idiots.
We're not stupid. They're usually very, very smart
people. They just don't have direct
experience or exposure to leadership techniques and
understanding how people work. And so that's why we see a lot
of these gaps on sales, floors and service, departments and
parts department. Is that it?
I ended that kind of long, I'm sorry.
No, you said, I'll I hate to talk too much.
A lot of times I want to kind of relay what I'm thinking or what
my brains kind of molding around a situation or scenario, but I
like for, you know, you or my guests to definitely go on at
length if possible. Do you feel like then it's got
to do with the difference between what was that, you know,
I was like a big YouTube thing for a while back and it was the
old like the college professors up there.
And he's like, you know, how much sand can I I put in this
thing, you know, that whole thing my company's been using it
lately too. It's you know, been resurrected
living with The Rock from the golf balls on the marbles and
that the sand and in the water. Yeah, 1954 to that part of I
mean, not to beat that horse well into Oblivion.
But do you feel like is that is the leadership you know, we're
seeing in this business doesn't need to lean a certain way or
the other do they need to? Are they not doing big rocks
first or they just to me, right? I'm a nuanced guy.
Maybe that would make me a great leader because I wouldn't Focus.
Kisan, the Rocks, well enough, and maybe that's something that
you know, somebody listening to this could say oh yeah, I'm
totally like him. I get lost in all the Nuance of.
Hey, did everybody understand? Hey, I want to bounce a, here's
the governor's order. Here's what this means.
Here's what social distinct. Distancing me, in tears, we were
expected to do. Let's talk it out, right?
That's where I would go with their staff but that may leave
me in a place where I'm focusing in the granular stuff and I'm
not focusing on the big boulders and rocks and golf balls.
Yeah, it's definitely a difficult balance but you know,
a lot of what you said, like, you were talking about the rocks
and the golf balls in the marbles and sand and the water
and the jar thing. And what I say a lot with
especially business owners is also, you know, have you ever
seen the show hoarders before? You know, and and I'll be like
orders. I'm like, hey, you know what
people, you know, they they they get a nice house and then, you
know, it seems like overnight but it's not overnight but over
time, these people begin to have junk, Everywhere.
And some of them died in a pile of their own trash.
Right now is, was that the goal? Is that where they wanted to go?
Obviously, the answer is no, but nobody says, this is my plan.
I'm going to buy a new house and turn it into, you know, a living
dump. But, unfortunately, that can
happen in a business where you see changes happening, and
remember, the human being is incredibly adaptive, right?
And, and it's meant to be a good thing, but it can be a curse.
Instead of a blessing, we adapt to things.
Consider the normal. And so these owners of
businesses will think that their people are at a certain level or
a certain intellectual understanding or a certain
relational understanding with the public that they're simply
not as often when I get called for Consulting.
The ownership of the dealership is assuming that I'm going to
come in as a consultant. I'm going to help them raise
their gross profit from, you know, eight percent to 11
percent, or I'm going to and they start getting into the
nitty-gritty of numbers and sheets.
And, and things that might look a little bit more.
Like they're Spader training if they're in a fader 20 group.
But then I go to do a visit or I talked to their service writers
or managers to resume call, or through an in-person visit and I
realized holy crud. This person doesn't really
understand how to use the phone as an effective sales tool yet.
And as you know, being a service writer, you can make a lot of
your sales on the phone and so it's like wait a minute, you
know, we need to get back to the basics and it's part of that
that holder As mentality, right? We have accepted took the
current Norm as being okay, as being the norm and thinking,
that, that's what we get and it's not, we can we can make
that change. We can clean the Howell so we
can start over. I feel like you and I've talked
about this before and I don't know if it was on the last time
we were on or just offline. But, you know, the opportunity,
you know, and the service end of the house, especially that
exists, you know? Now, that, you know, not
everybody wants to jump in the car at the moment and drive to
your dealership and they're willing to do more and more
online expectations of grown on what that can do or like this,
you know, communicating via phone or video messaging, sort
of Setup and Automotive I think has been doing that for a lot a
whole lot longer and Powersports has been resistant.
I think to leaning to it. Is this going to be the time
that that all has to shift and the in person has to you know,
will potentially be secondary to all the communication that we'll
be adding these other methods. Well, I look forward to a
changing, to be honest with you, Brian.
I think that now now is a perfect time for a transition.
We could take any of our business practices right now,
with the covid crisis, and just change it.
We could say, okay, well now we're going to go this direction
and you know the circumstance but pops eater Venus of what
we're working in right now. Like I'm making up words right
there but the coffee turbulence of what we're dealing with right
now allows us to change whatever we want and and then set that as
a new Norm for to move forward for the next 30 or 60 days, you
know, Then evaluate it as leaders and go.
This was a good direction. We saw some growth this way or a
that's unfortunate. We thought it would be a good
idea but it didn't work out. Let's go a different direction
but but now's the time where we could make some changes and be
you know and show some leadership in that direction.
So that would that would imply to me that if somebody's maybe
good at adapting and they're good at kind of going with the
flow and making the best of what they get at this point.
It might be a time to draw the line in the sand, right?
And and say get out the the drafting paper and board and
your fancy mechanical pencil and lets you know, make sure you
draft out your plans and goals and what you want versus go with
the flow and get what you get and make the best of it, right.
Make that shift, might be a perfect time for the line.
Exactly. You know, a leader that is
comfortable with change. A leader that's comfortable with
communication. I think this is It's not just
people that are willing to make changes that are going to
succeed, because making the change might alienate people,
some people hate change, right? So, if you're comfortable with
change, you also need to be comfortable with communication
and connection, right? Like, it's one thing to
communicate and throw some information on social or to send
out a mass email or something. But it's a different matter to
make sure that, that communication connects.
And so, you know, by leveraging relationship with customers, by
leveraging relationships with you.
No partnering type businesses in the in the area in your region
you can have a lot more positive effect.
And so I've been trying to work with dealers to say hey those of
you that are okay with change let's Institute some change.
What's discussed with change look like you know, for your
business and then let's discuss how we're going to communicate.
Those changes and leverage relationships with others, to
have a positive effect. And then how are we going to
measure that positive effect over the next 30?
60 90 days? Make sure we're going in the
right direction and it's been interesting because some people
are actually experiencing growth right now, you know, during the
quarantine, they've got more service work than they've had in
the past. I talked to a shop last week,
they're on a three-week, wait already to get another shop and
get something worked on. So now that brings up the second
part of my training which is like okay, once your business
increases, how are you going to increase your productivity and
Effectiveness to get the work done more quickly, right?
Does it mean hi. Hiring more people.
Does it mean modifying your techniques behind the scenes?
That's a whole different discussion.
But it's been interesting to see that people that focus on
communication and connection are seeing growth, whereas people
that are calling up and say, you know, there's the scarcity
mindset and there's the abundance mindset, right?
So, if you're a general manager, and you've got a two-year-old
Ninja, 300 on the floor that you're playing for plan on, you
might be telling your salespeople.
Hey, you're going to go through this nameless and your All of
our previous customers and hope somebody buys that Ninja 300,
that thing's got to go this weekend.
You know, that's a scarcity mindset, whereas calling
existing customers and saying, hey, I know, it's been a while
since you've been in, you know, we want to let you know, the, a,
we're open. If you need anything or service
department is open, our sales department, open our parts
department, open, whatever that scenario is.
But you know, you call them and say, hey, we just want to make
sure you guys, okay. Do you know anyone that sick?
Is anyone in your family, sick? You know, if you're a person of
Faith, might save it. Okay.
If I pray for you or whatever that relationship, right?
And it's just maintaining or building that relationship and
it's the people of the community feels that connection and they
know you're open. Well, then you may experience a
growth in sales, which is what's been happening at some of the
folks that have leveraged relationships that work with me.
Yeah, I mean, from a, mine spits, pretty simple concept,
right? If you know, if if you're so far
out of friend of mine that you're not in mind, you might be
the local the local shop to somebody.
But That, you know, maybe they're shopping, and maybe
they've gone off that sort of that down that rabbit hole of a
different brand and they're looking at your competitors
site. I was going to as you were
saying that, it got me thinking, you know, I'm constantly in and
out of with cycle trader, and RV trailer in the parts that I do
there. I'm constantly looking at
dealers listings on Trader. I'm looking at their portal, the
back end. We call it Trader track.
So, I'm looking at that for all the stats that are in, you know,
in to see what stands out at me as positives.
And Red flags you know negatives that you know okay.
Is this something that's did something come disconnected in
our in our technology and it's not doing something right?
What I tend to do that, a lot of times is I'll go to the listings
through the portal and I can click through and make sure okay
is this directly connecting as it should kind of vdp2.
Vtp means you know our add detail page to there's on their
page if that exists. But what I tend to find here in
this last month that stood out to me quite a bit is is maybe a
lack of communication. And again that Of front of mind
and maybe putting people at ease, right?
So, I'm picturing myself as a as a customer clicking through and
I go over to their website and if you know, let's say, I just
land on their main page of their website.
And there's zero mention about what the heck is going on right
now. You know the old like that.
Don't mention it because it's not something good to talk about
it's you know, as I look at it I'm kind of shaking my head like
okay so I need to let these guys know.
Hey do you have you thought about Out or why aren't you, you
know, discussing that elephant in the room?
You know, there's a big elephant and if they somebody lands on
your page and there's zero conversation about, you know, oh
here's a separate separate page within our website or here's a
little Banner that comes up. It's at right at entry point of
your site because there's, you know, guys like me who walk
around, you know, I don't walk around, it's been hide in the
house a whole lot, but when I go to the grocery store, when I go
to the hardware store, I did not wear a mask.
Ask I'm being as smart as I can, I'm not wearing a mask.
That's me. And then you've got all these
other folks that I see with masks and probably a lot of
people who are thinking, man, I really would love to go do that.
What a great escape mechanism for all of this shut-in.
We've been having to go ride a motorcycle, to go.
Grab an RV, and go camping to grab a boat.
And go hit the waterways that just opened up or whatever.
But some of those, by the time they go and look like, you know,
if they're in in sort of the more fear mindset, they may not
go any further. They may say, this person is
even reference this exists. I don't know what they would.
Probably try to shake my hand to give me a hug when I walked in
there. No, thanks.
What do you think about that? Are you seeing that yourself?
Well, one of the best examples that I saw and is it okay to
mention a dealer specifically on your show sir?
Okay, one of the best examples that I saw, right?
When the covid crisis, broke out was Scott Cloninger, leverage,
the email list at Triumph of Albuquerque.
You know what I live in Southern California now, right?
But I still get the free email and it was it was very direct.
We're still open. This is what we've done.
We've cleaned we sterilize were enforcing Distancing no more
than six people allowed in the showroom at a fine, you know,
Bam, Bam, Bam. Like this is how you were going
to do business and to me, it just jump off the page and this
was right at the beginning of the crisis.
So, when I saw that, I was like, this is exactly what I wrote my
blog post about this. This is an actionable example of
what I yeah, connection, you know, communicate connect and
invite people to come and don't pressure them to come in.
It wasn't like you. Now, during the covid crisis
today and today, only, you're going to get 20% off.
It wasn't, it wasn't cheesy like that.
It was, hey, if you're looking social distancing is now cool,
right? When they said you can ride a
motorcycle during the crisis. I thought to myself.
Wow. How many trap people in their
homes, male or female would love to just get out and go for a
motorcycle ride right now. Like now you want to do
something by yourself more than ever and social distancing is
now cool. Again, it's like we might
actually see an upswing, you know, the Covid crisis.
Might actually launch the motorcycle business, you know,
early this year. And it's like, if you look at it
from that perspective, it's like, oh wow, okay.
Now let people know how to do business what to expect and I
think they know that all the head and that was, you know, I'm
going to say it was over a month ago, that I got that email this
point, but I thought that was a great way to react.
Well, I totally agree and I can relate because, you know, I'm in
the house, my wife's working from home, we're both trying to
help. Have you know, little kids in
elementary school that we're trying to keep from getting too
much screen time that we're sitting there showing them how
to click and do their homework on the damn computer.
So it becomes an all-day proposition for four of us.
And then keeping the kids who get too much screen time from
going at it. So I can tell you and I can
relate that what I do is find the window where I say, hey, I
got everybody lunch figured out. Hey, you mind if I go for a ride
real quick, go out and my motorcycle, I'm gone for 45
minutes to an hour, drop of a hat, just to be out in May.
And I could tell you, it's never felt so good.
So if your thing is going out in the RV and getting out in your
friends property, you know, your friend as farm and you say, hey,
can I go over in the corner of that?
Lot right there and put my review up for a few days or a
week and, you know, I don't know.
Then the same with obviously all these other Industries and what
excited sort of your, your favorite, you know, thing to do
is. It's, I agree.
And I've seen, you know, and what I look at here in my
territory, where I sit them in, Oregon and Washington and
Washington, Anton right now. Cannot sell a motor vehicle.
I don't know about cars if they're allowing that yet, but
Right Now, Powersports dealers. There cannot an RV.
They cannot sell a unit service and sales are I'm hoping or
busy. I can tell you that the dealers
on the other side of the river here in Oregon are really busy
because they can sell. So of course, there's that a
that built up, pent-up demand and it's spilling over.
So, I think a lot of that is going on right now as we speak.
And Brian there's so many ways that the dealers.
Let's say you are in Washington, and you're not allowed so
motorcycles right now. Okay.
I totally get that and there's rules.
I read somewhere in Washington where you're only going to have
like one person in the building and they can only be there
during the duration of a Salesman for automotive and they
can only be in there during the duration of the sale.
And it's the customer has approved that they're replacing
a total vehicle or something. Like it's a replacement vehicle
not just buying a vehicle. And so I'm like, okay, so what's
so in my My line of work, I'm doing well, let's assume that
the Washington dealers are out because I'm like, okay, they're
out for now but they're not out for now, right then.
That's where that's where I talk about leadership in a crisis,
like, right now, if you're a dealer owner, or a dealer
general manager and you're faced with, what am I going to do with
my staff? Like, I don't want to lose them,
right? Because here's the worst thing
that can happen to our industry. We alienate our employees, and
after sending them home on 4, Low or laying them off.
They leave right? And we're already in a deficit
for qualified people in our industry to work with our
customers. So if we lose these people and
then all of a sudden, the quarantine gets lifted and the
business can open and employees don't show up if you are going
into the heat of the Season where it may be busy, and you
have no skilled staff on hand, that is probably the worst thing
that can happen to our industry this year, right?
Is like, imagine we can reopen But now there's no one to serve
the client. We can which is a big stack of
pent-up demand, it'll all come flooding in.
Yeah, what I'm saying? Yes.
Yeah. And the cost of onboarding new
employees, these small businesses can't deal with, you
know, all of the HR and insurance and, you know,
bringing people in and training them and, you know, we would
find a lot of on the pop shops. We fight easier just to close
the business than just start over.
And so, you know, this were setting ourselves up for
something - but if we take a Leadership stance and we go wait
a minute, you know like I was just talking about customer
communication, right? I was talking about like we make
an assumption that our employees are at a certain level that
they're not. Well what do they take training
through Monumental loss? Or they do training with Spader
or with garage Composites or any of these other groups?
You know, let's invest in our people.
Let's show our people that were willing to make an investment in
the right. It might not be a steady
paycheck. There might be a reduced check,
but if we say hey I've got, you know, I'm going to cover your
lynda.com training which is probably the cheapest form of
training you can get professional development, right?
I want you to learn, you know, how to work better with
spreadsheets. I want you to learn how to work
better with sales communication. I want you to learn how to work
better with CRM tools. I mean, Now's the Time where we
can really develop these people write and find a way to keep
them employed to keep them, you know, gaining an income while
we're investing in them. M and if people see us as
Leaders of an industry, you know, kind of stretching the
rules and finding ways to keep people employed and invest in
them at this, trying time will earn again more of that
relationship and more of that loyalty moving forward, which
one the quarantine the list is only going to help our business.
And you had mentioned on their lynda.com, which, I know I heard
of but I just looked it up. So I could reference it again in
case somebody thinks they have to back up and listen to it
again, it's lynda.30 cam Linda with a why.com and it looks
like, is it part of LinkedIn? Is that what it is?
Yeah, LinkedIn got involved. I would say a year or two ago
with with Linda and took it over.
I think they bought it and I've used it commercially with with
other clients like in Learning management system Ayah 14
courses, right? In the lynda.com, they have, you
know, hundreds or thousands of courses and very specific.
And so it's a great tool corporately to use with people
and say, oh, do you need help with you know how Microsoft
Access works. You need help with, you know,
you pick it and there's a course on there to help you with it.
And so, it's a really good way to invest in your people and it
shows and it. But I was just gonna say sweet,
I just noticed there's a photography course.
So all the dealers can have lots of photos.
Those now. Oh, dude.
It's like I said, it covers everything and so it's one of
those things where now, when I, when I talked to dealers that no
haven't spoken to me yet, right? Like like so, we're well into
the covid crisis, right? And I'm still reaching out and
poking up with dealers, but I haven't spoken with previously
about training and about helping them.
And I can't, I refuse to be one of those used car, salesman
pipes during the crisis and like trying to real pushy, I just try
to offer value. Offer some advice and if they
want more there's plenty more where that came from and when
I'm talking to them, I'll say well, how are you keeping your
people busy? Now like if your business is
closed and some of them are right, how can you leverage your
staff using social distancing and being safe and keeping the
place clean? How can you leverage them to do
work for you? That will make you relaunch from
a more successful standpoint and I go, you know, what does your
showroom look like? If it's a line of motorcycles,
Cycles. You know, for different brands,
park outside the side, to side to side, pull all the bikes
outside. You know, detail cleaning the
whole showroom from one side to the other, maybe paint a wall,
put in some new ceiling tiles, whatever it is, you got to do to
dress up your, you know, some people have go from incandescent
lights, the LED lights in their showroom, see an amazing
difference to the from that presentation.
And then when you put the bikes back in, don't put them, you
know, in a boring lineup, put them in like, semicircular
groups of like adventure bike, sport bikes.
A purpose bikes, you know, dirtbikes Motocross KTM bees,
you TV group them, and then take accessories and accessorize the
displays. So that you are already
building, you know, that that messaging that, that symbolic
messaging of bundling, your sales.
And when you reopen, you can say, Welcome to our grand
reopening. We've redone our showroom.
We want to give people an experience and train your sales
people on how to deal with this new point of purchase displays
system. You know, Implement a pit stop
sales strategy that takes people from from sales to F&I two parts
and then delivery through service because when the
quarantine lists again you'll be in that position to take a look
at all those friction point, for all of those missing elements of
fail, and rebuild the sales experience and launch that as,
you know, a new relaunch can get you to change your entire
business strategy. And from the service perspective
because I know that this called, about six stops not necessarily
say, Sales you know when's the last time you pulled everything
out of the shop and you cleaned it from wall to wall and you
made the technicians throw away, all that crap they save under
there under their workbench right?
All those extra parts where they save and go.
I might need this next year. No, no it goes in the dumpster
or it goes to your own storage space.
But you know, this workspace needs to be clean and then clean
whole place put into an LED lights.
You know, re epoxy the floor and that will make your spaz so much
more happier and active when time comes to get busy again,
you know, because whether it's technician, admits it or not, he
loves it clean well-lit work state and it makes them more
productive and more efficient, which raises your problem.
Now's the Time to do it because if you're close what other time,
you always said you couldn't do it because you were too busy and
now you're not. Well, seems like, you know, if I
were to kind of think about who who that would resonate best
with. I imagine if you've got your
ultimate ultimate, like type A Very Organized, they do this
stuff. Anyway, that's not really who
we're talking to, right? We're talking to the ones who
either right now for maybe not even their own fault, but
because of the question marks on the timing of all this, right?
Like oh, can I even be in the store?
Is it like Close down. They turn my water off because I
can't even go in there. Like, there's obviously these
variables but maybe the folks who maybe their mentality has
been when my backs against the wall when it's when they tell
me, when go time is and a tummy a week out out, then I'm going
to have her. We're going to do all this,
right? So it's probably those those
kind of guys that I think this really should hit home to take
the time now because, you know, we're not guaranteed.
You're going to have a two weeks notice on when you can open, and
then you're okay flip. The switch.
Let's go start doing all this you know with probably did they
open manufacturing facilities in Italy yesterday?
That's all you know. Do drink bodies back to work.
Yeah. Ducatis back to work and be a
ghost is back to work Brembo. Brakes is back to work and there
wasn't like they had three weeks to prepare for it and like all
the sudden they're lo que I guess we can open on Monday.
You know and that's kind of what we're going to see.
I think I think you know in disabilities are going to kind
of just make some rules and go. Okay.
Well I guess we can open this up now and you're going to go and
that's up. Up, you know, and you want to be
prepared, you want to be I want to be ready to communicate and
connect with your customers as they begin to come back into
your shop. Yeah, you know, I don't know if
I already told you this, but today's let's say today is the
28th of April. I am the 7th of April, went to
one of my area dealerships that I do business with, and I've
done business with for a long time and they happen to be
franchise brand that of the motorcycle I have in the garage,
right? Well, it's been having a battery
issue the bikes less than a year old and I haven't read In a
whole lot so I'm thinking I don't need to do battery but
maybe they could load test it for Me.
Maybe at the same time, they could check the VIN and see if
I've got any sort of recalls any sort of updates, anything needed
that way and there's something else, I'd like them to kind of.
Look at why I've no time expectations, right?
I'd love to have the bike here all the time.
So when it's sunny and I get a need a break, I can go take off
on it, but I sent a through the Dealer's website.
I submitted a service lead like a Joe Schmo, right?
I could probably make a phone call here.
You, it's Brian. Cycle trader.
Oh hey Brian you know, like I could do that.
I didn't I just I just plugged in.
I use my personal email address. I'll get all in gave my VIN,
gave the whole nine yards, what I was thinking in the body of
it, hit go it bounced back in immediate, you know, hey,
thanks, we got your request will be contacting you shortly.
One of those sort of things, here it is, 21 days later and
have not gotten any word from the dealer.
So don't be that guy. Right now.
No, no. And so and here's the thing
where I want to make sure that I say out loud that everybody
hears it loud and clear. It is not unusual to have things
go caddywhompus and the feel overwhelmed or not.
Be sure what the next step is or to look if you're listening to
things I say and I ramble all bunch of stuff, I talk fast and
you're just sitting there going. Oh yeah, this guy's full of it,
you know. I'd like to see me do in the
real world. I like to do in my shop, you
know? Please don't be insulted.
Don't be upset. Just go hey you know what?
If you want hit me up on Facebook LinkedIn, whatever,
let's have a discussion and you know any project anything that
is worth doing takes effort and takes work.
And one of the first steps is to go.
Okay, where you at now, where do you want to be in the Resident?
Let's just break this thing into some pieces that are digestible.
And once we do that, I find that people are a lot more.
There are more apt to take action, right?
Because once you make it less, Overwhelming, then you go.
Okay, well, that makes sense. That's doable.
I can do that. Well, I've had a lot of people
go. Oh, dude.
You know, you don't know my customers that.
Well, you know, you think if I clean the shop or put LED lights
and it's gonna increase business, you know, you can be
further from the truth and I'm like, well, I don't know when
the last time you clean the shop and hunger LED lights test me,
you know, there's so many opportunities that will help us
drive business and productivity and efficiency from up that, you
know, at the end of the day, it's all about about adding
value to the dealer and to the customers and improving customer
perception and dealer profit. And that profit only comes
through productivity efficiency, right?
So the more that we can do to make it, you know, a happy team
healthy pain and people that enjoy working and being
productive, the more we can do that, you know, and obviously
communication at the service counter is imperative to make
sure the customers are actually coming into agreeing to get the
work done. If we can make it a happy
environment through technicians or your profits are bound to go
up. Would you?
If I were to say, could you give me an adjuster gave me some
which was made me think of it, you know, to dealers in general,
you know, do these two or three things, you know, these should
be your action steps today. If you're not already working on
these, you know, if you need help figuring out why these are
important and so on than reach out to Kurt.
But what would you say to somebody just in a general way
to say, here's, here's three things, you ought to be doing
right now. You know Brian's the question
comes to me. Awesome.
And the answer sounds like a non-answer really does but but I
have to be realistic. My focal point.
And remember all these different trainers and companies all have
a different focal point Minds communication.
Mine is, is how to get over that, that Gap at service
counter. And so if your service writer
doesn't have any formal training in communication, even if you as
the business owner, if you're the general manager, and you're
listening to this right now, you're going, I don't have to do
that. You knowing how to do it and you
taking the time to work, side-by-side with your service
writer, to impart, those quo. Right?
So then you need to bring until one of work with your service
writer and get that counter up to speed as far as communication
and processing and at this batch process, you know, kind of
overseeing the shop. That's super huge.
I think, you know, 80 90 percent of the Lost opportunities that
come through a dealership in general are through that service
Council and and they could be the most likable person on the
planet, but if they don't understand, you know, the
theories of dispatching work in terms of productivity and
efficiency They're not going to make any money, and so that's
huge. And then the non answer part of
my answer is you got to get in touch with pick a percentage,
the top 5%, the top 10% of your repeat customers, right?
And then just survey them, ask them, call them from a
relationship standpoint and say what are the top two or three
friction points that you see in my business from a customer
standpoint? Point right?
Because you can guess all day long but until you actually ask,
you know, your repeat customers. They what was the biggest
friction points for you to become a customer of our
dealership and give that customer kind of a vested
interest in changes. You might want to make that
buying experience then you can execute right then you can say,
okay well turns out my parking lots hard to get into.
Okay, well, how can I restructure that in?
Can I eat? Is it fine Edge?
Is it paint? Is it new blacktop is it, you
know? But try and get creative and
figure out how can I meet the customers needs and then from
there you know you just build on it you try and reduce friction
points one at a time, you train your staff to interact and
communicate better, and if you can fix that Achilles heel of
the service counter, you will see unbelievable games through
the rest of your shop. And that extends, not just in
service, but remember Services, the best customer to your parts
department, right? So, if, if you have a
substantial increase in service, Didn't have a substantial
increase in part. And when all that begins to
happen, when everything starts to fire on all cylinders your
service management team is going to have to communicate better
with your sales management team to make the sales needs.
As far as pre-planning units for the floor, pre-planning,
reconditioning of trade-ins, all that kind of stuff once that
starts to work once. Once that really becomes a
cohesive unit, dude, it's unbelievable.
What a shop can produce or the amount of profit and journalism
that the shop can exude once that happens from the service
count, Well it's it. In part of you know touching I
just part of what you said and all you've got service the
service department. Well it's right.
In the name what you're supposed to do, right?
You're supposed to be serving the needs and if and if you're
not determining how you did, you know, through that like it's
like you're saying afterward communication surveys, phone
calls, whatever it is with either.
Some of your best are some of your most recent to see how you
fall versus your own expectations.
Yeah. You're you know you how can you
even know if you're close to hitting the mark on servicing
and serving. So many things you can make an
assumption on, but until you actually ask people.
So when I made to fix the operations course for my website
to train dealers, you know, I couldn't actively sell that
course, because I was working for another OEM at the time,
would have been a conflict of interest.
So I built what I thought would be the best net, you know, that
to cast to try and catch dealers for to their attention.
But when I started a Facebook centered page for fixed
operations, I point-blank asked the people to join.
On that page, you know, without going to my website without
being a member of the online training that I already have.
What do you think is the most important thing to train dealers
on from a service perspective? And, you know, thankfully for
me, the answer came back that it was, you know, service writer
communication and you know, customer interaction and things
that I focus on, but I had to be super open to the idea.
Like I thought I really thought they were going to say man we
really need some ATP training. You know we really need to know
how Lightspeed actually. We need to know how to make
custom reports in software and so I was expecting those types
of questions. I was expecting something
completely different than what I already had, but, you know, by
going to The Source by going to the dealers and surveying them.
Are they able to say? Okay well this is what you
actually want training in. Well then this is what I'm going
to develop even further which is why I made the course on how to
use the phone properly as a sales tool.
And it sounds like a simple course, but then again go to a
dealership and we'll listen to service writers on the phone and
you'll go, okay, that guy. Really needs a course on how to
use the phone properly as a sales tool, press what I made
next. It's tough.
You know, when you've, when you've been to the level of
discerning that, obviously, you are and helping, guys.
You know, get there, I'm sure it's got to be tough to go in
and well, a good opportunity, you know, for those other
dealers who aren't quite there, because as you said, it's tough,
It's a, its, it can be really challenging right now to get
good employees to get employees. First of all, to want to do this
right now, probably a lot of people love it, but when it's
work, it's a different program. And when you're running it, like
a business, and you expect it to be successful and hitting it out
of the park with every Every client interaction it you know
it's a different, it's a different program.
So yeah, the thing that's the most interesting about working
with the dealers and I alluded to this earlier but it'll be
sometimes the hardest dealerships for me to work with
are the really talented owners in general managers because
they're operating at a high level, right?
And so they make an assumption, that their staff has, that that
level built-in and that's, that's kind of the hard part.
But like, why do I have to hire you to train my staff?
When I already know all this. Stuff and I'm like, well when's
the last time you walk side by side with your staff?
And in part of that knowledge to them?
And they're like, oh I'm like that's why you need me, right?
So even when even, when the leadership is on point, as far
as their own personal skill set, if they don't have the time, the
commitment where the opportunity to work side-by-side with their
staff, they won't see those benefits.
And that can be really, really frustrating to a business owner,
because now they're going to they're 20 group meeting and
they're going, I just don't get it, you know.
No, I'm here with you guys. I'm having these conversations
were looking at our numbers and my team's, just not performing,
even though I already know all this stuff and it's like, well,
it's okay if you know it, but you have to make sure that your
staff was brought up in a culture that understands that
too, and that can be really difficult because one of the
dealership is hard. You don't have, you know,
unlimited time Well, you get pulled in almost unlimited
directions. I imagine really from the guys.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every customer wants to be your
best friend when they want that best deal, right?
And so you don't get that, you don't get the time to walk back
to, you know, check with the parts, got to receiving parts
and make sure using best practices and stocking Parts in
a way that makes sense, you know, or front-loading service
with the pool, the parts and tools they need for the next
special job coming in. And so, it's, unless you have
somebody on the ground that that actively Working with your
staff, they can be really really tough to get them to that level.
Where, where would you like to send folks to check you out and
check out my no, no mas. Well, my no, no Marsh.com is my
main website, and I have the academy link for that.
And so then they go to the top menu, they'll see a link for
Academy. And, you know, in there is a
list, of course, there's also a list of memberships and I have a
fixed operation membership, where I've gathered certain
courses for service providers. And what's funny is I even have
a course in there about like maintaining weight loss and
people say, why do you have a course about weight loss?
And a fixed operations course. That's Stupid.
And my answer to that is it's not stupid.
You can only perform as good as your body will let you.
So let's say you nailed down, you know, how to use the phone
as a sales tool, you nailed down.
How did this Patchwork nail down all this other stuff that you're
380 pounds, and you struggle to get your leg over a motorcycle
dealership. Will then the next level to be
the best service writer you can be, is to get your physical
shape in order, you know, to deal with what you do mentally.
And so, you know, it's a really well-rounded course on there and
a lot. Of it deals with personal
development and communication. And that's where I think we need
to focus. So that's mine, Jana.
No, mas.com, Mañana monster.com, yeah.
And for people that are like, man, I don't want to take any
courses, but they want to make like they want to connect to
other service Riders, other service professionals, I have a
free Facebook page. It's called Power Sports Marine
Service Network. So if you go to Facebook and you
type in Power Sports Marine Service Network, there's a
Facebook page there, it's free, you know, membership, it's an
adult. At this point, I think we've
only got something like 40 or 50 members in the page so far, but
it's a great place to, you know, I'll share some particles in
there. I share some live videos, maybe
some advice, but it's a really good opportunity for other
service writers and managers to connect and communicate to
because peer-to-peer learning is really important.
Well, absolutely. In that sort of very nuanced.
Sort of I only want to have the conversation at a certain level.
I don't want to you know have something else popping up, a
notification for me on sales. When I'm in the service part of
the house. You know?
That's, that's you know. Yeah, it's earning for that.
Very service focused and then you know, if people decide they
want to make a commitment for ongoing training or you know, be
part of the bi-weekly Support called what I do.
They're alive when they become part of money on, Omar's family,
they get access to social learning which gives them access
to every student within my network and so they can it's
like a Facebook inside of a private page.
It's like Facebook but without the trolls, right?
They can then communicate with other service writers are the
service managers diet stuff. They're pursuing.
There's diet courses that they can interact with other students
and then That peer-to-peer Community thing really begins to
take over which is kind of nice. It's not all dependent upon me.
The best part about being me is I realized I'm usually not the
smartest guy in the room. I'm just the one that's you know
more bold and open to talk about it.
So by hooking people up with other folks.
Sometimes I find that can be the best source of information for
them. Well and another way to move
those rocks and Marbles and whatever else we were talking
about earlier, all the different levels of granular or course
sighs, right? If you can reorganize your time
a little bit more cut out, a couple of the, like you had
said, the Facebook troll sites and get on with Curt's separate
group and I3 and I'll get it through his page or search it,
as he had mentioned. Just another way to maybe better
organize your time to focus on what the shift your want to
make. So Yeah, well, I appreciate you
jumping on. I've had you tonight for almost
an hour and I know that your time is important and I won't
keep you on any longer. But I do.
I do encourage anybody listening, go check out Mañana,
no mas, you can find it on Facebook, you can Google it.
It'll pop up right at the top. That's how I had to do because I
was try to remember the site in Google.
Always reminds me what it was but feel free to reach out to
Kirk connect with them on LinkedIn Curt.
Thanks for coming on. No worries, man.
Like I said, I consider it an honor and I know you're highly
regarded out there so it's nice to stay in touch.
Well, thank you, I appreciate it.
We'll have you back on again soon and hopefully by then the
covid stuff will be at least mostly in the rearview mirror.
That's what I'm going to cross my fingers and say a little
prayer about and we can talk about the opportunity that
exists at that time. Will it be awesome if there was
a Resurgence in power sports and we could actually reminisce
about how we predicted that yes, demand.
And what it? What it caused people to do saw
that a mile away. Yeah, yes, sir.
Well Kurt thank you, I appreciate it.
Thank you. You have a good one too.